Cope and adapt – or whinge?

After nearly 7 decades of a highly interactive and contributory life in Australia as an adult, I believe that I am qualified to conclude thus:

• This is not the country I entered. Then, residents were self-sufficient and relatively poor, displaying respect where appropriate, and with pride in who they were. They adapted very successfully, progressively, to the tremendous changes to their society. ‘God’s Will’ did have a role.
• Today, new rights have been coined by the greedy and the opportunistic; government is required to accept responsibilities which were traditionally those of individuals, families, and private enterprise. The ‘nanny state’ has arrived.
• ‘Other peoples’ money’ is thereby demanded to compensate for the evil behaviour of priests; offset the low taxes paid by tax-minimising corporations, especially the multinationals; compensate for the calculated profligacy of individuals; and subsidise the so-called ‘wealth creation’ by the rich (including politicians) benefiting from questionable tax concessions. Taxpayers who have no way of protecting their earnings are increasingly fleeced.
• Our politicians are not trusted. Governments are seen as pre-occupied with politics, rather than with policies. And the nation is more backward than it should be, while political careers move forward.
• Early post-war immigrants integrated into the nation successfully, ignoring the prejudice (not always racism) displayed through spoken words and painful acts of discrimination. More recent immigrants, entering a nation considerably tolerant of difference, profess to have been hurt and humiliated by pejorative spoken words!
• These new arrivals could have no idea of the insults and denial of equal opportunity suffered by those of us who acclimatised superior white Aussies to the presence of people not like them.
• Welfare is not directed just to offset hardship. It is now a right. Spokesmen for the industry seek a ‘sustainable lifestyle’ for recipients, which includes going to the cinema, etc. etc. Why not? Someone else is paying.
• Some new arrivals are quick to adapt to the current national ethos: whinge, and whinge yet again.
• Castles built on clouds will collapse. Wait to hear the cacophony of complaints as the need for greater self-sufficiency zooms sky high (as the river begins to dry out).

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More issues for asylum seeker supporters

“When due process leads to denial of asylum, and the taxpayer has spent a large sum of scarce funds, one can find some queer counter-proposals. These reflect sympathy for the asylum seekers, most of whom are most likely to be economic migrants who would not qualify for entry by the front door, or even the side door. Then, there are those who assert that, since Australia does not experience the floods of asylum seekers inundating Europe, we should take all comers. Isn’t the availability of a lifetime on welfare in Australia, plus Medicare, plus family reunion a probable drawcard? Shall we just open the immigration door?

Most relevantly, is there no part of Afghanistan which is safe for the Hazaras or other Afghans? Isn’t there a district in Afghanistan which is dominated by the Hazaras? Are there not large areas of Iraq which are predominantly Sunni, Shia or Kurd, to which an Iraqi asylum seeker could move, thus avoiding the large outlays of money, the risk of drowning, the detention (but with care provided at the Australian tax¬payers’ expense), and the risk of mental health problems? If there is somewhere else to go to, could the government negotiate with the governments we have put in place in Iraq and Afghanistan to take the boat arrivals? Would they not then be living within their own culture? And does not the UN convention also provide that asylum seekers have to show that there is nowhere else they can go?

On the issue of living with one’s own people, some Moslem settlers from countries with limited personal and political rights already seek to have Australia’s institutions amended to incorporate sharia law, when Islam has no separation between the law and religion. Would the pre¬dominantly Middle Eastern asylum seekers add to this pres¬sure? Historically, there were those who wished to turn a secular nation into one ruled by what they call natural law (which is not the same as a law of nature in science). Do our Tweedledum vs. Tweedledee governments have the integrity to retain Australia as a secular democratic nation, with religion kept separate from governance?

Do the uncritical Anglo-Australian supporters of boat arrivals condone the destruction of identification papers; and the irresponsible placement of women and children in unsafe boats which have no doubt been written off by their owners, the fishermen manning the boats being themselves probably dispensable? How do they condone the queue-breaking by those who obviously have money, but are not willing to be assessed as immigrants or as refugees by representatives of UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). An asylum seeker is not a refugee until accepted as a refugee. This is something some in the media have to accept.

There is a common practice for Australian Customs/Immigration officers at airports to return to the country of embarkation those they consider on arrival not to be ‘bona fide’, even when they hold entry visas. They are kept in detention and placed on the next available plane going back. Arrivals by plane who have destroyed their papers after dis¬embarkation at our airports are treated the same way. It is not that difficult to track their travel. Boat arrivals without papers should surely be treated the same way.”

(Those who do not believe in an interventionist god, or in Santa Claus, may be excused were they not to expect any in-depth dialogue between apparently caring supporters of asylum seekers they have never met, and those who seek responsible policies in relation to the intake of immigrants and real refugees, unless they can see squadrons of pigs surfing through the air.

What the above extracts from ‘Musings at Death’s Door’ raise is this significant question: is the age of entitlement in Australia being extended to cover anyone who manages to arrive on our borders? A related issue: if we taxpayers are to be generous with our money, should we not be spending it on those who are clearly needy out in the real world? What a waste of scarce money (yes, it is scarce) in coping with opportunist entrants! )

Quaint aspects of humanitarian entry

“Soon, as I was told, the Liberal Party wanted white right-wing HEs, just for a change. These came from Eastern Europe (except Yugoslavia). Anyone claiming to be a refugee seemed to be accepted. In one recorded instance, a man claiming to be a refugee went back home to collect his wife, as advised by an Immigration officer! As with the Indo-Chinese, Australia provided their airfares, housed and fed them in a migrant hostel for 6 months. They received a regular welfare payment, which enabled them to pay for their board and other expenses. They were then allocated a flat for 3 months, to ease their entry into private accommodation.

Many of the Indo-Chinese moving into their own homes were assisted by small loans to buy furniture, much of it not repaid. As a couple of Indo-Chinese girls said to an Immigration officer, ‘You Aussies f…ing stupid. You give money for nothing.’ Little wonder that there was, and still is, such a rush of claims for asylum entry. Acceptance as a refugee permits a lifetime access to the public teat.

Later, the Labor Party sought white left-wing HEs. So I was informed. We found them in post-Allende Chile. However, there soon developed a flood of applicants from all of Central and South America. Then the Vaticanites enabled East Timorese to receive HE admission, even when they were living in Portugal, their country of nationality! Our senior bureaucrats and Ministers can indeed be very flexible in their decision making.

All of a sudden, Poles living within Poland could qualify as HEs! How influential was the Polish Pope? Then, for a while, ‘White Russians’ came from China as HEs. These had fled the arrival of communism in Russia 60 years before. An all-white colleague of mine used to claim proudly that he was Chinese; he was born in China of White Russian parents.

There were also Jewish Russians who had been permitted by the Soviet Government to join close family in Israel but who, on arrival in Vienna, sought El Dorado in Western nations. The Prime Minister of Israel in the 1980s was not happy at having up to 85% of potential citizens deflected elsewhere, mainly by professional recruiters from the USA.

Then, contrary to policy, presumably through Ministerial discretion, a number of Jewish Russian women married to non-Jewish men were permitted entry to Australia. They had left Israel because they did not like their experiences as second-class citizens of Israel. There are two other classes below them, as confirmed to me by my good Jewish Australian friend who had spent some time in Israel. (My friend is not ‘self-hating,’ is knowledgeable, and observes the Jewish traditions). One of these Jewish Russian women subsequently worked for me in the Department of Immigration; she was a worthy immigrant, who also told me a great deal about Israel.”

(No matter how they were enabled to enter Australia, one might expect that most entrants would want to find work or establish a business, in order to make a success of their new lives. That did happen. The exceptions may be, according to our media, many of the recent boat-arriving asylum seekers; their unemployment rate is reportedly high, and for long periods.

The above paragraphs are extracts from ‘Musings at Death’s Door.’)

East Asian humanitarian entrants

There has been a lot of rubbish written about the boat-people Australia took from the refugee camps in the countries of first arrival in South East Asia. By rushing into Vietnam behind the USA, and then being sent back home by ‘pyjama-clad’ opponents, we had to take some of those who took to the boats.

Returned servicemen told me about the political reality of pretending to avoid the ‘domino’ effect of a communist takeover in South East Asia. For a few years, there would be a report published somewhere in Australia about the risk of drowning and rape in ‘taking a boat.’ Social workers employed in state agencies told us about the corrupt behaviour of some of those we had taken from the camps. I was involved in preventing the escalation of disruptive behaviour by some Vietnamese thugs. Later, we read about the fortified drug houses and youthful salesmen on street corners.

Policies on humanitarian entry from any source are mainly political. Most of those we ‘saved’ could not have satisfied the UN Convention. Yet, by and large, eventually there was (as one might expect in the light of our equal opportunity and settlement assistance policies) successful settlement. But it was a very costly exercise (as is the recent effort to cope with the asylum seekers arriving directly by boat).

The following are relevant extracts from “Musings at Death’s Door.’ HE stands for humanitarian entrants.

“The Indo-Chinese boat people, selected from refugee camps in the Asian countries of first asylum (Thailand, Malaysia, in the main, but also Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines), represented the first significant entry of Asian HEs; the predominant entrants were, naturally, Vietnamese. … Family reunion was very generous; the applicant was seemingly free to define his relationships. For instance, a Vietnamese sponsor, after a residence of 3 months in a migrant hostel, claimed his wife was actually his sister; both now wished to sponsor their respective spouses from the camps.

Indeed, for a while, thanks to a sympathetic public servant lacking common sense, Vietnamese HEs were permitted to change their personal particulars. The only change not sought was gender; nature can be so unkind!. I closed down that loophole, with Ministerial approval. Those of us in the migrant settlement business were impressed with the ability of some of our HEs to find, or even create, loopholes in official entitlements. For instance, a Vietnamese grandmother with 3 grandchildren managed to extend their public housing from a single flat to 3, on the grounds that they did not (over some time) get along with one another. Then, an elderly couple left a flat attached to their son’s home to obtain scarce public housing for senior citizens; so said their son to me.

For the record, Australia accepted more Indo-Chinese HEs per head of host-people (that is, Australians) than any other country, including the USA and France! It became clear soon that we had taken in quite a number of criminals, gangsters and economic migrants. However, apart from those visibly involved in the drug trade, the Indo-Chinese HEs have settled in well. The success of their children is the evidence.”

Is immigration to benefit only the entrant?

“Modern Australia was founded by immigrants, and developed by immigrants. Under the sway of capitalism – that the economy must grow for ever – governments tend to favour a rising rate of immigration. This policy is the preferred substitute for a long-term development plan, or even a population policy. Awaiting for God’s Will may explain this approach.

However, refugees and asylum seekers either cannot afford to wait, or chose not to wait, for God’s Will. Of course, there are genuine refugees and ‘wannabe’ refugees. The majority of the latter are most likely to be economic migrants who, in all probability, will not pass our normal selection process – which has worked well.

Today, asylum seeking is probably the biggest entry racket, aided by some Aussies who seem to believe that the Australian taxpayer is required to benefit every claimant for refugee status. This is in contrast to tradition where the migrant is expected to benefit Australia. Even border control now awaits God’s Will, since neither side of politics has any policy worthy of note. In the meantime, what are the issues involved?

To begin with, national borders remain relevant, not¬withstanding that national sovereignty has been substantially fractured by the role of the UN, its conventions, and coalitions of saviours (whether or not operating with UN approval) engaged in the War on Terror.

Migrant entry, normally through some form of screening, is intended to benefit the receiving nation. The post-second world war policy of seeking immigrants commenced with entrants from Britain. It was extended sequentially to Europe, the Levant, East Asia, then other Asia, and finally became truly global. Australia’s immigration program is now somewhat substantial. This sequence of geographical sources reflected the gradation of acceptance from white skin colour to all other colours, and thereby to all cultures, as enabled gradually by a growing public tolerance.

Family reunion, introduced only a few decades ago when sought by settlers from the Mediterranean, was intended to keep the sponsoring immigrant happy. Because of continental Europe’s rapid economic development, few family members in the Mediterranean region could be persuaded by family in Australia to use the new program. Instead, the early beneficiaries were the British; later the East Asians. Even if entry is restricted to nuclear family members, there may be little increase in the productive capacity of the nation. All immigration has cost-offsets; family reunion can represent a substantial cost.”

(The above extracts from ‘Musings at Death’s Door’ set out what should be obvious. However, the current age of expectation, in which someone else’s hard-earned money is sought from the government by many who are not in actual need, is juxtaposed with a quaint age of giving; this involves policy-free politicians and their supporters demanding that anyone who enters Australia by the ‘back door’ (the self-selected) should go on the public teat immediately, and remain on it for ever.

I was, however, wrong when I wrote about the dearth of border control; a strong Minister stopped the back door entry. However, inevitably, there are international bureaucrats and other ‘experts’ on human rights blathering about anything except about what should be sound national policy. However, when our politicians are seen to be either incompetent or indifferent, … … !)

A lifestyle without a life-chance risk?

A recent study concluded that there is no underclass in Australia. Another study reported that most Australians were living decently.

Whether those at the bottom of the pile will continue to enjoy a reasonable standard of living is becoming questionable. Today, the welfare system is so generous that those without any skills have no inducement to seek work; indeed, a couple with three or four children would receive less in cash were the father to have a full-time unskilled or semi-skilled job. A working wife would naturally tilt the balance. Hence, many unemployed couples with children have no desire to obtain full-time employment, and set up homes in low-employment areas such as the seaside. This comfortable situation may not remain, as many people have made it clear in my presence that they are literally sick of supporting their ‘dole bludgers’.

A pharmacist friend told me recently that less than thirty-five per cent of the prescriptions he deals with are non-welfare scripts. Welfare patients … usually account for a higher ratio of medical prescriptions per capita than the non-welfare clients … About thirty per cent of the community seems to be taxpayer-supported in welfare terms. If these welfare cases (usually the aged) use up fifty-two prescriptions per head within the year, the remaining prescriptions are free. By mid-year, many of these patients have reached their limit of fifty-two. This says a great deal about their doctors and the way they practise medicine. … …

It is easy to learn to accept what is thrown at you and to learn from one’s neighbour. One such neighbour is a divorcee whose sustenance was taken up by the State long before she reached retirement age. Then, by consulting a number of doctors at the same time, she became entitled to sickness benefits, a sticker on her car (which enables her to park her car in zones reserved for the handicapped), a low-rent government flat, and free medication for her claimed ills. She plays lawn bowls a few times a week, and satisfies her boyfriend regularly. Now, that’s a lifestyle anyone can aspire to.

That’s why my relatives in Malaysia and Singapore sneer at Australia’s pretensions. They know this country as well as their own. While they like the people and love the country’s beauty, they are correctly critical of some features of Australian life which reflect poor policies by government. They can afford to sneer. They live well over there, far more luxuriously than those in comparable jobs in Australia can.

They can also afford to ignore the jibes of Australian journalists about the media there being too supportive of government. For they know that we in this country have to ask: who owns the newspaper or journal; what is the relationship between the government and the owner; and what are the political and religious affiliations of named media persons; in order to interpret what is presented to us on matters important to us. … Fortunately for the nation, there are some outstandingly independent media people around.

One can also count on some media members supporting, quite unthinkingly, the politicking by other nations, international agencies or ambitious individuals, e.g. the propaganda on East Timor and an inviolable Israel, the entry rights of Vietnamese (and now Chinese) economic refugees, or how some worthy local politician is about to lead the world in this or other arena. Some of our media will buy any story, especially if it aggrandises an Australian. … …

It is amazing the pap and trivia that we are fed. As well, some of the media slaver at the mention of the death penalty in Singapore and Malaysia for drug dealing. One would have to blame the education system for the inability of these people to think through an issue, assuming that they would recognise one if it spat them in their eye.

(These extracts from ‘Destiny Will Out’ present an accurate picture of the mid-1990s in my terrain. The burgeoning welfare burden of hard-working taxpayers is now facilitated by an alleged federal government policy of categorising as disability pensioners those who had been on unemployment benefits for yonks (a long time), and also paying them more than the dole! Who wouldn’t want to be a disability pensioner? I can identify a couple of these.

Australia has been described as the country for ‘giving money for nothing.’ Little wonder that many who are able to finance their escape from the vicissitudes of life in their home countries claim political asylum by ‘taking a boat’ and banging on our doors, insisting on staying; welfare beckons!

Where are the media and politicians who will act in the national interest? All that I see is public posturing and politicking. Does not this ‘lucky country’ deserve its economic problems?)

The opportunists

The unusually generous approach to the Vietnamese refugees has led to some undesirable consequences. At an early stage some cynical fool of a bureaucrat came up with the idea of allowing the Vietnamese to change their “personal particulars”. This right applied only to the Vietnamese.

It meant that, at any time after their arrival in Australia, notwithstanding any documents they might have had at the point of selection, or any information which they had given to officials and which was now recorded on their personal files, they could ask for changes without challenge. They could change anything, except their sex.

… … It was indeed remarkable how the tom-toms worked; there was information flowing out of Vietnam and out of the refugee camps into Australia, and vice versa, that should have made Telecom and Australia Post reconsider their efficiencies. … … Some of the changes sought related to age, apparently depending on the differential in welfare and other benefits available. Other changes included: number of children, number of siblings, number of uncles and aunts – for obvious reasons. But why was this right available only for Vietnamese?

After a while, everyone who wanted anything, for themselves or for anyone else, went political. Some played rough; one refugee lady went to four senators accusing the Immigration Minister of killing her grandfather in Vietnam because the Vietnamese government would not let him out! Where other elderly migrants would not be eligible for the age pension without satisfying a qualifying period, aged relatives of refugees could apparently become our collective dependants on arrival. The name of the game was whinge, attack, whinge.

Australians had taught the ‘ethnics’ how to control officials or “frighten the shit out of us” as one of them said. The ethnics have now adapted, and with a vengeance. I do believe, however, that this country needs more of such go-getters. The trouble is that the ethnic communities on the gravy train are now rather clever at playing the role of mendicant. Like the sea, they await the water from any river.

Every ethnic community now wants more and more from the taxpayer, even if they have been in Australia for more than one generation. But they ask in the name of their first generation members. Many of these have grown old in Australia and now apparently need assistance with English and accessing services. “Many who have gold in the house are looking for copper outside,” say the Russians.

Eventually, the change in personal particulars policy was dismembered. I was the one who was ordered to do it; someone up there had eventually woken up to its dangers. No complaints resulted.

The other major generosity to the Vietnamese with undesirable consequences was the encouragement given to ‘anchors’. These were the children placed on refugee boats by their parents with friends or relatives; when selected they would be instrumental in bringing out the whole clan. How wrong was Sophocles, who said that children are the enchantment that holds a mother to life. … But what about the poor bloody kids? Are they always a means to … family prosperity?

… Did Australia’s intake of refugee minors cause any problem? Apparently, yes. … While heart-warming stories of the settlement success of some of these minors abound, it seems clear that many are not success stories. … the long-suffering, law-abiding, traditionally silent Vietnamese Aussies … are surely entitled to live in peace in Australia. However, police and media reports continue to highlight the high levels of criminal activity, especially in the drug trade, in areas of ethnic (particularly Vietnamese) concentrations …

… As I once said to a Minister, who asked me what would happen if Australia opened its door without any barrier, why should we assume that Australia already has the best crooks and opportunists in the world?

(These extracts from ‘Destiny Will Out’ show that the opportunists in our communities are the ones who ensure change, even if not always for the better. Today, we have a different batch from overseas, supported by some Australians who will not benefit personally in having someone else’s hard-earned money spent in questionable directions. Their success depends upon the folly of our elected leaders.

I have worked with Vietnamese colleagues; one of them was so enterprising that he also had a shop in a nearby suburb. The community also noticed that the small bakery/retail shops in our surrounds had been taken over by Vietnamese.

I also met a former ‘anchor after my retirement:’ I learnt how his family had benefited from our caring policies. His elderly parents, by claiming that they could not get on with the anchor’s family, who had provided them with their own self-contained accommodation in his large house, obtained government accommodation. How do I know this? The son told me.)

More on the dangers of welfare

The article on American Nobel Laureate Gary Becker by Adam Creighton (see previous post) on the issue of welfare contains the following.

‘The explosion of single-parent families, drug addiction, crime and loneliness stemmed not from a sudden outbreak of moral torpor but from the rational response of individuals, conscious or not, to the financial incentives associated with these activities. The need for mutual reliance – between husband and wife, parents and children, even among neighbours – diminished greatly once governments began to offer an expanding array of welfare payments after World War II.’

‘Because it allowed individuals to foist the cost of their poor decisions on to other taxpayers, it was no surprise that such decisions proliferated. Take Australia’s 326,000 single-parent families reliant on parenting payments (95% women) or the 333,000 long-term unemployed receiving Newstart payments, for instance. Both groups were negligible until the explosion of governments in the 1970s.’

‘ “One of the most important, if hardest to document, gains from taking families off welfare, is the greater self-respect when they provide for themselves,” Becker wrote in 1999, noting the 40% drop in the number of single-mothers on welfare since the 1993 peak. Even public emotions and altruistic displays were ultimately informed by national self-interest, Becker reasoned.’

‘ “ No-fault divorce hurts women with children whose marriages are broken by their husbands” he concluded, noting how the greater ease with which fathers could leave their wives ultimately undermined the social quality of the children. Marriage was a market as much as any other, where both parties weighed the long-term costs and benefits of matching, he thought.’

This is a useful article. By introducing Becker to us, Creighton has thrown a necessary light on welfare, a matter of considerable importance in the Australian government’s current efforts to reduce the scope of the age of expectation or assumed rights.

The dangers of welfare

Gary Becker, Nobel Laureate, is noted for having ‘brought the rigour of economic theory to everyday life.’ He ‘explained trends in marriage and divorce, crime, discrimination, and social delinquency with the economic tools once applied solely to the market for goods and services. His work emphasises individual rationality.’ (Refer Adam Creighton in ‘The Australian’ of 9 May 2014)

In his 1992 Nobel Prize lecture, Becker said “Unlike Marxian analysis, the economic approach does not assume individuals are motivated solely by gain … It is a method of analysis … that individuals maximise welfare as they conceive it, whether they be selfish, altruistic, loyal, spiteful, masochistic.”

Creighton went on to write “Becker’s insights have prompted a more realistic understanding of how welfare curbs the incentive to seek work, especially for women with children. But his broader point – that the welfare state is a cause of, rather than, a response to family breakdown and social delinquency – has … proved him popular. Becker explained how the welfare state shredded the social fabric that once bound families and communities together.”

“Becker’s conclusions helped convince the Clinton administration in 1996 to enact the biggest reforms in the US since World War II, limiting periods on unemployment benefits to two years and capping the total time on welfare across a mother’s lifetime to five years.” “Becker didn’t propose abolishing the welfare state; he urged realism about its consequences.”

Food for thought, in terms of what is good for the nation, as well as for communities?

The uniquely generous nation

Anyone who would like to receive sustenance-enabling cash fortnightly from the government, and also be entitled to free medical, hospital, and other health services – for their whole life – should obtain residence in Australia – by hook or by crook! Asylum seekers today do just this. Australia’s generosity is displayed thus.

In necessary detention, because all identity papers may have been voluntarily destroyed, a mobile phone would apparently be provided. This enables the detainee to inform his relatives that they are being housed, well fed, and receive medical and other services as needed. I discovered that they can receive free legal services as well, which are available to legal residents only if they are indigent. They can apparently receive public housing once they are accepted as refugees, ahead of other residents already in a queue.

They do not have to prove that they have suffered trauma and torture (as their vociferous Aussie supporters have been claiming), whereas Aussie residents seeking welfare have to demonstrate financial need (as defined in Australian law) to obtain welfare. Asylum seekers reportedly do not have to prove their claims; quaintly, again reportedly, if officials assessing asylum claims cannot disprove a claim, then the applicant must be accepted as a refugee! What sort of assessment process is this? Then, once accepted as refugees, asylum seekers can threaten to sue the government for alleged deficiencies in care while in detention, and receive a bucket of money by treaty; so reported our media.

As 2 Vietnamese women said (in the 1970s) to Immigration officials, during the influx (by air) of large numbers of ‘boat arrivals’ selected from the ‘countries of first asylum’ as refugees,“You Aussies (expletive) stupid. You give money for nothing.” Did the car ‘rebirthing’ industry, the Cabramatta drug trade, the Cronulla riots and similar gang behaviour, reflect a somewhat carelessly-open door provided by certain politicians?

What I find fascinating in the pattern of rorts which are ignored by officialdom is the ease with which individuals can receive welfare benefits. I know a few on the Disability Pension who are not suffering any disability whatsoever. I have known young men who had chosen not to seek employment. I had met in Bali young Aussies who were on the dole at home. I know retirees living in very large, even expensively renovated, homes (which are not included in assessments of tax or welfare payments), who possess that most popular ‘pension card.’ Qualifying for even a dollar of the age pension is apparently enough to receive that card.

Would not a nation encouraging sloth or deception be targeted by cunning individuals? Instead of being known as the ‘lucky’ country, will we now become known as the ‘clever’ country?