The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Government experiment (Part 23)
By Dr George Venturini*
Testing the thesis . . . Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause (continued)
The ‘Liberals’ have made it their business to discriminate against Muslim women who do not conform to their liking: what clothing they should wear, and where they should go. Their freedom should be curtailed ‘for their own good’ – not a chance to reflect that Muslim women decide what to wear as a matter of personal choice, and has nothing to do with religion.
According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, one woman is killed every week in Australia by a current or former partner (‘Family violence protest – Melbourne CBD | Victims of crime’, accessible at victimsofcrime.com.au/family-violence-protest-melbourne-cbd), and one in three women would say that she has suffered violence from someone she knows.
If Abbott and his ‘Liberals’ were serious about the human rights of Muslim women, they would have immediately: 1) freed all Muslim women refugees (and their children) who are languishing in Australian concentration camps in remote parts of Australia, in Nauru and in Papua New Guinea. and 2) made it their policy to treat refugees, including women, as humans.
On 24 September 2014 – just a few days before Abbott warned of random attacks by Muslim Australians – an Australian teenager, 18-year-old Abdul Numan Haider was shot dead by police outside a Melbourne police station. He was killed in broad daylight after attending an interview with the police at the Endeavour Hills Police Station. (‘Melbourne shooting: What we know about Abdul Numan Haider, shot dead after stabbing anti-terrorism officers at Endeavour Hills‘).
After his death, the police and the media concocted a “radicalised” profile for him. He was soon accused of posing a “threat to Australia’s security”. It would be so of any Muslim who would dare to speak up publicly against western-perpetrated war crimes, including the rape of Muslim women and the slaughter of innocent Muslim women and children in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen.
By contrast, some criminals who could pose serious threat to the community are set free and allowed to spread anti-Muslim propaganda. The case of Man Haron Monis, who took seventeen hostages at Lindt Café in Sydney on 15 December 2014, is significant. Monis was on parole for crimes committed in Australia. It is known that he has committed crimes in Iran before fleeing to Australia in 1996, that he had entered Australia as a ‘refugee’ in 1996 and was granted political asylum in 2001, and that the Iranian Government had requested his extradition, but was rebuffed by the Australian authorities. In 2004 Monis was granted Australian citizenship and began waving the Union Jack.
Monis was used as the perfect stooge to serve the Abbott Government’s anti-Muslim agenda. As Julian Burnside QC reported:
“Tony Abbott referred to Muslims a number of times in his speech on Monday [23 February], and he referred to the Lindt café siege in Sydney. It is important to bear in mind that the Lindt café siege was not a Muslim terrorist event: it was not any sort of terrorist event. It was the terrible act of a madman. The fact that he was a Muslim is utterly irrelevant. The fact that it is used, even indirectly, to stir up fear of Muslims is utterly disgraceful.
Of course, Muslims are an easy target: Islamic State (Isis) is doing a pretty bad PR job for Islam. But most Muslims do not support terrorism, either here or overseas. A small group of zealots support Isis and want to join its fight. If there are 50 jihadists in Australia who would fight with Isis (unlikely), that represents about two Australians in a million who are sharply at odds with us. Is two in a million really a big enough threat to encourage us to abandon long-held principles of justice, fairness and liberty?” (‘The Islamophobia stirred up by Abbott and Bolt is a bigger threat to us that terrorism’).
The 2015 Report of the Scanlon Foundation presented the findings of the eighth ‘Mapping Social Cohesion’ national survey. It was conducted in June-July 2015. The report builds on the knowledge gained through the seven earlier Scanlon Foundation national surveys, which provide, for the first time in Australian social research, a series of detailed surveys on social cohesion, immigration and population issues.
According to the Report’s findings the Scanlon-Monash Index of Social Cohesion had moved in the strongest positive direction since the Index was established in 2007.
The Scanlon Foundation survey asked respondents for their view of ‘the most important issue facing Australia today’; “change has occurred in the ranking of national security and social issues, which are now both second ranked (the economy remains first).”, the Report noted.
Concern over immigration remained at the lowest level recorded by the Scanlon Foundation surveys; attitudes towards asylum seekers arriving by boat had also changed little since 2014.
The high level of support for the proposition that ‘multiculturalism has been good for Australia’ had been maintained.
There were significant differences in attitudes of young adults, the middle-aged and older Australians, evident in response to questions on national identity and cultural diversity. Significant difference was also evident across Australia’s regions, with lower support outside capital cities for immigration, resettlement opportunities for asylum seekers and cultural maintenance. Difference in attitude was also evident in comparison of Australia’s major cities.
With regard to immigration, the 2014 survey had found relatively low concern over issues of immigration and cultural diversity. Just 35 per cent considered that the immigration intake was ‘too high’, the lowest recorded in the Scanlon Foundation surveys.
As for asylum seekers, the views on policy towards them also remained unchanged in 2015: 24 per cent were of the view that asylum seekers arriving by boat should be eligible for permanent settlement – same as in 2014; 31 per cent thought that they should only be allowed to apply for temporary residence – 30 per cent in 2014; 9 per cent was of the opinion that they should be ‘kept in detention until they can be sent back’ – 10 in 2014; 33 thought that ‘their boats should be turned back’ – 31 in 2014.
On the basis of earlier findings, it appeared likely that negative opinions reflect views on mode of arrival, not on providing opportunities for refugee resettlement. Scanlon Foundation surveys between 2010-2012 asked respondents for their view on the ‘humanitarian programme’, which was explained as resettling ‘refugees who have been assessed overseas and found to be victims of persecution and in need of help’. A large majority, in the range of 67 to 75 per cent, indicated that they supported the ‘humanitarian programme’. (‘Mapping Social Cohesion 2015: The Scanlon Foundation Survey Report’).
Still, the main and most consistent target for discrimination and hatred by the Abbott Government remained the so-called ‘Illegal arrivals’. As Reporters Without Borders noted in August 2015, Australia was suppressing the coverage of refugees on ‘national security’ grounds. The organisation was mainly concerned with the effect of the Border Force Act 2015, which entered into force on 1 July 2015. The organisation noted that the Act “reflects a disturbing desire to deny access to information about the often deplorable treatment of refugees in detention centres by classifying this information as ‘protected’ on national security grounds.” (Australia suppresses coverage of refugees on national security grounds’).
Approved by the two main political parties, the Act provides for two-year gaol terms for ‘entrusted persons’ working in Australia’s refugee detention centres – including the centres on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and on Nauru, should such persons disclose information about conditions in the centres and how refugees are treated.
Without prior permission from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, doctors and health professionals working in the centres are now forbidden to talk about the conditions in which asylum-seekers are being held and to report any abuses or human rights violations. They are nonetheless the only people who could act as whistleblowers about what is going on in these centres, to which the public has no access.
“We firmly condemn this act, which effectively censors all sources of information about the problematic issue of refugees in Australia,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Asia-Pacific desk. And he added: “Doctors and other care personnel are potential whistleblowers. They have long been the only people able to talk about conditions in these centres and the health of the detainees. As such, they are a link between these closed and secret centres and the media and public opinion. By threatening this link, which is essential for media coverage, the authorities are clearly flouting the right of Australia’s citizens to question their government’s stance on human rights and democracy.”
The Australian Government already imposed drastic curbs on journalists’ access to refugee detention centres in 2011, after several refugees died in detention. These restrictions constituted a grave violation of the right to information, which is supposed to be guaranteed by the law.
“They are trying to prevent any information about conditions in detention centres reaching the public” said Julian Burnside QC.
“A journalist who requests information or records from an entrusted person can be charged with aiding and abetting the commission of that offence” added George Newhouse, another human rights lawyer.
Many people have spoken out against this latest attempt to prevent doctors, social workers and other employees of detention centres for asylum-seekers from the telling the media about any human rights violations and abuses they might witness.
A health workers collective has held demonstrations in various Australian cities to protest against the Border Force Act. One of its members, University of Sydney Professor Maria Fiatarone Singh, a geriatrician, said that doctors have a duty, both as professionals and citizens, to report human rights violations. Although some of the law’s opponents have said they will circumvent it, “many are afraid of losing their jobs, which is stated in the act, or imprisonment up to two years.” Singh said.
Tomorrow: Testing the thesis . . . Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause (continued)
* In memory of my friends, Professor Bertram Gross and Justice Lionel Murphy.
Dr. Venturino Giorgio Venturini devoted some sixty years to study, practice, teach, write and administer law at different places in four continents. In 1975 he left a law chair in Chicago to join the Trade Practices Commission in Canberra. He may be reached at George.Venturini@bigpond.com.au.
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Return to home pageIf these people come to this country to live then it’s up to them to dress as Australians do. Headscarf is one thing but the full body garb is not on! The are only singling themselves out for discrimination. I have read it is not a compulsory dress and that these women have the choice and they choose not to behave/dress like Australians. In my book, don’t bother coming here in the first place! They are just looking for way that we can be called racists. How much more pathetic can you get when the men run around in shorts and a t-shirt and these stupid women covered from head to toe!
these people are sickening. not the refugees, the politicians. also the people who support this bullshit, they are sickening too.
Sorry Gee but I don’t agree with you on this at all. These Muslims come here to live in this country then act and dress like Australians. Especially when you see the stinking men clad in shorts and a T-shirt. Also, the Turnbull and Abbott governments are spending 5oo millions on teaching them how to live like Australians in Australia! What a complete waste of money! They want to live here, feed off our Welfare, free everything, but don’t really want to become Australians! They are the sickening ones because they won’t change. They still want the middle east customs/culture brought into Australia! No bloody wonder we don’t want them here! I wish everyone would stop making excuses for these Muslims. They want a new country, then adopt to that new country!
Fed Up, the invaders of Australia for more than 200 years are trying or enforcing the legitimate custodians of this land, the Aborigines, how to live, how to look after their families, etc.
The colonial powers ruined and depleted cultures world wide, so do not attack a few people disturbed by their experience in the own land when the colonizing powers done worse just for greed.
Hey fed up, just exactly how does an Australian dress? Ugg boots, tracky pants and a singlet? Does that work for you? Oh, and shorts and a t-shirt is not Australian if worn by stinking men? Can you spell racist?
Fed up, what happened to you, you seem to be a very unhappy and angry person. All that hating is not good for your health and wellbeing.
Buddhist meditation might be helpful. Worrying about other people’s hygiene is useless, as is being concerned about Muslim men wearing shorts …at least be happy that the men dress like the Aussie blokes…. who are hardly there with the French or Italian men…
Forget about the Buddhist meditation, you most likely hate them as well…
Fed Up, what sort of narrow cultural ghetto do you live in ?
For decades, Australia’s Anglo-Celtic culture has been enriched by the Chinese the Germans, the Italians, the Dutch and other Europeans who came here from the 1850s, by the Afghans who arrived in the late 19th century, by the Europeans again ( mostly Greeks, Italians, Turks, Hungarians, Latvians, Poles) in the post second World War war period, by the Vietnamese the Lebanese and Chileans, through the late 1970s and 1980s, by peoples from Burma, Indonesia, Iran and Iraq from the 1990s, and more recently by immigrants or refugees ( as was earlier the case in part throughout our history) from the Congo, Southern Sudan, South Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, and Sri Lanka.
All newcomers have not had it easy in this country, but in time they have contributed to the vitality of the nation, gained respect and acceptance, and now identify Australia as their homeland.
What concerns me is your stiff-backed intolerant defence of an inaccurate stereotype of what it is to an Australian as there are many ways to be Australian. To take your own simple example of dress for example, something that seems to aggravate you inordinately with respect to Muslims in this country. In this, you would have found common ground with some British-born residents on the Australian goldfields in the 1850s who vociferously objected to the dress and the foods of the Chinese living there too. But we are well past that now.
Might I suggest you stand in the CBD of Sydney or Melbourne and note not just the multiple shades of skin colour in people passing by, but the sheer diversity in forms of apparel they wear.
As a fifth generation Australian I am proud to have friends who are Islamic, and I value them equally with my other friends from different strands of Australian society.
It’s nothing to do with hate! It’s logical common sense to be wary of these people! Why is it that all you bleeding hearts out there think that these Muslims are all so peace loving and righteous when these people are causing havoc and mayhem around the world? It will happen here, I can guarantee it! It’s just a matter of when? This comment also has nothing to do with Hygiene Helvityni. I would much rather be wary and cautious around these people that you bleeding hearts. You’ll probably lose your head before I will! May Australia stay safe and free!
We sure as hell don’t dress like the 1st century! I guess this column is for all you bleeding hearts out there and doesn’t have room for people who don’t agree with you all. Have a good life!
Fed Up. Grow Up!
Or are you simply trying to take the piss? ? ?
I really don’t have much view on Asylum policy but I do wonder why Muslims chose Australia when they have every opportunity to go to a country that is Muslim.I also find it a it a bit unusual to see thos on here condemning Christensen and Narnardi for their homophobic views but not a word on the Islamic spokespeople even calling for the death of gays.
Islam is not inclusive as the have their Jihads and will tell you straight that the only law they accept is Sharia
Australia is not a country for polygamy wife beating child brides and female genital mutilation, all part of Islam but we don’t dare discuss that or you soon get branded racist by the do gooders.I don;t have a problem with immigration but think it should be those that wil adopt the country not try to replicate what they left
The ignorance on display is astounding.
Check out this bloke who’s bringing Sharia to London. (Just jokin..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadiq_Khan
Fed Up ,
” May Australia stay safe and free ” At last, something I can agree with you on.
And you can do something constructive about that.
You see, we have 250 Indonesians living to the north of us, and most are Islamic.
One way you can help is to learn their language, …. Bahasa Indonesian.
Now there is a worthy challenge for you !
Should you do so, you would, in a small way be doing something to assist Australia remain safe and free.
You see, a tiny fraction of Australians speak Indonesian, though many of our young travel there for ‘ piss-up holidays ‘ where they routinely violate Indonesian customs in a variety of ways. But the tolerant Indonesians of Bali generally humour these young people, whose they are inclined to see as representatives of an all too wealthy nation.
So Fed Up, do something constructive such as learning Bahasa Indonesian, in the service of your country, instead of sharing your bile on public blogs like this one, about Muslims in general, none of who, you have ever be-friended its seems. Learning this language from an Indonesian teacher living here in Australia, might also help you overcome your deep-seated prejudices.
Well Freethinker, congratulations on your neighbours! That stinking country would be last place on earth I would want to go. Barbaric bastard country. Our government pays that scum over 800 million dollars a year to build up their stinking armies to go and massacre thousands of Papuan and New Guineans! Yeh, great country, what a great government we have! Learn their stinking language? I don’t think so!
Thankyou Nurses 1968
Margo Kingston Tweeted Times is right when she asks
Margo Kingston @margokingston1 Jun 18
All I ask is that progressives fight against Muslim homophobia as strongly as against Christian homophobia. Why don’t they? #freakedout
Good question Why don’t they?
Did it ever occur to you that the Muslims who choose to come to Australia do so because they want to live in a free tolerant inclusive society?
“Australia is not a country for polygamy wife beating child brides and female genital mutilation”
Correct. Those things are illegal.
“all part of Islam”
Female Genital Mutilation occurs in non-Muslim societies in Africa and is practiced by Christians, Muslims and Animists alike. In Egypt, where perhaps 97 percent of girls suffer genital mutilation, both Christian Copts and Muslims are complicit. It is a cultural practice, not purely connected to religion.
Kaye Lee
I have read your ongoing disike for Christensen and his views homophobic so do I expect to see a similar article on Islamic homophobia as Margo Kingston asks?
Why? Is Islamic homophobia any different to anyone else’s homophobia that it requires special attention? I don’t know of any homophobic Muslims in our Parliament making decisions about our legislation.
Could I ask you to read this article nurses and Fedup.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2016/06/23/4487848.htm
Up until 1973, homosexuality was on the list of disorders in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual.
Not yet! you better hope they never do get into Parliament here!
You had better keep on reading!
I guess Margo Kingston was right.that was the same sort of back peddling she got
Excuse me? Back peddling? In what respect? Did you read the article I linked to? I am a non-partisan, non-discriminatory, non-racist critic of homophobia.
I cannot do anything to change the government in Egypt but I can ask that the people who make the decisions in Australia stop their discrimination.
High-profile Australian Muslims have spoken out against homophobia after the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando.
Islamic organisations and prominent Muslims have condemned the attack by a radicalised lone gunman, signing a joint statement calling the violence abhorrent.
“Whilst investigations are still on foot, the mass shooting in Orlando was a targeted attack on that community. There is no justification for such homophobia,” it reads.
Comedian Nazeem Hussain, lawyer Mariam Veiszadeh and human rights activist Omeima Sukkarieh are some of the 44 people who have added their names to the statement.
“We reject the hatred and anger that leads to this kind of abhorrent violence,” it continues.
They say the tragedy should not be used to foster division and fear.
“We would like to send a message to LGBTQI Muslims who may be experiencing a deep sense of shock and grief. This is an opportunity for us to cultivate a deeper compassion for each other.”
There’s hypocrisy to be found within and across all religions. Adherents to Islam (in theory) do not tolerate homosexuality nor paedophilia for that matter, but a cursory glance at many nations reveal that the practice of both is somewhat widespread.
Take Afghanistan (99% Islam) as an example. You don’t have to be too rich and powerful to have your own ‘dancing boy’ (practice known as bacha bazi). More than one is even better, demonstrating your greater power and wealth. (There’s an old joke -several versions. If you want ‘offspring’, get a wife. If you want ‘pleasure’, get a boy. If you want ‘ecstasy’, get a goat. )
Seriously, many ‘Christian’ churches condemn homosexuality and paedophilia but how you are treated when ‘outed’ depends on on your position in the hierarchy. (Well that’s the historical experience.)
So much one could say.
For me, I am a bit like the ancient Greeks re homsexuality. Whether you engage in homosexuality is about as important as whether you eat corn flakes or weet-bix for breakfast.
Jared Taylor @jartaylor now1 minute ago
Britain votes to leave! The voters have spoken and immigration was the big issue. Americans vote in November!
And Australians July 2 it is the sleeper issue I believe
Great news for Britain. Sanity has prevailed and the influx of migrants hopefully comes to a stop! Lets hope other countries do exactly the same thing!
Only for people who have fallen for the fear campaign nurses. Australia is a very different place to anywhere else in the world. Most of us where born elsewhere or have parents who were born elsewhere. The First Australians knew how to live here sustainably. The rest of us have blown in over the last 200 years bringing our prejudices with us. We have more chance of providing a free, tolerant, inclusive society than pretty much anywhere else. Whilst we cannot stop at our borders in demanding human rights, we can at least fight hard to make them a reality here.
So please explain the goodness in importing more people whose viewpoint is more or less the same as Morrison. We have 200k muslims and growing -why is that not enough to satisfy the good feel idea of multiculturalism.
Are you all fundamentalist “non-discriminators”. Considered discrimination involves using the human brain, discrimination without reason and non-discrimination at any cost is the use of emotion only. Little different than fundamentalist neocons.
Having studied Comparative Religion as a 17 year old and having, throughout my life, tried to keep up to date with scientific advances, I feel really sad that so many people get locked into unfounded prejudice – particularly in areas such as religion and sexuality.
The first issue relates to belief rather than fact, IMHO, and, having started life as a Christian in the Presbyterian range of sects, and, through having relations in Ireland, been only too aware of the hatreds generated between Catholics and Protestants, any faith I might have had was questioned.
I have seen those same hatreds generated between Sunni and Shia in the Muslim world and am now, as an 80 year old agnostic, still wondering how people who claim that God is Love can hate so fiercely.
I grew up in a world where homosexuality was illegal. I now live in a world where it is scientifically established that there is a very wide variation in sexuality, determined before birth, and while a majority are specifically male or, slightly more often, female, the others are still worthy human beings with the right to enjoy life.
Hatred is the most destructive force in human beings and it is closely linked to fear. If you wish to be accepted by others, you must be willing to accept them. We will never like everybody, nor will everyone else want to befriend us.
But to destroy lives because of prejudice and fear is to destroy our own well-being.
In the long run, education is the answer to those seeking peace.
Do you really feel that fundamentalist Muslims would choose to come and live in a secular society where we walk around with not very many clothes on because it is so hot and where alcohol is unfortunately a big part of our culture and where many of us eat bacon and eggs for brekkie and where you cannot afford a house without taking out a loan that requires paying interest? Would they truly choose to come to a place that would so offend their fundamentalist beliefs?
Of course people migrating from different cultures will need some help to understand our culture and find their comfortable place in it. My opinion is that they come here to flee the oppression that all of us abhor. You cannot ascribe what happens elsewhere to Australia and you cannot make all Muslims responsible for the actions of a few. If someone read the bible and then blamed me for all the hatred and violence in it I would be bemused. People like Fred Nile and Lyle Shelton most definitely do NOT speak for me
As I recall the UK promised to accept 20 000 refugees from Syria over 5 years. They will come.
Cameron lit the Brexit fire and now it will consume him. He will certainly have a place in history, but not the one he hoped for. The full consequences are yet to be realised but their currency has already taken a big hit as has the ASX. Much more to come.
Hope they don’t. All they are doing are taking the jobs from English people!
@ Kaye
[Would they truly choose to come to a place that would so offend their fundamentalist beliefs?]
Ever heard of missionaries or imperialism? Now yes I do think that element is quite small, but non non-existent.
And yet they do come here. I see the full burka or whatever outfit fairly often out here in western sydney. If they choose here, does that then mean they are thus coming here for the economic benefits ie in choosing here and not a cultural situation more aligned to their past, are they economic migrants/refugees.
[My opinion is that they come here to flee the oppression that all of us abhor]
Most of the world is oppressed in some form or another. Should we allow them all here? Or should we not allow them in the hope that they will change the culture from within.
[You cannot ascribe what happens elsewhere to Australia and you cannot make all Muslims responsible for the actions of a few]
All things are interrelated. So yes I can ascribe what happens elsewhere to Australia – otherwise there would not have been one arrest for Islamic terrorism in Australia (not that I’m overly bothered about that aspect, so far). The degree of negativity to muslims is primarily generated as a result of the middles east turmoil.
In fact without the middle east problems, I’d reckon the feminist movement would be the loudest group against the religion – the great shame and hypocrisy of feminists is that they are not (not very often anyway).
Politically we here all tar all LNP ministers with the same “they are dangerous” brush , when history will actually show they are not really that dangerous over a long period of time. Why? Well only because they were opposed.
If the LNP are considered dangerous (and yes I do think the current mob are), then it is for the same reason that I apply in relation to muslims – projection into the future. A slow decent into stupidity as we have seen in relation to the population succumbing to neo-con idealogy falsely presented as being for their benefit. I’ve had enough of religious stupidity – we have enough problems with the neo-cons and the Morrison types without another powerful religion interfering and making progressive change even harder.
[All they are doing are taking the jobs from English people!]
I have a theory that excessive immigration is making Australians apathetic. When you can get immigrants to do the jobs you don’t want to do, then the relative status of those jobs goes downhill. Australians born here have greater expectations and when they find these expectations cannot be filled then they become apathetic in the lesser work they are forced to do for an income – particularly when companies will not employ people without degrees for jobs where no degree is any form of necessity.
Also involved in this apathy is what excessive immigration does to communities. I find it dissolves community spirit. Suburbs with high immigrant populations no longer feel like “home”. Once we used to know our neighbours, but now many will only interact to achieve things if kids cause the interaction.
I’ve no idea at all if this theory is realistic or if the degree of apathy is due to other factors such as for example the attention selfishness that swimming in electronic devices create or the downside of wealth generally.
I find the question to be of vital importance, as if it is not true then perhaps quantity growth, not sustainability, really is a necessary aspect of a successful group. That being the case we are doomed as capitalism will always trump over individuals – we will keep expanding until there is no environmental beauty left.
I started to form this view about apathy after I read this Theodore Dalrymple article:
Why Britain (and Europe) depends on migrants
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/why-britain-and-europe-depends-on-migrants/
“In Britain, we have an additional problem, greater than that of any of our neighbours. With the exception of family hotels, for example, all good hotels in Britain employ exclusively foreign labour. If you want to go to a really bad large hotel in Britain, find one in which the staff are British. It is then guaranteed to be ill-kept, with slovenly service, quite possibly not very clean, with atrocious food, grubby staff, inattention to detail and so forth. Even a foreign telephonist is likely to be better, and to speak better English, than an English telephonist. If you want a good or even only a decent hotel, you must find one in which all the staff are foreign. And this is so whatever the unemployment rate, high or low: it has nothing to do with the unemployment rate”
With Brexit Cameron has to go but unfortunately some Labour MPS are calling for the head of Jeremy Corbyn as well and his future doesn’t look rosey
jimhaz So what do you want all the hotel;s motels and travel destinations staffed by 457 workers?
[So what do you want all the hotel;s motels and travel destinations staffed by 457 workers]
No I want immigration to by cut over 5 years to about 50k maximum and no 457 visas whatsoever other than for jobs over 150k. Holiday based working visas up to 6 months are OK.
Jimhaz that was based on your comment ‘If you want a good or even only a decent hotel, you must find one in which all the staff are foreign’.
🙂 It was an extract from Theodore Dalrymple article. Watch out for quote marks.
I included it to indicate that the UK, also with high immigration, has the same problem of apathy to low status jobs in non-migrant residents.
It just led me to think about why that might be so.
“If these people come to this country to live then it’s up to them to dress as Australians do. Headscarf is one thing but the full body garb is not on!”
Fed Up, I’d much rather look at a Muslim woman’s state of dress than a muffin top in a crop top and bicycle shorts. If we have to respect the rights of the latter, then we should be respecting the rights of the former too.
“It’s nothing to do with hate! It’s logical common sense to be wary of these people! Why is it that all you bleeding hearts out there think that these Muslims are all so peace loving and righteous when these people are causing havoc and mayhem around the world?”
Fed Up, Muslims have been in this country since the mid 1800s. Total beheadings = 0.
OTOH, an average of two women per week are being murdered in this country as a result of domestic violence. Use your brain if you’ve got one.
“I really don’t have much view on Asylum policy but I do wonder why Muslims chose Australia when they have every opportunity to go to a country that is Muslim.”
@nurses1968
Do they? The Kurds in Syria are officially stateless. Turkey will take them and they have to remain in refugee camps. No one else will take them without a passport, which they haven’t got because they are stateless.
In his autobiography “Walking Free”, Dr Mujen Al Muderis, an Iraqi asylum seeker now settled in Australia, told of his extremely limited opportunities when he escaped from Iraq because very few places would accept Iraqis, and because he is a doctor, he was officially forbidden to leave Iraq. He had to pay someone to remove his name off the forbidden list at the border checkpoint for a few hours. When he got to Jordan there were undercover Iraqi agents trying to catch people like him and send them back to Iraq.
Asylum seekers don’t go to countries that are not signatories to the Refugee Convention because those countries will not accept them.
There are 1.7 Billion Muslims .According to the Pew Research Center in 2010, there were 50 Muslim-majority countries.
If this religion is all peace love and kumbaya as we are expected to accept, you would think these predominantly Muslim countries would take them in and they could practice Sharia Law till there hearts content
Not all Muslim communities practice Sharia Law. In India, most Muslim women do not cover their heads. Just as there is great variety amongst Christians, so too there is variety amongst Muslims.
Reza Aslan’s rebuttal of Bill Maher’s generalised and incorrect view of Muslims.
Jimhaz, this is a burqa. http://imgur.com/y0ybCxw Do you really expect us to believe that you see this in Sydney all the time?
Athena, can I suggest you back off very, very slowly but don’t take your eye off …
As I said above: The ignorance on display is astounding . Yet we worry whether Kids can spell or not.
The ‘education’ we fail to ‘develop’ is appalling.
One wonders whether any of the above have ever left these shores.