when the Rudd govt was elected, I had high hopes that some measure of humanity would be introduced for those asylum seekers who survived the boat journey here, but how naive and wrong I was!

The policies were little different to Howard and Ruddock.

For 2011, how about a resolution backed by a referendum if necessary on showing some increase in humanity for those desperados?
British Columbia doesn't treat its refugees so harshly, Canada's immigrants make up 20% of the population and it's a much more humane society.

Stop means testing these desperate asylum seekers and start showing some real mateship for a change!

Susan, you carefully avoided the “numbers”. A test of any policy is “does it work?” It may not be palatable to those who wear the badge of compassion on their sleeves however, the Howard policy did stop the boats and it did put people smugglers out of business.

When it come to compassion, some Australians might feel that we need to shown some compassion for our indigenous Australians who are often far worse off than the boatpeople with a spare $10,000 per person for people smugglers. Some might feel that Professor Fiona Stanley’s reports on the state of our own urban disadvantaged requires some compassion and few would disagree that our mental health support needs a good dose of compassion.

If compassion for boatpeople translates into more foreign disadvantaged people, paying more money to take even greater life threatening risks, perhaps it is time for you to look more closely at dispensing your compassion closer to home and achieving some balance?

Why on earth we would invite more disadvantage people to a country that cannot solve the problems of its own disadvantaged beats the hell out of me.

Is it the case that there is no mileage in showing compassion for our own? Especially since our own problems are orders of magnitude greater than a few thousand boatpeople. Where is the balance in all this hype?

Perhaps I could be forgiven for thinking that “compassion” only has value when it gets “humanitarian rights” media coverage. The howlers need to get a sharp dose of proportion before they start calling of a referendum.

I think it would also be a good idea to point out the social justice implications of not stopping the boats.

Does anybody who claims to care about social justice really want to encourage a system where the most sucessful are those who have access to the most money, and are prepeared to break the rules and risk the lives of everyone involved?

Yes, Susan we can see that many of these people are legitemate refugees. Are there not hundreds of thousands more in refugee camps around the world, without money and abiding by the rules, with equal or greater claim?

The 1951 UN Convention on Refugees defines "refugee" in broad terms. The fact is, that there are more people in the world who satisfy the definition of refugee than there are people in Australia. Yet Australia has undertaken the obligations of the Convention.

The critical difference in law and practice is between those who apply "onshore" (ie within Australia) and those who apply offshore. The effect of the Convention is that a person who is recognised to satisfy the definition of refugee *onshore* is entitled to Australia's protection, which translates through the Migration Act into permanent residence. But an offshore applicant can be rejected, even if he does satisfy the definition of refugee.

This is the legal reason why applicants try to get onshore, and hence the entire politically-created issue around "boats" and so-called "people smugglers".

On the one hand, permanent residence in Australia is highly desirable, refugee status or no. On the other hand, the fact that someone may be rich enough to pay to get from Shitholistan to Australia does not of itself mean he's *not* a refugee. Refugee doesn't mean poor, it means at risk of persecution.

The fact that one has come by boat doesn't mean one is any less at risk of being persecuted in his home state, or any less deserving of Australia's protection. It is and should be irrelevant. But the advantage these applicants enjoy is the effect of Australia's signing the Convention.

The best way to address all the issues is as follows:
1. Australia should withdraw from the Convention. This would then enable us to tailor our refugee program to changing international and national circumstances; to take as many or as few refugees as we want for whatever reason. It would abolish the advantage of applying onshore, and enable all applications to be assessed on an equal footing.
2. Those who claim to be in favour of a more humane policy should be required to put their money where their mouth is, and indemnify Australian governments against all related costs of any given refugee.

Ms Metcalfe describes the asylum seekers as “desperate people”. They’re desperate in the same way that shoppers outside a department store, waiting for post-Christmas sales to begin, are desperate. What draws them to places like Australia is not liberal freedoms, but liberal welfare. Which is why they’ll bypass many safe havens to get to the most affluent locations.

Refugee advocates like snake oil salespersons, have a new concoction to sell every few months. Up till recent, it was all about the Hazaras.Till it was revealed “Hazaras have entered ‘a golden age’ that is 'the best in several hundred'" years”.http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/rban-o18.shtml
So now they market the Rohingya brand.

But,what does Ms Metcalfe really know about the Rohingya?
Very little,I suspect,only what she’s read in advocacy groups self-promotional material.Burma insists “the boatpeople now fleeing Arakan State are not Rohingyas but Bengalis” I don’t know, you be the judge: http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15396

And talk of tying oneself in knots:
--- We are asked to believe these are impoverished people –yet “many times” they had money to pay off the police!

--- We are fed the line that the boats cannot be returned or stopped. But are told elsewhere that the return of the illegals
to New Guineans will effectively stop further attempts on that front.http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/rban-o18.shtml

---And the biggest knot of all : “UNHCR estimates that only one in ten of the people currently needing resettlement will ever find it" Indeed, most asylum seekers will simply lay over in the nearest safe haven till the situation eases, then return home.The more ambitious types, that advocates and smugglers entice to Australia,will get Australian residency , then return to their country of origin for R&R (or to fight for fundamentalist causes they still hold dear)

With each "asylum seeker" being housed, an Australian waiting on housing lists gets pushed further down the lists. We have many homeless Australians, do they not matter? Australians are hard working,highly taxed and they resent seeing their tax money being spent on on people who have wilfully broken our immigration laws because they have enough money to pay smugglers to bring them to our shores. The Refugee Treaty has outlived its purpose, it is now being used as a convenience, time it was rescinded and finished with. Australians are also sick of being treated as a convenience, our own should be looked after before foreigners.