From this morning’s paper: link
Gee, this country can be harsh, can’t it? If it’s not bone dry and drought stricken, it’s flooded and full of man eating crocs.
We’re off to visit friends in Katherine this Thursday. Hopefully the water has receded a bit by then.
In other news, yet another (weak) cyclone is headed towards the North West coast.
No wonder you all don’t have an illegal immagration problem…
That’s dry humour, right? 
Just in case it isn’t, illegal migration has been a hot button issue for the last few years here. It’s front page news today, and has been for the last week or two. A boatload of illegal migrants from the Indonesian province of West Papua arrived here, and were granted visas. This is politically touchy because West Papua has a seccessionist movement, and Indonesia is accusing Australia of trying to break Indonesia up (we helped in East Timor). The Indonesian ambassador was recalled, Australian products are being boycotted, and it’s really, really touchy.
In any event, we have a long history of boat people arriving on our shores from various places.
Just not Mexico.
Boat people may be desperate, and they may have entrusted their own lives and those of their children to leaky vessels plying pirate-infested waters, but they do have some dignity, darlz. I think sailing for Melbourne is a little beyond the pale.
Yeah, I was being a bit ‘cheeky’ but still I would not have thought there was much just because it seems to be one of the hardest places to get into permanently and legally. You got some real tough qualifications to meet and real cranky government workers.
I would have thought that deporting was automatic for anyone trying to just ‘float’ in.
All the hearsay info I have heard seems to indicate that Australia is really hard on immigration of any kind.
I have not tried to move there, just heard a few horror stories.
Only in Australia can you get bitten by a croc and it is considered just a ‘nip’, as in something a puppy would do.
Well to be fair, freshies are only small…
But that happens every time Katherine floods. The river floods, the crocs swim out of the Gorge and end up in people’s back yards. Eventually they all head back out again once the water recedes.
I suppose in light of all this I really should try and get in touch with my grandparents and uncle… I think they all still live up there.
:eek: Maybe there was a good reason my grandfather chose to immigrate to Canada instead of Australia… Even if Australia is cooler.
There’s a lot of government (and media) beatup about the subject, IMO. Forty people float in on a boat a couple of times a year and suddenly it’s “OMG!!! We’re going to be FLOODED!!! with ILLEGALS!!!” … conveniently forgetting basically everywhere else in the world except New Zealand people can just walk in across a land border and probably never even be caught.
If you’re skilled, young, and can afford your own plane ticket though… not so bad. But I suppose that’s true of most places