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Reply With QuoteYou really are full of it.Originally Posted by ambidex
Tronic,
Over 20 years ago I had to file the paperwork & hand over the cheque for a good friend of mine who was an overseas student. I was amazed at how much it cost him, even then. The truth is that universities see most overseas students as cash cows. This chasing of money (forced by cuts in funding) is beginning to skew the way that universities structure courses - and not in a good way.
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
You really are full of it.
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
I detect a hint of racism there Bigfella!
I admit i have many complaints with Australia cause my mates have been badly treated/killed in Melbourne. The way police had handled the case, the way insensitive white Australian (mostly) are vomiting against Indians on face book etc and now scoring points on few incidents when Indians were at fault has prompted me to underscore what I think. (Only you guys don't have privileges to make generalize statements).
I have pressure on me from my parents cause i was a rebel against my father's wish who was stopping me not to choose Australia for my wife's occupational training. And its not only my story here.
What Indians are protesting here may seems an over reaction cause you are observing every thing from your own safe but opaque bubble. Your police was treating like they do treat other normal Australian. Sorry we are not Australian and don't want your police to see or treat us as would be PR. We were invited here by your universities and we came here by paying our own Air fares not by boat.
When ever we are finding a balance between our insecurities and destined assignments people like you will pop out form no where to call us cheats.
Our reaction is natural and we expect from so called developed nation to treat us with more sensitivity. We simply can not avenge on streets like other do. You may have become an expert in military defence but you do not know what is happening on streets of Parramatta. Ask Indians those who work odd times (have you ever worked odd times).
My personal circumstances are not going to help this discussion.
But as you have asked me i will answer all concerns with my personal story, for you to incur as a sample for rest of us and for you to understand what we have contributed in last 3 years.
I am an Intensive care specialist with 3 years experience MBBS(Punjab) fellowship in critical care medicine(bangalore). I came here in Apr 2007 to support my wife (Gynecologist) for her occupational training in Graduate diploma in radiology. I worked as phlebotomist as part time casual 17$/hr from July 2007 to Oct 2008.
I paid my wife's 90% of fee before landing in Australia which was 43k including accommodation for 3 months. There were 27 students in my wife's class and 17 were Australian citizens. They were paying 10k for 2 years. Interestingly they were employed (permanent jobs) by different companies so they were paying almost nothing from their pockets. Only 12 students were able graduate in time and 7 were foreign students.
Now about my son. He was 3 years old at that time and i was paying 65$/day for his Private pre school education at hornsby. Being an International migrant you can not claim any thing.{ which is ~25/day for a PR(that is why people try to get PR)}.
Now he is going to a public school, paying upfront 4500 per annum non refundable even if you go back to India before term. For a PR it is ~300 per annum. I have never understand this; what special my kid is learning here in a same class.
We 3are living in unit paying 410/week. No medicare but private health insurance 350/quarterly. Paying our taxes without claiming a penny etc etc....
I passed my AMC (preliminary) last year and got job in area of need (without going AMC interview due to desperate hospitals) under observation for 6 months. I have provided my services in area of need for one year to many citizens. Now i am working part time casual resident (weekend nights) in a hospital some where in Upper north shore cause no one is ready to work on weekend nights.
My wife is working as full time permanent employee in a private radiology and earning 40$/hr. We are on long stay employer sponsored visa for 3 years expiring in Sep 2012.
So the moral of my boring story is that not every Indian here is for what you all think. I personally know 7 Indians doing PhDs MDS and planning to go back.
I have my own private practise (actually my wife) in India and we were referring patients to different diagnostic centres. As now she has got world class training here and experience after serving more then 3 thousand patients on the record. She will be able to make a very handsome amount of money and I will be able to work with her without going to a private job. We be able to live with our parents. My son will be able to study in a schools the way i want.
Also i would like to share with you that our life style is very simple here in Australia but we are not saving a single penny like many households cause its very costly to live here. I think we be able to save heaps now if we go back to India.
I am not saying Australians can not afford i am saying they simply do not have pay.sorry, my comprehension fails me here......what ever do you mean?
My mother gave whatever money she got on retirement (super we say here) to my wife. As per rule to get a visa, around 45k$ has to be either mine or my parents in a bank for at least 6 months. That is why its very difficult for any Indian to pay hard earn money under such hostility. It was my mother who started 32 years back earning 15 dollars per month to contribute in 10 billion dollar Australian education industry.
I think i have answered your all concerns and now you can audit my expense with yours and can give a fair comparison what we have contributed economically to Australia in last 3 years. I know the number of Indians living in sub standard conditions or sharing is very high but there are many living like a normal Australians those who own a car, a flat LCD, 2 IPhone, land line phone, adsl, automatic washing machine, Micro, room humidifier fan
Regards.
Last edited by ambidex; 09 Mar 10, at 13:49.
I detect a hint of racism there Bigfella!
Must be Pennsy. What else could explain my disagreement with Ambidex.
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
ambidex, i am sorry everything wasn't handed to you on a silver platter when you and your wife and family arrived here. and i am extremely sorry that the cost of everything here in australia is a little more expensive than you've experienced elsewhere. you might find australians also find it very expensive in most areas of their lives.
and truly, i am upset that foreign studets pay more for a tertiary education than "native" born australians do. but what do over 80% of those students want as an end result of that study? PR. you yourself highlighted that there are PR factories being run here. if you want to argue this point i will not waste my time on this for obvious reasons.
life isn't fair, or as one australian Prime Minister said, "life wasn't meant to be easy".
stop playing the victim, embrace what australia has to offer, much like the many waves of successful immigrants who have prospered in australia over the years ( the english, the greeks, italians, vietnamese etc ). yes it is hard work but i'd say worth it. otherwise many would not make the journey from their own countries.
your statement, "What Indians are protesting here may seems an over reaction cause you are observing every thing from your own safe but opaque bubble. Your police was treating like they do treat other normal Australian. Sorry we are not Australian and don't want your police to see or treat us as would be PR. We were invited here by your universities and we came here by paying our own Air fares not by boat. " .........says it all. you and your countrymen view yourself as discriminated against by all and sundry and fail to approach this country with an open mind. i cannot reason with you if this is your mindset.
I dont hear chinese students in australia ( 150,000 to the 90,000 indian ) raising all the same points you have.....why is that?
PS, we have a few things in common. my aunt is a radiologist, the other a doctor. I have no problem in saying the AMA is the best ( read "most protected" ) union on the planet and keeps a prohibitively low number of practitioning doctors around for the benefit of it's own members. I have also spent much time in parramatta and dine regularly at harris park next door.
Illegitimi non carborundum
Immigration in Australia is being tightened.
Link"Under the Howard government, we had a lot of cooks, a lot of hairdressers coming through," Evans told reporters. "We were taking hairdressers from overseas in front of doctors and nurses it didn't make any sense."
The new rules will favor applicants who already have job offers over those who merely have qualifications or who are studying. The measures are expected to dampen enrollment in Australian colleges by foreign students hoping to settle in the country.
LinkAustralia earlier this month tightened its permanent skilled migration program, switching from what the government described as a "supply-driven" program to a "demand-driven" program. It is ditching from the list of eligible professions those that are "less-skilled" and no longer in demand, in favor of highly-skilled immigrants targeted at the industries and geographic regions that need them most.
The list will be reviewed annually, presumably to ensure that the demands for skills can be carefully tweaked to maximize the immigration policy's effectiveness in the eyes of Canberra.
These shifts will have a big impact on India's 30-million strong diaspora. These communities will see their emphases evolve as the nature and the permanency of their members change.
...............................
Rather, they will have spent seven or eight years of their early adulthood living overseas before returning to settle in India. It is a pattern, as it happens, that is very popular with Australians.
The above article seems to vindicate my post here i.e. most Australians don't favor permanent immigration. Is there any statistics available on this issue?
Immigration in Australia is somewhere close to record highs. What is being changes are rules that will impact around 10% of the total.
I don't have any figures either, but I would venture that a large number of Australians have opposed permenant immigration at any point in the past 100 years. Same in many (if not most) countries. it is an easy attitude to encourage & a difficult one to challenge, especially if the people migrating seem too 'different'. Again, nothing new under the sun. You will note that the only areas being tightened are 'low skill' occupations. Others will still be able get in & stay if they choose.
There is a reason why immigration was treated as a bipartisan issue in Australia for 40 odd years after WW2 - both parties (correctly) beileved it necessary for nation building & neither was prepared to risk a populist anti-immigration backlash. Imagine the reaction if 100 million people per year, many of them Chinese, African or Latin American were arriving in India. Similar situation.
Having said this, large numbers of Australians remain supportive of immigration, especially skilled migration & especially once they are presented with the relevant facts. I'd like to know if Bennett actually has anything to back up his assertion.
Oh, and the article made a reference to polling among students that suggests the vast majority feel safe. Interesting.
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
For the last fifteen years I have lived in two communities with a large Indian population and for the last twelve years worked in a business which employs any nationality. I also have frends and workmates who are Indian, one who is a great bloke who emigrated here in the late 60's.
All bar a few of them have had no problems at all. Unfortunately a few have experienced racial taunts, insults and in one case a racially based assault. Just last week one of my workmates was racially abused on the street, not by Anglos but Pacific Islanders.
The fellow who has been here for 40 years has never experienced any racial problems, married an 'Anglo' and raised two great kids who have grown up as proud Aussies.
Another workmate, a fairly recent arrival has lived in Melbourne and Sydney without any problems. That might be the luck of the draw, but he insists Australians are not racist.
Just a few experiences.
Pennsy,
I suspect that any of us living in big cities or even large rural centres could relate similar stories. I have never seen a greater outpouring of affection for a workmate than for a Sri Lankan lady who left on maternity leave. She had miscarried the previous year - we cried with her & comforted her when her own family were unbelieveably cruel. When she left to have her beautiful baby we spent a small fortune on presents - she was in tears all day & so were most of us (yep, me too).
I grew up in the bush & saw a lot of casual (& occasional deeply felt) racism. it left me with an unfavourable impression of my anglo-celtic bretheren that took a while to shake. That process began with a move to Melbourne & a better understanding of just how well we manage diversity.
I was also fascinated to discover that some of the deepest prejudices were held by recent migrants. They often came from cultures and/or places where attitudes more closely resembled pre-war or C19th Australia. By the 2nd & 3rd generation those attitudes tend to shift.
A common Australian trait (across many ethnicities) is that we tend to have big mouths & don't always put our brains into gear before we use them - it can lead to misunderstandings. Others of us can just be deliberately nasty, though it is a lot less common. An incredibly small number of us can be violent - especially on the booze.
I actually marvel every time I walk down the shopping strip of my mostly Vietnamese/Chinese neighbourhood, rubbing shoulders with Sudanese, Ethiopians, Anglos & southern Europeans to buy meat from my Indian halal butcher & then decide whether to buy from Thai, Vietnamese, Turkish or Indian restraunts or perhaps some fish & chips from George the Greek. Then I walk 100 meters to my home past a construction site full of what appear to be Hazara Afghanis (or some such) down an ethnically diverse street with several gay couples in it.
My father was born & grew up half a block from here into a place that had been white as a sheet for 100 years. There was more violence here between gangs based on suburban or religious loyalties than there ever has since Greeks began to move here in numbers in the 50s. I honestly don't know how the hell we did it with so few problems relative to the scale of the change. Just amazes me.
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
But generally it is not the traditional middle class which is immigrating to Australia. The typical middle class migrants have always migrated to the US and still do. The lower middle class(with not the same skills) are the one going to Australia. Australia with her poor immigration policies are inviting the not so good immigrants to come there. Giving PR's easily to hair dressers,cooks and vocational occupations is ridiculous. As a contrast in the US engineers have to wait a decade to get their PR. I believe the difference will show in the mean incomes of Indian migrants in the US and Australia.
Yeah, I grew up in a suburb with a fair few new immigrants, mainly Greeks and Italians and clearly remember the word 'Wog' being fairly well used. Don't hear much of that word anymore, which is good.
Still it just proves that attitudes can change and I agree some of the racist stuff around today does come from new immigrants. Unfortunately the worst I have heard in recent times is by Indians themselves. I could quite easily claim all Indians are racist because they hate 'Asians', but I won't because most Indians I know are very tolerant.
I disagree with this assertion. Skills have nothing to do with lower or upper middle class & is of no consequence to our discussion. Many Indians prefer Amercia over Austraila, primarily due to increased opportunities as a result of a bigger economy by size (not per-capita). It's America that has poor immigration policy. How is forcing engineers to wait for a decade a good immigration policy? Especially given the reasons why it takes that much time for skilled persons to get a PR in America . Australia has it right IMV, the flaws you pointed out is being addressed if one is to go by the wall street articles I posted in this thread. Besides, why should Australia & America have the same priorities when It comes to immigration?
Last edited by pChan; 10 Mar 10, at 15:37.
Have just been a reader on this site for some time now but had to register on reading these posts. I stayed in Australia for about 2 years as a student, went to the UNSW and so hopefully can claim to have some context in this discussion.
@ Ambidex - No offence meant. I don't know your complete context so this may be off the mark but seriously; the victim thing is just not done. You aren’t there to meet some desperate need of Aus, don't seem to be a pro bono case, so why should you expect anything to be provided on a platter. You are there to make a life for yourself, period. I paid the same fees that your wife is paying, 8 years back and found sufficient employment (odd jobs, 7/11, scg etc) to earn the tuition/living expenses back (btw helped by "white" Australians at Uni who ensured I was employed most of the time. They didn’t have to do it, I just turned up everyday looking for work and after a few weeks they starting giving it).
@ Ned - Don't know why you should feel agonised over international students/immigrants paying more than citizens. It's a normal subsidy offered to citizens of a country on account of the historic contributions made (monetary & otherwise) by your family and you. I would expect the Indian government to do the same for foreign students/immigrants (other than the pro bono cases).
@ this whole racism issue - I did come across few cases of racism - one instance of a bunch of drunk teens yelling at me across the street to go back home and another bunch threatening to beat me up cause i was a ****. I put both of them down to stupid stuff boys of all nationalities do once a few beers down. It's not to be condoned but equally doesn’t make all Aussies racist. I was refused housing at some places in Randwick but that is not very different from what I have seen people doing in India as well to outsiders. We all have a bit of Xenophobia, the onus is on the immigrant to make the effort and break through.
If you ask me - Are Aussies racist? I’ll say some are (some of the dinner table convs while I was waiting tables were quite off the charts) but I also met several normal everyday people who weren't and I would suggest majority is not. You need to keep in mind the following while passing judgement. Australia changed their all white immigration policy in 1975. So assuming some lag, that is just about 25 odd years of immigration the society has experienced till now. Any assimilation process is generally long term and often takes atleast a generation. One visit to the Sydney CBD would indicate that there have been massive changes in population mix in a short period and that’s a lot to get used to. I think a more fair assessment of Australia’s ability to deal with immigration is that the last 25 years have gone relatively peacefully without any major instances of race riots or (barring recent Indian cases) racist incidents. This should be appreciated and encouraged, instead of blowing the whole issue out of proportion and forcing Australians to batten down the hatches. Caveat - This is not to belittle anything Indians might have faced in recent incidents, just providing my two bits based on the time I spent there.
The problem runs both ways. You have the older generations of Australian's who grew up under the white Australia policy, and then with immigrants, no matter the race, there are good ones and bad ones. I've met many nice Indian and Saudi International Students at university as well as in the wider community, however i've also recently met several International students whose attitudes quite bluntly, drive me mad.
Its the small number of bad apples that ruin the image of the majority, and this goes for both sides of the situation.
But what annoys me the most is when Indian officials bitch and moan about the attacks and demand the Australian government takes action, what are they supposed to do? Assign bodyguards to each individual Indian student? Good luck with that.
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