Spending money on a migration agent, offshore health checks and bringing cash from a house sale (and not all of us did that) do not put anything into the Australian tax system. The bond was removed in 2007 for skilled migrants, but again it does not add to the Australian tax base. It is held in trust by the state the applicant invested in.

As for paying GST, won't the asylum seekers also be paying that when they shop? And don't kid yourself that PR don't come here and go straight to Centrelink benefits. Family tax benefit and rent assist are administered through Centrelink.

You need a lesson in economics. When you pay a migration agent he makes a profit and pays tax. When you apply for a visa you pay the government which is just another tax. When you bring money from a house sale and deposit it in an australian bank the bank makes a profit out of you which is taxed. The bond money goes into state governments coffers and it reduces their borrowing costs. If an asylum seeker comes into the country it only cost the country money.

As for GST, they don't need to shop. If the hundreds of asylum seeker queue jumpers hauled up in the hotel in Brisbane are anything to go by. All food and services are paid for them by the government. If you honestly think that a PR visa holder costs the country as much as an asylum seeker you are seriously deluded.

And you need a lesson in human kindness.

As for the migration agent thing, an offshore agent pays absolutely nothing here in Australia. Also, many don't use agents at all. How is that contributing? When we came we had very little capital, which I think is the norm for most migrants - we're not all cashed up poms. The bond stopped more than 3 years ago so there hasn't been anyone contributing to state coffers. Asylum seekers contribute to the economy by eventually becoming productive members of society who do many of the jobs that you wouldn't dream of doing. Cleaning toilets at hospitals, driving taxis, etc.

I was just watching the Nine news. I can't get used to the fact that Australian news shows distressing images over and over and over again. It's bad enough that it happened but it was gut wrenching to see them all yelling for help, then the disaster unfolding then the minutes and minutes of reshowing the worst bits. I had to turn over and mute as the children were in and out. Had they not shown as many distressing shots, I would have listened to the whole article.

Our local rag does that too - eg. showing cars that still have their deceased occupants in them etc. It is unecessary and I feel taking some dignity away from the poor souls who have perished.

Rant over. I do realise it is done for largely propaganda purposes...........

Yeah Right. Like the UK needed West Indians to drive the buses.

Hardly an Australian 'thing'. All media outlets, the world over, appear to rejoice in playing and replaying disasters.

Hopefully they will be showing it in Sri-Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq & Indonesia.

Without getting into the rights and wrongs of asylum seekers' cases, I shake my head at so much of the illogical arguments you hear bandied about.

Ms Gillard today said on TV that the people who arrange the boats are "evil". Does this mean that bringing people into the country without proper paperwork makes the carriers evil? If so, then Qantas is "evil" since an even larger number come in by air and then claim asylum. If she means that the boats are unseaworthy and therefore the operators are "evil', then would she agree that if the boats were large luxury yachts with full crews, proper lifeboats and king size beds they would *not* be evil?

Then there was the lady this morning who explained that 2½ thousand Burmese walked into Thailand per *day* and this was about the same number waiting in Indonesia to come to Australia - so what was the problem? The answer is pretty simple - the Burmese cross the border because they *can*! If it were that simple to get into Australia - or any other country for that matter - the figure would not of course be in that order of magnitude, but would be much greater.

I don't know what the answer is, or even if there *is* any kind of answer, and I don't envy those who have to make the decisions. But I do wish they would use a little more logic and call things the way they really see them!

Disasters are news, that's the bottom line of it. People want to read about and watch disasters and bad news, and they always sell papers and attract viewers. Good news on the other hand is less marketable.

Several reasons behind it, but they include the simple fact that many people just want to know that there is someone worse off than themselves, almost like a comfort thing. I come up against it at work every day. If something happens like a cyclone, everyone wants to know how bad it was, how much destruction etc, and the biggest question of all, "did anyone die?". If all we have is good news stories, our audience is much smaller than on the days when we have "real" bad news stuff.

The old story - "Earthquake in Chile - no-one hurt".

*That* won't make page 1!

Exactly. "Storm leaves 57000 without power" - no one is interested. " Storm might possibly have caused person to crash car and nearly die" - major headline. The impact is increased depending on the words used too; "storm" plus "die" will have a far greater readership than just "storm".

This did:-

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news...998577250.html

That's because the terminal velocity of a cat is only 60mph. Anything faster than that and the cat stands a better chance of surviving, strangely! Anyway, I digress...

You are right, of course, but they show more graphic images here, earlier in the day than the UK. I'm sure lots of other countries do too but I haven't watched the News in many others recently.

I don't think that's true. What about the images from 9/11? Played over and over and over of the planes hitting the towers; images of people as they jumped to their deaths from the WTC; the walking wounded trying to get out of Lower Manhattan? Those were being shown 24 hours a day in North America in the fall of 2001 and are still being shown at any hour of the day now 9 years later.

Yes, it is a horrible image, but as others have said, people want to see it.