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People have been coming to Australia in boats for tens of thousands of years. Up until the last twenty years, there has been no problem about this. Which, in itself is a problem. Not that people should not be allowed to come to Australia by ship. The fact that some short while ago, navigating to Australia suddenly became a selective process IS both a trivial and a terrible problem – simultaneously.
OK for some. Apparently not OK for others.
Do you remember when the Australian navy dispatched a crew of brave sailors to the dangers of the Southern Ocean – to save a lone sailor. Who was participating in an around-the-world race. A bloody race ! For fun and for fame and money. A bloody race. Apparently it cost the Australian taxpayers several million dollars to fund the rescue. Not the once did they perform the feat. If memory serves me correctly, we also footed the bill and risked lives in rescuing the French woman Isabelle Autissier – 1,700 km south of Adelaide in 1995. Footnote: This woman was also saved when she had another go at upside down sailing 3,100 km west of Cape Horn in 1998. That time she was saved by a fellow competitor.
But rescuing sailors and others in trouble in Australian and international waters is both morally correct and what we are obliged to do under international maritime law.
So, it’s clearly OK for Australia to pick and choose who may come and how we treat them.
I would like to think that nearly everyone who makes the life and death trip to Australia – is welcome – especially in circumstances where this trip is no game. When people are fleeing certain persecution and death in their home countries, they are particularly welcome.
In fact we had a great track record welcoming such people to Australia – fleeing the hellish destruction of Europe in the Second World War, the civil War in Lebanon, the Vietnam War, the junta in Chile, famine AND war in Africa, War in Sri Lanka, War in the Middle East, War in Afghanistan. Over and over and over.
John Howard said WE will decide who can come and under what circumstances. He meant, “ONLY white people of whom I approve” can come. The rest, we’ll fuck around like they count for nothing. Disgraceful.
And his heir apparent has taken up the mantra. WE will stop the boats. We. That’s you, Tony and your mates. Not WE, but YOU ! Arsehole.
After the Second World War, Australia was particularly accommodating to one class of economic refugee. These were our Ten Pound Poms – former Prisoners of a devastated Mother England who paid the princely sum of ten quid as their contribution to the Australian government’s cost of shipping their sorry (but none-the-less welcome) arses out from Blighty in (as Gez has said) rather comfortable cruise ships.
As opposed to paying tens of thousands of dollars or kilos of gold to the (now deemed as the lowest life form) people smugglers for the dubious privilege of setting to sea in a massively overloaded fishing boat of dubious provenance with gunwales less than a foot above the drink – for the privilege of facing indefinite detention and possible deportation back to the disaster from which these refugees fled.
Now I think it’s reasonable to imagine that a former refugee might be quite sympathetic towards current refugees. Say someone whose family had fled a ravaged England after the Second World War. But not one particular chap whose family sailed on the SS Oronsay in 1960.
Who is that chap ? Non other than our Leader of the Opposition. Dr No. One Tony Abbott – who has raised the bar on hypocrisy to an unimaginable height.
Still, Tony probably has a point. When he arrived it was a Terra Nullius crying out for immigrants of all kinds. But these days, after sixty years or so of generous immigration – Gordon O’Donnell, we even used to provide English classes back then – lifeboat Australia is suddenly discovered to be chockers. Bulging at the seams, we have no other choice but to take a hard line and protect our borders from these almost piratical queue jumping scoundrels. The 3% who attempt to sail in as opposed to the 97% who fly in and overstay their visas.
So, for saving us from more of his type, we should respond in kind and send Tony back to a post Thatcherite England – a place where he is bound to find a nation willing to embrace his values, speak his language and provide a climate as bleak as his spirit – or apparent lack thereof.
Tony Out NOW !
Grant Ennew said:
send abbott out on a leaky boat bound for nowhere..see how quick he likes it…
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silver price said:
We carry on out there, a British community in the South Seas, and we regard ourselves as the trustees of the British way of life in a part of the world where it is the most significance to the British Commonwealth, and the British nation, and the British Empire – call it what you will – that in this land in the Antipodes a people and territory corresponding in outlook and race to the Motherland itself.
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Therese Trouserzoff said:
Hi Ho, Silver. Sorry for the delay – your comments seem to keep falling into our spam trap. If you have another more simple email address please try that. Your comments are welcome at the Pig’s Arms.
Cheers, Emm.
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Hung One On said:
Sorry but I came here via vagina 🙂 However I couldn’t care less about your background. s long you are okay than that is okay.
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Big M said:
Although some bypass the vagina!
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Hung One On said:
Mark, ewe is a nurse, knead eye say any more 🙂
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helvityni said:
Did anyone watch Wallander last night,it dealt with these same issues…
I love this show and have read most of Henning Mankels books’ , on which these series are based….Kenneth Branagh is a wonderful actor, but he does not look like my favourite Swedish crime writer.. .:)
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Big M said:
Yes, I too have grown to love Wallender. I think it’s an interesting collaboration between Swedish TV and the BBC, putting British actors in most of the speaking roles. great for us monolinguists!
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Hung One On said:
Wallender is full of gay male nurses. Oops, sorry, Newcastle Paediatric Wing I think. Christ, did you know how many times it took me to spell paediatric?
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Big M said:
Almost as difficult as ‘bariatric’.
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algernon said:
Just one point here Tony Abbott was born in England of Australian parents, he was wasn’t a 10 pound pom.
I have had little time fro the 10 pound tourists and their sprogs. Having a southern European surname the wog taunt was used regularly, daily and almost exclusively by them. Bugger the fact that my family had been in this country since the early 1800’s and my mothers side was predominaltey English-Irish. One thing that used to amaze me was that they nearly always refused to become Australain citizens, British is best for them. I forget how many of them I’v heard of being stuck in some other country because they forgot to get their permanent residency renewed before they left. Oh anf their fathers, Fitters and Turners thinking they were professional Engineers!
Not all of them of course, I have some very good friends who started as 10 pound poms.
I just wonder if some are actually waking up to Adolf Turd, Couldnt tell SBY what he was oing to do when elected like a bully he can sprout this bile to the press and on tele but not to SBY’s face. And Indonesia won’t tolerate it either. He gets away with this bile because people don’t realise that Indonesia has a population of 240 million, Greater Jakarta would absorb the Australian population with room to spare, its the worlds third largest democracy as well as the worlds largest Muslim nation.
I just don’t understand what the fuss is about. Boat people numbers are insignificant comared to those who do the same thing and arrive by air. Must be the dark skin and the different dress I suppose.
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Hung One On said:
Don’t worry Algy. I meet a 10 pound pom the other day and offered him 50 p to go back to England. I made 9 pound 50 on the deal. 🙂
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algernon said:
I’d offer them 2/6! 🙂
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Soozka said:
Actually, Tony’s father was English. His mother was Australian-born. However, the whole family came out on the ten pound Pom plan – and this was not available to Australian citizens returning to Australia. So, somehow or other, his mother was not seen as an Australian citizen at the time she and her English husband and her English son came here. So she certainly did not tell the ten pound Pom providers that she was Australian. Tony himself only took out Australian citizenship in his adult life to be able to take up a Rhodes Scholarship available only to Australian citizens.
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Therese Trouserzoff said:
Hi Soozka.
Thank you for your comment. This is a fairly well-aged blog at the Pig’s Arms, and the commenting has pretty much died off. Please feel free to comment again. Regards, Emmjay.
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Venise Alstergren said:
It’s a common theme among immigrants to resent the more recent arrivals. Why it is so is beyond me. The hatred isn’t confined to boat people-no matter what the Scott Morrisons and Tony Abbotts of this world say. Whether it’s another manifestation of the “I’m right so bugger you mate” sort of thinking, or simply the old “White is right” colonial attitude I cannot tell. But whatever it is it disgusts me.
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Hung One On said:
Venise, look well said. I think a lot of the problem is spin followed by the fact that new arrivals simply look like new arrivals. However in my country town once the new arrivals learn football then they become locals.
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helvityni said:
Nice to see you Venice, I always enjoy your posts, please visit PA more often…
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venisealstergren said:
Why, thank you. The single most inhibiting factor for me is that I’m a two-fingered typist. Er, cough…I mean, I have ten fingers, only two of which can type.
However, I’ll attempt to make them fast forward.
Cheers
Venise
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Big M said:
Ditto, and welcome!
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Big M said:
I’m amazed at good Aussies who don’t want ‘their’ tax dollars spent providing asylum seekers, refugees, or, worse, f^&*in’ queue jumpers, with a few bob for food and shelter. I often point out that they are, in fact refugees, people seeking refuge, so deserve just a little bit of what this vast, red, big brown land has in abundance.
We have a number of Sudanese in the Hunter valley. Mostly they do what people do, go to work, kids play, try to get a decent house, etc. They are the group currently being extorted by unscrupulous landlords, who assume that any shithole would be better than the dirt floor huts they were used to in Africa! Recently the mayor of Tamworth sent a strongly worded letter to the immigration department asking them to stop sending Sudanese to that town, as they were over-run.
How many constitutes being over-run? Just two families!
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Hung One On said:
Get them to play football. Works here in red neck town, oops, Adelaide.
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vivienne29 said:
The old Bonegilla migrant hostel is in my area. A friend of ours (a historian) has written about them in detail. Many actually stayed in this area. Some of been great friends of ours.
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gerard oosterman said:
Bonegilla is a treasure trove for historians.
Just have a look at some of these articles of riots etc.
Bonegilla Race riots remembered;
If you thought that refugees are presently roughly dealt with, it might be worthwhile taking a peek back into history.
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=27185
Fifty years ago there was one hell of a riot which was still nothing compared with an earlier one of 1951 when the army was called in. Week-en leave was cancelled for several hundred army personnel.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/23185723
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vivienne29 said:
Yes, the food was shit and the ‘housing’ was sparse and freezing. But there are a lot of good stories being told. Look up Bruce Pennay and go to the bonegilla.org.au for more info.
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vivienne29 said:
Tony Abbott was born in London in 1957, so maybe the ship sailed in 1961, not 1951. Other than that I agree with all you say here. It is all nothing short of disgraceful. Reading the blogs about the asylum seekers and the disgusting comments they attract – people just repeating Abbott’s slogans and all the ill informed comments on migration. For shit’s sake, we have been taking in between 100,000 and 400,000 a year – migrants from not just the UK, but thousands from China, India, South Africa etc. I just don’t get it. In 1957 I came home on a ship (after a family holiday in Europe) full of 10 pound poms. It was a pretty awful trip home – in the dining room they all ate like there was no tomorrow and their kids cheated on games in the playroom. But we welcomed them, month in and year out and many never took out citizenhip either, still talk about ‘ome. But I know one couple who say regularly that leaving England was the best thing they ever did.
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helvityni said:
What about Mirabella, Abetz…aren’t they of foreign background and anti-asylum seekers..
The nice politician who was also foreigner, was of course the Greek bloke Geourgiou (?)…
Someone told me that Nelson Tuckey had Croatian background ,but I’m not sure…
What about Bernardi, Italian, and anti immigration..
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vivienne29 said:
Exactly so Helvi.
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helvityni said:
Viv, that should flush VL out 🙂 I hope he does.
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gerard oosterman said:
Yes, that’s right. Many a migrant seems to have taken the view that someone that did not come through official channels (as they might have) somehow are not entitled to be given refuge. I suppose in order to assimilate they go for the largest group. It is the same with copying the Aussie accent; notice that some of the migrants in order to be accepted have adopted a kind of Aussie slang even stronger than those that were born here. It seems perhaps uncharitable for me to point this out, but, it is perhaps also human nature to become one with the masses and not stand out too much. Assimilation is sometimes mixed up with melting away and become unnoticeable…
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Elisabeth said:
In this whole fantasy of so-called stopping the boats, I also think of Australia’s convict beginnings. Even the indigenous people, whom our ancestors invaded seem to have been more welcoming, until they were attacked. My parents were migrants who came following WW2, grateful for the chance to share this space. Yet I’m often shocked to find that there are people with names that suggest they or their parents or grandparents clearly came from elsewhere who oppose sharing the space with asylum seekers. Tony Abbott is a clear example. Great post .
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Therese Trouserzoff said:
Elisabeth, thank you for the comments. I am also mindful that there have been a lot of indigenous Australians who most likely came here by boat too. I’m no expert – maybe Warrigal can shed some light on this, but I’m doubtful that all aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders walked over prehistoric land bridges.
Sadly, I have a relative who also came here as a post WWII immigrant from Europe – and he’s expressed unhappiness about refugees coming after him from Asia and the Middle East. Amazing, but not very nourishing.
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helvityni said:
Elisabeth, I have your blog listed in my favourites and I always read you very thoughtful posts.
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helvityni said:
your
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Elisabeth said:
That’s lovely Helvi. I’m so pleased. I often feel timid around here, but maybe I should get more courageous.
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Big M said:
Be bold Elisabeth, some of us are full of bluster, some are just full of Trotters’ Ale. This calls for Pink Drinks all round!
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Elisabeth said:
Thanks for the encouragement, Big M. I’ll try.
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Hung One On said:
Three cheers for Elizabeth
Hip pip
Hip pip
Hip pip hooray
Sorry my teeth just feel out 🙂
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