Sunday, August 27, 2006

follow up to previous - Aust. immigration policy

Just a quick note: for the record, this iniquitous legislation did not pass; one Liberal (Aust. conservative) senator had a conscience and told the leader (& Aust. Prime Minister) John Howard, she would not support him in the Senate.

It's great - so one Liberal politician has a conscience - well done, Judith Troeth!

Policing NSW style

Before I start, let me begin by mentioning that the NSW (one of Australia's six or so, states) has the reputation as being one of the biggest police services & one of the most corrupt, in the world.

I was returning from a bike ride and have just had an interesting conversation with a police officer who was parked by the side of the road. As the pedestrian light turned green, I walked across the road and was almost knocked over by a car who ran the red light and clearly didn't care that someone had the presumption to actually walk across a road.

The policeman was just getting out of his police vehicle. The car was stopped in traffic about 15-20 metres up the road. The conversation went something like this:

A: excuse me - that guy just ran a red light and almost knocked me over.

Policeman: I didn't see anything.

A: aren't you going to do something?

Policeman: I'm not interested, why don't you report it?

A(incredulous): I'm trying to report it

Policeman: did you get his number?

A: he's just over there - the red car stuck in traffic!

Policeman: look I've had a tough day; someone almost ran into the back of me a little while ago...

... seeing this conversation really wasn't going anywhere, I decided to give up, and headed home. For the record, the police officer's name was Peter Halden and this incident occured about 5.20 pm local time.

There have been newspaper reports that many NSW policemen have second businesses on the side, as they work something like four x 12 hour days and then get six days off.

Not sure if they're the most corrupt police force in the world, but certainly the laziest!

A

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Australian immigration policy

Because i was using a different blogging service, you won't have seen the views I posted last year about the Australian Govt policy of firstly denying access to a ship carrying refugees (the infamous 'boat people' affair) and secondly (and more recently) of refusing entry to asylum-seekers, so as to avoid any possibility of Australia having to take up its obligations under international law to give them refuge, with the possibilty that they might then (eventually) gain Australian citizenship.

A recent report has been published that at possibly nine people forcibly repatriated to Afghanistan by Australia have been killed. If that is confirmed, it will be a sad reflection on Australian Government policy, and the majority of Australians who voted the Liberal/Coalition Govt into power.

-A