Attacks on Indians in Australia

Since last 2-3 months Indian media has been regularly reporting about attacks on Indian students in Australia.Two months back it was like media frenzy calling Australia a racist nation. Having studied and lived in Australia for two years, i was appalled to see the reputation of the place where i studied going down the drain. I was in Australia during 2003 July till 2005 Feb. My experience of Australia is as follows.

1. There are racists in Australia but its unfair to brand the whole nation as racist. I have met some nice people there.
2. My experience there was pleasureable and all people i have met there including people from my universities, factory(part-time work), neighbours were nice to me except a bunch of young people who were rude to me and had racist intentions.
3. Melbourne really had a best public transport system with train, trams and buses. I have travelled in London's tube but i can tell you Melbourne's train system is better. Recent attacks had happened mainly in trains or near train stations. I used to catch last Sydenham train at 12AM and get down at Footscray but never faced any issues. These attacks may be recent.
4. I lived in Footscray which is a western suburb as it was cheaper and closure to the university. Most attacks have taken place in the Footscray and sorrounding suburbs like St.Albans, Sunshine etc. These suburbs have more ethnic population than any other suburbs in Melbourne. Except drug trafficking, Footscray didn't had any problem during those days.
5. Most Indian students during that time were attending universities to get degrees. There were 11,000 odd Indian students. Now overwhelming majority attend colleges to get some cooking or hairdressing diploma. No one is fool to spend $30,000 and study cooking in an alien country. They pay that much because they were promised that they will get permanant residency once they finish their course as these skills were in skills shortage list for permanant residency visa and get them extra points. It's safe to assume that student who is neither rich nor attending some top university in Australia is there only for permanant residency.
6. Many Indian students drive taxis to make up for their living expenses there by branding all Indians as taxi drivers in Australia. Even during 2003 majority of Taxis drivers in Melbourne are Indians. Few people have asked me "Do you drive taxi for living?". Taxi driving is not a profession for many but just a stop gap job till they get a better one.

To conclude i believe there is an insecurity creeping in the minds of Australians that their country is being taken over by Indians as there are 97,000 students there. These students take up jobs which a young, unskilled, highschool dropout Australian also vie for there by leading to clashes. Also few youngsters may have found Indians as soft targets since Indians wont report crimes fearing it may affect immigration application if their name is featured in Police records.