Asylum and immigration is one of the major buzz issues in our country at the minute, as the parties gear up for the election by trying to outracist each other, and the right-wing press somehow manages to convince a sizeable portion of the population that a tiny number of brown people fleeing persecution are responsible for all of society's ills, but I don't think I've ever seen it debated in POOP.

So what is an acceptable level of border controls? Do any of you think there actually is an immigration 'problem'?

really, immigration is essential, most countries do not ahve enough people to populate its country, canada would not exist without immigration. Chini is one of the few countries that seems to be able to populate its country by more tehn needed.

Now there's an idea. Convince the government that the only way to get rid of all these darn foreigners is to have lots more of our own kids. Replace abstinence-only sex ed with pregnancy-oriented sex ed. Encourage children in or out of wedlock socially, politically, economically. An artificial baby boom! In less than 20 years you'd see sexual freedom, the popularity of intellectuals, and enough good ol' kids from the good ol' US of A so that we wouldn't need ANY foreigners anymore! YAY FOR DEMOCRACY!

Y'know, Malice, that would be a funny satirical post if it didn't actually happen. Sadly, our Government has told us that we should have three children each so that we don't have to keep importing low-skilled housewives from the Mainland. And it's offering tax incentives to do so.

Everybody just cracked up laughing.

Here in Oz, too.

The Treasurer said, after the federal budget before the last election; 'Do your duty for your country.' Does that sound eerily familar to anyone else?

Meanwhile, back at the detention camp, illegal immigrants (If you're lucky) including children, are kept locked away without hope of a fair hearing.

The election before last, the Government won on the back of a scare campaign hung off of a few leaky boats full of desperate refugees.

Refugees would cross though inhospitable countries and buy passage however they could on boats to Australia. They were told that it wasn't far. They were told that the Australian government would hear theri cases for assylum and they would be able to build a new life. They were even told that Australia welcomed refugees - needed people. (we do, BTW, we just want to pick and choose) The government calls them 'queue jumpers' and said that they were not genuine refugees, but wealthy people wanting a change of lifestyle. They put that reason that they had no passports and identification was not becasue they were disposessed, but because they knew that if their true identities were traced, it would be found out that they were not real refugees.

Anyway, these people were portrayed as a terrible threat - the start of a wave of lawless terrorists that would destroy Australian society. The government stated that a boat load of refugees, when their path was blocked by a military vessel, threatened to throw their children into the sea - did throw their chidren into the sea, by way of beligerently ensuring that they got right of way. It was bollocks of course. The refugees held their children up to show the military vessels that kids were onboard - to dissuade them from firing on them, or to let them know that they would need serious help if their rust-bucket boat sank. Footage of that instance was patched together with cropped photos of a rescue of refugees and their children whose boat had sunk days earlier and, presto, the government had their 'proof'. And, days later, won the election.

The boats stopped coming with such frequency when the Australian Government had a word to Indonesia about people smugglers working from it's ports - and after a boat loaded with three to four hundred men, women and children sank with the loss of all onboard. Tha Australians knew they were coming, knew the boat was a deathtrap and deliberately stayed well clear of the area until it was way too late.

The Australian government hatched what they called 'the pacific solution' whereby refugees detained coming to Australia and farmed them out to pacific nations like Naru. Before the election, our intrepid Prime Minister declared that none of the refugees famously saved by a Dutch Cargo Vessel (that was then denied permission to get the sick and starving people to the nearest medical aid - Australia, and was practically marooned off Christmas Island for ages) none of those 'illegal immigrants' would ever set foot in Australia. Some now live here, but don't tell the PM that or he'll give you a death stare, I'm sure.

Aparrently, Australia, to preserve it's soverignty, had to excise the distant Australian territorial reefs and island that the refugees strove to reach. Ashmore Reef, Christmas Island and some others have been excised from Australia. Way to maintain soverignty, dudes!

Anyway, we now have record low unemployment, and are crying out for skilled labour (funny how that happens when government budgets to train people are cut year after year) and the government is considering increasing the immigration rate. So the door is open if you are a builder. doctor, geologist, x-ray quality welder etc. But not if your government simply wants to kill you.

Hmmm. do you get the feeling I'm a bit peeved about this?

At least your Government goes through the trouble of blagging about "relevant job skills."

Ours just sells citizenship.

Invest HK$ 6.5 million (About 1 Aussie million, or 0.75 US million) bucks in local financial assets or real estate, and residency status is yours!

One financial columnist pointed out that this is total rubbish. If an Australian wanted to invest his AU$1 million in Hong Kong, he's got to convert them into Hong Kong dollars first, because obviously, we don't take Aussie money. So he goes to the bank, gives them his Aussie money, and gets some HK money in exchange. Where do you suppose the bank got the HK money from? Turkey? Estonia? Oh, right, Hong Kong! So the bank takes some money from HK, gives it to our Aussie Millionaire, who gets on a plane, comes here, and gives the money right back to us.

Wunderbar.

Foreign investment might be useful if there was nobody in the local economy who just had a million bucks to sink into some business venture. But we're rolling in millionaires. Our problem is that we can't find enough things to do with our money. The banks can't find enough good credit risks to give money to!

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, we deported several thousand Vietnamese refugees/immigrants. We kept them in detention camps for years and then sent them back again. Forcibly. Many had to be dragged kicking and screaming onto the planes.

There are immigration problems.

If their children when they get to school don't know the countries language this makes schooling more difficult.

If they don't know about tenents rights or don't know where to go when such rights are violated, their landlords are free to abuse them. Once there are whole houses where only such immigrants live the chances that their neighbours advise them are also gone.

However most xenophobic policies only increase such problems. If immigration policies are very tough they will not want to draw attention which helps landlords who abuse them. And anything like language courses or assistant teachers paid by the state are extremly unpopular with xenophobes since they don't want to pay tax money for making things easier for immigrants.

An other point at least in Austria is that asylum seekers whos request for asylum has not been answered yet (thoose answers might take long, the responsible places are understaffed) are not allowed to work and the same people who like that rule, complain that theese asylum seekers are sitting in camps paid by the goverment doing nothing. Our goverments answer to that is to make seeking asylum harder and removing access to higher instances if they disagree with an answer.

That's the same as here, arcosh. Asylum seekers are not allowed to work while their application is being processed, they are granted a tiny allowance below that which any unemployed citizen is expected to live off.

The one good thing our government's brining in with respect to asylum, however, is compulsory English language courses. There's still remarkably little help in getting people to settle in however. There are volunteer organisations like Asylum Link, but they're underfunded and rely on people like me to do stuff. Citizen's Advice Bureaus are also underfunded and understaffed, and rarely have the time to give someone the appropriate attention.

As for rich people, they go anywhere. Roman Abramovich came and bought Chelsea, Mohammed Al-Fayed came and bought Harrods and Fulham; and they're quite welcome to stay, If every would-be immigrant could afford a football team, there'd be no problems.

On the subject of labour shortages; a report was submitted to the European Commission recommending an increased level of imigration to the UK to deal with it. It was rejected on the basis that past experiments have shwon immigration to have too small an effect on the population. This while we're continually hearing about floods of immgrants.

Lastly, that great defence of tough borders; it'll erode our culture. The initial response would be, 'who cares?'; but a more considered response would point out that cultures are fluid and absorb and alter imports - with Chicken Tikka Masala; a wholly British dish; being the perfect example.

Edit: only just noticed the fact I apparently can't spell 'chicken'

Britain has a culture?
Warm beer and bar brawls?

Don't forget ham sandwiches with lots of butter, veggies cooked until they're indistinguishable from gruel, and fortified wines that are slightly sweeter than Coke. Boy, that was a meal I won't soon forget...

As far as the swine running Australia's government; at least he's being honest about it. Here in the US we need these illegals to undercut domestic wages and do the worst jobs; so we never do anything that might actually keep them out. At the same time, we persecute them in order to keep them down low enough so they'll undercut domestic wages and do the nastiest work. Does this mean our border security is, and has to be, a joke? Yup; but such is life.

Rather drink warm beer than cold, fizzy cat's piss.

Statistic of the day: A grand total of 4% of Britain's population is foreign-born; and the largest single nationality in that 4% is Australian.

Proper beer doesn't need to be chilled so cold you can't taste it.

I'm amazed that Aussies would even contemplate moving to Britain. I mean, visit the historical sites, do a tour and then get back home to warm weather and chilly beer - the way things should be.

Ehn. I don't even drink beer. At any temperature. The stuff reminds me of when I was a kid and I tried and failed to swallow tylenol tablets and it would all dissolve in my mouth and taste like arse.

So many better tasting things to drink. :)

omnot; go to London and it's hard to move for Australians. Quite a lot of them seem to be a transient population, however. You all come here for a year or two then go back home. Inevitably, some wind up staying.