I agree with the sentiment in the article but the children orphaned on the boat are all with relatives who were either already on Christmas Island or have since arrived on the next boat. So it would seem on face value that these would be the best people to care for the orphaned children. But they should all be taken out of the detnetion envirnoment and allowed to live in the Australian community.

I think the author is being a little dramatic here.
I can't imagine that the Immigration Department personnel would deliberately further upset this poor little boy.

I don't know the whole story, but I would imagine he would be better off staying with the people he knew from the other refugee boats.
Uprooting him again into a 'free' household of people he doesn't know at all would surely be even more traumatic for him- whatever their religion.

At the end of the day, the Immigration Department have to do what is best for both the refugees, and the Australian people.

We can't allow all these asylum seekers, who arrived by dodgy wooden boats skippered by people smugglers, to just move straight into the community. If we did that, we would have a mad rush for our shores by even more boats, and possibly more awful drowning deaths.

We can't just take the kids away from their families so they can be 'free' in the community. On the other hand, we can't allow all refugee adults to move straight into the community without knowing their backgrounds etc.

There is no magic answer to this problem, but one thing is for sure, we can't encourage more 'boat people' to make the treacherous trip to our shores. We need better policies to try to stop the boats.

mmmmm....money for boat people.....but none for your own kind that needs it.............yes! that's smart-thinking:( Oh dear.

BLUE

If our government is looking to off-shore people Australians....are they not seeing in the what the F..k are you worth.....cryptic as always...I just went down bizzy the other date and found not all the country what human expectations were with-in mathematical foundations...that would express an even count to justify the new worlds order of what the human species.....is in the game of......who has the most tools wins.

I don't think I could make it any simpler:)

Its your world.

BLUE

I'm sorry, Suzeonline, but some of the people in the Immigration and Citizenship Department are quite capable of risking an orphan child's mental health. Amongst many examples, Immigration Department officials refused to permit an obviously mentally disturbed man access to a psychiatrist even after it had been shown in court that the advice on which they had relied was spurious. Some of those people are still in the Department.