Oz Federal Election 2013 - Discussion and Comments

[Skyring]

I'm sure I'll get on a Government Database. I don't think that database (which is separate for each state) queries my immigration status.

LOL!

For a drivers licence, you have to show identity. And yes, each State has their own database and no, the States don't run off to the Commonwealth to check immigration status.

But that doesn't mean the reverse is not true. The Feds can and do check the State data, especially if they want to find someone. Someone like an illegal immigrant.

We're identifying 20 000 illegals annually. Most of these (about 12 000) self-identify, presumably when they show up at the airport on their way out. But the rest are found out because they are dobbed in or they come to the attention of a government agency. Such as a copper checking a drivers licence. Or a government computer cross-matching data.

These visa-overstayers aren't a problem. They aren't on the front pages, they aren't affecting the budget surplus, they aren't the focus of heated arguments in Question Time.

We find them and ship them home or legalise them in other ways. We aren't paying them government benefits, and maybe they aren't paying income tax, but they are still consuming and paying GST.

It's the irregular arrivals who are causing all the fuss. We have lost control of the situation there. I honestly can't blame people in Third World nations for wanting to live in Australia. We're a good place to live. There aren't too many people going the other way, heading off from Sydney to be a taxi driver in Islamabad.

Gillard campaigned in 2010 on a platform of fixing the boat people problem and reducing population growth. Anybody in an outer suburb knows the problems. Every day the commute is a little bit longer and the schools a little more crowded and the carp arks harder to find a good space in. She promised the people of Western Sydney that she'd fix the thing.

Well, she didn't. My educated guess is that the people of Western Sydney are going to let her know how they feel about it just as soon as they get to a ballot box. I'm not saying that the people of Western Sydney are barbarians, but I think that if Tony Abbott said he was authorising the Navy to blow the coughs out of the water, there would be a lot of enthusiasm for the idea, and BWS profits would peak out.

 

[serfty]

... and BWS profits would peak out.

"Beer, Wine & Sprits"?

 

[Skyring]

"Beer, Wine & Sprits"?

Yup!
People will do crazy subhuman things if it means they can shorten their commute time by twenty seconds.

 

[SQ421]

LOL!

For a drivers licence, you have to show identity. And yes, each State has their own database and no, the States don't run off to the Commonwealth to check immigration status.

The argument wasn't about whether there are consequences to holding a Government issued ID whilst being in Australia with dubious immigration status.

What you stated was

You can't get married, have a drivers licence, get a phone account, an electricity account...

which is incorrect...

people of Western Sydney are going to let her know how they feel ........I think that if Tony Abbott said he was authorising the Navy to blow the coughs out of the water, there would be a lot of enthusiasm for the idea.....

Just what we need... an election campaign geared at the idiots who are swayed by three letter slogans and are too dumb to understand the fourth...

If this was indeed, about saving lives as opposed to appealing to the xenophopic tendencies amongst the less educated (and at times, the highly educated), the solution would be to work with Jakarta and set up processing centres right amidst the refugee camps, and document every single refugee living there, giving them a finite timeframe within which their asylum claims would be processed.

When Tony screams about the "Queue Jumpers" his intellectually challenged audience (*not* everyone!) pictures an orderly queue, a system which these people arriving by what can be optimistically described as a boat are somehow circumventing. Instead, all they are doing is chosing to escape the chaos and squalor of the refugee camps and taking their chance, one way or the other. An ocean grave, or an immigration detention centre.

To singularly credit Jackboot Johnny's pacific solution with the drop in "boat people" without acknowledging the global decline in the asylum seekers in that period is disengenious; much as it is to say that bringing back the pacific solution will stop the boats. Oh wait, the pacific solution is back in another guise and the boats haven't stopped.

These visa-overstayers aren't a problem. .....they aren't the focus of heated arguments in Question Time.

Could it be because most of the visa-overstayers (who, as of October 2012, outnumbered the asylum seekers) are from the UK and the USA, and there are less political points to be scored by going after them? Or are we seriously saying that those knowingly breaking the law by overstaying their visa are okay but damn you if you seek asylum, regardless of the fact that you are entitled to do so?

 

[777]

It's the irregular arrivals who are causing all the fuss. ... Anybody in an outer suburb knows the problems. Every day the commute is a little bit longer and the schools a little more crowded and the carp arks harder to find a good space in. She promised the people of Western Sydney that she'd fix the thing.

With respect (and i'm not sure whether you believe this or paraphrasing the thoughts of others here), these two things are completely unrelated. The number of migrants Australia takes is determined completely independently of those who arrive here by boat. Last i looked boat people were 1.5% of total migrants and their number was subtracted from and not added to our total migration number.

You reduce the boat arrivals to zero or triple it and the number of migrants and the number of refugees and migrants we have in Australia will be exactly the same.

 

[Skyring]

Just what we need... an election campaign geared at the idiots who are swayed by three letter slogans and are too dumb to understand the fourth...

BWS?

Just quietly, but if we are analysing election slogans and electioneering, Gillard's style of repeating a slogan as often as possible isn't one that grabs me as a strategy aimed at the more intelligent end of the thoughtful voting public.

 

[Skyring]

With respect (and i'm not sure whether you believe this or paraphrasing the thoughts of others here), these two things are completely unrelated.

Julia Gillard's promise to stop asylum-seekers and her failure to do so? I can see a clear link.

Julia Gillard's promise to stop population growth and her failure to do so? Another clear link.

The voters aren't stupid. They can remember what promises captured their vote last time round.

And for those who have trouble remembering, the Coalition will help them out.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

The voters aren't stupid. They can remember what promises captured their vote last time round.

lol...........

 

[drron]

To anyone who thinks every voter makes an informed vote I can tell you what I encountered at a booth in the Hunter.I was regarded as a top worker so always was at a big booth that often changed sides.The local ALP president was the equivalent on their side.We got on well so were invariably together as voters approached.One Federal election these 2 young women approached.I thrust out my hand first but they pointed to a Bob Hawke posting saying "he's a hunk we are voting for him".
A few months later there was a State election.The same 2 women approached,my ALP couner part says-these 2 are mine.But this time they pointed at the poster of Nick Greiner with the same comments as before.
Yes very well informed and definitely voting on policies.

 

[777]

Julia Gillard's promise to stop asylum-seekers and her failure to do so? I can see a clear link.

Julia Gillard's promise to stop population growth and her failure to do so? Another clear link.

The voters aren't stupid. They can remember what promises captured their vote last time round.

And for those who have trouble remembering, the Coalition will help them out.

My point was there is no relationship between boat arrivals and population growth. If you're not disputing that then i'm not arguing with you.

 

[Pushka]

BWS?

Just quietly, but if we are analysing election slogans and electioneering, Gillard's style of repeating a slogan as often as possible isn't one that grabs me as a strategy aimed at the more intelligent end of the thoughtful voting public.

Last night, they showed three people, Gillard, Swan and some other Minister, continually repeating the phrase "The Modern Family". Apparently their focus groups have told them that "the working class family" is no longer a 'go-er'

 

[SQ421]

BWS?

Just quietly, but if we are analysing election slogans and electioneering, Gillard's style of repeating a slogan as often as possible isn't one that grabs me as a strategy aimed at the more intelligent end of the thoughtful voting public.

BWS? No. I was more referring to "Stop the Boats", "Toxic Tax", "Whyalla Wipeout" and equally, from the Labor, "Moving Forward".

My point was there is no relationship between boat arrivals and population growth. If you're not disputing that then i'm not arguing with you.

Julia Gillard's promise to stop asylum-seekers and her failure to do so? I can see a clear link.
Julia Gillard's promise to stop population growth and her failure to do so? Another clear link.

Australia's population increased from 19,885,287 to 21,507,717 between census 2006 and census 2011

An increase of 1,622,430; 715,602 (44%) of which were migrant arrivals into Australia July 2006 and June 2011 of which 30,968 (1.9%) were refugees being resettled in Australia

Between 2006-07 and 2010-11,

-- 35,584 applications for protection were lodged onshore; 11,400 by irregular maritime arrivals (i.e, the boat people!) and 24,184 by "non-IMA's"

-- 22,851 of the 24,184 "non-IMA" applications were processed and 10,231 were granted protection visa's

-- 5376 out of 11,400 applications lodged by "the boat people" were processed and 5013 were granted protection visa's (these were granted between 2008-09 and 2010-11)


Of Australia's population growth between Census 2006 and Census 2011, the boat people contributed to a whopping 0.3% of the increase.
Of Australia's population growth between Census 2006 and Census 2001, refugees contributed to a whopping 2.4% if the increase.

Yes, we are being overrun by those illegal, queue jumping coughs.

My point was there is no relationship between boat arrivals and population growth. If you're not disputing that then i'm not arguing with you.

 

[777]

Last night, they showed three people, Gillard, Swan and some other Minister, continually repeating the phrase "The Modern Family". Apparently their focus groups have told them that "the working class family" is no longer a 'go-er'

It was "Working families" (how could we ever forget!) but i suspect the focus groups are telling them that Abbott isn't perceived as "modern."

 

[Pushka]

It was "Working families" (how could we ever forget!) but i suspect the focus groups are telling them that Abbott isn't perceived as "modern."

Ah yes, you are right. In my mind I kept hearing "class". Because I feel they were having a shot at people who "don't work" - ie employers, as opposed to people who work for them. Reverse snobbery in fact.

 

[777]

Of Australia's population growth between Census 2006 and Census 2011, the boat people contributed to a whopping 0.3% of the increase.
Of Australia's population growth between Census 2006 and Census 2001, refugees contributed to a whopping 2.4% if the increase.

More to the point: The 0.3% comes out of the refugee quota and is not added onto it.

The funniest thing about this whole pseudo-debate has been that every time the government gets harsh on boat people (and both Howard and Gillard did this) they increase the refugee quota to prove that they aren't inhumane.

In order to stop a small number of boat people we end up taking a much larger number of refugees. Go figure.

 

[eastwest101]

You reduce the boat arrivals to zero or triple it and the number of migrants and the number of refugees and migrants we have in Australia will be exactly the same.

I think a lot of people would agree with that statement on the proviso that you accept that Australians want the federal Government and the Australian Dept of Immigration to make decisions on the numbers of immigrants and whom comes into Australia and whom gets to stay. Not the people smugglers in Indonesia or people whom can afford to pay people smugglers.

I don't think that Australians are against immigration per se, a lot of people are supportive of a growing population supported by immigration courtesy of a fair, legal, ordered and transparent process. I think they just want to see a successful process to control our borders. Its about border control and loss of life, not about what colour skin your taxi driver may or may not have.....

With the greens controlling the senate, independants and greens controlling the lower house and the ALP and Coalition having different views about how to deal with illegal boat arrivals it is not so surprising that a compromise has been unable to be reached by all members of parliment. All members of parliment are to blame to some extent, but its the ALP whom have been in government since 2007 and they are the ones that have been making laws since 2007.

 

[simongr]

I don't really care about immigration at ll - my concern is about the amount of money being spent on managing it. If Australia is perceived to have weak borders then more boats come which then requires the boats to be caught and people put in processing centres and either brought in as true refugees or sent home. This is costing us a fortune.

I don't quite understand why on shore processing can't be done - cheaper than funding a foreign economy, creates jobs in Australia...

 

[Skyring]

I thrust out my hand first but they pointed to a Bob Hawke posting saying "he's a hunk we are voting for him".
A few months later there was a State election.The same 2 women approached,my ALP couner part says-these 2 are mine.But this time they pointed at the poster of Nick Greiner with the same comments as before.
Yes very well informed and definitely voting on policies.

You know, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Robert Heinlein, the great science fiction writer, was involved in US politics and wrote some essays aimed at educating ordinary people about the ways of government and elections. He mentioned one particular district where the difference in support between the two presidential candidates was a single vote. Using the system then in place, that meant that one more district favoured one candidate than the other over the entire State, and therefore the State's total number of electoral college delegates went to that candidate. That number of delegates was enough to put the candidate over the line nation-wide. All because of one vote somewhere in one rural district in one unimportant State.

His message was that everyone should vote because it was their civic responsibility and their vote could make a difference. Here in Australia, we already have compulsory voting, and the message is somewhat diluted, but still, every vote counts, and it doesn't matter whether it's the vote of a millionaire or a derelict camping under a bridge. An informed student of politics who knows the issues and the party positions, or someone who votes for Paul Keating because John Hewson's eyes are too close together.

Doesn't matter one bit. They count the votes up and each one carries an equal value.

That's democracy.

Heaven save us from experts or pundits or zealots who insist that their candidate is the one we should absolutely vote for because *insert long, thoughtful argument* and it would be stupid or inefficient or whatever to vote for anyone else.

Heinlein also proposed a system where a voter stepped into the booth and had to solve a quadratic equation before being allowed to vote. If they got it wrong, the curtains opened and the voter stepped out without a ballot. Or they didn't step out at all.

Let the people decide, and let them decide on whatever issues or criteria they want. I don't care if they vote on hair colour, stance on global warming, economic policy or the order of the names on the ballot. It may well make a big difference to the result, but the alternative, of forcing voters to throw away their freedom of choice, is not worth it.

I love it that the political machines are forced to appeal to the lazy, the stupid, the uneducated, the homeless, the racist and the renegade. These people are our brothers and sisters in our great liberal democracy every bit as the thoughtful, decent, well-read and educated folk here.

That marks one big difference between here and (say) the USA. We look after those on the bottom. Not as well as we should, and not because it's the right thing to do. But because their votes count.

 

[Skyring]

I don't quite understand why on shore processing can't be done - cheaper than funding a foreign economy, creates jobs in Australia...

Because the asylum-seekers, no matter how flimsy their case, can then appeal all the way to the High Court. It costs an enormous amount, it clogs up the federal court system, and takes a long time.

 

[simongr]

It is at this point I probably shouldn't express my views about a full restoration of the Monarchy...