My son visited India in the last couple of years and said it made him feel depressed. the poverty was awful, with people living in the streets etc. He wouldn’t take his kids there as he’d be fearful for their health. I also know, that there’s huge wealth as well. Fancy that, the two extremes??I have not been out of the country, but I educate myself and seek information of other countries via internet. I’ve never been ‘outer space’ either, but I know it’s a waste of resources when a child dies every 30secs from preventable starvation???

If we have no intention of keeping to our commitments, then we should have the guts to say so. Making people who’ve probably already experienced horrors that we can only imagine - (and then be far off the mark) is just horrific and inhumane. It has no resemblance to our boasting of “a fair go” etc. In short it’s BS. There are people now who are suing the Immigration Dept(probably under Howard/Ruddock etc) for being kept in cruel and demeaning environments - like Baxter etc. Don’t we ever learn? Some people were born in detention - some were there for years, the longest a young man for about 7 years. This is the same length of time a person could face for some crimes of violence, kidnapping, armed robbery etc. Men who kill their wives/partners frequently get less than this???These asylum seekers have not committed any crimes. Seeking asylum is legal, regardless of the mode of transport they use - resort to!

I’m getting really weary with this current situation. It’s bloody stupid, immature and making us look like a bunch of hypocrites. We say ‘sorry’ to traumatized people one day, and force human horrors before and after? Look at indigenous people in this country! BS and nonsense the lot of it!

We allow several hundred thousand people to come here under our immigration program each year!. Why not use the numbers who seek asylum, and if they’re deemed to be in need of protection, use them as part of the program. Then, we’d not have this ridiculous situation that is happening now.

Did you read the other posts? There are lots of books on this sugject;
Dark Victory - David Marr and Marian Wilkinson
Asylum - Stories behind the razor wire - Heather Tyler
From Nothing to Zero - accounts by children in detention, with an introduction by Julian Burnside QC - who was the Barrister for those on the Tampa
One by Father Frank Brennan - title escapes me.
Following them Home - about what happens to those who’ve been forcibly removed from Australia in recent years.
A Last Resort - Inquiry into the effects of detention on children. This study revealed, that 98% of Iraqi children, and 92% of Iranian children were deemed to be in need of protection - one assumes, that the logic dictates, that their parents were too!

there’s heaps of information on Amnesty Internation, Rural Australians for Refugees, the Catholic church - Edmond Rice - Peace & Justice Committee has done research etc.
Then, there’s Asylum Seekers - the facts in figures - this is on Crikey website - compiled by Sophie Black and Crikey intern Elly Keating.

96% of people who are here without the necessary papers(visa run out?) arrive by plane. Only 4% of people seeking asylum arrive by boat. There’s nothing in the 1951 Migration Act or relevant refugee laws that even refer to “people smugglers”? Were those who rescued Jews referred to as “people smugglers”? No, of course not. Too many of those appearing in this country are fleeing dangers as bad as that - death!

Like Marilyn, I’m getting very impatient with the lies that are allowed to keep on circulating via politicians, shock jocks and the media!

Where would you suggest Sri Lankans go? India? Don’t they have problems feeding their own people? This is a rich country. Why don’t we count these people as part of our immigration program, while seeking permanent solutions - such as, Why can’t we work behind the scenes and so help avoid people having to flee; not invade sovereign countries, and thus causing horrific death tolls and misery, and be very careful who we sell/give weapons and military training to(Sri Lanka, Burna)!

If you think this is bad, wait until global warming starts flooding countries in our vacinity? This aint nothin’ by comparison. What will we do then? Send them into the sea with machine guns? Starve them to death?

1. All member states in the UN should be required to accept refugees

2. During processing refugees should be asked why they wish to be re-settled in a country of their choice

3. Genuine refugees should be re-habilitated primarily on the basis of language and culture

4. People smugglers should be tried by international law and,if proven guilty, should be made to serve a 20 year prison sentence (without parole) in the country in which they are nationals

All that is needed is a global resolve.
As a seventy-niner I am still hopeful!!!

So whether I am a minority who gives a sh’t or not, makes not a jot of difference.

The East Timorese were treated worse than criminals and were locked up from the start - they were forced back with a bag of rice and a ground sheet to a nation that was totally demolished.

Safe haven sounds so nice doesn’t it? But our safe haven idea is to lock up the victims of abuse then give the abusers the only key.

now our dirty deal with the murderous thugs in Indonesia have seen refugees shot at our expense.

And let’s not pretend it is not our responsibility.

Australia continues to argue that it is safe and secure in Indonesia and we have to stop the non-existent people smuggling.

Refugees have an absolute right to enter and leave any country so long as they break no laws and they are not allowed to stay in Indonesia.

How many ranters really want to see 17 year old kids shot because Rudd demands it? There was the pious little prick last week in Afghanistan cuddling a bloody dog, then he has kids jailed and shot.

I am so glad there is not a snowballs chance in hell I would ever vote for labor or liberal or illegal and illogical in this country.

Not since the sell out of East Timor.

On the one hand I’m in total agreement with you that Oz governments know bugger all about that part of immigration. In that they come to Oz only to find no infrastructure and no help. (which is but one of the reasons we need to throttle back-hard on immigration. So huge has the influx of immigration and so huge are the numbers of babies being born we are quite literally running out of space) Also parents are working-both parents-leaving kids in the hands of other people not so able to help.

And, on the other hand there is the old age human habit of wanting to live with people who speak your own language and share your own customs. It is a feeling which I was born without, for some strange reason, it has allowed me to settle down in any part of the world without too many problems. Perhaps I am some form of human snail and carry my space on my back. But I do understand this is the way most people think.

We have anti-discrimination laws. Enforcing those properly is a big enough task for government, without inventing more busywork for itself.

A bit more letting things happen their own way, and government just might find that people can sort out most of their own problems, thank you very much.

Take a walk in the western suburbs of Adelaide or the northern suburbs of Melbourne to see how poor we are at it. Schools of somali and other african born children roam the streets in gangs, causing mischief. We have a habit of letting immigrants come into this country and thats it, no formal (or maybe some half ass’ed) integration program - its just “there ya go, now find a job”.

As for the poor old aboriginals…? don’t forget that the British actually eradicated a whole race of aboriginals in Tasmania. Our handling of the aboriginals, since the early 1770’s until now even, would have to be one of the worst examples of racism in human existance. We are fundamentally flawed at immigration and no government has ever mastered it.

The only politician that I can think of that had a pure and honest desire to help the aboriginals was Mal Brough. Aboriginals only get noticed every 3 years at election time. Sad.

Again, Rudd had big promises but still refuses to shout a round of beers. Whilst I initially liked Rudd, notwithstanding I did not vote for him, I think he has performed one of the biggest con jobs in the history of Australia.

Also I said I thought he was joking, and I questioned the wisdom of the immigration department allowing someone of the far right wing to get into the country. Could the editor/s perhaps, see far more into my comments than really exists?

It is best to limit your comments to the issues, rather than addressing other commenters directly

What if they’d turned the boats around in 1788? Or even a few years after that? Or perhaps when the invaders started raping women and executing men when they killed a cow or a sheep, because they were hungry(after their land was stolen and they were forced to flee, that is). Neither you nor I would be having this discussion if that had taken place. When did god hand this land over to any state, territory or commonwealth govt? Aboriginal people never acquiesed their rights over their land, language or culture - it was stolen, and a bloody war took place, and lasted at least 100 yrs, with the deaths of at least 20,000 aboriginal people! If you’re consistent in your view, you’d be supporting them now, do you?

[Edit]

You are a “proud Australian”; maybe I am too, but I always think that I am a “lucky Australian”. The problem with “proud” is that “pride” is at the head of a snake at 97 on my Snakes ‘n Ladders board, with the tail ending at 5.

I wonder if you would qualify to be an Australian if the rules you infer were in place and strongly managed at the relevant time.

I wonder what you would do with the descendants of refugees/migrants that fail your proposed standards. Would we test them at 6th grade and deport the failures?

I also have a problem with your goal of great nationhood. Thinking of all the great nations that have existed in my life-time, I might want to prefer to be in a not-so-great one that does not want to conquer others militarily, economically nor culturally.

I manage to avoid knowing too many like-minded people because we would have nothing to talk about. Do like-minded people in the MM parallel universe have to live in a single party government state?

MM, where do you position Australian political families whose members hold opposing views about our culture, our law, our treatment of refugees when those families congregate around the dinner table or the family barbeque?

A migration policy restricted to “skilled English speaking migrants” might have excluded some of our outstanding business leaders. Is that your intention?
So back to “strong”. You say that the man trying to run the country and handle all these issues is not strong. What are the strong processes you want and how will they achieve your desired strong outcomes?

We all hear the chant of “jobs, jobs, jobs” We can’t afford jobs for those who are here, and yet we take in hundreds of thousands of hand selected people from overseas - not because they’re in danger of death or persecution, but for employment purposes. It makes no sense, because demand puts up housing prices and there’s 500,000 without jobs, and how many thousands under employed? Yet, we’re quibbling about 250 on one boat, and 78 on another? What a load of rubbish! And, blackmailing our neighbours into taking over our responsibilities. Why don’t we encourage both Indonesia and Malaysia to embrace the 1951 Migration Act, and get them to act in a calm and humane manner. I don’t have much faith in the police or military in Indonesia; their track record on upholding human rights is appalling to date! Ask the people of East Timor?

The people of this country took you in - now you want to deny refuge to others? I find that alarmingly unjust. What happened to the ‘do unto others’ idea?

If we think these small numbers of asylum seekers are a problem now, what’s going to happen when countries in the Pacific are forced to flee the rising oceans - when their homes disappear overnight? What are we doing about this problem - it’s started already! The numbers will make the situation in Indonesia look like a stroll in the park. Are we going to let them all die? Walk into the ocean at the point of a gun perhaps?
There could be up to 250,000 of Australians affected by global warming in coming years - those who live closest to the ocean - the Gold Coast is a good example! Look at an aerial photograph - those buildings should never have been allowed so close to the ocean - thank Bjelke Petersen for that!

Reminds me of something I read about the opening up of the CIS (formerly USSR) borders after years of running it like a gigantic maximum-security prison. A massive surge of citizens requested passports and poured out of the country. Between three and six months later, the same massive surge of people came back in. After all those years of treating people who wanted to leave as enemies of the state, either sentencing them to long terms in the gulags or shooting them at the frontier, it turned out most of those people just wanted to have a bit of a look at the world and then come home again.

What a great irony. 70 years of incarcerating hundreds of millions of people, the vast majority of whom loved their country more than they hated their government, and who had proved it beyond all doubt in 1941-45. The lesson is, a state must be very careful not to wield power just because it can, based on some imaginary idea that people are going to threaten your way of life.

One more point I want to make, about your wish for the state to pick winners in its choice of citizens, micro-managing the composition of our body politic according to some minister’s idea of who Australians should be. Given the large numbers involved, and the increasing shift from reproduction to immigration to maintain the young population, I see this as an extremely dangerous opportunity for governments to gerrymander the electorate, under cover of maintaining a skilled workforce. How hard do you think it is for an visa application to ask a few questions about attitudes, which correlate closely with a given voting pattern, hmm? Think about it.

By no means am I advocating “closing the gates”. What I am suggesting is that immigration needs to be managed. Immigration, when managed, can make a country strong.

Let me ask you this:
Why have nation states at all? Why not just let people roam the earth as they see fit? Nation states serve multiple purposes, but a basic level they a group of people who believe that they have more in common as individuals with each other than they do with neighbouring nations. So they live together, agree to a common set of laws, and work towards making their nation great. When nations find they have more in common with other nations, than surround regions, we have groupings, such as the United States, the Federation of Australia, and perhaps if they can iron out their issues, a European superstate. When a country has sections that find they have less in common with the larger society, they push for autonomy or complete separation. A gross generalisation, but hopefully, not inherently wrong.

So why have immigration policy at all? Why not just let people enter freely to find a better life than in their country of origin? People are born and die every minute. As a country, we use immigration to make our country stronger (for example, economically, but also in other ways). By limiting immigration through quotas of skilled English speaking migrants, we try and bring in the best people we can to make Australia stronger, while maximising the chance that they will join Australia as Australians, and within one or two generations, become indistinguishable from any other Australian. It’s a competitive world. Immigration as a whole is not about charity.

Analogies would be job applications or university entrance. In both these cases we want the best people for the job. To have an application pool where our policy is based on letting anyone have the position in the hope that hard work and perseverance, will allow them to integrate into the company and meet its needs, would be foolish. In both these cases, for every person we hire or let in, we are preventing a better skilled/more appropriate person from having the position. Affirmative action and hiring people based on quotas are edge cases, which serve some other good, much like refugees.

Britain, regardless of its geographic differences, provides a fantastic example of a country where immigration was mismanaged. Their resultant problems today (a tragic example of which was “homegrown terrorism”) and their struggle to integrate migrants is testimony to this failure to adequately manage immigration. The problem is when migrants primary cultural and perhaps national identification is to their subcommunity, rather than Australia as a whole. Some young people today identify themselves with a non-national “emo” subculture, but they most likely still identify as Australians. To use a frivolous example, it is quite possible to be a woman, and an Australia. I am and always will be, an Australian of Sri Lankan heritage. Our immigration policies and national policies should be designed to balance the needs of existing Australians with the strength than migrants can bring to the country, while minimising the risks associated with bringing in those from a different background. Uninitegrated subcommunities is exactly what we don’t want.

So where do refugees fit into all this? Refugees are a charitable edge case. We have international obligations towards refugees as set forth by the UNHCR, which should abide by. But we cannot allow people to use these obligations to undermine our immigration policy. Balancing these obligations with the goals of immigration is a difficult issue. It is handled by (1) how we define and determine who is a refugee, (2) what status we give them, and (3) how we handle the situation in the first place, within the confines of international law.

The actions of the Rudd government have shown indecisiveness and weakness at different stages, including allowing themselves to be blackmailed. The fact that at the moment, boat people represent a small fraction of possible illegal immigration, doesn’t change how we should deal with the issue with our overall purpose and legal guidelines in mind.

Like you I liked Rudd too, and was filled with hope for a real change, but the media, the rednecks and who knows, has got to him - or perhaps he was always a cold hearted fish who’ll do or say anything to get and remain elected. He had an ideal opportunity about a month ago, to make an Address to the Nation on this issue; to explain to the Australian people what the 1951 Convention on Migration means, what our responsibilities are; what happened under Howard; the misery and damage caused to already traumatized people by further detention etc, and what his government was going to do. He could’ve shown what the relevant commitments to human rights we’ve given our allegiance to etc. Instead, he acted like a gutless wonder, using miserable people to gain or keep the votes of rednecks - professional racist haters!

People who are concerned about border protection, show by their comments, that they’re ignorant of just what is taking place re border security. What’s going on re these two groups of asylum seekers, has nothing to do with ‘protecting our borders’ because if it did, Howard would not have reduced security operations around the country. I haven’t heard that air and sea surveilance has been increased in the top end! Does anyone know what the level of security is? I live near the main port in NSW where cars are now brought here from overseas(then trucks use our not so good highways and byways to take them back to Sydney - more danger re accidents, plus damage to the roads) - I’m not reassured by the reality, that surveillance around this port is protecting us. I’m more concerned about drugs and weapons coming into the country than traumatized people from Sri Lanka or Afghanistan. It’s not as if we think we’re going to be invaded by a foreign military is it?

Remember the public servant who was charged with the equivalent of releasing govt secrets or whatever, because he’s alleged to have passed on proof to the media, that surveilance at the major Australian airports was at best inadequate. I think he’s still fighting his conviction. Rudd carrying on about securing our borders is just using hype - and too many idiots like the disgraceful media, perpetuate his rubbish. Very scary! The role of the Australian media fills me with anger and sadness. They’re pathetic - on everything - I’m frequently screaming questions at them too - I include the ABC & SBS - I avoid the rest, as they’re just not worth the effort! Like Howard they all just carry the White House line on foreign affairs, and worse - they prop up the dictatorships that have caused these people to flee; Milaki, Iraq; Karzai, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka - we help train their military and sell them weapons? We pay and give assistance to Burma by ‘training’ its police etc??Then, they turn around and use words like “humane”???