Senator Evans wants to market Australia to migrants

Senator Evans says Australia needs a rational immigration debate, beyond the hysteria about the few hundred boat people who arrive each year.

”The annual figure this year [for skilled permanent migration] was, say, 115,000, but more than 500,000 came into the country. They came in as students, temporary workers, working holidaymakers … but the public still focuses on the 115,000 as if it’s got anything to do with reality and my attempts to have a more sophisticated debate about this have totally failed.”

Decisions about who came to Australia would be increasingly left to employers although, conversely, Australia would also be competing for the most highly skilled migrants. Senator Evans said to do that successfully the impacts of record high immigration on our liveability had to be tackled.

”In Australia we’ve got this sense of, ‘Well, we’re the lucky country’ and … people will naturally come here, and that’s still true to an extent. But other countries … are increasingly marketing themselves too.”

Migration rules set for revamp

Refugees and disease – is it a beat up?

Refugee Resettlement Watch, a US blog that in general takes a dim view of refugees, just posted a report about recent research in Australia.

The report studied 239 patients who attended the specialist paediatric refugee clinic at the  Children’s Hospital, Westmead, between May 2005 and December 2006. High percentage of refugees entering Australia are sick

Refugee Resettlement Watch slants the report to ‘communicable diseases’, arousing the common fears that migrants (especially those from less wealthy nations) bring disease.

The post notes that the study ‘found a high prevalence of asymptomatic TB, schistosomiasis, malaria and hepatitis B’.

 ‘Of those tested, 16% had Schistosomiasis, 5% had malaria and 4% were hepatitis B carriers. Of 216 children who had Mantoux tests, 33% were ≥10 mm and 24% were ≥15 mm, including four children with active disease (2 lymphadenitis, 1 pulmonary and 1 gastric). Vitamin D deficiency was the most common diagnosis: 61% had serum 25(OH)D3 <50 nmol/L. Anaemia was present in 15%’. The epidemiology of health conditions of newly arrived refugee children: A review of patients attending a specialist health clinic in Sydney

I am not medically trained, but I reckon that, among these diseases the only ‘communicable’ ones are hepatitis B and TB – the others are insect or parasite borne, or diseases of malnutrition.  

Expect anti-refugee beat-ups as this research becomes more widely known. A stab in the dark

‘SAY NO TO BORDERS!’

It’s Sunday Funday, and I wish I had a funny immigration/refugee video, but I couldn’t find one that I hadn’t already used.

Can you point the Aussie Possie to some fun videos – on topic, of course!

In the meantime, here is a cartoon.

Union asks for ban on foreign students in trade jobs

The Australian Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) is concerned that international student students will work for very little or for nothing to get the experience that they need to apply for permanent residency. Calls for review of Australian visa holders work rights

The Union wants the Federal Government to examine the effect visiting students have on the job market.

The ABC quotes union boss Bob Kinnaird:

“In order to qualify for a permanent resident visa, which is what a lot of the 45,000 people on these work visas are really after, they have to establish 12 months’ skilled work experience in the occupation that they’re nominating.

“We [know] from research and our own experience that some overseas graduates are so desperate to get permanent residence that they’re prepared to take low and in some cases to take no wages at all, in order to qualify for the 12 months.

“Overseas students must be treated with respect and dignity, but we are concerned by the rights of Australian workers and young people in particular. Foreign students ‘competing for Australian jobs’

The CFMEU has told a Senate inquiry that all trade occupations should be immediately removed from eligible occupations for overseas student graduates.

Professor Chris Nyland from Melbourne’s Monash University and Professor Simon Marginson from Melbourne University say the benefits of a $13 billion international student industry balances out such labour market concerns.

The honorary president of the Australian Federation of International Students, Wesa Chau, says it would be unfair to prevent overseas students from working in Australia.

But the point is not that the students are being engaged as workers – rather, they are being exploited for low pay or even no pay because of their desperation to get Permanent Residency. Shonky Australian training courses lead to PR, bashings and death. It is this rort that must be stamped out – not legitimate jobs for overseas students.

Students to march for foreign student rights

Thousands of foreign and local students in Australia are planning to march in Sydney next month in protest, claiming that the Australian Government fails to protect students against fraudulent Australian Immigration companies (see Rapacious agents chase international students)
and faults in the education system.

The students will march on the 2 September from the University of Sydney and will finish outside Parliament House.

The National Union of Students (NUS) says that international students have suffered attacks, have less rights in the workplace and more expensive accommodation.

The NUS are demanding that the government implement reforms to make education fair for international students.

Thanks to Embrace Australia for the heads up

Asylum seeker crowd control: Australia and Europe hire 3rd world bouncers

‘Solving immigration by outsourced bouncers’ is the great title Shada Islam gave her post on Online Opinion, about how the wealthier nations in Europe are ‘solving’ their asylum seeker ‘problems’.

This approach includes the interception of boats carrying would-be refugees and immigrants before they reach European territory, and sending them to Libya-  which has not signed the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugee rights.

Shada says that many African countries are anxious to receive European funds in return for such co-operation.

In the Asia-Pacific Australia is also setting up its own shonky ‘security company’, this time with Asian ‘bouncers’. (See Australia to Indonesia- keep those huddled masses out of here)

Australia will contribute $452.5 million aid to Indonesia in 2009-10, making Indonesia the largest recipient of Australian aid, ‘aid’ assessed by Indonesians as clearly financing the ‘fortress’. Persons in Indonesia determined to be in need of protection by UNHCR merely have freedom of movement and stay of deportation, but no lawful access to the labour market, and no civil, social, economic or cultural rights

Australia is in negotiations with Malaysia for the same sort of deal.

Human Rights Watch reports that in 2007 close to 60,000 people who arrived in Malaysia as migrants or refugees were arrested, imprisoned or deported. Illegal immigrants, including asylum seekers, face a mandatory sentence of up to five years imprisonment and up to six strokes of the cane. There have been allegations of whipping and torture in detention centres.

What has religion to do with belonging and diversity?

What does it mean to belong, to be accepted and to feel socially included and connected?

The National Ethnic Disability Alliance has just released the report This is my home: belonging, disability and diversity…

In March and April 2009 NEDA facilitated focus groups in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth with people from non English Speaking Backgrounds (NESB) with disability. This report document stories and descriptions of The key findings of the report are that:

1.    Religion, faith and spirituality are an important component of social connectivity and belonging for many people from diverse backgrounds. Measures of inclusion must adequately value the role of faith in building inclusion and connectivity for many Australians.

2.    Discrimination has an impact upon opportunities and social inclusion outcomes. A social inclusion agenda must address systemic and individual discrimination, including racism.

3.    Family and friends are important gateways to social participation and belonging. Friendship networks in particular are worthy of further investigation as an enabler of social inclusion.

4.    The ability to be to have a voice and be heard is a key component of feeling included. Linking social inclusion with human rights frameworks and support for advocacy provides a direction for giving people opportunities to be heard.

5.    Creating more positive interactions between support agencies and consumers can have the benefit of a stronger sense of belonging and connection for people who face social exclusion.

Full text available from Australian Policy Online

Truth in t shirts: “Everyone’s a racist”

No one is a racist. At least, nearly everyone, if asked, would say ‘No, I am not racist’. But everyone suffers from what Kellie Tranter, of Online Opinion, calls Cultural blindness

Kellie was in the US recently when she saw a Native American selling T-shirts which read “Homeland Security: fighting terrorism since 1492”.

Kellie asks “What would Indigenous Australians print on their T- shirts?

“Repelling illegal immigrants since 1788″ or

“60,000 years of paradise … then the white fella shows up”?

I mystified by the vociferous opposition by some Americans to health care reforms, fuelled by my own blindness to race relations in the Sates.

In Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy Gilens shows how racial stereotypes, not white self-interest or anti-statism, lie at the root of opposition to welfare programs- that is, he argues, ‘welfare’ = ‘handouts to blacks’

This CNN clip shows white people arguing against health care reform – and claiming that race is not a factor, and then Tim Wise’s excellent commentary about their ‘cultural blindness’. (Are you blind to your own prejudices?  Read this. Not a racist? You are a fool or a liar)

more about “Are you ‘culturally blind’? Need a t …“, posted with vodpod

Starburst Commercial Plays With Racial/Ethnic/National Categories

It’s Sunday Funday – please excuse the commercial, but it’s funny, at least I THINK so!
What do you think?

(Thanks to Contexts.org for the alert)

more about “Starburst Commercial Plays With Racia…“, posted with vodpod

‘Solution’ for Australia means death for Rohingyas

Australia’s current ‘solution’ to managing asylum seekers is to pay countries to the north, in particular Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, to prevent them from leaving About AusAIDin Indonesia

It is a ‘solution’ for Australia, but can be a ‘final solution’ for the asylum seekers themselves. Malaysia sells deported refugees into slavery

Andrew Bartlett reports once more on the dreadful conditions for asylum seekers in Thailand.  Treatment of asylum seekers in Thailand. Two young Burmese Rohingya ‘migrants’, aged 15 and 19, recently died in a Thai detention camp.   The UNHCR (the UN refugee agency) is being denied access to the camp, despite many requests.

Andrew comments:

“The simple fact remains that refugees only use people smugglers when there are no other viable options to reach safety and security from   persecution. Cracking down on smugglers while doing nothing to create viable pathways for refugees will just make things more difficult for refugees, including a probable increase in suffering, dangers and cost”.

The aid and assistance that Australia is presently providing to its northern neighbours is in the main directed at preventing smuggling of asylum seekers to Australian waters. A more ethical stance would be to provide aid and assistance for decent living conditions and recognition as persons in need of humanitarian treatment.