http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/roderick-schneider/ Roderick Schneider, 29, from Brisbane, works as a financial planner. He is the Vice President of the Australian Young Liberals and a former president of the Young Liberal Nationals QLD. His concern about asylum seekers arriving by boat is that we’re not properly dealing with issues that drive them here in the first place. He says: “if they really are that distressed to risk their lives and get on a ridiculously unsafe boat, what’s making them endanger their lives to come here? There are UN camps on the way, what is so bad at these camps? Surely if they’re set up by the UN, people should be able to stay there and not feel threatened.” He is troubled by the issues some asylum seekers have had integrating into Australian society. Roderick has never been overseas before. His biggest fear about participating in the program is he’ll be perceived as a left leaning bleeding heart. “I’m a government-hating, freedom-loving, centre-right winger,” he says. Besides politics, Roderick’s passions are cricket, Aussie rules football and going to the pub. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/A-tough-stance-on-refugees-doesnt-make-me-a-racist/ Roderick Schneider was one of six participants in the ground-breaking SBS show Go Back To Where You Came From, the first episode of which screened last night. In a Punch exclusive, he shares some of his thoughts on the experience of completing an asylum seeker’s journey in reverse: When setting out on the refugee journey in reverse for SBS’s “Go Back To Where You Came From”, all we were told was that we would be following the path of refugees who come to Australia. VIDEO: Go back to where you came from I anticipated exposure to extreme poverty and people who had been subject to persecution in their home country while on the journey. What I didn’t anticipate was the undertone of the questions asked of me when I returned. First, there was a comment made (and it’s been made repeatedly since) that as the documentary is on SBS it will merely be “preaching to the choir”. The premise of this statement is that SBS viewers are all better educated on refugee issues, and people who only watch commercial television are ignorant. It’s ironic that people who generalise that others are ignorant do so based on something as insubstantial as a person’s preferred television channel. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Roderick Schneider) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/A-tough-stance-on-refugees-doesnt-make-me-a-racist/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/A-tough-stance-on-refugees-doesnt-make-me-a-racist/#item6122 Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:00:25 +0000 Roderick Schneider | Author bios | The Punch