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Listed below are comments made by busby2 between Wednesday, 4th November 2009 and Wednesday, 25th November 2009.

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An apology, an architect and an 'audience with Parky' 3:11pm on 25 Nov 2009 GaffaOz

I agree with your excellent post 35.

The only issue I have with it is that I support the monarchy. The British taxpayers make a very substantial profit from the Monarchy (eg the profit from the Crown Estate dwarfs the cost of the civil list) and the alternative of a president is just too awful to contemplate. There is much to be said in favour of a national figure head who is above party politics. Whether Australia wishes to keep the monarchy is up to them.
An apology, an architect and an 'audience with Parky' 11:28am on 23 Nov 2009 wollemi

First of all, I must agree with 11pete11 comment in #27 when he wrote "Not much sense in having a blog reply section if no one makes any decent comment. Stimulation of intelligence is the name of the game isn't it?" That was well said Pete and I hope that my tuppence worth has had the same effect!

Secondly I welcome your perspective of WW2 from your neck of the woods. From the British and Empire point of view, the first months of the Pacific war were absolutely disasterous. We lost Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Burma and as well as some islands in the Pacific. The loss of Singapore was the greatest blow. All these losses threatened India and Australia.

Thirdly, you were right to draw attention to the damage of these losses to the Empire, which was regarded by Australians as much YOUR empire as ours. Canadians and New Zealanders had the same attitude. An Empire needs to be able to defend its territory and look after those who rely on it and whilst we recovered from the losses to, for example, throw the Japanese out of Burma, the damage had already been done. The war had shown that the Empire was not invincible and our policy of holding an Empire with light forces and a strong navy was no longer tenable with the rise of hostile industrial and military powers like Japan.

Fourthly it well worth mentioning that without the British Empire, I do not see how we could have avoided defeat in 1940 when all our other allies were defeated. Our Empire kept us in the war and I believe this was also for the benefit of Australia. We might have been far too weak when the Japanese attacked but if we had also been defeated in 1940, what would the been the effect on the security of Australia when Japan attacked?

Finally, I don't find it surprisng that the struggle to defeat the Japanese was mainly a British Empire effort with the war in Europe being mainly a British/Canadian effort, leaving aside the contributions of the Americans and Russians!
An apology, an architect and an 'audience with Parky' 9:47pm on 22 Nov 2009 Further to David Beard's post above about independence, it is abundantly clear that Australia enjoys far more independence than Great Britain. Our independence has been steadily disappearing ever since we joined the EEC in 1973.

11Pete11 wrote "Agreements were signed by our government, prior to WWII, and Britain that forced us to exclusively trade with Britain on certain commodities, and in return Britain promised to protect Australia in time of attack. Then came WWII and we were left abandoned by Britain".

Australia had a terrible time during the Great Depression as raw material prices fell. Imperial preference was a help to Australia as that gave Australia preferential access to British Empire markets, primarily GB but also Malaya, India etc at a time when tariff barriers were very high throughout the world. The system was mutually beneficial to GB and Australia.

As to WW2, Australians with attitudes like Pete never choose to remember that all Australian land forces were withdrawn from European and North African theatres to fight in the Pacific, ie to defend Australia from the Japanese threat. That was the right decision and I'm sure we would have done more if we could. As you may know, the British effort against the Japanese was centred in Burma. We could not be everywhere and it made sense for Australia to concentrate their efforts in Papua New Guinea where the bravery and tenacity of their forces defeated the Japanese.

Perhaps Pete doesn't appreciate just how hard pressed Great Britain was during the early stages of the war and that we were threatened FAR more than Ausralia ever was. We suffered 60,000 civilians killed in airraids alone. We also lost around 400,000 killed in action. Australia lost 27,073 killed and 23,477 wounded in the whole of the war, a military casualty rate around half that of GB taking into account the population of our two nations at the time. The higher British casualty rates are further proof that we did not let Australia down and help to show just how hard pressed we were in other theatres of war. It is also questionable whether Australia needed further help from us given the US desire for revenge following the Pearl Harbour attacks! The size of the American war machine was such that they could fight wars on two fronts with equal strength and success. World War II proved that we all need powerful allies in times of conflict. Our victory was Australia's victory.

I have a huge respect for the contribution of all commonwealth and Empire troops during both world wars. We were united in a common endeavor, as expressed by the words of the NZ premier Michael Joseph Savage at the outbreak of world war II with a quote that would become a popular cry in New Zealand during the war:

"It is with gratitude in the past, and with confidence in the future, that we range ourselves without fear beside Britain, where she goes, we go! Where she stands, we stand!"

How very, very sad that we have to put up with the sad little sniping from 11pete11 which betrays the Australian men who risked and lost their lives defending our common way of life in a common cause against a common enemy.
An apology, an architect and an 'audience with Parky' 5:49pm on 22 Nov 2009 11pete11

In my 4 week visit to Australia, I'm pleased to say that I never met anyone like you with such a chip, or should I say a mountain of resentment on their shoulder!

" Is it hatred we express or highlights of the injustice done by the British? " and "Name one country that Britain invaded for it's empire, that hasn't ended up a dust bowl, so that Britain could survive? "

Who created the country of Australia, 11pete11 if it wasn't those damned British and their descendants you are ALWAYS complaining about? You clearly don't like your fellow Australians as these British migrants from the first fleeters onwards are the ones that made Australia and who became Australians. What EXACTLY is the word to describe people who hate themselves and their heritage?
Blair camp not hopeful 11:12am on 20 Nov 2009
Democracythreat wrote in #79
"I have Swiss friends come to me and say to me "You know when I go to the UK, if I start speaking German because I am lost and need directions, people make faces at me like I am a dog. They tell me to speak English in a very unfriendly way. But then they come here, and they can't speak french, or german, or italian, and they speak to me in english and just expect an answer. Why is that?"

Because English has become the world's second language, a common language used by the educated the world over! And the advantage to us English speakers is that we don't have to waste our time learning foreign languages with wierd ideas like having masculine, feminine and neuter nouns etc etc. The German language, for example, has remained stuck in the Dark Ages whilst Anglo Saxon, with the same Germanic roots, has simplified and developed into the modern English of today that everybody can learn to speak.

I admit it takes a huge amount of effort to become really proficient in English but relatively little knowledge is needed to get by in English compared to other European lanaguages like German and French.
An apology, an architect and an 'audience with Parky' 01:07am on 20 Nov 2009 "if I can ask a question - what is it with the Brits? First they transport our ancestors out here for relatively minor offences (mainly involved around trying to survive), then uproot 'poor' or 'lower class' children to various parts of the old Empire, regardless of family connections - its hard to imagine that sort of thinking and appalling to think that authorities here went along with it".

My Great, Great Grandfather was the captain of a ship that transported over 140 Irish women covicts and children to Van Diemans Land in the early 1840s. I like to think that they found a far better life out there and that their descendants, which must be many, many thousands by now, live happily in Tasmania and other parts of Australia. I also consider that for the vast majority of the transported Irish women that their fate would have been far, far worse had they remained in Ireland as they escaped a life of poverty, petty crime and the terrible Irish famine of 1846-7.

As for child emigrants to Australia, my father's two older brothers emigrated to WA in circa 1920 aged 15 and 14 after my grandfather's family fell on hard times after WW1. I understand they went with the Salvation Army. Life must have been hard but they established themselves, one in Kalgoolie and the other in Perth, and both married and had families. One of the highlights of my life was travelling to Australia with my son to meet members of their families for the first time a couple of years ago. My son and his girlfriend are now planning a return visit next year to stay with them and other cousins from my Mum's side of the family.

I was of course moved by Sandra Anker's story and hope that she can take real comfort from the apology and from the one to come from Gordon Brown. For once these are are not hollow apologies because they are made to those who suffered who are still alive today to hear them.
Blair camp not hopeful 8:46pm on 19 Nov 2009 democracythreat #38

Zir _Matty wrote in #30 "And our elected representatives need to be able to rise about the uneducated idiot masses/populist press and do what's right. Most people don't understand the EU and should therefore not have a vote on its future".

Perhaps Zir_Matty can explain how the "uneducated idiot masses" can be expected to elect anyone other than equally uneducated, idiot representatives who cannot make sensible decisions?
More could quit, drugs panel tells Johnson 5:12pm on 04 Nov 2009 CommunityCriminal wrote:
"well actualy as a cannabis smoker i have the same lung capacity as a none smoker and the same force volume as a none smoker which im afraid is a science fact not speculated fiction based on comparative drug coctailing".

You may believe that. Others take an opposite view:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7217601.stm

The fact is that if you smoke enough cannabis (and tobacco) to really cause you severe lung and ciculatory illness, it will be too late for you to do anything about it. Your best chance of a longer healthy life may well be keeping cannabis illegal and expensive which restricts your consumption to a level that does you far less harm.
So, the Czech was not in the post 4:16pm on 04 Nov 2009 Mike_Naylor

in post #329 you wrote "Please answer why ALL tabloid are anti europe"

You criticise those you suppose are less intelligent than you and then come up with what purports to be a sentence that makes the less than average Sun reader a genius by comparison!

I have a much more interesting question for you. Why don't you answer the question why nearly all the braodsheets are euro sceptic?
Busby2
So, the Czech was not in the post 1:00pm on 04 Nov 2009 I'm getting really p****ed off with changes to the way I can view my previous posts. I can no longer find my previous posts because once I have logged in as all my posts are under "you posted" instead of "busby2 posted". I cannot therefore do a word serach for my user name to find my previous posts once I have logged in.

So can the BBC change this so that posts are always listed under your user name even when you logged in?

I have no idea who to complain to about this. I have to say that I can still search for my posts on the BBC points of view site using my user name when logged in.

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