In response to (‘We’re all boat people’, July 19) migrants from many nations have settled on our shores and many have still not assimilated into the Australian community. The Australian Government has the right to deny privileges to anyone who is a security threat and also to people who come into our country illegally. Those who are truly asylum seekers will be allowed to stay after being processed by the authorities. Some ‘asylum seekers’ are Tamil Tiger terrorists who have been involved in assassinations, murder and kidnapping for decades in Sri Lanka. Some may have Al Qaeda sympathies or criminal backgrounds. They all seem to have conveniently mislaid their passports. The UN and Western nations have banned many of these groups that naive Australians seem so keen to embrace.
Not everyone reads the Daily Telegraph or listens to shock jocks on the radio as Drusi Megget and others have insinuated. (‘Fair go Aussies’, July 19). Ms Megget suggests that “If everyone knew a refugee, then the them-and-us thing would disappear and you’d be friends”. We would possibly be friends with some of them but the statement is unrealistic as many asylum seekers and migrants don’t speak English. There are ‘ethnic ghettos’ of crime in Sydney with drive-by shootings which seems to be increasing daily. Allowing further immigration will just exacerbate the problem. Not to mention infrastructure to accommodate the burgeoning population.
I wonder how many of these do-gooders have actually lived in an ethnic community like Bankstown or Cabramatta. I used to know many ethnic folk when I lived in Bexley and now that suburb and surrounds has drive-by shootings. We moved to another suburb in Sydney and we chose the Camden Haven for retirement as these problems don’t exist here.
The ABC can sometimes be prejudiced, like many other TV stations. If The Independent prints more letters with views that differ from Ms Megget’s then maybe more people in the community have different viewpoints to the ones she espouses.
Lesley Chapman
Port Macquarie
