What would Mary do? Tips from a hometown hero

Ted N says:

07:46am | 22/10/10

Good call. It’s sad that the grass roots achievements are being lost for this celebrity worship culture.

I did have a big giggle when I saw that retired Nationals politician swanning around the celebrity circus after saying he was retiring to be with his family.

You would hope that Mary, unlike Tony Abbott, and the rest of the fake Christians, would know their bible well enough to realise that when Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt to protect the Baby Jesus from a wrathful King Herod, they were illegal immigrants. It’s a little Monty Pythonesque to realise that if Jesus had faced the Liberals Australia’s immigration policy the Liberals may well have had the messiah killed! Thankfully God had better timing on Jesus’s arrival on earth.

You would also hope that Mary would’ve read the story on the Good Samaritan also. She may have also told the Vatican that rather than clinging to their ostentatious amounts of gold and wealth that Jesus would have used the money, immediately to help the poor. Jesus despised greed.

Gregg says:

12:44pm | 21/10/10

Krystene, no doubt your parents have contributd to Australia just as many other post WW2 immigrants did on many major resource projects such as power stations and the Snowy Hydro Scheme and housing was in such short supply post WW2 that many immigrants and others working on the Snowy were initially housed in tents would you believe.
Australia still has a huge annual number of skilled immigrants and also many skilled people using family visas as partners or would be spouses of Australians to come here and that does build our economy though with less and less industry immigration numbers have been under scrutiny and rightly so.

Also for many decades now, Australia has had a refugee program and people arriving as a result do not always and often will not have the work or english language skills to allow for a ready contribution.
Nevertheless, there has been something of a 50/50 mix of direct taxpayer support and organisations/individuals sponsoring true refugees who will be selected from UNHCR refugee and other NGO centres, there being many of them around the planet and where those seeking asylum could have headed to but with money they may have been rejected and they probably know it and hence the people smuggling queue jumping practice that our current government promotes.

Annarose says:

06:57pm | 21/10/10

Gregg,
‘A refugee problem’ relative to whom? Australia takes in far less that what the UNCHR judges to be its’ ‘fair share’- both in terms of proportional to the population and proportional to GDP. In actual figures, Australia received 0.03% of the worlds’ refugee and displaced peoples population. All of these figures are sourced from recent UNHCR reports, incidentally- a source I find slightly more reliable than the newspapers informing Australians that we have a ‘refugee problem’.
As for your terms ‘true refugees’ and ‘queue smuggling’, they do not exist in reality. Asylum seekers who have come to Australia by boat have exercised a legal and legitimate right under the UN Refugee Convention (Article 14.1), that is, “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”
‘True Refugees’ is a redundant term because no-one is arguing that asylum seekers are yet true refugees. Thus the processing system, to determine the legitimacy of their claim. However, if they are granted refugee status, then they are indeed considered true refugees, their manner of arriving notwithstanding.
At the end of the day, Gregg, it’s your opinion and I’m not going to change it. Just be careful of where you get your facts from, because I’m sure you don’t want to perpetuate extremely damaging and harmful assumptions and ideas about an incredibly vulnerable group of people unless your basis and evidence is rock solid.

Gregg says:

02:13pm | 22/10/10

@ Annarose,
I too quite often post with reference to http://www.unhcr.org/4c176c969.html rather than use fabricated numbers.
From that site and you will see figures to the end of 2009, there is
” At the end of 2009, 112,400 refugees were admitted for resettlement by 19 countries, including the United States (79,900), Canada (12,500) and Australia (11,100). The main refugee groups resettled in 2009 were from Myanmar (24,800), Iraq (23,000), Bhutan (17,500) and Somalia (5,500). “
So relative to our population and taking account of our isolation which will have longer term impact re trading/GDP, we ain’t doing too badly at all.
You may want to feel that queue jumping does not exist but also take a look at http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/60refugee.htm
Our refugee budget of 13750 in total is split between refugees applying for the direct government program [ nominally 6000 ] and about 40,000+ applications annually.
The remainder are allocated for sponsoring by organisations and individuals, a lot of those sponsored I would suggest also coming from the dire conditions of refugee camps where people are usually living in tents if lucky and dying of all sorts of afflications which can include physical attacks.
Those people do not have money to pay people smugglers and are what I would term true refugees whether you would care to or not Anna.

You may want to note from the Immi figures that with the numbers of the humanitarium program that as onshore visas go up - those who generally have come courtesy of the people smugglers - the offshore numbers go down, that’s for those in refugee centres, the total sum number being around 7000.

So quite clearly all these much healthier looking specimens that have money are taking allocations that would normally be for people to be sponsored out of dire circumstances.
I call that queue jumping whether you want to or not.

Sure people have a legal right to claim asylum and people who have flown into Australia with various visas can apply for asylum and they will have a chance to put their case.

There are also many UNHCR and other NGO refugee centres scattered about the planet and one could ask, why do both those flying into Australia and also people using people smugglers go to a refugee centre, they being in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Check the UNHCR data why do you not?

I would hazard a guess that they do not see themselves as destitute as thos struggling to survive in refugee centres, they are not interested in subjecting themselves to those conditions and they may even fear rejection.

True refugees may be redundant to your thinking but then perhaps you do not care as much for people dying and struggling to survive as you do for the more monied.
I know full well where my facts come from btw and perhaps you may want to review the full picture so as the true refugees are not forgotten because of our government perpetuating an act of bastardry.

Annarose says:

09:41pm | 22/10/10

Gregg,
Having a generous humanitarian program is not the same as having a refugee problem, in my view. That was why I assumed you were referring solely to the asylum seekers who arrive in Australia without papers.
A true refugee is someone who is
“A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”
I think you would find it very very hard to argue that the ethnic Hazara group of Afghanistan, quite a large proportion of Australia’s ‘boat people’ do not fit into this definition, especially given UNHCR’s reports!
Therefore, your argument is who is “more” of a refugee, or has the most pressing claim to refugee status. But again, many Hazaras who have come to Australia by boat have had family murdered, daughters raped, friends and themselves tortured for being Hazara. This is not an exaggeration. Do you think that they should be returned to this situation?
Also, keep in mind that just getting to Australia does not instantly grant asylum seekers with refugee status. They must be found to be a “true refugee” through quite a protracted process and through the internationally recognised definition.
Obviously, I think the situation in refugee camps is heartbreaking and horrendous. Obviously, I am quite proud that in terms of this resettlement program, Australia is doing quite well. To make those judgements otherwise is to reduce this debate to a petty personal argument, which I’m not interested in doing. Especially because your actual intellectual arguments are rational and reasoned, so it would be a shame to turn this into name calling. However, what I disagree with is your argument that we should only help one set of refugees at the expense of others. When you do not know the personal situations of the asylum seekers involved- and unless you’re actually in contact with them, you probably don’t- I really don’t think you have the right to make that judgement call. If you were faced with a young man whose brothers had been murdered for the fact of being Hazara, who had been threatened with the same fate, whose government could not protect him, I think you would find it hard to return him to that context both ethically and legally.
Finally you seem highly critical of asylum seekers who do not go through refugee camps. This is despite you describing the “dire conditions of refugee camps where people are usually living in tents if lucky and dying of all sorts of afflications which can include physical attacks”. How can you logically then argue that a parent should subject their family to that? Would you subject yours to that, if you were in that situation? By arguing that “lesser” refugees should be returned, you are focusing solely on the pull factors and not at all the push, which in my view won’t lead to any long term change.

Gregg says:

08:32pm | 23/10/10

Anna,
Getting to the crux of what you say and that is
” If you were faced with a young man ......
Finally you seem highly critical of asylum seekers who do not go through refugee camps…..... Sure there are attrocities that occur in many countries and not just against those either in refugee camps or those attempting to find refuge and if it was feasible to help them all without affecting our ability to maintain our own standards of health, protection and survival within a well structured society there is no reason why we should not.
That it is not so feasible does not mean I have suggested at all that people be returned to a place where they may be subject to harm or death.

Aside from doing what one could to comfort a person suffering such a loss, there are a number of things that could happen in meeting a young Hazara man if he was of a military age and one would be to ask whether he had considered what life opportunities existed for him in Kabul or from joining the Afghan National Army.
If it was a negative response on both of those, I would then inform him of the UNHCR and refugee centres throughout the sub continent.
I suppose if I met him when he was in Indonesia seeking a people smuggler, I would be interested in how he came to raise the funds to get from Afghanistan to Indonesia and still have sufficient to pay a people smuggler.
I would also ask why with money available to him, he did not attempt to establish a life in neighbouring countries.
As for the refugee camps and what may or may not happen, that will obviously vary with location and in the context of refugees from the sub continent region we do hear of more harm to those in African countries.
But whether it be the subcontinent or Africa or elsewhere I do not think that we should at all dismiss the situation of people in those camps.

Sure, Oz may be ultimately be the best option considered by many who have had the money and survived the sea trip and any diseases that could be contracted along the way. But are you saying Anna, that we should welcome them with open arms because they have had the money to do what people suffering far more cannot do?

And that aside, lets return to why we in Australia do not have the violence of countries experiencing civil war or genocidal persecution and that is because we do have a society founded on well structured democracy and all that means in a legal context which extends to the fair go principle.
Encouraging people smuggling and people who would use them is neither legal nor giving a fair go to those refugees in centres.
We are also effectively undermining the global effort of the UNHCR
Looking at what the outworkings are locally:
. Loss of life at sea
. Cost/personnel risks of interception at sea and that includes possible disease contraction as well as physical harm.
. Ditto for all detention centre personnel.
The onflow costs additional over normal costs to Australia and Australians, there being many who do it pretty tough already without adequate shelter, food, employment, health or dental care.
And then what does all this do?
If the instructions are going back that you just have to have a good story, hang in there and eventually you’ll have it far better with those stupid Australians paying for us, how many more are going to keep displacing the true refugees?
If it is your view that we should accept every person arriving by boat, what if we get many boats setting off from the African coast line, even freighter loads of them!
Sure not every story may be believed and already there will be a detention centre in WA to house 1600 people, just for starters!
We already have another half dozen or so around the country, already break out demonstrations in Darwin and the roof situation in Villawood and the criminal boat crews whinging on not being brought to trial.
What is the cost alone of caring for currently over 5000 people, not to mention that some have made legal claims while in detention and there has been pay out in total of several million $$$ and many more cases listed.
Do you not say WTF is going on!
Our system is already floundering and if the problems have not been bad enough with numbers of several hundred people in the one location, 1600 is going to be something else!

Compare that to with how the system was operating in an orderly manner and people undergoing a selection and approval process before travel to Australia with services available this end to assist with their assimilation.
How do you assimilate bulk numbers of peoples, most likely to have limited english ability and education/training and those that do will not have ready accreditation for Australia.
Normal skilled visa applications take months if not years.
Already, resources being applied to the asylum seeker issue are causing substantial delays with skilled and family visa processing.
So pulling in those that need support at one end and delaying those that can help the country is going to create a fine mess.

Khrystene says:

12:15pm | 21/10/10

I daresay she’d love a bit of Chomsky.

Render unto Caesar... says:

12:22pm | 21/10/10

Yes, but the question is if she’d push the boats back out to sea, or instead offer/campaign to take in and help these desperate, displaced people.

Probably a question you don’t want to answer, huh?

Charlie says:

02:08pm | 21/10/10

She’d probably also like the government of her country not to demolish a country to the extent that its people have to flee to the nearest safest state (hmmm reminds me of something somwhere).

iansand says:

12:39pm | 21/10/10

Perfectly correct.  It is as bad as a bunch of self proclaimed moral guardians claiming inspiration from an imaginary friend lecturing us about how to behave with regard to other human beings.

Eric, the sooner you actually meet and talk to these evil aliens the sooner you will take a step on the path back to humanity.

James1 says:

12:48pm | 21/10/10

The day you can tell the difference between an illegal immigrant and an asylum seeker, then that conversation can be had.  If you can’t even define words and use them properly, why should we listen to waht you say?

Kika says:

01:33pm | 21/10/10

Eric, it’s simple. We don’t participate in your discussions because it’s been said and done and your point doesn’t change. The fact is, you are wrong.

Eric says:

02:13pm | 21/10/10

Pfft.

Both iansand and James1, have a record of dishonesty and ignorance in regard to what I have said.

James1 lied about my attitude to Julia Gillard, falsely claiming that I had gone insane because she was a woman. Iansand lied about Climategate, falsely claiming that it was all about just a few emails.

The two of them are prime examples of a self-appointed moral aristocracy that ignores everything we say.

iansand says:

02:25pm | 21/10/10

Charming, Eric. 

I don’t think Climategate has much of an influence on the influx of refugees.

The Badger says:

02:57pm | 21/10/10

Iansand - not yet, but wait for it when those small island nations close by start going under water.

Eric - You must start getting that terminology right and using the proper words consistently. It is making your point very difficult to understand.

iansand says:

03:22pm | 21/10/10

The Badger - Climategate is the email “scandal”.  The only way that would precipitate an influx of refugee would be people attempting to escape from the gormless blatherers who go on and on about it.

James1 says:

03:31pm | 21/10/10

I may have got the wrong impression of your feelings about Julia Gillard, Eric (for which I apologise), but you have sidestepped my point nonetheless.  Can you tell the difference between an illegal immigrant and an asylum seeker, or are you deliberately attempting to deceive?

This may surprise you, but I actually respect you for your consistency.  What disappoints me is your lack of consistency when it comes to this issue, and particularly in relation to clear and honest definitions.

Eric says:

04:33pm | 21/10/10

James1 - Thank you for your response. I acknowledge, now, that you are at least open to reasonable discussion.

I cannot personally tell the difference between an illegal immigrant and an asylum seeker, just by looking at the. But then, it is not my job to do so. That’s up to people who are trained for that duty.

It is sufficient to know that the two types do exist - and that both arrive on our shores, uninvited. The official tribunals which are meant to make the determination cannot be trusted - and so we have controversy.

My point, in this and the earlier thread, is that one side is simply refusing to listen to the other. I know all the pro-boat-people arguments, but the “refugee” advocates have no idea, whatsoever, of what motivates us, their opponents.

This is a failure of academia and the media. There are few open minds in the elitist establishments - and so they remain ignorant and impotent.

James1 says:

01:32pm | 21/10/10

That completely mischaracterises the rioting in France.  It is about the proposed austerity measures, a part of which is increasing the pension age from 60 to 62.

Furthermore, Europe actually has a big problem with actual illegal immigration, whereas you are talking about a tiny number of refugees and asylum seekers, which are completely different categories of migrants.  Never let facts get in the way of your argument though - if you used facts you would be an intellectual, rather than an “Aussie battler”.

Martin Milne says:

01:54pm | 21/10/10

The demonstrations in France are down to people refusing to pay the bill for the failure of rampant laissez-faire economics, not social democracy. It was these policies and the faith in the free market that led Europe to the brink of Economic collapse. Governments in France, Germany and the UK are now attacking wages, jobs, benefits and pensions to pay the bill for saving the banks that caused the problem in the first place.
As for the attacks on multiculturalism and the burqa, it is the normal tricks of governments when they are in trouble to find a convenient scapegoat. It is the Muslims now, just as it was the Jews in the 1930s and asylum seekers in Australia when John Howard was PM

Carnegie says:

03:54pm | 21/10/10

@Martin Milne,

Pardon me Martin if I don’t just take your word for it (and blame it all on those big bad capitalist and few tricky conservativwe govts).
If everything you say is true why not have a very good look at what has occurred in Europe over the past 2 decades?

Beau says:

02:57pm | 21/10/10

That really is very naive. No, we don’t all want the same things in life. Islam is an intolerant religion that demands submission or death. (‘Islam’ actually means ‘submit’). Yes, most Muslims are peaceful, but they will remain quiet and compliant when the fundamentalists go on the warpath and demand Sharia Law in Australia.

Our own ‘tolerence’ will eventually be our undoing.

Welcome to Inverbrakistan

fairsfair says:

03:30pm | 21/10/10

Adam, totally agree with every single word you have written. I don’t know how to articulate to other people that I am not racist, I do have compassion for those seeking asylum in our country, but I want to ensure that the few people that we are able to supply a better life - are in genuine need. Carnegie states in an above post that we need to have a frank discussion on this matter. Responses to his post essentially call him an idiot. Where do you go with that? It is like beating your head up a brick wall.

James1 says:

03:36pm | 21/10/10

On point four, I wholeheartedly agree.  An Afghan friend of mine spent 18 months in Baxter a few years ago, and she found the conditions greatly superior to the refugee camp in Iran where she had spent the previous eight years.

On social cohesion, those so stridently opposing the presence of other cultures - even where they abide by our laws - are the main source of the lack of social cohesion.  At least where I live, they are.

Also, where did you source that estimate for refugees worldwide?

Gregg says:

05:43pm | 21/10/10

Adam, if you are going to put a factual case, and I often do myself, please get the facts right.
1. I do not know where you got 300M from but the people who ought to know the best, the UNHCR put the global figure at 15M, a split of about 10M in their own centres and 5M cared for by other NGOs.
In addition there are some 27M or so other people they refer to within their own countries uprooted by conflict and 1M Asylum Seekers.
But do not take my word and check http://www.unhcr.org/4c176c969.html

2. Australias program is 13750 though that may not include a quiet special number of 500 that Senator Evans just before the election arranged specifically for some people in Indonesia.
There is a split of that number and again you can access the facts easily enough @ http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/60refugee.htm there also being a heap of information if you care to look at the immi site.
You will see that refugees are running at about 6000 p.a. and that is a separate program.
Of the other 7750 you will see there is a mix of onshore and offshore and that is where when offshore numbers rise, those granted to people offshore may fall and the offshore people in that category generally get visas through being sponsored by organisations and individuals but yes in principle a person using a people smuggler can be thought of as a queue jumper.
5. Just like you should not believe everything you see written on the Punch, especially when it references another author with unknown authenticity of facts being claimed or a posters name is Marilyn, so you should not always believe other reports.
That 70% which has been floating about seems to me a little odd given that Sri Lankans have not been arriving here all that long and it does still take considerable time for Protection Visas to be issued.
8. I do not know that it is asylum seekers themselves that are manipulating the media or just whether media people do what is normal for them and will flock to something that will be ” news ” and then we get many stories without the full facts and that is something we all should be wary of.

Personally, I do not have anything against Australia’s refugee program and it would be ideal if all developed nations had the ability to help out more of the really needy and I think of the many starving and malnourished we often see in camp situations all over.
It is criminal that a government of a developed nation is to be manipulated to such an extent that true refugees are being ignored because people with money are paying people smugglers.

Be it Nauru, East Timor, Indonesia, PNG or wherever but preferably closer to peoples home countries which is UNHCR policy, that is where Asylum Seekers should be sent to from Xmas Island so as our structured policy is not going to become structureless.

Gregg says:

02:24pm | 22/10/10

Exactly franklin, as I have posted elsewhere and I really wonder sometimes not just what is in peoples minds but where have they got their heads for the desperate refugees dying and struggling to survive, not having any money are a far cry from what we see arriving courtesy of people smugglers.

Then we will have people disputing that those using people smugglers are jumping the queue but you only have to look at http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/60refugee.htm and you will see how when onshore processing goes up the opportunities for those offshore goes down.
You can call it anything else you want but it is still getting yourself a place in lieu of many millions of destitute refugees in tent city centres, that’s if they are lucky enough to get a tent.

I am gob smacked at how we can have prominent supposedly professional journalists overlooking the facts and the known conditions and I believe that for journalists to retain any vestige of credibility they need to do some explaining.

Eric says:

01:42pm | 22/10/10

We did not invade Vietnam. We helped the South Vietnamese government resist aggression by the North Vietnamese.

Yes, we did invade Iraq and Afghanistan. But not Vietnam.

franklin says:

11:58am | 26/10/10

Russia invaded Afghanistan but for some reason Afghani asylum seekers do not turn up there and apply for protection, even though Russia is a UN member states and signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees. And there are several countries bordering Afghanistan and other countries near by that are UN member states and signatories to the UN Convention on Refugees.