The bloke next to me said, “We never had any trouble until that damn woman [Julia Gillard] let ’em in.” I felt revulsion. © P J Croft 2014
Now I think I wasn’t harsh enough.
I’ve read about a survey showing a majority of people in this country want harsher treatment of refugees, but I hadn’t seen it. I found it hard to believe. Now, thanks to this article in The Sydney Morning Herald:
Australians want boat arrivals treated more harshly: poll
- Date January 8, 2014
Philip Dorling
Most Australians think asylum seekers who arrive by boat are not genuine refugees and there is strong support for the Abbott government to treat boat arrivals more harshly.
A nationwide opinion poll by UMR Research shows that 59 per cent of people think most boat arrivals are not genuine refugees.
The poll, based on a nationally representative sample of 1000 online interviews, shows only 30 per cent of Australians believe that most asylum seekers are genuine refugees while 12 per cent are unsure.
A strong majority of Australians, 60 per cent, also want the Abbott government to “increase the severity of the treatment of asylum seekers.”
Groups most strongly favouring harsher policies are older Australians (aged over 70 years – 68 per cent), and self-employed people (71 per cent). People in Queensland and Western Australia are slightly more supportive of a more severe approach (65 per cent and 64 per cent respectively) than in Victoria and NSW (both 62 per cent).
Only 30 per cent of Australians think asylum seekers should not be treated more severely, while 9 per cent are unsure.
A majority of Australians – 59 per cent – oppose refugees receiving government welfare assistance. Only 27 per cent believe that refugees should receive government support.
I can hardly believe it. I certainly can’t accept it. How do these people know that refugees are not genuine? Have they spoken to them? Of course they haven’t. It’s just lazy, dull, unthinking, unintelligent, xenophobic, racist talk.
I can hardly believe Australians can be so cruel, so racist, so nasty. But I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve heard attitudes like this with my own ears from some of my (former) friends.
It’s fear. People see immigrants as a threat. The irrational shouting meetings in Northam over the refugee camp at the old army camp amazed me. Comments like, “If they come over the wire, are we allowed to shoot ’em?” What??!! People in Northam think refugees are terrorists who will come into their homes and harm them. How do they know this? Have they actually met any refugees? Of course they haven’t. One of my oldest friends, now a former friend, was full of this harsh attitude. He believed refugees were being kept in unwarranted luxury in this camp. How did he know this? He didn’t, he’d just heard rumours. This was a clear case of irrational fear from my “friend”. My dumb, stupid, increasingly demented friend.
I wasn’t harsh enough in my comments yesterday. I REJECT THIS STUPID XENOPHOBIA. And I hate the idea that this is Australia. Not me!
And this:
“During the Rudd government approximately 90-95 per cent of refugee assessments completed on Christmas Island resulted in protection visas being granted. 99.7 per cent of people from Afghanistan (the majority of whom arrived by boat) were assessed as genuine refugees. Grant rates for protection visas for people from Iraq, Iran and Burma, many of whom also have arrived by boat, were also high, ranging from 96-98 per cent.”
The vast majority, up to 99.7% were assessed to be genuine refugees, that is people who have a genuine fear for their life if returned to their own country. But all these dumb, nasty ignorant Australians who haven’t bothered to make any enquiries just assume they are not genuine.
This awful goverment wants to send refugees to Cambodia, land of the Pol Pot genocide and one of the worst, most corrupt, most crime ridden countries in SE Asia. NOT IN MY NAME!
I wasn’t harsh enough. If you vote Liberal, you support this racism. I’m disgusted and I want no part of this Australia.
© P J Croft 2014
__________________________________________________
I went to the Landgate office in Midland yesterday and encountered the Public Service attitude full on.
I arrived, told the receptionist what I wanted and was issued a numbered ticket. I sat while the sole customer at the counter, one of three counters, was dealt with.
After about 15 mins it was my turn. When I said what I wanted, I was told, “Oh no, you have to go to that counter over there”, and she pointed to counter number one, signposted Maps. So I sighed and moved over. I explained my need and after about 10 minutes of to-ing and fro-ing, I got the number I wanted. I said, “OK, can I now proceed with this form?”, a form I’d filled out but just needed a missing number.
“No, you need to go back to counter number 1.” There was only one other customer, at counter number 2, and no-one in attendance at counter number 1. So I went over, and waited, and waited. There were two people behind the other counters, but neither paid me any attention, even the one who had just sent me to the unattended counter. She could see I was unattended, but she was only interested in talking to the other woman behind counter number 2. The middle counter bloke left, so I was standing there for 5 mins or more and neither of these women paid me any attention.
Finally I said, “Excuse me, what do I have to do to get attention?” to the nearest woman.
“Oh, isn’t someone looking after you?” “No”, I said. So she went and got another woman from behind a partition, but only after I waited another couple of minutes.
We completed the form and I needed to pay a fee. To do that, I had to move counters again, to the middle one.
So I got what I wanted, but what a slow, uncaring attitude. Those women didn’t pay me any attention unless I was assertive.
Anyway, we pay state taxes, but we still have to pay hefty fees for these documents. Grrrr.
________________________________________
On the long drive home the bottlenecks caused by two lane roads narrowing to one lane caused long tail backs. Reid Highway? Reid bush track more like it. That single lane bottleneck road between Erindale Road and the stupid three lane bridge leading to the Freeway entrance! Dammit, when is it going to be fixed? It took more than ten minutes to go that 1Km.
________________________________________
When I set my TomTom GPS for the trip, I noticed that it seemed to take a long time to work out the route, analysing over 1.3 million roads. And the planned route seemed so indirect. I ignored it and took Reid Highway most of the way. But from then on it directed me down to Benara Rd, then another lesser north/south road. At one stage, it wanted me to turn left when there was only bush on the left.
Eventually, when setting my homeward path, I realised it was still set to find walking routes! This was from Singapore a few weeks ago. I guess there might have been a walking path through that bush. Ha.
________________________________________
Hmmm, I’ve just discovered that this is my 500th post. Wow. I’ve also downloaded all my blog into a PDF document and it comes to more than 800 pages. Double wow. The PDF also contains index pages of all the page titles and their dates, and they are hyperlinked, so I can jump to any title or date.
Loading that PDF into FlipPDF gives me a very nice looking on-screen “book” with flipping pages, which can be output to a tablet as an “app” if you want it. I don’t.
Bull's Roar 