Australian diplomacy massively fails Indian students
After the recent spate of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne, the Australian governments solution was to fly twenty five Indian journalists to Australia.
Presumably the idea was that we’d show them firsthand just how Indian friendly Australia supposedly is. After looking at the itinerary of the journalists and the costs involved I’m now certain of one of two things.
Either Indian journalists are a bunch of naive morons or the Australian government taxpayer has been taken for a massive all expenses paid ride.
Upon arriving at the request of the Australian government, the Indian journalists were given 5 star hotel accommodation, tours of the MCG and tickets to some concert featuring a Bollywood composer.
Y’know, because Australians are down with Bollywood music and all that.
The journalists were shown Footscray and St. Albans railway stations but presumably not before security had cleared out the western suburbs trash that loiter there daily.
As for concert tickets and the MCG… what exactly was that supposed to achieve? Most if not all of the bashings occurred in Melbourne’s western suburbs. Indian students aren’t living in our poor trashy suburbs because they have money to go watch concerts or visit the MCG.
If the Australian government really wanted to show that it’d done something about the crazies running around Melbourne’s western suburbs bashing Indians, here’s a suggestion:
Drop off the journalists at either VUT Footscray or St. Albans and get them to make their way unescorted on foot to the local train station. Out of the journalists that survive we could then have a bonus round and see who makes it alive into the CBD.
Surely that would have proved without a doubt that something had been done to clean up Melbourne’s streets?
Instead the Australian taxpayer is now out of pocket $250,000. Meanwhile a bunch of Indian journalists go back to India either thinking our government are idiots or that Melbourne is a magical place of racial harmony, 5 star hotels, concerts and sporting venues.
Either way, absolutely nothing is done to address the problem back in Melbourne.
To add insult to injury ‘the diplomacy budget for Australia’s High Commission in New Delhi has also been doubled, from $50,000 to $107,000 to help repair the damage caused by months of negative publicity and street protests.‘
Really? Indians give Australia months of negativity and street protests and instead of fixing the problem here we throw $50,000 to attempt to fix the problem on their end?!
Last time I checked it wasn’t Indian nationals coming over from India to Australia and beating the crap out of Indian students here.
Good work government. Obviously any country with the MCG, 5 star hotels and concerts featuring Indian composers is incapable of violence against Indians.
February 25th, 2010 at 10:52 pm Vilmos(Quote)
The government and politics in general in Hungary are full of hypocrisy, lies, deception, and in essence it’s about stealing as much of the taxpayers money as possible while maintaining a positive, friendly, progressive, etc. image, especially around election times.
Australia looks from the distance as a land of richness and of tender loving care for the citizens by the noble government. What I draw from this case with the Indian students is that the differences may be smaller than I thought. Big time hypocrisy is everywhere.
February 25th, 2010 at 11:33 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Big time hyprocrisy might be everywhere but how’s this for corruption.
The Victorian government didn’t want a construction plan to go ahead so they decided to stage a public consultation to help with their pre-determined decision. They were counting on the public supporting that the construction be stopped but would push this line regardless of what happened.
Normally we wouldn’t hear about this thing but a Labor PR person accidentally emailed the communication to the media:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/25/2830415.htm?section=justin
February 26th, 2010 at 9:39 pm Khyati(Quote)
Feel sad, I am not even sure what happened? Have they even shown in Indian press what they did? I don’t think so. They have not only wasted Australian taxpayer’s money but Indian’s too I guess. But whatever this is, it s**ks. Shame on Indian press if this actually happened.
But when you say this
“To add insult to injury ‘the diplomacy budget for Australia’s High Commission in New Delhi has also been doubled, from $50,000 to $107,000 to help repair the damage caused by months of negative publicity and street protests.”
Do you have any clue how much does an Australian education system earn from Indian/International students? Have you ever seen kind of publicity and advertising in Indian papers by Australian Universities.
AUD 57000 may be too much for you and me but not for such huge communities. And its obvious any organization will clear its negative publicity when it comes to their client whether its created by client(India) or someone else.
Khyati
February 27th, 2010 at 5:43 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
My problem with the money isn’t the fac that it’s being spent it’s what it’s being spent on. Instead of fixing the problem back home our stupid government is just pumping money into PR trying to convince everyone that it’s all ok.
You don’t fix problems just by glossing over them by increasing your diplomatic advertising budget.