London is full of antipodeans. Some special visa agreement lets them live and work in the UK for up to two years. Not surprisingly, most that come choose London. They pile up in tight flatshares to save money, which is then spent on partying and traveling Europe. In town, they are most visible in a chain of pubs that caters to their tastes and during Australia and Waitangi Days, when they swarm on the streets dressed in nothing but national flags and whiffs of alcohol, ignoring generally frigid temperatures.
They even have their own magazine, the bizarrely named TNT. It was in this magazine that I saw an advertisement for the Liberal Party of Australia. A general election is coming up, and among their campaign promises was the curious stop the boats.
At first I thought they were opposing world trade, maybe because they didn't want to sell Australia's mineral wealth to China, but that didn't make too much sense. Then I realized their policy was against immigration, which is an even stranger strange position for liberals to take. But the strangest thing of all is to target Australians in London with this xenophobic nonsense. Haven't they come here on the rich world's equivalent of boats? Should we close our airports to them?
I don't hold this ad against TNT; they're just trying to run their business. In fact, I quite like the magazine. They are running a travel writing competition into which I've just entered my contribution. Read about the silence of Hama (taken from my trip to Syria last year) and click on the stars and spread the word if you like it.
2 comments:
Australia wouldn't be Australia without boats
now if it was an Aborigine periodical printing that I could almost see their point
Good point, GC. How short memories are sometimes. (Though it has to be admitted that a large percentage of the early settlers weren't on the boats voluntarily.)
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