If you can't appeal to their hearts, appeal to their pocketbooks.

[reynardo]

I am sending this letter to the Prime Minister.

Dear Mr Turnbull,

I am writing to you to ask you to change the way Australia treats asylum seekers, especially those who come as refugees, desperately seeking our help.

I am asking from the point of view of economics and rational action. I'm asking for these people to be brought to Australia to be processed in the community, supported in the community, and welcomed into the community.

Banishing them to offshore processing centres and locations is not cost effective. It costs a great deal more to place refugees in the camps on Manus, on Nauru, and at Christmas Island. Sending the asylum seekers to Cambodia has also been an incredibly cost-inefficient action.

There are plenty of places in Australia where whole families could be brought into a community, housed, and treated like human beings for a great deal less than the cost of sending them to these other places. They could get effective preventative and timely health care that would cost a lot less than trying to treat them on the islands. And they could contribute to the communities, especially out in those Australian towns where the injection of funds and support services could revitalise places that are otherwise fading away.

Most of all, if Australia is seen as treating asylum seekers and refugees as human beings, this will greatly decrease a lot of the enmity and outrage in some of the local and overseas communities. This is costing Australia in trade, in defence and in our own sense of security.

Surely the onshore intake and community processing of the small number of asylum seekers and refugees is a tiny price to pay, in comparison to what it is costing Australia now in dollars, in power, and in goodwill.

Please bring these people out of the offshore camps and bring them to Australia.

Sincerely...

Comments

[helenarickman.livejournal.com]

Your plea is quite compelling.

[manna]

Good letter!

Maybe take out 'desperately seeking our help'? I don't know what the odds are than the letter will actually get near the PM or anyone else with power, but in case it does, that seems like the kind of phrase that will get it tagged as 'bleeding heart liberal' and tossed possibly before reading the rest. Without it, the opening paragraph is neutral enough to make someone read on and maybe catch 'economics' and 'not cost effective'.

You could even throw in an 'As a tax-paying citizen, I am disgusted by the way that this government is wasting my money with its short-sighted policies'.

[feodora.livejournal.com]

In Germany it is a bit the other way round. The goverment and, luckily the majority of us, is welcoming the people comming to us to seek asylum. But there is a harsh discussion and some talking nazilike as if they havent learned anything from 1933.
Persons I always thought of as open minded, helpfull and cosmopolitan, now talk in hate and disgusting words about the people. There are even some asking to shoot on refugiees to top them passing our boarders.
Currently about 1.5 Million people seeking asylum in germany. The affords we have to take to give them shelter, registrate and care for them are high, but there are many groups distructing camps and houses prepared to take refugee people.

In germany we have, more than other countrys a responsibility concerning our history, during 1933-45. Many are again calling for treatments of the refugees as they called for under nazi regime.
The really asked the greek to refuse the boats to land.

Nearlly 2 Million people are in europe now, but what is THAT compared to 740 Million europeans. The say they are frightend that the islam will overtake our society, will overrun christianity!! Most of the people saying this havent been to church the last 12 month or even not a member (as many in east germany former GDR). They are frighted that we are forced to wear a scarf as some muslim women do. They are angry that some school cantine took pork from the menue, because that is the easiest way to makew sure that no muslim (or jew) kid eats pork.
Just a bit tollerance is too much.

I am frightend. My grand parents told me about nazi regime and many old people in germany warn, that was how it started in 1933!!

To cut a long story short. Thank You for Your letter to Your prime minister and thank You for sharing it. I sometimes lost hope that there are other people with my oppinon!!!

THANKS reynardo !!

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one. 5000 people gathered in Melbourne on a weekday afternoon to ask the government to let the refugees in. I know I was also representing at least 2 other people. So that was a fair percentage of the population who said "we care, so should the government".

[adelheide.livejournal.com]

Brava!

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

:-)

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

Lovely. I've just put a letter-writing post on my blog; may I copy this (with whatever credit you prefer) as another example of a sample letter?

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Absolutely!

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

(Here via the LJ Home Page)

Thanks for the satire!

That's what it has to be. Surely, after seeing the violence, rape and murder being wreaked upon so many countries in Europe by these Muslim "refugees", that's what it has to be.

No sane, decent person would wish for and actively call for having violence, rape and murder brought to their own countries by these same people.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Interesting use of the word "Satire".

Refugees are real

Asylum seekers are real

Much of the violence people are talking about is either misrepresented or completely made up.

But I have a feeling your mind is already made up, anyway. What would you accept as proof that the refugees seek only a safe haven away from the violence in their home countries? Which of the 37 babies born here scares you so much? How many of the children who were attacked at the refugee camps offshore, some of them abused and sexually assaulted, do you think are better off in a country where they'll be given worse then killed?

And please, while I'll accept facts from verifiable sources, any of the right-wing scaremongering (such as Breitbart) is not considered reliable.

[moxie_man]

Reyn, have you forgot the cardinal rule of the Internet from way, way back when it was text only and people "socialized" on Usenet?

Do not feed the trolls. ;)

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

You're right. I'm getting old.

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

And please, while I'll accept facts from verifiable sources, any of the right-wing scaremongering (such as Breitbart) is not considered reliable.

Not reliable because they tell you the truth, eh?

I gave you the benefit of the doubt, thinking this had to be satire because. I assumed no one would be saying such things seriously.

Clearly, I was wrong.

I guess all those rape victims in Germany and the young woman in Sweden who was stabbed to death are just making it up for "scaremongering" purposes.


http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/01/25/refugee-worker-stabbed-death-sweden-lklv-robertson.cnn

[crazyjane13.livejournal.com]

Facts.

Right here, right now. 'Violence, rape and murder' statistics with proper references, to prove your thesis. And by 'statistics', I don't mean 'the latest conspiracy website'.

Come on ... you're so confident that you can speak with authority about this. Educate all of us.

Unless you're basically just a troll who thought a drive-by grenade might be a fun idea, of course.

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

Anything I give you, you know you will ignore.

https://youtu.be/UsThtNxLc64


https://youtu.be/FSt8jLDpLzw



You've never read the Koran. You have no interest in doing so. Go move to Germany or Sweden or any other European country going through this.

[crazyjane13.livejournal.com]

Oh, you fool. Not only have I read the Koran, I've studied it extensively - along with the Torah, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, New Testament Apocrypha, the Gnostic Gospels and the various versions of the Christian Bible. And when I say 'studied', I don't mean that I picked up some Idiot's Guide; I studied primary sources, where possible in their original languages. It's called academic rigour.

So let's apply some to your examples, shall we?

Your first link is to a CNN report, which itself notes that there has been no provable link between the number of asylum seekers entering the country and the incident in Cologne.

In your second, 'some' of the Cologne suspects were identified as asylum seekers. That's a very fuzzy number which could be anything from five to a hundred, especially when those caught up in the incident described 'a thousand or so men' involved.

In neither example is there any provable link, or even a suggestion of a provable link. Legally, unless asylum seekers are arrested, all you have is rumour. Academically, all you have is confirmation bias. You're looking for the presence of asylum seekers and migrants, and concentrating on that - as such, you completely ignore the majority of alleged offenders who belong to neither category (for example, native-born German citizens).

Try harder.

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

Not only have I read the Koran, I've studied it extensively - along with the Torah, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, New Testament Apocrypha, the Gnostic Gospels and the various versions of the Christian Bible. And when I say 'studied', I don't mean that I picked up some Idiot's Guide; I studied primary sources, where possible in their original languages. It's called academic rigour.

Oh, my mistake. So you know full well what the death cult of Islam teaches, and you still support it.

Thanks for clarifying that.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

So these verses don't count?

"Do not allow a sorceress to live." Exodus 22:18

"But if injury ensues, you shall give life for life." Exodus 21:22

"For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death." Exodus 35:2

Hmmm. a bit heavy on the Exodus side of things. Let's try another book.

Deutronomy 14:1 no making yourself bald, or plucking your eyebrows.

Reading your horoscope is bad. Leviticus 19:31

Eating bacon or playing football with a natural pigskin ball.

A woman speaking up in church.

All of those are bad in the eyes of the Judeo-Christian side of things. But there are hard-line fundamentalist Christians who consider that all these are reasons for the death penalty. So we should judge all Christians by these rules? I've got to say, that while I personally know a lot of Christians who believe in the "God is Good" side of things. (including at least one who says it in Arabic because that's her native language), the ones I hear about in the paper or on the television or who turn up on my newsfeed are the extreme ones.

So that therefore means that yes, by your logic, Christianity must be a death cult.

[crazyjane13.livejournal.com]

And thus you prove yourself not merely a fool, or even a troll, but an irresponsible agitator, with no interest in anything other than pushing a point of view devoid of facts, logic or even the remotest exercise of your alleged brain cells.

I can only hope that one day you will actually apply some rigour to your arguments. Until then, be happy in your fantasy land.

[malada.livejournal.com]

I love you.

-m

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

:-)
Mutual, my dear.

ETA: I just saw what you did. You and your beautiful partner are beautiful. Can you hang on 2 years for some more hugs?

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

Here's another case I just found. I'm sure you think I'm making this up for fun.

Know that I hold people like you indirectly responsible for the horror this poor boy endured. How ANYONE can actively advocate for bringing people like this into their country is beyond me.

People support child rape - horrifying!


10-Year-Old Boy Brutally Raped By Iraqi Migrant at Pool in Vienna

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/02/05/ten-year-old-boy-brutally-raped-by-iraqi-migrant-at-pool-in-vienna/

[crazyjane13.livejournal.com]

That's undeniably a horrific case, and the offender should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law (and then some - raping a child is atrocious). Again, though - this is confirmation bias at work. Not to mention generalisation, inductive reasoning, and a whole slew of failures of logic.

One migrant offender does not indicate that all migrants behave the same way. Check statistics - how many white child rapists are there?

[topum.livejournal.com]

Thank you!