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.

O I see. Sorry about that.

Cote no I won't because vulnerable people do not belong on an island miles from anywhere....kept against their will when they've come from a war torn country already. And I will be interested to see how long construction takes IF it begins in July.

Morloth why do the French camps in Calais, France lead you to suggest this would be grounds to accuse the British of racism?

Any citizen or resident of a rich prosperous country which chooses to treat anyone like this shouldn't be ashamed they should be fucking furious and making their anger heard.

FGS, this happened overnight! Can you give us all a chance to actually get out of bed, turn on the news and even hear about it before you start screaming that we're all racist? It's 9am in the morning here. Most of us haven't had time to write a sternly worded letter to our politicians expressing our disgust at this piece of legislation yet. There was NO press about this. It was done extremely quietly.

Branding an entire country racist is like the pot calling the kettle black.

Thank you Gomez. I'm getting tired and am going in a minute. I am so angry about the way people are brushing this off.

Midnite who's screaming?

And also...I heard about it your time yesterday from an Australian resident.

People are all entitled to their opinions Neo. You have yours and others have theirs. Doesn't mean that others are wrong nor that you are wrong. Not sure why you are getting so angry and aggressive with people though. A discussion is just that and if you cant manage to be civil then you shouldn't be starting posts like these. People do not have to agree with you.

Have read through this thread and the one thing that stands out to me is how rude you have been not only to Australians but also in that you are ramming your opinions down others throats but not seeing others points at all. You have put other posters down and tried to be big by negating what they have said and telling people off for their spelling and adding your little nasty faces. Don't start threads just to say your piece, be prepared to listen with an open mind. You don't live there and there is always more to something than meats the eye. 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.

"meets" .

If they are really escaping death & torture, surely these offshore facilities they will be waiting at while their application is processed would be an improvement?

So we can treat people however we like, as long as it's better than "death and torture"? the way we treat people isn't grounded in principle - in what we have decided are basic human rights?

I find that attitude quite shocking.

I don't know anything about the situation in Australia, though don't find what Neo describes difficult to believe. We have plenty to be ashamed of in this country too - not least the appalling conditions and unlawful child detention at Yarl's Wood. It is all too easy to mistreat people who are being detained in poor conditions, apparently - yet another reason not to do it.

I am Australian and I am not racist. Neither are my friends. Neither are my family.

This thread is insulting on so many levels.

Neo on the basis of your argument can I presume that every UK resident agrees with every decision made by the UK government?

By the way, this legislation was passed by a Prime Minister who is a 'ten pound pom'. If you'd like her back, there are many, many voters who would be happy to chip in the cost to put her on a leaky boat and shove her in your general direction.

Interesting that cote manages to get a bit of Israel bashing into a thread on Australia.

Plus ca change, plus le meme chose or however it goes.

I am not Australian but I feel deeply offended on behalf of Australians. There is so much bigotry and hate in this thread. Maybe look at your own shortcomings before letting rip at others.

There is more of a comparison to be made between Australia and it's treatment of the indigenous population with Israel and the Palestinian situation than there is between Israel and Australia over refugees. I am sure Israel has quite a strict immigration policy which applies only to Jews fleeing from other lands ( please correct me if I'm wrong). We do take in a fair number of refugees given our population size but are you arguing Neo that we should just take anybody's claim to be a refugee at face value? We obviously need to process applications. I do think we could relax some work rules that apply to refugees who have been approved for release into the community pending their refugee claim. Most of those people get approved anyway.

Gosh I was getting worried that I had missed the monthly "Australians are all racist and horrible" thread but thankfully I found this gem!

Phew!

Goodie I'm also a redneck too....

Thanks neo you seem to know me oh so well!

::drags the sofa on to the front lawn::

Apparently it's what rednecks do.

Then term 'wog' is still widely used in Australia I believe.

Oh dear, now you're just embarrassing yourself.

Enlightened.

Actually Squoosh, Claudia is right (although not necessarily about the N word comparison). The term "wog" really has been taken over in Australia and does not have the cultural slur that it once did:

More recently European-Australian performing artists have taken ownership of the term "wog", defusing its original pejorative nature?the popular 1980s stage show Wogs Out of Work created by Nick Giannopoulos and Simon Palomares was an early example. The production was followed on television with Acropolis Now, starring Giannopoulos, Palomares, George Kapiniaris and Mary Coustas, and films The Wog Boy and Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos and parodies such as those of Santo Cilauro, Eric Bana, Vince Colosimo, Nick Giannopoulos, Mary Coustas and SBS Television's offbeat Pizza TV series have continued this change in Australian cultural history?with some even classifying a genre of 'wogsploitation' of pop-culture products being created by and for a proudly "wog" market.[3] Recent works of the genre have been used by Australians of non-English speaking backgrounds to assert ethnic identity, rather than succumb to ethnic stereotype.[4] Upon the release of Wog Boy 2, Giannopoulos discussed the contemporary use of the term "wog" in the Australian context:

"I think by defusing the word 'wog' we've shown our maturity and our great ability to adapt and just laugh things off, you know... When I first came [to Greece] and I started trying to explain to them why we got called 'wog' they'd get really angry about it, you know. They were, "Why? Why they say this about the Greek people?" You know? But then when they see what we've done with it?and this is the twist?that we've turned it into a term of endearment, they actually really get into that..."

Thus, in contemporary Australia, the term "wog" may, in certain contexts, be viewed as a "nickname" rather than a pejorative term[5]?akin to the nicknames ascribed within Australian English to other historically significant cultural groupings such as the English (nicknamed Poms), the Americans (nicknamed Yanks) and New Zealanders (nicknamed Kiwis).