What!?
Reppy writes:
“More of this crap….”
Row over drive for Irish nurses (TheWestAustralian)
Update:
Some online reaction.
UPDATE 2:
The cartoonist responds.
FIGHT!
Irish People Living In Australia (Facebook)
Sponsored Link
Everything. As It Happens.
What would that bunch of kangaroo bothering, barbie loving convicts know about us anyway?
While in Ireland nurses and doctors can’t get work and we’re importing nurses from the Phillipines and Ghana and doctors from Pakistan and Kenya. Something very wrong here. (Not in some people emigrating and finding work, of course, but in a *mass* migration from Ireland, and to Ireland.)
[citation needed]
Many people who emigrate from Ireland are doing it for a life experience somewhere else. If a nurse I her 20s has worked 5 years in Ireland and has an offer of a 3 year contract in Aus in a sunnier climate and slightly more money why wouldn’t they go. The others come to Ireland because we are one of the wealthiest countries in the world and pay far more than they an get at home.
The Philippines are only a few hours flight from Perth.
The article is fine, the cartoon is not.
You can ring or email the paper, as per the photo.
Or tweet the cartoonist directly @DeanAlston
I wonder what the point engaging with the cartoonist is.
He clearly hasn’t got much intellectual firepower to bring to the table.
I heard the cartoonist was best man at the wedding of the surrogate couple who rejected the downs baby recently.
That’s good.
From the article:
“”I object to overseas nurses being seen as a first resort, rather than a last resort,” he said. “It’s short-sighted if employers are constantly looking to poor economies when they can pick up graduates in Australia.”
First they take our nurses then they call us a “poor economy”?
Fighting talk.
So Australia finally gets wealthy from minerals (lucky crims) and suddenly we are a poor country? That place has no redeeming features.
Ah it does. At the end of the day, your still not Australian.
That’s something to be thankful for.
Hurray!
Eh no… he may have got something wrong in that, but it is a fact we are not able to employ all our nurse graduates, so yeah, they go abroad.
I agree sinabhfuil it’s all about the food miles….
Well we can’t all be a nation of barmen.
zero humour there.
Lighten up people; this is one idiot man’s opinion. Don’t use it as an excuse to paint all Aussies with the same brush. Also, overreacting just seems self-conscious, like his opinion matters.
Are we really that uptioght we cant laugh at it? Come on we are a bigger nation than that, we can slag ourselves but if someone else does it, the baby comes out with the bathwater….
Flaps
If it was funny, but it’s not.
Laugh at the stupidity of it I suppose.
Well that too…
Flaps.
Does anyone actually know anybody called Colleen? Who’d actually call their daughter “Girl”?!
Wayne Rooney’s misses?
Nope, don’t know any. It’s used by those with Irish heritage in the US and in Australia, rather than in Ireland
No surprise, Australia is comparable to apartheid SA, with the exception that the Ozzies had the sense not to formalise the system in law and operate it through institutional behaviours.
No, it is in no way comparable to apartheid SA. Calm down there Maude.
Australia is not comparable with apartheid South Africa. It is one of the most multicultural countries in the World. Yes, there are some racists.There is plenty of migration from lots of different countries.
Asylum seekers are mistreated, but it looks like conditions aren’t much better in Ireland.
I assume Cousin Jack is talking about Australia’s treatment of it’s indigenous peoples. You could argue that it was worse than the apartheid regime
The apartheid system was far worse.
I do know someone called Colleen (who lives in Oz but is not a nurse).
I sent her pic – we both thought it was funny actually – no political overtones – just plain silly.
Lighten up FFS
Come home and see what’s in the papers here!
I’ve never understood why some cartoonists draw leprechauns like they were Quakers or Puritan settlers :)
I smirked at this joke
Unfunny cartoonist is unfunny.
Also Irish people in Australia; stop saying it’s racism. You are all white. You are all privileged.
Being white has nothing to do with it. If you’ve food in your belly and hot running water you’re privileged.
And racism is not just about what colour your skin is.
No, it’s not as simple as that I’m afraid. If you are white, you will always get a pass in life, just based on first glance. African Americans are testament to this, even though they live in the leading first world nation.
Kurtz, you need to move out of the 1950s boy with that white superior talk.
*whoooooosh*
I don’t agree that it’s not racism, but I do agree that it’s easier to hide in plain sight as a member of a ‘white’ minority. Faking an accent is an option, or simply not speaking.
Other minorities are visible at “first glance”. This means it’s more immediate for people who aren’t white, given that, generally speaking, people see a greater number of other people than they speak to.
It’s a “privilege” as the current phrase goes, albeit a qualified one, that white minorities can move around within societies with white majorities without being identifiably other to the naked eye.
Very privileged outlook, as it goes.
Your end statement is a racist statement and your opening about all Irish being White is incorrect, but then, we know you’re the real racist.
Keep trying to be that finger pointing uber liberal , you’ll never make it but we will laugh watching you.
There is a history of racism towards the Irish in Australia. It has died out in recent decades. I will still get some older person who will think it is OK to tell me some stupid Irish joke. Luckily, that is rare. You just have to go north of the border to see racism against Irish people, in our own country. So, being white has nothing to do with it.
I think its crude but funny. After all we think nothing about pulling this sort of cringe inducing crap out of the hat for visiting dignitaries.
If this is how other nationalities see us, then maybe we should take a look at ourselves.
Pint of Guinness Mr. President??
POTUS drinks a pint of probably our best known global export and its ‘cringe inducing crap’?
The cringe inducing bit, is televising him, to the world, drinking it.
I believe I also recall a sly dig at the Duke of Edinburgh on RTE, when he sensibly refused his pint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDkFG1Zn7uI
The difference here is that the family guy cartoon is using stereotypes but is actually funny.
There’s also an interview on Irish radio where someone called in and complained about the family guy cartoon. They played it on air and presenter and caller end it laughing their bollox off, making it even funnier.
It hasn’t been ours in awhile since Diageo took over. The Queen wasn’t playing their PR game either, she even instructed her (less) significant other not to.
Phillip didn’t refuse the pint. He clearly wanted the pint but the royals have a long standing rule of not promoting products.
Im well aware of who owns guinness now, but from a brand point of view its irish. Obama’s visit was about promoting ireland and nothing else, hence the televised pint.
Also, that family guy clip is funny as hell.
+1
Cracks me up !
The only message here is that all sorts of professions are leaving Ireland to go to Oz, en masse. The leprechaun has always been a bit of a fairytale mascot of the place – every country has one. What’s so insulting about them? We’re clearly in no way like them or morph into them. I find them a bit Tolkien-like. Puzzling how they annoy Irish people so much.
It’s prettily low and ignorant to use this inoffensive newspaper cartoon to have a swipe at an entire continent. Sounds like a lot of commentators wanted to offload a tonne of hate and arrogance about our Aussie friends, all 22 million of them!
“Irish people living in Australia.”
Ah, where people move to the other side of the world to talk about Tayto, old Irish currency, how great the Irish are and suddenly develop an interest in GAA
Ah yes Australia.
The cultural wasteland.
One big suburb of bland.
Where the news is sponsored by McDonalds.
Where they film live footage of car crashes before the relatives even know their loved ones are dead.
Where they don’t have the confidence to break from the British Monarchy and go it alone as a Republic.
Still sucking from Lizzie’s boob and pretending they don’t live right beside Asia.
In fairness, the propaganda about the Empire/British heritage has been strong in OZ, in recent years. PM Howard and now Mr. 1950’s – Tony Abbott, are staunch monarchists. Tony even brought back knighthoods, without consulting with London, nor his cabinet. Interestingly, the man who might become PM, if/when Tony gets rolled by his own party (he is the George W Bush we didn’t need), the man likely to replace him, Malcolm Turnbull, was the leader of the Australian Republican Movement in 1999.
The 1999 referendum on a Republic was set up to fail. Young Prince George is being used to keep the monarchy alive here. Just wait until Lizzie dies, until a lot of the older generation no longer votes, then there will be a change. Of course, most people here don’t give a toss, which is sometimes frustrating, other times it is one of the things that makes it a good place to live.
This isn’t insulting at all.
Not funny in the slightest, but not insulting. Get over yourselves.
If it was funny, I’d have no problem with the whole leprechaun thing. Then again, I’d have no problem with a lot of things that the PC brigade get up in arms about.
If we have a problem with this we should probably ban Irish people from dawning the hats en masse every st patrick’s day.
The old “I’m Irish” line from Dean Alston. Yeah, right.
The issue is that there is a serious story about Irish nurses. He makes a silly, unfunny cartoon, with a leprechaun thrown in.
I think Mr. Alston is an older person, who grew up in simpler times, when Irish jokes and stereotypes prevailed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Alston
He’s 64 and has previous when it comes to the ol’ race relations it seems.
I have to agree with everyone saying you are getting hot and bothered over something very silly, you come with stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion and abuse all Australians in doing so; Can’t you see that the cartoon tells you more about the narrow mind that made it than anything else! It wasn’t drawn by Australians, and calling the Australians criminals shows your stupidity, take a cold shower quickly and go back to the hole you crept out of….by the way ….I’m Irish and I smiled when I read it