Miscellaneous comments from 4 May 2010

Australia receives a very low number of asylum seekers compared with other nations.
We have a capacity to receive and resettle refugees in Australia. The 2000 or so on Christmas Island and elsewhere is really a minor issue for Australia to cope with. Refugees comprise less than 1% of the immigration pressure annually impacting upon Australia's economy and society, yet because it is a newsworthy topic, more than economic immigration, Australia's media allocate a disproportionate about of media space to the issue.

Successive Australian governments continue to ignore the root causes of asylum seeker problems in our region - the civil unrest in the origin countries, like in Sri Lanka. How is the ‘internal affairs’ excuse morally acceptable by neigbouring countries, when those internal affairs comprise genocide, mass murder, rape and mass displacement and persecution of a people?

The Australian Government should call on the UN to have the International Criminal Court indict both Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka for genocide.

That neighbouring countries of the region stood back idle and in some cases fueled and supported Sri Lankan President Rajapaska's atrocities knowingly and willing has been genocidal complicity. Sri Lankan neighbours of the Indian Ocean community - India, Bangladesh, Burma, Australia, Indonesia, Maldives, Malaysia, Pakistan, Madacascar, etc have not only reneged on their responsibilities to act to prevent Tamil genocide, they have been genocideal complicit and thus criminal.

That many of these nations are members of the Commonwealth of Nations, shows this organisation to be a meanlingless farce. The Commonwealth of Nations, which includes Sri Lanka and Australia, is "an international organisation through which countries with diverse social, political, and economic backgrounds are regarded as equal in status, and co-operate within a framework of common values and goals, as outlined in the 1971 Singapore Declaration."

These so called common values and goals "include the promotion of democracy, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, individual liberty, egalitarianism, free trade, multilateralism, and world peace, and are carried out through multilateral projects and meetings."

What a hypocritical farce. In the wake of the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka culminating in mass murder of Tamils in May 2009, the Commonwealth of Nations ought to be disbanded.

Tamils continue to be persecuted by the Sinhalese dictatorship in Sri Lanka. So Tamils are fleeing persecution to safe havens like Australia. For the Australian Government to reject Sri Lankan asylum seekers and indeed return them to Sri Lanka is inhumane and genocide-complicit.

Australia's economic migrants on the other hand, are Australia's root problem impacting on society. The 300,000 per year are driving multiple overload stresses in Australia's capital cities (where the jobs are, or were) -housing, public utilities etc. The Australian government seems selectively blind to this elephant in the room.

Re: Vivienne's "Skills shortages" in Australia? comment above (10th June 2010):

In response:

You know anytime Australians call on our governments to consider the needs of those at home before those of foreign lands, Australians are labelled 'protectionist.' Such stereotyping has become a standard kneejerk one-liner response intended to silence dissent over what has become a 'migrants first' policy.

Yet take a look at the contrasting neglect by Australian governments of the first Australians. Many Aboriginal people across Australia in 2010 continue to subsist in in Third World poverty, have Third World infant mortality rates, have Third World life expectancies, and Third World hope. No wonder family breakdown and substance abuse is chronic in many Aboriginal communities.

And take a look at the contrasting neglect by Australian governments of rural Australians. Yes these are the Australians living beyond politicians short-sighted urban and coastal growth focus. Inland rural Australia has a litany of disadvantage. Rural hardship has been compounded by the vagaries of unpredictable weather and other environmental conditions (drought, floods and bushfire); weak commodity prices and deteriorating terms of trade (exacerbated by globalisation and 'free' trade policy); rising farm costs relative to farm prices resulting in declining farm incomes, putting pressure on farming families; and microeconomic reform and the withdrawal of services by both the private sector and governments from rural and remote communities with consequent unemployment.

But the big populations are in the cities, and the more people the more votes, so party politicians focus taxation spending and investment in the cities where the votes are - like wasteful billion dollar desalination plants, more urban motorways, and extravagant events to rival those of aristocratic days of yore. In this way politicians get to stay in office longer to qualify for that big parliamentary pension.

The bush is ignored by our urban-centric governments and so Australia is steadily becoming a class society of 'two nations' of wealthier cities turning their backs on a more impoverished bush.

Local and indigenous rights come naturally before the rights of new comers. First in first served! And I am not talking charity. I am talking real investment in housing, health, affordable living and education.

But Australian governments have been hijacked by increasingly powerful immigrant lobby groups that demand more rights and higher priority for new migrants. They claim they are minority groups and so more worthy.
Well my response is get in the queue! Indigenous have been neglected the longest. They come before newcomers.

So Labor's Immigration Minister Evans is labelling more unsustainable immigration as a 'reform'? But Australian immigration is at record levels. The only 'reform' would be to slow immigration and let Australia's capacity catch up!

So Labor's Immigration Minister Evans is justifying more immigration "designed to provide workforce solutions for the business community". This is a cheap bandaid to make the government's economic data look good. It is a defeatist approach to our own education system for government to claim that we cannot skill up Australians to suit Australian business needs, so therefore we invite in foreigners to take Australian jobs.

Such corrosive thinking is usurping indigenous and local Australians into an increasing under-educated poorer underclass, while migrants get the training and become the new wealthy.

Such anti-Australian policy is a slap in the face to both indigenous and local Australians. It fuels ethnic discontent. It neglects local education and vocational training needs. It views education as an export revenue earner - encouraging our schools and universities to skill and train foreigners who bring new money into the country. They the government labels it a 'foreign students industry' Is this Gillard's phoney 'education revolution'?

I wholeheartedly agree with you...'Our "workforce solutions" should be first and foremost about training and employing our own citizens, many who lack opportunities and jobs, not look overseas!'

This is not protectionism. This is not xenophobic. This is not racism.
This is getting Australian priorities right. This is looking after our own first, then once Australians are out of poverty, out of their Third World living standards, and regained equal opportunities again, any spare capacity can then be channelled to helping new Australians seeking a new life in Australia.

Anyone would think our Australian Government was being run and directed by immigrants.