Oceania The Woomera Detention Centre crisis. Your opinion?

Another thing I'm wondering about the tax payers footing the bill for helping the Afghanis go home (which I'm all for) is, are the refugees from only the last 4 or 5 months elegible, or will it go all the way back to when the Taliban took power, 4 or 5 years back?

 

Wedge3210: I agree I'm in no position to accuse you of hating anyone. That is why I apologised for it, if you read my previous posts.

Likewise you are in no position to accuse me of calling you a racist when I didn't do so. You have kindly retracted your statement. However, it would be nice for you to offer an apology in return just as I did

In answer to your most recent question, I don't know if it will apply to all Afghani asylum seekers or only recent ones (it's actually in clear violation of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Regugees and the 1967 Protocol to force repatriation upon *accepted* refugees even in the instance of cessation of hostilities within that country. There are complex reasons behind it which I can go into if you like, or you can download the full text of the convention at the link below.)
UNHCR - Protecting Refugees

And in recent interviews with Philip Ruddock and John Howard, each contradicting what the other last said, it is clear the government is unsure of this itself.

But speaking of money, it also cost $20 million to house the asylum seekers in Nauru, and the government won't even disclose how much we had to pay for the Pacific Solution as a whole. What's more, it costs more to house asylum seekers in the detention camps than to house them in the community. Even just letting the women and children out would produce a significant cost savings.

Oh, and not to mention the complete waste of money that is the Independent Detention Advisory Group. This is the group that was set up by the government to advise them on policy in regards to the Detention Centres in the wake of the Inquiry into Immigration Detention Procedures. Guess what their first recommendation was? Close down or scale back Woomera. Guess whether the government is actually considering their recommendation? Hahahahaha. Geez, that's so funny I damn near wet myself.

But I guess IDAG isn't a complete waste of my tax money. They proved they could get the asylum seekers to listen to reason when they negotiated the end of the hunger strike. Now I guess we just have to wait until they can get the government to listen to reason as well.

Okay, that's it... I'm definitely leaving this thread to go and have fun and not come back. Honest now. No lie...

 

I have not read any of the previous posts in this thread, so I don't know if anyone else has suggested this.

I believe we should ship them back, or blow them up.

I believe our Navy should have sunk them before letting them anywhere near our borders.

Not trying to offend anyone, but I know I probably have. I apologise if I have, was not my intention.

 

One Nation supporter, huh?

 

Yup, impossible to speak your mind without being called a racist.

 

Racism occurs when you hate a particular group of people, and that can be because of skin, nationality, religion etc. You accused me of hating a group of people because of their religion. So, it isn't a particularly big enough mistake for me to apoligise over. You might be able to go back and say you weren't saying racist, but it still doesn't mean you didn't.

BTW, the Government is not and will not force repatriation on the Afgahnis. It's blanted lieing like this which is really getting on my nerves. The new Afgahnistan leader has said he wants all of the refugees to come home, and Australia offered, for anyone interested in taking up that offer, that the tax payers here will foot the bill for the plane ticket home.

 

To clarify, my previous comment was directed at Stinrab's response to Jedi Aztec...

 

Nowhere in my previous response did I accuse Jedi Aztek of being racist. I don't find One Nation's policies racist, do you SM? I was just making light of One Nation's more extreme policies

Yeeesh

 

Meh, whatever, I still found your remark condascending and dismissive.

 

Obviously not my intention, but to each his own, I guess

 

Get over it you two.

 

I have to say Wedge, you're scaring me.
I actually agree with you on this subject...

 

I actually think that without Pauline Hanson, One Nation will become the beacon to rednecks that the media has already made them out to be.

 

My old mate Wedge 3210 said:

Racism occurs when you hate a particular group of people, and that can be because of skin, nationality, religion etc. You accused me of hating a group of people because of their religion. So, it isn't a particularly big enough mistake for me to apoligise over. You might be able to go back and say you weren't saying racist, but it still doesn't mean you didn't.

Actually racism occurs when you hate someone because of their race. Hence the term race-ism.

racism n. belief in the superiority of a particular race; (encouragement of) racial antagonism; (Courtesy of the Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary)

I accused you of hated a group of people because of their religion, yes. And I apologised. We've already been over this ground.

To accuse me of saying you are a racist when I did not IS a big enough mistake to expect you to apologise.

And what do you mean that "I can go back and say I didn't say you were racist and it doesn't mean I didn't?"

It's quite simple really:

1) I didn't say you were racist.

2) You accused me of saying you were racist.

3) I pointed out that I never called you racist.

4) You admitted that I didn't say you were racist.

5) Why not just apologise and we can move on?

 

Maybe you should have left this thread because I'm not going to apologise that easily. Sorry.



But seriously, saying I hate a group of people, and then pulling a technicallity on it to get out of your accusation isn't good form in my book. Accusing anyone of being prejudiced is pretty judgemental considering the contact we have over this message board.

If you want your apology. You can have it. Sorry I said you called me a racist when you said I hated a group of people based on their religion which I didn't do in the first place.

Happy?

 

Okay. And I'm sorry for accusing you of hating members of a particular religion when you were just blatantly discriminating against them because you really just wanted them to stay in their 'own' countries for their 'own good'

 

Nooooo! It was the religion itself I don't like (Catholic). I know and like plenty of Catholics. It just doesn't mean I like the religion.

 

Actually that wasn't what I was basing my arguments on (I reluctantly accept that many people see the Catholic Church as an institution separate from the Catholic religion - even though I assure you that many Catholics wouldn't agree! )

This is what my statement is based on:

posted by Wedge3210 on 1/26 4:43am
Indonisia is also a Muslim nation where a lot of Middle Eastern ideals are better suited.

and on 1/26 5:48am
I also wouldn't put my family through too much of a cultural barrier if it was at all possible. It's common sense.

and also on 1/26 6:20am
You've misunderstood the comment on staying in ohter Muslim nations. Yes, Indonisia is not a part of the Middle East, but it's got the largest population of Muslims in the World. It's also a lot shorter trip to it and requires a trip less in the end.

Now, if you weren't discriminating according to religion, why did you bring up the fact that they were (mostly) muslims in your arguments against them coming here? And why did you make mention so many times of Indonesia's dominant religion?

If your arguments had nothing to do with religion then here's a tip: don't try to play the Islamic card

 

Because (as was talked about on the first page in those posts), it's a shorter trip to Pakistan/India/Indonisia than Australia and the cultures are a lot easier to become a part of.

It'd be a lot easier for families to settle down which is what I would want for my family if they've been through tough times. Not a lot of hassles of travelling in those boats.

 

You may have mentioned proximity in your posts, but you also mentioned religion and used that as a completely separate argument as to why they should stay in Indonesia.

Unless you're trying to argue that every time you mentioned the word 'muslim' you really meant 'geography' and it was a tragic typo.

EDIT: And since when did Pakistan/India/Indonesia become easier culture to assimilate into?

The majority of Afghani asylum seekers in Australia claim to be Hazara, who are persecuted by the Pushtun majority in the areas in which they are fleeing. The majority of people in Pakistan are Pushtun. Can you see a bit of a problem here?

India is having troubles of its own with militants from Pakistan and has many tensions between the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority. So again it's not like the cultures are going to blend easily just because of close proximity of the countries.

And Indonesia is a south-east Asian country. There is virtually nothing that is similar to rural Afghanistan aside from religion, and even then the attitude toward it is distinctly different.

Just because the majority of people are Muslims doesn't mean that countries have a similar culture. That's like saying that an American would find Ecuador or Armenia less of a culture shock than Australia based on the percentage of practicing Christians.

 

So the world is in a desperate state? Wow! Holy crap. I never would have thought of that. Not that anyone disputed it either. It of course would have been lovely to be able to stay where you were born or travel in between and choose where you'd like to live in the world, but that'd be a make believe world.

Now, here was the original arguement, re-typed, once again, just for you.

If my family happened to live in a region of planet Earth that was in such a bad state that I had to leave, I would not put my family through so much torment simply to get somewhere that would be nicer than another safe haven which is a lot closer.

Religion is one of the things I would consider in choosing a safe haven. It would be a lot easier on my children who wouldn't be made fun of in school (it's a sad world outside, but it happens) and it would make settling into a new society just that little bit easier.

The first thing I would be concerned with in choosing a home, would be getting to anywhere which is safer than wherever I came from. Now, is that such a tough concern? I mean, why would I fork out thousands on tickets on rickety boats just to risk getting to Australia when I could stay in any number of countries on the way to it?

I hope that was clear enough for you. I mean, it's what I've been saying in here since the beginning, so I'm not exactly holding my breath on it.

Do do-gooders in these issues truely make things up on purpose to suit their own arguements or is it just isolated to this thread? How many times have you simply changed or insinuated things that I haven't said into something you can have a go at?

After earlier saying you were going to leave this thread, I have to say compulsive lieing is in effect here. If you really can't stay out of it, can you at least have the decency to not make up things? It would be a help.

EDIT: Fixed a typo, so you don't feel the need to pick on it.

 

Get over it you two

 

Get off yourself!

 

One Nation doesn't have racist policies?


HA HA HA HA HA HA HA




Actually, racism isn't hatred of a race.
It doesn't even have to be negative.

Saying "Australians are nice people" is racist.

Racism = anything directed at a race, even nice things.


"The root of all evil is applying generalisations to specific situations"

 

One Nation doesn't have racist policies?


HA HA HA HA HA

PPOR