Christmas Island riots

[Gumtu]

The WA Premier claims that overcrowding at Christmas Island was not a reason for clashes and discontent at the Islands centre. How would he know? The Premier has never lived in an overcrowded anything, much less would he know of the ethnic divisions created simply from putting all and sundry asylum seekers lumped together with limited facilities, in the same place. They don't treat oysters the same way because of lost production by oyster farmers, so why should the detainees be expected to behave any differently than what Nature predicts.

[RB2]

It was a time bomb waiting to explode but in saying that they should be happy that they have got this far and not blown away or sunk at sea as many are.

[Gumtu]

I hear what you say, RB2, and up to a point I agree but as you know, these people under such circumstances behave with varying types of discontent when faced with their own inhospitable ethnic eccentricities. So blowing up or torching their boats are small potatoes compared with a potentially new life in Australia, as the injured have found out. So to get off the Island means continuing ethnic wars and becoming injured in the process seems is a sure-fire way and is their latest ploy.

[RB2]

Only for some Gumtu, not all. I think that the people that organize this also do away with many by having the boats sunk on route and keep the rewards for passage

[fanagalo]

I have no sympathy for people who are illegally buying their way into the country and as one smuggler put it this morning being caught and put into a Fancy jail with all the mod amenities and adding that Australia is soft, yes well I agree. The do gooder's however think of them as poor hard done by people, you are wrong they are very clever people and they work the Australian Government in a very clever way be it rioting so that they can get into mainstream or sinking their boats. I am all for refugees but please they pay thousands for the boat trip and 99% of the boats get here so maybe they are a bit crowded so what. Free board and lodgings, homes when our elderly and low wage earners cannot get housing at a decent price and all the rest as in furniture, clothing. There are other's who have had to leave countries because of strife and have come in the front door and most times have had to leave behind all they had and arrive here with very little but they go out and work as soon as they get any mundane job and pay their own way. Has anybody ever checked how many of these said refugees who have been let into the main stream are working? Sorry folks but in my mind charity starts at home.

[RB2]

Fair call fanagalo

Do you think that they ALL are just scammers or just the majority? What of the ones that are on these boats that are poor and abused in their own country and making a run for a better life? I don't mind being called a do gooder if I have sympathy for people that have no hope in life but to take the action of getting on a boat that has 50% chance of getting to its destination.

We live in a country that has never seen the atrocities that some of the boat people have had to endure and while our elderly and low wage earners struggle they are well looked after in rebates and concessions. I don't think they get that in the countries that the boat people originate from.

They deserve a life as much as you and I do but we have already been given it and maybe charity can extend a bit further than home...Cheers..

[Gumtu]

Originally Posted by RB2

Fair call fanagalo

Do you think that they ALL are just scammers or just the majority? What of the ones that are on these boats that are poor and abused in their own country and making a run for a better life? I don't mind being called a do gooder if I have sympathy for people that have no hope in life but to take the action of getting on a boat that has 50% chance of getting to its destination.

We live in a country that has never seen the atrocities that some of the boat people have had to endure and while our elderly and low wage earners struggle they are well looked after in rebates and concessions. I don't think they get that in the countries that the boat people originate from.

They deserve a life as much as you and I do but we have already been given it and maybe charity can extend a bit further than home...Cheers..

Fair observation, RB2.

We often don't realise how well off we are living here in Australia in 2009. We don't have to look far outside our little cocoon of democratic freedoms to see a world-wide discontent sweeping the nations, one doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to add up the figures. It's occurring more frequently in more countries across the globe and being fed by the grandstanding media.