The Land Down Under

I just got an e-mail from a friend of mine, Jonny:

Keith I wanna know what you think about the Aussie government putting the entry credits up to 120 from 115, basically preventing any educated human being (I say that due to the fact that any labourer can walk in even though he never completed GCSE's) from entering the country on a full time basis. I want to read you opinion on sortapundit you opinionated git.

Immigration to Australia is determined by what's called the 'points test' (points are awarded for the skills and qualifications of the applicant - i.e. level of education, work experience, age etc.). This is the first I've heard about the increase (and the aussie gov website is down right now), so I'll just assume it's true until proved otherwise.

Jonny has wanted to live in Oz since he went there with my brother and some friends in 2002. I joined them later on during the summer (you can read of our exploits here and here - one of these days I'll get around to continuing that story) and fell in love with the country before I had even stepped from the plane.

For the last two years whenever we meet we invariably get back to the subject of immigration. The problem is not that you have to be sufficiently qualified to immigrate - both Jonny and I are graduates with a good 40+ productive years of work ahead. The problem is that there are points awarded for hairdressing. While we are awarded 50 points for studying for 3 or 4 years to gain a degree, a hairdresser - a hairdresser - gets 15 points automatically. Now I understand that the country needs qualified hairdressers - you only have to look at the array of mullets on show to see that - but seriously, how much study does it take to learn to cut hair? The hairdressing course was the route the idiots at the back of the class took when they realised that 5 years of goofing off in secondary school left them with no job prospects. At that time Jonny and I were in college, studying for two years in order to progress to another three years (four in my case) of university. Let us the hell into the country, damn you!

btw, Jonny, you loudmouth ass - I'm not opinionated... I'm special.