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.

Just seen that in fact they ARE refugees in the makeshift camp in Calais....the French government have a duty to see that they are looked after....and the British to ensure they are seen by officials.

It's a bad situation....but it's not that they are forcibly detained there.

Fluer....you have only just learned the difference between a refugee and an immigrant...but you've not learned it well so I reiterate...they're not the same.....so go on and ask whoever it is told you what you've just quoted...ask them to explain again.

I am absolutely not condoning this but in a similar way, the US is the only country in the world (except Somalia and South Sudan) that has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Where's the outrage on behalf of these children?

Wibbly it's a good point but it's another thread.

Explain what Neo???

Of course I know the difference between refugees and immigrants but refugees often end up staying in the country that has given them refuge.

GoodbyePorkPie, here are a few quotes from the Wikipedia article:

"It is frequently stated that the 1967 referendum gave Aboriginal people Australian citizenship and that it gave them the right to vote in federal elections. Neither of these statements is correct. Aboriginal people became Australian citizens in 1949, when a separate Australian citizenship was created for the first time (before that time all Australians, including Aborigines, were "British subjects")."

So just to be clear, Aborigines were not legally classed as animals, they were British subjects until 1949, then Australian citizens.

"Section 127 was wholly removed. Headed "Aborigines not to be counted in reckoning population", it had read:

In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted.
This section should be read in conjunction with Section 24 and Section 51(xi). The section related to calculating the population of the States and Territories for the purpose of allocating seats in the lower house of the federal parliament and per capita Commonwealth grants. The context of its introduction was to prevent Queensland and Western Australia from using their large Aboriginal populations to gain extra seats or extra funds."

From what I read, counting Aboriginal people in the census has been really important in a wide range of social improvements for them, so it's shameful that they were omitted for what appears to be financial reasons. I can't see how it equates to them being treated as slaves though.

Yes beautiful place it was indeed European settlers that were responsible for the genocide of the Tasmanian aboriginals.

Hoping I have my australian and NZ history correct here and am happy to be corrected on the NZ bit, but James Cook signed the treaty of Rarotonga with the Maoris in NZ, a legal treaty essentially buying land in nz I think. As someone has already pointed out, Australia was declared terra nullus. Because the indigenous tribes lived nomadically, cook argued that no one owned the land, and therefore it was British soil. It is systemic racism towards the indigenous people.

I am sure this is still the case that refugees in Australia must live in detention until they are granted residency or returned 'home'. This includes children. Happy to be corrected, very happy, actually...

I love my country. Am the child of a ten pound immigrant. Lots of lovely, tolerant people living in a diverse society. There is lots of racism. But I would hate for that to define us.

Just to correct a point upthread, there was fighting in Australia during ww2. Darwin was bombed. And as others have mentioned, a heck of a lot of Australians died in the world wars.

So every person in the UK hates disabled/poor people and wants them to starve/freeze.

I am Australian, I do not agree with this.

Glasshouses and stones come to mind.

Yes, can we stop with the mass generalisations please? 25million people don't all think the same thing.

Imip I also corrected that...Australia was affected by the war and they came to the Uks aid before the USA did.

Morloth...nobody is saying all Aussies are racist...I said one bad comment but I wasn't directing it at all Aussies....I said people would THINK this of them...that people would think Aussies were racist in general.

And they will.

Is it all over the news in Oz? Because it isn't here and it should be.

Indeed... Pm Menzies quote, "to the extent that England is at war, Australia is also at war"

Aussie women went into Mutitions factories and volunteered at Red Cross centrees just as British women did. They took over mens jobs and society in general suffered from similar effect to those of the UK...without the trauma of extensive bombings but still...they lost people...a lot of them.

They also lost a lot of their men in the Vietnam war and the country was very affected by it.

And what might that face be for

I'm Australian, and am deeply shocked and hurt by this action of the government, being carried on in my name.

I also agree with Morloth's comment about glasshouses and stones, though. It's very easy to point and sneer at others. It means you don't have to focus on your own shortcomings.

Sanity that's it...that's partly why I'm upset. Because DH and DDs are Aussie I feel this reflects on them somehow.

I'm not pointing or sneering...I just wanted to discuss it.

OP,
Did you mean that by passing this legislation Australia has 'effectively' removed itself from the Convention? If not, I have to point out that Australia has done no such thing. It remains a signatory to the Convention.

I, as an Australian, do not support this policy. I work/study in this area and know many, many people who oppose it. From where I stand, the opposition is significant - but I understand I stand from a liberal, educated point of view.

I'm not sure how much you know about Australia's history with refugee issues OP, but this is hardly new. Up until this point (with a short break when Rudd was in government), if asylum seekers arrived on the outlying islands of Australia, they were processed offshore. All this legislation means is that if they actually reach the Australian mainland, they will also be processed offshore. The whole of the mainland will be excised from the migration zone. Asylum seekers arriving by other means (plane) will still be processed onshore.

I know you have apologised for the redneck comment OP but I just want to say that I have my own misgivings about parts of other country's culture - Britain included. I would never dream of insulting you all in such a wholesale way.

You cant just disappear a statement by retracting it.

Why would I bother discussing something with someone who has written me off as a redneck?

It probably doesn't matter what a great deal if Europe thinks anymore. The power has shifted.

The sooner we become a republic the better.

Morloth...that's up to you...but as I am the OP on the thread...it's going to be awkward isn't it? I'm still on here and I'm staying here to discuss the issue. You can just ignore me if you like, I don't care.

I find your comments very rude and insulting in tone Neo.

Neo the refugees in Calais are desperate to get to the UK. For many reasons but predominantly because they see the UK as a better option than France and however many other countries they crossed in order to park at Calais and take their chances on getting a border crossing. This is exactly the same for Australia. One country that springs to mind, but by no means the only one, is Afghanistan. Look on the map to see how many countries are between there and Aus.

Australia does actually take a fair number of legal refugees (sorry can't look up as on phone). But these are the ones who go about it the right way and not the queue jumpers who do it illegally by getting on a boat in Indonesia. Something in Aus law means that those refugees who actually step foot on Aus or its territories have a greater chance of being granted leave to stay. Why should they take the quota and deny someone who has applied correctly? Also it is sometimes proven that these "poor" refugees are anything but and are actually very unsavoury characters.

That is the exact reason why these off-shore facilities exist... to prevent the use and abuse of that argument. Here in the UK we're always being told about the abuse of particular loopholes that allow particular unsavoury people to stay here.

Fairly I never said Australia had "effectively" anything. They have however flown in the face of what the UN is about.