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 have yet to find a nation who hasn't got any racism (or startling ignorance) - white, black brown or otherwise, so you can't blame the brits for racism, they didn't invent it.

Australia has a reputation for being hard to enter - legally or otherwise. Most Aussies I've met have been fairly pleasant folks, hardly BNP types. As usual, a government comes up with some looney law and the rest of the world makes assumptions.

They've had a lot of problems with a few groups who refuse to integrate and create lots of social problems, as have other countries, they're doing something about it. That's their right.

"They've had a lot of problems with a few groups who refuse to integrate and create lots of social problems, as have other countries, they're doing something about it. That's their right."

That is an entirely separate issue from refusing someone humanitarian aid.

What clouds said.

Plus... You hear the argument almost daily about UK leaving the EU or withdrawing from the Euro Human Rights Court. It's all about the government making it's own decisions when and how it suits rather than having someone there to say "you can't do that".

Why can't/shouldn't countries look after their own interests?

Anyone see the Stacey Dooley documentary (yes hardly high brow I know) about the way the USA treats Mexicans trying to enter illegally? I mean they actually hunt those guys down with choppers and guns.

Cookiewise

What a load of bollocks.

Evening all
Just a reminder of our talk guidelines for anyone who needs them.
Thanks ever so

There are many countries around the Pacific Rim in crisis which Australia would be a logical first port and the peoples in crisis of those nations won't know how dangerous it is to try to land there until it is too late.

Also, Australia's dark history is not from another century, it is not something to move past. Aboriginal Australians were considered fauna (animals) until 1967. Until then it was practically impossible to be done for murdering an aboriginal person and they were kept as slaves, in chains (because it isn't slavery if it does to an animal). That's only 46 years ago (and it didn't stop right away when they were recognized as human). This is living memory, people still alive today went through that, people still alive today did that to them. This isn't medieval history, this is modern history. The Aboriginal Australian nations have their interests mostly ignored and no say in this. I think the international community should make it clear to the Australian government how disgusting this is.

zebra unfortunately, I think your view is one that many Australians share. I was arguing with my mil about Somalians. She said how they shouldn't hang around in gangs and should integrate. I said that that must be hard when your country has been divided into two tribes who massacred ech other mercilessly. You've lived in a country that has no civil society. How do you ever attain the skills to 'integrate'. I think the focus in Australia should be on helping people to come to terms with their past, and helping them to live fulfilling futures.

Refugee children are held in detention. What kind of start is that to life?

Personally I hate the fact that boat people come to Australia. Or any other country for that matter. I wish that their country's were lovely places to live. Thriving societies, not dictatorships run by a few power hungry people.but that's not the case....

"It is true that the only 'successful' example of genocide was committed against the Tasmanian aboriginals."

Yup, committed by European settlers IIRC?

"Aboriginal Australians were considered fauna (animals) until 1967. Until then it was practically impossible to be done for murdering an aboriginal person and they were kept as slaves, in chains (because it isn't slavery if it does to an animal)."

I'm sure there are many better versed in Australian history on here, but that seems a remarkable claim. Do you have a source?

Some people have rightly pointed out that Australia's treatment of indigenous people is awful. However, as was said up thread (I may be wrong, but perhaps this is what Cote was talking about), the entire society, culture and government is based on the British system. Everything that it has become is due to its British beginnings. It was colonised by Britain, its govt is the Westminster system, all of its views were established by British settlers (both convicts and free settlers) and it still has the Queen as Head of State. Australia was settled in 1788 and became independent in 1901, only 112 years ago. I bet some UK shops have cheese for sale that's older than that!

Australia is incredibly insular - it's due to a thing called the tyranny of distance. Australia has never been forced to reach out the way that the countries of the EU were. It has never experienced wave after wave of invasion over millenia and it has never experienced the horror of war, EVER.

Instead it has been left alone to simmer in its isolation and security. Throughout its very short history, it has been incredibly isolated from the rest of the world. International travel is a modern invention, it tooks weeks by boat, so people who went there stayed. They developed ideas and those ideas were perpetuated by subsequent generations.

Ever hear of the "Ten Pound Poms"? They were British settlers (lots of Italian and Greek people went at the same time) who were assisted by the govt to relocate to Australia after World War Two.

Yes, there was the White Australia Policy. People with predominantly British/European ancestry wanting newcomers to be similar to them. Don't forget that this was the era of Communism... reds under the beds and all that. They were suspicious of other cultures and simply going on what they knew. Can you blame them?

The Australian Prime Minister was born in Wales. That's the Wales you'll find on the map to the left of England.

Australian society is evolving and catching up to the rest of the world. Just slowly.

inabeautifulplace it's absolutely true. I'm on my phone right now and can't google but google the 1967 referendum which finally allowed Aborigines to be 'reclassified' as human beings.

In relation to Australia's treatment of indigenous people... look up the lega term "Terra Nullius"... which was proclaimed by... yep, you guessed it.

Zoo it's very far removed from UK culture now....and as for them never experiencing the horror of war...they certainly lost enough men in the second world war. They also went through rationing and poverty in the 30s before that.

We've all moved on a lot from those times...in many ways, the UK is far from perfect but we've prided ourselves on welcoming people of all nationalities for a very long time....and we continue to do so, integrating as best we can and as imaginatively as we can. I wish the same could be said of Oz.

But why is it wrong to be strict about allowing immigrants into your country. Why is it wrong to want to retain all your own traditions and ceremonies and not have to have them changed because there are a lot of other cultures overtaking your own.

Fluer...do you know the difference between REFUGEES and IMMIGRANTS?

Fluer we're not talking about immigrants and immigration policy. We're talking about the humanitarian act of taking in refugees from war torn countries.

Not sure why your own traditions and ceremonies would even be changed by immigration in the first place but that's another discussion.

AND Fluer....Australia was built on newcomers...a country of IMMIGRANTS who stole the land from those whose right it was.

And now they cannot accept people fleeing war torn countries....REFUGEES who have seen terrible things in terrible circumstances and who are running for their lives.

There is a very distinct difference between refugees and immigrants, obviously, but presumably that's why they want to process people before they get to the mainland.

I might be being very naive, but there's a reason I asked about what happens during processing. I'd have thought that if people are found to be genuine refugees, then they will be allowed to go to the mainland. If not, then the Australians have simply prevented illegal immigrants from entering their country.

Will the refugees end up staying there though?

Clouds I think that there are people who end up there for years.

Here is a link to a FB page...Im not sure if it is "official" in anyway...but there is lots of information on there.

www.facebook.com/pages/Asylum-seekers-in-Manus-island-2013/461513327242648

Well said zoobaby

This is quite true/humorous.

Seriously though Neo what about the people who sit over in those camps in Calais just waiting to cross to the UK? What do you think about those folk?

Zoo...nobody is making them stay there though are they? Those aren't refugees I thought?

Australia was built on Britain sending prisioners there to do the hard labour and because British prisons were too full and they could no longer send them to America because America had become independent. But since then Australia has become a country of proud people who are "Australians" and quiet different to British. They want to keep their country from becoming overrun with immigrants ( or refugees). This country has suffered because of immigration and is losing its own identity.