Hangon a minute. This article opens with the comment

"the numbers arriving in Australia are small by international standards (Australia’s proportion is equivalent to 2.5% of all asylum applications internationally, including arrivals by air and sea)"

But it doesn't take an expert to calculate that Australia only has about 0.3% of the worlds population. Obviously we should be doing our fair share, but it seems we are taking far more than out fair share. In fact we are taking 8 times our share.

Surely if this article is this misleading in the first few lines, what more untruths does in contain.

Kerry, I detect a fundamental level of wrong-headedness in this article.

You say:

<< There are proposals which may slow or even stop the boats, but there are greater needs of addressing protection for those forcibly displaced generally. >>

We (the vast majority of Australians) want the boats stopped! We want this whole onshore business terminated, decisively. Isn’t that what the report is about? Wasn’t that the motivation for commissioning it?

Apart from the fact that people die at sea trying to get here, we should absolutely strive to have full control over our borders.

We should be addressing refugee issues in an entirely different way than to facilitate or tolerate onshore (or fly-in) asylum seeking.

This is the thing that I just don’t get about refugee advocates. They seem to be hung up on supporting onshore asylum seekers, while paying very little attention if any to Australia’s efforts to accommodate >13 000 offshore refugees as well as contributing to aid programs in various places in ways that strive to improve peoples’ quality of life and hopefully reduce refugeeism.

Refugee advocates need to look at this, and suggest how we might improve it…. and for goodness stop making it difficult for us to deal with onshore asylum seekers.

They should be looking at Houston’s proposal to increase our refugee intake to 20 000 (later, 27 000) with great positivity, and with agreement that this should only happen if the boats are completely stopped.

Then they should be on the side of the big majority of Australian citizens in doing whatever it takes to stop the boats!

OK, so with a decisive policy, a few people are going to get caught in the middle and have to spend time in offshore detention centres, and then they should only be issued with TPVs if they are found to be refugees. (Big fault of the Houston report – no TPVs).

Please Kerry, for the greater good of refugees and Australia’s efforts to help them, strive to shut down irregular asylum seeking and to improve our offshore refugee and international aid programs instead.

Kerry. You say: "One of the major causes of delays now faced by applicants whether in Australia, on Christmas Island or in Jordan is the slow process of security checks by ASIO."

My understanding is that one of, if not the main, reason for the slow processing is the fact that many of the boat arrivals have thrown away their ID documents (Passports, Licenses, mobile phones). This makes it a long and costly process to establish the identity of the applicant and to verify their stories.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to let intending asylum seekers know that if they arrive without documents, they will be held in an offshore processing centre until their identity can be confirmed. And that process could take years.

Some asylum seekers may have genuinely "lost" their documents. They should be advised to present themselves at one of the Australian Embassies, Consulates or Representative Offices (in 131 countries including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka) and make their case. If sound, they can be issued with temporary Australian documents.

A quick search of the internet finds that Kerry is employed in the refugee industry.

"I am a partner in D'Ambra Murphy Lawyers and an accredited specialist in immigration law. Our firm specialises in onshore refugee and family category visas"

She basically gets paid to get these people into Australia any way she can.

"I am a partner in D'Ambra Murphy Lawyers and an accredited specialist in immigration law. Our firm specialises in onshore refugee and family category visas"

Yes Kerry, this should have been a disclosure or at the very least part of your bio.

Is your only expertise in the area of Family reunion? I ask because you exhibit a detailled and frank knowledge in that subject but not in others areas. eg Why the UNHCR processes are less procedurally fair.

As the Labor Party claims victory in the asylum issue it has lauded the: "We'll make these boat people wait the same amount of time that others in refugee camps do!"

I seem to remember that there have been many riots in Australian detention centers over the years with massive damage and injuries occurring.

Given that the wait-time varies from seven years to over twenty, what kind of riots will flare up then?

Why are our politicians so dumb?