Another boatload of bloody illegal immigrants

The BBQ Pit
41

Why thank you for the offer, my kind country cousin. Your instinct is indeed correct. Nonetheless, I’d feel obliged to decline the generous offer of a life on the ocean waves as it would appear my duties would include visiting your wonderful Island and – as the old joke goes – I don’t have sufficient convictions to be permitted entry.

Apologies for pressing the point but, as the noble Nottingham was intent on leaving Ostralian waters, isn’t it correct to infer from the OP that the camp at Woomera is there to keep the Afghans from leaving your wonderful climes…

“You’re here now, mate. Got to stick it out like the rest of us otherwise the Poms’ll get wind”

We could be here for some time - anyone for a tinnie ?

42

Wow. I didn’t think you people still existed.

43

Reuben, I think Estilicon had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek with this comment:

44

Reuben, irony is certainly wasted on you :slight_smile: the fact is that neither the Americans aborigenes nor the argentinians one had the chance to welcome anybody (although I am pretty sure that if they had been asked the answer would have most certainly be… NO).
Speaking seriously now I disagree with your comment about the “civilazing force of the British Empire”, the fact is that the Roman Empire did much more “civilazing” than the British one although they could have try harder at the British Islands :slight_smile:

45

Dammit, Coldfire done gone got dat irony. I hate it when mods do that. I thought you might get transported to Norfolk Is. for this thread, woolly.

Couple of nice whooshings in it though. :slight_smile: With each one, woolly turns to the mods and cries HOWZAT!

So who wants a beer and a nice, Aussie game of klootschieten?

46

Ah, ah, ah…you won men’s singles only. Let’s keep this in perspective. :stuck_out_tongue: :wink:

47

Oh contraire: Todd Woodbridge in the mens doubles and Todd Reid in the junior mens singles

48

It’s all going to be ok. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has offered the captain a hundred grand and a really nice reference to get off the rock.

49

Lindyhopper I’m glad you mentioned persective. Now let’s see, we won 50% of the singles titles this year. And our population, as a percentage of the populations of the US, the UK, France, Germany, Russia, and well basically most other tennis playing nations on earth is…

Mmmm, I like this perspective game, let’s play some more :slight_smile:
Now, Reuben…

You are confusing the issue and showing a shallow attitude to Australian history here (for which, as a pom, I will forgive you).

Forget the convict era. It’s a good subject for jokes, but fact is that it contributed a trivial number of people to the overall immigrant influx that is Australia’s white history. The irony alluded to in this thread about Australia’s current attitude to poor immigrants arriving in boats is entirely valid.

Forget notions of immigrants arriving involuntarily to scratch a living from the dust. Australia’s immigrants overwhelmingly came here voluntarily because it was far better than where they came from. Just like the current crop of Afghanis.

The issue is not whether or not we should be free to choose, but whether or not we should choose to turn asylum seekers away. There are many in this country (including, in my experience, many of the Australian posters who precede me in this thread) who believe that we should choose, as kind and merciful people, to allow such people to enter. The very successful efforts by the Howard government to spin the issue in the way you do, and the total failure of the opposition to spin it the way I do, is (at least for me) what disgusts many.

Behind this comment is the notion that new immigrants are freeloaders. Outside of the minds of xenophobes (I am not saying you are one) who have done a good job of repeating this slur so often it has begun to sound true, there is simply no factual basis for it. In fact, every study ever done shows that Australia needs unskilled immigrants, that they create jobs and wealth, that they do the jobs that we need done but don’t like doing ourselves, that they work harder than anyone, and on and on and on.

I have no cite for this, but it is my gut feeling that your average recent immigrant bludger is much more likely to be Kiwi or Pommie than Afghani.

Oh, and reprise if this turns into another enormous pointless ranting battle like the last one, would you mind just getting on a plane, coming up here and shooting me? I don’t have the time or the emotional energy, but I find it hard to walk away sometimes.

Ta.

50

Well at least no-one’s called me a Nazi yet. While it all remains civilized I am happy to continue the discussion.

While I still don’t see the irony in the matters addressed my the OP, I sure was whooshed by Estilicon. I was actually wondering what on earth they taught in the schools in Argentina! I should have known better from an experienced Doper. :slight_smile:

Twisty, many ‘people like me’ exist and at the ripe old age of 30 I hope to go on existing for some time yet. Like you, I used to take a very dim view of our imperial past, right up until the point I actually read something about it. By the way, I take the view that the NET effect of Bitish Empire was a positive one. I know there are any number of shameful actions on the debit side of our ledger, just as there are in any other nation’s history, but on balance I think there is an extraordinary credit.

Princhester, I certainly don’t mean to take Australian history ‘shallowly’ but I confess my knowledge of it is largely restricted to that wonderful book The Fatal Shore.

>> Why isn’t it OK for Australia to choose
>> who can and cannot enter?
> The issue is not whether or not we should
> be free to choose, but whether or not we
> should choose to turn asylum seekers away.

Ah, in spite of the “illegal immigrants” in the title I guess I should have realised we were talking about asylum. You don’t need to me to point out that the British Royal Navy isn’t actually claiming asylum, so where is the irony or hypocrisy?

>> … why should the fruits of [ancestors]
>> labour be a free for all now?
> Behind this comment is the notion that
> new immigrants are freeloaders.

With respect to using common infrastructure (eg roads, rail, drains, electricity, water, etc) this is at least partly true. If I move to Australia, I am going to use all of those things without having contributed a cent towards their being available. Sure I’ll pay utility bills etc, but that’s just towards the cost of use.

I do not make the above argument against immigration btw (which, I doubt you will believe, I am not entirely against) but merely to try to point out that there are other ways of looking at things. I freely admit that this is a bit of a silly one, but there is at least a nod to the concept of ‘fairness’ in it, unfortunately it is alongside a giant nod to exclusion.

> Oh, and reprise if this turns into
> another enormous pointless ranting
> battle like the last one, would you
> mind just getting on a plane, coming
> up here and shooting me? I don’t have
> the time or the emotional energy,
> but I find it hard to walk away sometimes.

I’m sure it’s very virtuous of you to stick around to educate a poor old dinosaur like myself. Of course there’s a reward for you in doing it - you may get to pin the ‘bigot’ and other labels on me yet. Not that I’ll ever give you cause to.

51

Just a slight quibble, Colfire. Abel Tasman did not set foot on New Zealand soil – the first European captain to do so was Captain Cook.

From History NZ site:

He was, however, the first European to discover us, in orthadox history.

52

Don’tcha just hate it when you type out a post, with quote thingies, and then mistype someone’s name? Gah!

Double “d’oh”.

My apologies, Coldfire.

BTW, reprise – is there a special deal lettin’ Kiwis in onto your fair shores? Who knows? Maybe it’s ''cause we just so darn adorable, friendly little critters. :slight_smile:

53

Wonderful but narrow and unrepresentative. No shame in that, I don’t know much about the history of most places either.

Jeez, mate, it’s normally for the benefit of the 'Merkins that we Aussies on this board have to explain dry humour and irony. Maaaate!

There is a fair bit of complex legal and political wrangling and manoeuvering over this issue at the moment. You would need to read a fair bit of recent Australian news to catch up.

It’s not much of an argument. I didn’t build the roads any more than an Afghani. Other dead people did. And if an immigrant comes here, they pay taxes and work hard, and that’s as much or more than what I do, so what right do I have to complain?

And this is in fact where the irony of Australians whinging about recent immigrants really hits the bullseye. I will say it once again. We are all immigrants here. Australians (other than the indigenous) only go back a few generations at most before they too arrived and were leaning on infrastructure built by others. And the first to arrive not only exploited the indigenous’ environment (their version of infrastructure), they set about destroying it and killing them all.

And here we are like a bunch of winging, prissy, infants complaining about the most recent arrivals as if we had lived here in total pristine isolation for a million years building up paradise that they are going to wreck.

Firstly I’m older than you. Secondly if you are not bigoted and don’t represent yourself that way, I won’t say otherwise. Thirdly, you waded into an issue that it is now clear you know little about and made several comments that (ironically enough), when read on the assumption you knew more background than it appears you do, did frankly have a faint smell.

Peace.

54

It is clear I know little about what?

Yes, I am ignorant on much of Australian history (was that what you were referring to?) and if that really matters here then how about we drop the word “Australian” from the discussion and stick to general arguments for and against asylum (or immigration)?

Obviously specific historical events should be used to support arguments. And, of course, in a completely different thread to this one which I honestly didn’t mean to hijack.

And what smell would that be, by the way?

55

Actually, some people aren’t so sure anymore. Read this story which details Tasman’s first encounters with the natives. Further research of his captain’s logs (sorry, no cite, saw it on a Dutch TV show) indicates that Tasman indeed went ashore a few times to gather food and water. Again, a colonist he wasn’t. He was looking for trade opportunities, the reason they left “New Holland” (currently known as Australia :)) alone - didn’t look like a profitable island.

Cook came with another purpose, a century later. Therefore, he left a much more recognisable trail on the islands of NZ.

But like you said: whether Tasman landed or not is trivial, really. Although the TV show about the analysis of the logs was mighty interesting.

56

If you ever come across more info on this, Coldfire, please do let me know. Interesting theory, so far.

We’ve got a Tamil Bell and Spanish helmet to explain, yet …

57

The current political debate on the OP in this country. And therefore the way your comments might be perceived.

If you want to. But that isn’t this OP, and if it had been, I would have interpreted your comments very differently. We crossed wires in that respect. But I don’t really blame myself, given that I was taking your comments in the context of this OP, which hardly seemed unreasonable.

The smell of someone who hints that the immigrants under discussion in this OP (Australia’s recent wave of asylum seekers) are freeloaders on Australian infrastructure. I now take your point in this respect (albeit that I think it’s a weak point as per my post above). However, such comments in current Australian political debate do tend to be made by bigots who would happily assume that any white immigrant is going to be an asset to the country (even if they actually intend to spend their time sunbaking on Bondi) and that any middle eastern immigrant is going freeload on the infrastructure, even if in reality that immigrant is going to spend midnight to dawn cleaning the said bigot’s toilets.

So I took your comments in context, even though you intended them to be taken out of context.