The Dump

The Dump is:
For posting comments that don’t get up at the Drum, and for having a pleasant, mirthful or enlightening off-topic discussion.
It’s not for personal abuse of other commenters.
Please do that somewhere else if you must.
Play nicely or piss off.
However, why doesn’t a poster add a link for us to read and comment on here, much quicker. Maybe we can do a bit more bagging here, not that I speak for the moderators, yet.

NB: Being tiresome and boring, racist, sexist or just plain creepy is not playing nicely.

give a crap

———-

The Pig’s Arms exists because a dozen or so years ago our other favourite playpen – the ABC’s Unleashed blogsphere started to go off.  Like a sack of prawn heads  in the sun.  Something had to be done.

Moderation was taking forever.  Comments seemed to be rejected randomly – outrageous ones appeared and reasoned ones were pinged.   When they released the Drum / Unleashed ….. things actually got worse !

So many pieces from professional writers appear with no obvious merit.  And the moderation has become, to put it frankly, appalling.

As a former contributor and a commenter, I was deeply disappointed at the plummeting quality from our pre-eminent media empire.  And I resented so many challenging or dare I say, witty or funny posts in which we’ve invested seconds of our precious time – getting the chop.

So here, for all our benefit – is an open slather blog.  Copy and paste your best rejected comments here for posterity.  Does not matter whether you’re posting on the Guardian, First Dog on the Moon or wherever else.

And sprinkle pointers to the Pig’s Arms amongst your comments.  Let’s try to rescue some of the old faithful.

Cheers,

Emm.

15242 thoughts on “The Dump”

  1. vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

    Drum mods loafing again. Nothing gone up for over 2 hours. Took a long time for anything to go up after Verrender’s piece first appeared. What are the buggers doing?

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  2. helvityni's avatar helvityni said:

    Early intervention saves money (just give it time)
    By Eamon Waterford

    This excellent article popped up on the Drum late in the afternoon. There was only one comment up when I noticed it. Just now I saw it got up to fourteen before it was closed.
    Why doesn’t ABC put these kind of important articles up earlier on in the day, so they’d the attention they need.
    Now it’s all political Left/Right fighting, which is fine but it’s a pity they have not anyone writing about Arts and social issues like they used to. No more humorous articles anymore either…Oh, well, Mungo’s stories still have funny undertones.

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    • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

      I’ve said the same before. Friday’s late articles are just so rude to the author as well.

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      • helvityni's avatar helvityni said:

        I hardly go there anymore, I think they need a new editor.
        LOL, I have said that many times before, I’m turning into a Dump/a Dumper…

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        • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

          I mentioned the Friday farce to Chip Rolley and he never replied to my exact point.

          Like

        • helvityni's avatar helvityni said:

          Often some custard or other is allowed hog the thread, ten posts up to someone’s lousy one…Yours are always sensible and without malice, so they ought to get up.
          At times I just read my favourite bloggers’ replies and leave..

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        • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

          Chip wrote in one email this: “Agree we should cut back on the long comments (but you should be aware we have had complaints saying 500 words is not enough…) and there are a lot of other anomalies in moderation. Some moderators are stricter than others and it’s often hard to know when to cut short unproductive threads. We want to be fair but often they degenerate to sniping before we realise it (and then you need to be fair to the people defending themselves. Etc…) ”
          Trouble is Helvi – he is the boss of this lot and he should sort it out better. The sniping on the Drum can go on for hours before they “realise” it !!! I’ve stopped commenting early (when no comments have appeared but they might be in the pipelines) because those never get up. Crazy isn’t it. Sometimes half the comments which go up are just a snipe and a stupid diversion.

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        • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

          When I ponder on the Drum and the mods I wonder …. perhaps there is only one moderator at a time – take it turns etc. Make sense.

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        • Mark's avatar Hung One On said:

          Should be open weekends

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        • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

          In another exchange I had with Chip he said this: “We have to shut comments down on Friday afternoon as we cannot afford to moderate on weekends. At this point the only other option for
          Friday afternoon articles is to not open them for comments at all. We cannot leave them open without moderator and cannot afford weekend moderation.
          We are trying for a better way with these matters. If we cannot find one we might need to close down comments entirely. Which I think would be a shame.”

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        • Mark's avatar Hung One On said:

          Not tough like us nurses

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    • I’d written quite a long response to this piece, only to find the comments closed as I posted my response…gggrrrr!

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      • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

        That’s happened to me about 10 times. Open and while I type a paragraph, hit post comment – it’s closed. WTF.

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        • Has happened to me before, leaving a debate unfinished. I had forgotten it was late Friday evening at home, when posting on the early intervention story.

          There is a service run by the uni, here, called Families First, who provide parenting education, as well as getting older mums with grown up kids to mentor new, often single, mums. They also get unemployed dads and grand dads to go to their own kids’ school to help with games at lunchtime. It has the flow on effect of these parents realising just how difficult their own kidscan be, so start to develope, and teach respect for adults.

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  3. sea monster's avatar sea monster said:

    Drum mods didn’t like me mentioning reports of Joe Bullock’s assault conviction. They were happy for me to correct custard’s lie. Bullock said unions were a stabilising influence on Labor not conservatives as custard claimed. Custard took extreme liberty with the quote. He knew what he was doing.

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  4. sea monster's avatar sea monster said:

    Graeme Bird’s Mirror… Anyone want to fess up?

    Do we actually think Birdy is present at The Drum? What’s his current moniker?

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  5. vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

    Somebody got it in for me I think. No posts getting up – yesterday. Don’t know if I can be bothered at the mo.

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  6. Emmjay has reinstated the dot with a clear plea for restraints and using moderate inoffensive language. I find the statement below from Jayell to be offensive .I know his stance on vulnerable boatpeople but he has no right to offend those that think differently. The remark is gratingly offensive even if they were not asylum seekers.
    Jayell is either lacking in any claim to sensitivity or just hell-bent on continuing his trolling and wrecking of this blog.

    Jayell quote: “You can go back to The ABC and see if they are filming up asylum seeker’s kimonos, or interviewing… “

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    • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

      Ignore it Gerard. He probably didn’t read the guide on the Dot.

      Like

      • It was a criticism of the ABC, Vivienne.

        There is no secret that their bias has been under attack.

        I don’t watch there news for a different reason though. I juggled news programmes (including Chs 7,9 & 10) when I first came to live here and I decided that The ABC was too parochial, compared to my general knowledge*. I went for SBS and have been addicted ever since.
        *I know that sounds big-headed, however I don’t mean it too. I am just being truthful.

        Their idea of breaking news, goes something like this, “So& so, have refused to confirm or deny something.

        I’m afraid it just isn’t up to that standard that I need to stimulate me.

        I will say what I like about our border protection policy, without expecting to be censored. However I wll not continually put up links day after day after day about the same subject, when we are such a small community. It’s incredibly bad mannered and boring.

        If I want to do that I will open my own Pub. Free beer will fill up the public bar in OZ

        ..

        Now did I tell you that apart from restaurants, I owned two nightclubs in London??

        I’m off for a walk, so if you reply, I will talk later.

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        • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

          The ABC does more news in the English language while the SBS does less but has lots of news in various languages from around the world hence criticism concentrates on the ABC and the bulk of it comes straight from the Liberal Party (one way or another) and the accusations of bias are unfounded. The Liberals will only be happy when the ABC works as its propaganda arm. For a person who admits to rarely watching the ABC you really ought to give it a long rest.

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        • sea monster's avatar sea monster said:

          There’s a theory that when Howard was placing pressure on SBS and the ABC over ‘bias’ that SBS rolled over. The ABC apparently toughed it out and maintained neutrality. I wouldn’t know. Never watch SBS news.

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        • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

          Whose theory? Never heard it. SBS hasn’t changed. The thing they rolled over on was having advertising.

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        • sea monster's avatar sea monster said:

          Cant recall. Maybe it was Media Watch. Maybe it was the former presenter who writes about legal matters in The Herald now.

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      • It doesn’t mention looking up kimonos?

        My comment was about The ABC.

        I see now that hph can put up long boring jokes that should be in The Comma, yet I can’t even talk to Googlehoover?

        Just as The Orwell YouTube that I put up.

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  7. Hung One On's avatar Hung One On said:

    I find that smoked salmon goes well with lemon juice and alioli

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  8. Watching Rockwizz last night I got goose bumps at the Jimi Hendrix intro – during the guessing part.

    It’s just one of those distinguished, fabulous moments on his geeeetarrr.

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  9. Of course people that I know, don’t consider it, “One of the most interesting things”.

    They have, ‘other’, more interesting things: like watching grass grow and going to the dentist.

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  10. Loo Philosopher :

    01 Apr 2014 1:41:16pm

    Wloo “He wrote about humanitarianism, culture too.”

    Did he write about humanitarianism & culture before or after Charles Dickens wrote his own novels?

    …………
    The level of intellect that has access to a keyboard these days is disgracefully inadequate.

    I think that we all know who wrote this though. A fken dimwit of the highest order.

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  11. . is back.

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  12. Hung One On's avatar Hung One On said:

    One of the most interesting things I have discovered at the Drum recently is that Chris Berg seems to write headlines that go against Tony Abbott but then as you read through the article he then seems to back Abbott up, interesting.

    Like

  13. Wow, that’s one way to invade; increase the pensions.
    NOW, if we wanted to rake over java, I guess thatwe could do the same.

    The average monthly pension in Russia in 2013 was about 10,000 rubles, according to the RIA state news agency, or $A300 at the current exchange rate. In comparison, the average pension in Ukraine last December was $A172. Raising retirement benefits on the peninsula is sure to prove popular, though its cost compared with the size of Russia’s budget is only modest. About a third of Crimea’s 2 million people are retirees. Russia, excluding the newly annexed region, has a population of 143 million. At a recent cabinet meeting, Mr Medvedev said increasing pensions to Russian levels would cost about $A1.08 billion this year.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/russia-nearly-doubles-pensions-in-crimea-20140401-zqp9l.html#ixzz2xarbnOXG

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    • Thanks for bring that up Panna.

      You have livened up the blog.

      Like

    • I’ll buy into it, JL.
      Firstly, the Cold War is OVER. Hello 21st century.
      Control of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine is about power/money/ego. Surprise, surprise. On both sides. The sides being USA/EU vs Russia. Land, gas, sphere of influence.
      On the Russian side it’s ALSO about military/political control near their own border. Not so for the USA OR the EU.
      So ultimately I think the Russians will prevail as for them this is gut level military security enemy at the door stuff. Napoleon, Hitler level stuff.
      Obama stands to gain enormously in terms of what he can achieve politically during his Presidency if he is seen to beat Russia, and lose enormously if he’s seen to do nothing.
      Both sides OF COURSE are going to court the Ukrainians with financial incentives.

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      • Russia could also lose out supplying resources.

        Don’t forget that Iran, is on the verge of capitulating and could therefore supply oil to The EU.

        Already the sanctions against Russia have seen their credit rating downgraded (they need Swanee) and visa transactions frozen.

        it’s a weird old world.

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        • Yep, it’s a balancing act. The Crimea is of major military/strategic importance. Eastern Ukraine is a buffer on their border. They’ll be prepared to take a heavy economic loss to maintain influence/power in both areas but the spectre of sanctions makes it far cheaper to maintain power/influence with money and not-so-subtle-but-unofficial threats than by direct military confrontation.
          It seems unlikely they’ll let the Crimea go. I think they’ll control it similar to the way Britain kept control of Northern Ireland.

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        • The real political battle is over Eastern Ukraine. Crimea’s all over bar the posturing.

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        • Yeas, Robert gates, picked it right at the beginning.

          It was a difficult one though. Putin went fast and we didn’t want to buy into a war.

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        • I see that Dad’s army has even gone to the eastern border.

          There was an old gent in fatigues, with a home made petrol bomb.

          People do anything to protect their patch.

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        • Of course they had Kings, Princesses and Dukes, in days gone by. Even Scandinavians infiltrated.

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        • Yup, the Vikings (Varengians) came down The Volga.

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        • Some of my friends; the ones who don’t like polishing doorknobs or watching grass grow, discussed this with me a few days ago.

          But, but, but, I protested, “what about the way the Australians hate poms?”

          What the, they chortled, are you completely and utterly bonkers?

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        • I sort of mumbled, “somebody mentioned it”.

          They said don’t be a fuken cretin, or you’ll get a Glaswegian kiss.

          So, I shut up.

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        • Right, I’m off.

          You can go back to The ABC and see if they are filming up asylum seeker’s kimonos, or interviewing fireman; rescuing cats from trees

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  14. These days many people measure their prestige and social standing not just by their real-world influence, but their online one too.

    That’s part of this story: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25404927

    I’ve précised the story – as per Vivienne’s request.

    I was thinking that any one with a blog or a twitter account could do it, to bolster their persona.

    We could invent a whole heap of characters for The PA. We could also make noises and rattle glasses to make it sound busy (oops, I mistyped, busty)…We have a jukebox – courtesy of Algy, so we could fake the sound of a commercial glass washer and fake the smell of on of Thomo’s stews?

    Any ideas?

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  15. You are right, Gerard. The Redhead was brilliant tonight.

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  16. What a corker of a Q&A. The Egyptian girl put the finger right on the issue of refugees. We still resent brown people. The whole issue is one of racism. If the boats had English or Vikings or Australians on them we would welcome them with open hearts. We would have a ferry service between Indonesia and Australia.

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    • Oh yeah, but first we would hide our sheep 🙂

      At QandA tonight: Spot the Bigot.
      Did you spot the bigot?
      I did.

      Like

    • Hi gerad, yes I watched Q&A. the first time for a long time. it was very interesting.

      I hope you don’t mind, but I just sneaked over to your blog; first time for a number of years.

      I expected to see a variety of comments about The Australian Governments asylum seeker policy; tonight’s Q& A, Arnold Morrison, ect, ect…The sort of thing that you rave about here.

      Plus this :gerard oosterman says:
      March 31, 2014 at 11:02 am
      The face of our compassionate government. This is from the ABC!
      http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-31/government-dumps-free-immigration-advice-service-for-asylum-seek/5355570.
      .
      Can you imagine my surprise to see that you weren’t discussing it in your own vehicle?

      I was dumbfounded? Surely The Oosterman Blog would be the ideal place to champion your cause? Well causes I suppose.
      It’s what I would do!
      Do you only bring this subject up HERE – daily – because your own members aren’t interested? Or is there another reason?
      I found it most peculiar.

      Anyway best of luck with your blog. If it were mine, it would be a beacon of my beliefs…In here, I would try to be interesting..ha ha.

      Like

    • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

      Mona Mona. It was indeed excellent.

      Like

      • My parents lived in Egypt for a while. My father was there as an aid worker in foreign assistance.

        They have a strange misogynist culture. My Mum and sister were scared to walk alone, even in the main streets.

        Anyways off to the botanical garden and then cut the lawns.

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        • No reply there Jules.

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        • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

          Mona expanded on the treatment of women during ABC radio Conversation Hour this morning. It was very illuminating. Some examples were horrifying, including her own. She is a brilliant speaker – easy to listen to, doesn’t waste words, everything flows.

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  17. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/30/anne-hidalgo-socialist-first-paris-mayor-front-national?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

    Bloody noise for hollandaise sauce, with 140 towns turning away from The Bozo (thatnks hung – a good word).

    The performance of The Left. is as regular as phases of the moon Ѿ Ѿ

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  18. Hung One On's avatar Hung One On said:

    “Dot goes missing” Thanks Julian

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  19. Yet another storm was predicted for this Sunday. Over the last week or so we kept emptying flower pots that had filled up with water. I like rain, especially if it pelts down and makes a roar on the iron roof. I feel things are on the move with weather showing of its dominance over what we are doing. Let’s hope weather will continue to do so and that mankind will fail in changing its power.

    In the morning I just had the urge to make a curry. I bought stewing steak and snow peas.

    Le ” Week-end.”

    Like

    • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

      We have the same cooking pots ! I have three matching saucepans too. The biggest oval pot and a smaller one. Bought one pot for daughter as she said curry (and spag bol) didn’t taste the same (or right) when not cooked in Le Creuset. The big fry pan gets a working out with spicy prawns and beef tapas in particular. Here is a tip for your next beef curry Gerard. Try using oyster blade steak.

      Like

      • Hung One On's avatar Hung One On said:

        Viv, does oyster blade steak need long slow cooking?

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        • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

          No. It has a centre piece which is a bit gristly but with cooking it melts. Cooks much the same as lamb. I use it for a beef and veg stew but it is nothing like any stewing steak. You can in fact use it as a steak steak, in a beef kebab, curries. Not seen often but your butcher will know it. I get it in a chunk and use as required. In other words it is tender but it is different. Well worth trying for anyone who likes a change and you don’t have to cook it for ages.

          Like

      • Yes I’ll try the oyster steak next. I also used to get gravy beef which had the gristly bits. I loved the fat in it. We are having the remnants of yesterday’s curry in about an hours time and are busy working up an appetite with a beer right now.
        We had a monster storm yesterday and right now summer is back -hot and steamy-.

        Like

  20. Breakfast in Bed:
    31 Mar 2014 7:48:57am

    Sell everything off, which is the LNP way….and then what?
    Of all the assets privatised, whilst reaping a short-term money windfall for the government concerned, I cannot for the life of me think of one example where a benefit for the consumer has ensued. Public transport, banking, utilities and telecommunications……take your pick, please illustrate how these services are now improved.
    Reply Alert moderator

    the yank:
    31 Mar 2014 8:10:17am

    Agree. We should follow the example of North Korea and leave all assets in government hands.
    Reply Alert moderator

    the yank:
    31 Mar 2014 10:57:16am

    Someone is stepping on my name.
    Have a backbone and use your own.
    Reply Alert moderator
    …………..

    My reply to real yank:
    “The (real) Yank, that some is a deek crapp. Craps don’t have back bones.”
    Whoosh…Into the bin. The smudge knows himself 🙂

    Like

    • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

      I know Voice says she prefers just the link but I’d prefer a brief into as to what it is about, specifically i.e. not world/europe.

      Like

      • Yeah, but Vivienne, Voice never said anything at all about just the link. You’re probably thinking of when I said early this morning I think people should use links instead of repeatedly copying and pasting large chunks of web pages into the Pigs Arms.
        For the record, I also prefer an intro.

        Like

    • Well, if they have $20,000, to travel and live in Indonesia and $30,000 to give to smugglers, we are better off saving the taxpayers money to spend on Africans, from camps where families are starving.

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      • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

        Nup – they cut foreign aid.

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        • Sorry Viv, I am not sure what you mean. Can you supply the link, please 😉 ?

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        • vivienne29's avatar vivienne29 said:

          If you don’t read or watch ABC or most of the newspapers which cover Australian stuff then you will miss a lot of meaning. Mr Abbott and Ms Bishop announced some half a billion cut in foreign aid – we don’t know where the cuts are going but most of the aid workers reckoned the move was very bad and would probably affect money which goes into various parts of Africa. It was months ago. You can yahoo or google it yourself. It’s common knowledge.

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        • You missed my meaning really… my fault. What I meant is that now that there are no peoples, risking their lives with smugglers, we will be able to take more placements from people living in penury. And of course we won’t have to waste taxpayers money – excepting on a flight from Africa to Australia.

          Don’t forget there are millions of them already qualified by The UN and myraid aid agencies. they were denied the chance earlier because the Kamps and courts were clogged and Australia has a quota.

          If you saw Jenny Brocki the other night, you will have seen how migrants emphasised the importance of assimilation. Something that is obvious of course, yet is often not discussed. It (integration) is vital for the migrants and vital for existing communities, not to mention the health care that migrants need, language barriers and accommodation.

          You and I are not in a position to know whether foreign aid should be a trillion, or a billion. So let’s stop pretending that we do. I agreed with whatever last term’s government decided upon and I’ll agree with this one. I don’t have access to all the books and figures.

          I don’t see any merit discussing this further.

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        • Hung One On's avatar Hung One On said:

          Bozo says ” I don’t see any merit discussing this further.” So everyone, be quiet and do as you are told

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