Should Australia support it’s expats in time of crisis?

[Super Nova]

I am disturbed by the lack of support Australia provides it’s expats in time of trouble.

The US do everything they can to help their expats. Other countries including the UK do something even though it is much less than the US commitment. Austral does Sweet F..k All and each Aussie is on their own.

I experienced this first hand. I had to lead an evacuation of my project team, their families when Jakarta went to shit during the Soharto downfall. We were all registered with the Australian consulate and we were in contact with them. They did nothing. Not a bloody thing. The US expats had full support. Plans were provided to evacuate them. They had rehearsed procedures, meeting points the whole 9 yards. At the time, I was pissed off but put it down to “there are just too many Aussies here to support” and accepted that Australia does not give a shit. Luckily we were prepared with enough cash in US dollars to buy our way out. We pitched in to pay for those who failed to plan so they got home as well.

The US insist on all US expats paying a little tax. The yanks are happy to pay it as it makes sure they are safe anywhere in the world.

Should we look after our expats better?

I think we should. They bring benefits to Australia and strengthen our reputation abroad.

Here is a link to the story that prompted this.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victo ... 1bd10.html

[IQS.RLOW]

We already pay too much tax as it is compared to the US.

This Labor govt couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. I would be loathe to pay extra tax and think that these clowns could organise me and my family's safe passage through Lakemba let alone through another country.

They are that inept

[mellie]

Our governments treatment of Julian Assange, along with their deplorable public assassination of his character when he needed them most is blood curdling, Gillard and Rudd have virtually signed his death warrant, and if they quite literally have, I can tell you now he will return the favour over and over again long after he's dead.

Rudds dirty with him because he made a dick of himself over in Copenhagen, ... and to think, BHP dont trust our government enough to alert them to home security concerns re- Chinese spys, thus took their intelligence to America.

Basically, not even BHP, the company backing Gillards carbon-tax (only in exchange for operational expansion ) trusts her with breeches of national security.

Why?


Either they think she's incompetent or untrustworthy.....which one?

Perhaps both.

Oh, and Julian Assange leaked this document also.

We'd be complete mushrooms if it weren't for him... this and would probably be still stuck with Rudd and his ETS.

Because wikileaks leaking the climategate files right as Lu Kewen was about to score a trophy at Copenhagen would have been a bit of a downer....hahahahahah

[mellie]

Furthermore, we are one of the highest taxed nations in the world, and constitutionally it's our governments duty to support all it's citizens, and it's expats in times of trouble overseas...for better or worse.

Will Gillard now try and pass an expat levy?

....oooh, we are getting closer and closer to Greens death tax by the day, .....


__________________

So YES our government should help all it's citizens in crisis overseas including our expats,

But NO, how dare they tax us for something which is constitutionally supposed to be their 'honour' to begin with,.. unless of course we vote for a republic, in which case, they may do away with our constitution, and rewrite their own as they see fit.

[Ned Kelly]

Getting back to the opening post.

I've never been there, and so I know fuck all. All I have is what you all hear in the News, but my gut feel is that we are not overly aggressive in rescuing our Mob from places of political turmoil.

But, I ask this question as you often hear, over the News that there are "xxxxx Australians registered" as being in some Country. Huh?

How?

I have never 'registered' my presence anywhere, including places overseas. By 'registration,' do they mean that my Passport was stamped as I entered, and so our Mob say I have 'registered?'

[Super Nova]

We already pay too much tax as it is compared to the US.

This Labor govt couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. I would be loathe to pay extra tax and think that these clowns could organise me and my family's safe passage through Lakemba let alone through another country.

They are that inept

I have to agree. However i think the issue is simply that they don't care. there is no pressure back home when expats get into trouble overseas. In the US the government is expected to do whatever it takes to protect their citizens.

We need to apply some pressure to our government to have a different policy.

[Super Nova]

Getting back to the opening post.

I've never been there, and so I know fuck all. All I have is what you all hear in the News, but my gut feel is that we are not overly aggressive in rescuing our Mob from places of political turmoil.

But, I ask this question as you often hear, over the News that there are "xxxxx Australians registered" as being in some Country. Huh?

How?

I have never 'registered' my presence anywhere, including places overseas. By 'registration,' do they mean that my Passport was stamped as I entered, and so our Mob say I have 'registered?'

Good question Aussie.

You have to be pro-active yourself and go to the Australian Embassy and fill out a registration form.That is how we registered. You may be able to do it online today. This is what we had to do 12 or so years ago in Jakarta. We did the same when I worked in Kuwait just in case. I have not bothered in any other country.

The extra benefit to registration in Kuwait was that we got an invite to the embassy for a pissup so i could down a few VBs. In a dry country... this is a big reason to register.

The problem initially was that we had higher expectation of what the government would do for us as it was implied when we registered. If we know you are here we can help in an emergency. thge fact was the family of the workers at the embassy were evacuated and we were left with no info, no support and our own means to escape. Good thing we are aussies and are self reliant.

[Pastafarian]

This Labor govt couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. I would be loathe to pay extra tax and think that these clowns could organise me and my family's safe passage through Lakemba let alone through another country.

They are that inept

They seemed to organise mine. I was driving through it a few weeks ago. Mysteriously nothing happened.

[AiA in Atlanta]

Knew a anti-American Canadian who was somewhere in Central America protesting against American involvement in that part of the world. When the shit hit the fan and all foreigners were evacuated the US military took his arse out on a plane. When I asked him if he didn't see something wrong with that he just looked at me like I was fucking crazy. I would have left him there.

Curious SN, how does that work, buying your way out with US dollars? Did the US military take your money?

[Super Nova]

Curious SN, how does that work, buying your way out with US dollars? Did the US military take your money?

AiA,

Our boss gave us all $1000 cash under the table bonus a couple of months before. It was all in big faced $20 bills. There has been counterfeiting of a smaller faced Ben Franklin bills so we got fresh new prints.

The ATMs, the Mobile phone network were not working. The banking systems were not working so no-one accepted credt cards. Local currency was inflating at an huge rate daily so no-one would accept local currency for travel.

We went to the airport, had to nearly run over bandits o nthe freeway as we would not stop for anything and when we got the the airport their was absoluate chaos. There was a huge line for the ticket counter. I means hundreds of people. We found out we could not pay by card...etc. I guy who had worked in airport in Saudi and I when to the front of the queue and placed on the counter a pile of US dollar, all the money we had as a group. It must have been about $10,000.
This got there immediate attention and allowed us to jump the queue. Everyone was booking to go out of Indonesia and we could not get on any flights to Singapore or Malaysia or Austalia or anywhere. So then we thought, "well if everyone is going that way... let's look at going another way". So we got ticket to bali, an internal flight. We had to pay cash and had to wait 6 hours for the flight. if we did not have cash, we would not have got out so easily. I heard stories of people being there for days, their families could not help get money to them as the banking system had failed. Cash was king. .... I alway have a $1000 US with me in a safe when I am in countries that could go unstable. i have a local phone card because the phones at the airport were full of coins and did not allow anymore coins so my wife had a phone card so we could contact Australia. After this event the boss had card printed in English and Bahasa Indonesian to say we are worth more money alive then dead and to call this numbe if we were kidnaped. We all carried this when we went back. Never used it. I also carry a wallet with me that is worth stealing and US dollars hidden in 2 of my pockets in case I get robbed or mugged in certain countries....etc.

Run number one. Carry US dollars freshly minted and you can buy your way out.