To think Australia have really gone and done it now?? Shocked and disgusted.

[NeoMaxiZoomDweebie]

Australia have removed themselves from the UN Refugee Convention.

here...this happened only today

They've basically decided that ANY refugee coming to Australia on a boat will now be "processed" on one of their offshore facilities....like Manus Island where there have been numerous suicide attempts and conditions are DREADFUl with people slepeing in places with no doors or in metal storage containers...this is in HIGH heat.

I am shocked. And disappointed... we are talking about refugees here. People already traumatised and lost. The places they're being sent to now are already under investigation for their disgusting conditions.

I am not winding anyone up Slim. Yes my arguments have meandered because I am not an expert nor a great debator....but I care about people who are being treated badly and this is close to home.

I am going to leave this thread alone now but I want to leave a recent quote from the Dalai Lama too.

"If we make consistent effort, based on proper education, we can change the world. We are selfish, that?s natural, but we need to be wisely selfish, not foolishly selfish. We have to concern ourselves more with others? well-being, that?s the way to be wisely selfish. We have the ability to take the long-term benefit into account. I think it is possible to make real change in this century."

"the term Redneck is not offensive if it does not apply to you..."

Oh brilliant, why didn't we think about that before?

So someone here can call you a moron, but don't worry about it because it wouldn't be offensive if it doesn't apply to you.

"Spahettio....your arguments are lacking in sense."

And you are making perfect sense OP.

I can think of a few other terms used to describe people that do not apply to me that are offensive. OP, seriously, it is great that you care deeply about a vital issue.... and use that anger productively. But to dismiss an entire nation, and the people of an entire nation in such an offensive, inaccurate, intellectually lazy way is not really consistent with this apparent self regard you have for yourself and you ethics and humanity.

You wanted to bring an important issue to our attention. You've done that in the worst possible way. You've tarred a whole country with your ideas and images, and when you've been called on it your retracted and then tried to justify what you said in the first place.

Are you sorry and you retract it? Or is it iustified because it does it not apply? Which one OP?

And if you'd like to talk about being defensive maybe you'd like to examine your post where you shouted that you are not racist. I believe you - but you seem awfully defensive. Is that because you're being attacked?

Pot. Kettle?

Here?s a few statistics to address some of the name calling and mud slinging.

Between 2007 and 2011 UK had 138,350 asylum seekers. Australia had 90,320.

Population of UK 63,182,000, population of Australia is 23,023,000.
Australia offers around 14,000 migration places a year under the Humanitarian Program.
Australia resettles the third largest number of refugees of any country and more refugees, per capita, than any other nation in the world.
Does that REALLY sound like a country not doing it?s part?????!!!!!!!

Just over a decade ago, when I had personal experience of this ? the statistics were quite shocking.

Australia has controlled migration. If every refugee who had been given a temporary visa in that particular year gained the right to a permanent visa they would then have automatically had the right to have every member of their family join them. The numbers would have meant they would have filled the migration quota (not just the migration places under the Humanitarian Program, but EVERY single migrant number) for the next five years. That was ONE YEAR?S worth of asylum seekers.

THAT is why so many teens are sent over as boat people. The places on these boats cost a LOT of money. The families save up, buy a place for someone young and strong enough to survive, and send them. They go through LOTS of countries where they could claim refugee status. But they don?t. Their goal is to reach Australia, not to reach safety.

Thank you DIY.

I can't believe you guys have the nerve at the moment to judge any other country when our own country is in uproar because in a few months we will be forced to allow a few Romanian and Bulgarians into our oh so accepting and perfect country.

Go over to Essential baby, Australia's version of MN, and see if any of them have ever complained about travelers or roma or any other race stealing their school places and dirtying their villages openly and have the majority of posters agree, because you won't find it. That alone has me convinced who the real racists are and it's not the Australian's. Glass houses and stones come to mind.

Stick around Aussies, in December your chance to ride in on your high horses are coming, because as they say Winter is coming, and I wouldn't miss December/January on MN for anything this year.

Neo - let me guess, you're not racist, some of your best friends are black,Jewish, Indian* etc etc.

*delete as appropriate.

I'm ROFL about the idea of this thread on EB (essential baby).

::Considers posting a link and sitting back with popcorn::

Piss youself laughing all you like. Tony Abbott is a total twit - he will never be elected. This does not preclude a decent candidate popping up. Would you not hold out the same hope in th uk?

kept against their will when they've come from a war torn country already

OP going back to the point - I think that most of the boat people are NOT from war torn countries but have been spun a line from conmen saying "give us $XX and we promise you a better life." These are NOT refugees, these are potentially illegal immigrants. They did this voluntarily.

Some one getting on a boat in the hope of a better life is not a refugee.

If they were "real" refugees or asylum seekers , then the correct channels can be used and will be honoured.

I think they are trying to say they are not a soft touch.

Oi, midnite scribbler , who're you on EB? I'm BadgerBasher

Also, if Tony Abbott is elected...well.
I will lose respect for Australia in a big, big way. Misogynistic twazzock that he is.

Im an Aussie, born and bred. Neo, next time you want to start an argument over how bad another country is, get your facts straight and do some research. Not everything is always how it first appears. It would seem that you loved and relished putting Australia down and putting a fair few posters on here down for various reasons and now you have admitted to not knowing all there is to know. So, don't start threads like this then. You come across as nothing more than a whinging pom!

Oh well, it makes a change from the usual American bashing.

Using a government you claim to be a bit racist to defend words u used as not racist is a bit hypocritical dont you think?

Thank you DIY well said.

Young able-bodied men aren't refugees.

HTH.

Thanks people, this thread has kept me somewhat amused for the last 10 minutes. A bunch of racists labeling Australians as intrinsically racist and completely missing the irony.

Any some of the 'facts' quoted are hysterical. The one about aborigines being legally classified as non-human has to be the winner though.

And Amber of course there are schools that are not allowed to have Christmas celebrations of the Christian kind but have to just have holiday celebrations instead. To deny this and tell someone that they are talking shit just shows how ignorant you are

Which schools? 'not allowed' by who? I thought it was widely know that that 'christmas is banned' guff was untrue?

To claim this as fact is talking shit, if me pointing that out makes me ignorant then so be it.

Oh the old 'Christmas is banned' chestnut.

Dearie me. Do try a bit harder.

I thought it was widely know that that 'christmas is banned' guff was untrue?

Lol, why resort to evidence when you have the 'widely known' card to play. The UK media learned this a long time ago.

But where is the evidence that Christmas is banned??

Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas in the 17th century as it offended his puritan beliefs, but somehow I don't think that's the ban that's being referred to.