Australia: Asylum seekers luxury rewards

Here you have it fine people. This is how badly asylum seekers are being treated on Australian soil. If they play sport or learn to speak English they receive credits to buy cigarettes, nose-hair trimmers, chocolate and other treats! You can see in the picture below just how badly we treat these so-called refugees. They look unhealthy and emancipated - just how they'd look if they were fleeing dire circumstances. Then they have the audacity to burn down these types of centres in protest about how long it's taking to be processed - or if they've been denied refugee status. The Australian Labor government sure has their priorities right. Forget about the old-age pensioner who actually built this country up with their taxes and hard work. They get forgotten. Even the people in Queensland - the old folks - have been left to their own devices and ignored. But, not for our new economic migrants - who are looking to Australia to complete their free-loading way of life - nothing is forgotten. Food, clothes, housing, computers, phone calls, sports facilities, treats - you name it and they're given it for free (oh, sorry, treats need to be earned by playing sport and learning English). Yes, this is the wacky world of the liberal Utopian dream-catchers. If the Labor government isn't voted out next election then I will gladly admit that the Australian people are the 'dumbest in the world'.


Asylum seekers who play sport or take part in art classes are being rewarded with 'perk's points'


ASYLUM seekers who sign up for art classes and play sport while in detention in Western Australia are earning "reward points", which they can cash in for luxuries such as automated nose-hair trimmers, cigarettes and chocolate.

The luxuries are costing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars a year.

Detainees in Australia, including those in WA, are entitled to claim battery-operated grooming gadgets, cigarettes, phone cards, snacks and confectionery by using reward points earned while playing soccer, volleyball and table tennis, and attending English and art lessons.

It comes as another two boats carrying suspected asylum seekers were intercepted by Australian authorities on Friday, one northwest of Christmas Island, believed to have 50 passengers, and another, which arrived on Cocos Island with 81 passengers.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship this week confirmed that the Christmas Island centre had recently received a bulk delivery of taxpayer-funded nose-hair trimmers.

The department refused to say how much they cost, but sources told The Sunday Times the figure was about $7000.

Insiders at Curtin Immigration Detention Centre, 40km southeast of Derby, said a recent shipment of cigarettes intended for detainees was worth about $10,000. A spokesman for Immigration and Citizenship Minister Chris Bowen refused to say how much the Federal Government spent on detainees' cigarettes, but did not rule out that the Curtin shipment cost as much as $10,000.

A department spokeswoman said detention services contractor SERCO supplied a range of personal items for clients to buy using the points system, which applied in canteens in all Australian immigration detention facilities.

The spokeswoman could not say how many points were needed to buy the clippers.

Meanwhile, Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop yesterday said she was "deeply concerned" by reports there would be continued outbreaks of violence and protests at Australia's detention centres, with authorities and police short of resources to deal with further unrest.

Source