I have actually.
I've travelled very widely around australia. My whole family and I packed a few sets of clothes and hitched a rusty old caravan to the car and we travelled for five and a half months right around Australia. I've been to well over 200 towns, have been into every state and territory except for tassie, thoroughly explored each of them, going well inland and right to the sea.

I've been just about everywhere I can think of and I never once was in a place I liked enough to call home.

And why the buggery fuck would I send money home? I don't have a family to support, I don't have debts to pay off, and I'm not keen on having to part with it once I've earned it unless it's to pay bills etc.
(Poppet some assembly required., Fri 8 May 2009, 15:36, 1 reply, 16 years ago)

So to take your argument to the next step
you are saying that you are a very transient person, who doesn't like to settle. What makes you think you will like the UK any better? Also, you've toured your country as a child. You are only 17. I went to lots of places as a child, I wouldn't feel remotely qualified to decide if they were places I would like to live now without going back and spending some time there.

And once again back to the crux of the argument, why should the fact that you really, really, really want to, make any difference as to whether you can prove that you will contribute to the country?
(Bazongaloid, Fri 8 May 2009, 15:46, Reply)

I'm not saying that at all
I'm not saying I'm a very transient person. I want to settle. I like rain and I like cold and I like the occasional sunny day. Fact is I can see myself fitting in more comfortably in the UK then I ever have fitted in here.

If you're not going to let people have a chance - you're essentially closing off your country to everybody. Nobody would want to come because nobody would feel welcome. I want a chance and I know there are thousands of other people who would also jump at the opportunity if it was given to them.

Sometimes risks have to be taken. Your economy is already in crap shape. If people are willing to come over and work, in any sector - then I think they should be able to. If they pay taxes, do everything legally - why the hell not? The only difference of me and you is that my passport is australian and yours is british. That's the only difference between you thinking you're entitled to your job and that I'm not even allowed one chance.

I'm not asking for all the laws to be changed - just for me. I'm asking for a chance at being able to start my life over. There are so many people just like me who want to get out and begin again. I have been through some messed up shit and I've wanted to get as far away from here as I can since then.
I now have funds, I have someone waiting for me, I have motivation, general skills (which aren't apparently good enough) and I'm willing to work hard.

Being able to prove this is essentially my word, my bank statements, my certificates and my passports. My certificates are evidence that I work hard. My tafe course that I'm doing right now? It takes 14 months to do. I finish it about two months before I leave for the UK. I'll be qualified in Hospitality for reception, waiting, bartending, phone call operations and a whole host of other jobs.
If that's not evidence that I'm not willing to work hard then I'm not ever going to convince you and I'm not going to waste my time trying to do so.
(Poppet some assembly required., Fri 8 May 2009, 15:57, Reply)

without wanting to get right into this debate
I'd like to point out that our economy is indeed in crap shape, with something like 2 million unemployed. now is when we could really do with all jobs being available for the people who already live here.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 8 May 2009, 16:06, Reply)

Well, you are wasting your time by arguing
with someone on the internet over the UK governments stance on immigration. I'm pointing out what the counter argument to what your saying is.

To go back to your last comment "sometimes risks have to be taken", but not on the level of an individual person coming to the UK, the immigration system does not work like that, indeed, no immigration system could ever work like that.

Lots of people come to the UK, we are by no means a closed country, we actually have a very easy to abuse system, which is being tightened up a bit, but it's still not as good as the one set out in Oz, which although tough, works and is, as fair editfar as these things can be, pretty fair.

And once again, you have "general" skills, but so do the hundreds of thousands of british teenagers who leave college every single year in exactly your position. And since they are already here, the argument I'm putting forward is that surely they should have first dibs on the unskilled jobs that you will be looking for.

If we get to the stage in the UK where we are desperate for waiting staff in cafes, then your skill set will be the one that the immigration officials will be looking for, but at the moment they aren't.

Now I realise that you are looking at this from the inside, but I'm trying to explain dispassionately why what you want is not reasonable.
(Bazongaloid, Fri 8 May 2009, 16:06, Reply)