"To inflict suffering on one group of people in order to deter others is a clear case of appealing to a doubtful end to justify evil means. It is ethically wrong because it treats persons as things, subjects as objects. To do this is wrong no matter whether a government or an individual is acting."

Yes, true. The flaw in your argument Andrews is that you ignore the fact that government policy is enforced against those who don't agree with it, so you're not applying your own argument to yourself.

The policy on asylum-seekers under the Convention - the basis of the stinking hypocrisy you rightly criticise - is funded by threatening to inflict suffering, and inflicting suffering, on Australians who don't agree with it, to force them to pay. It is ethically wrong because it treats people as things, mere instruments of the will of others.

"Those who call advocates for asylum seekers bleeding hearts usually dismiss ethical arguments."

Support for the UN Convention is also based on dismissing ethical arguments. E.g. the cost of processing one application by so-called Irregular Maritime Arrivals - boat people - is hundreds of thousands of dollars, close to a million. Whereas the same money spent on refugees applying offshore, could alleviate *a lot* more human suffering.

The effect of the Convention is to select, not in favour of the most meritorious cases, but in favour of the seaworthy.

Australia's adherence to the Convention is the cause of major injustices, not to mention waste and legalised corruption, like all the refugee workers flown around and staying in hotels, all to keep up appearances with the UN.

There can be no pretence that the Convention somehow represents an ethical priority.

The solution to the ethical problem you suppose is for Australia to abrogate the Convention. The gumment could then set the conditions and numbers of accepting asylum-seekers on merit, which is what both parties are trying to do by this elaborate and dishonest charade of continuing on the Convention, but shunting them off into indefinite detention.

"in the case of asylum seekers, the ethical question emerges clearly from the shape of Australian policy. This policy rests on deterring people from making a claim on Australia for protection from persecution."

I disagree. Australia has an ordered approach to those seeking asylum through the correct channels. People coming by boat are seeking to circumvent those channels and are paying a lot of money to do so.

These people, for the most part, are not asylum seekers in the true sense of the words, rather they are seeking to immigrate to a better country through the back door (as in the case of the young man recently murdered).

Would you allow a large, well muscled man with a buzz cut into your home if you had no idea as to his indentity or background? (Search out some photos of some of these people) I wouldn't. Yet these people are arriving on our northern shores without idenification and demanding to be let in.

When labor came to office there were 4 people in offshore detention. In the ensuing years in excess of 50,000 arrived (and most without any papers). These people need to processed for medical checks and have their indentities verified. A rather large (and expensive) task.

Thankfully, we now are not topping up the numbers in these camps and the people who are there will probably be processed more quickly.

The bleeding hearts caused 'unintended consequences' of 1200 dead at sea, as well as multi-billion dollars of costs to innocent Australians from illegal immigration and welfare money for the parasite class they created.

The families of victims should sue them for the suffering they caused by failing to consider obvious consequences their self-indugence.

'Bleeding hearts' take no responsibility for costs or deaths; they preen themselves as acting from some moral high ground, but dont see that killing people via forseeable consequences of stupid actions is morally culpable. Now in classic faeces-flinging-monkey behaviour they scream their moral abuse at the Coalition - for stopping the killing!

Somehow they dont see themseves as vile human beings.

A well written article Andrew.
I certainly see your point in the main, although I don't really see the point of bringing the Catholic religion into the debate, other than the fact that several of our key political figures are Catholic.

To my mind, the fact that we are sending these asylum seekers away to Manus Island (a somewhat dubious detention centre) before their legal cases as genuine refugees are even known, is not ethical.

I agree we need to stop the drownings, but given the extreme lengths that this Government is going to to keep everything a 'secret', do we actually know the drownings aren't still happening?
No, we don't.

Certainly, far less boats would be setting out at this time of the northern monsoons anyway, so let's see what happens after about the end of April.
Mind you, we won't be told about anything that is going on then anyway!

I am wondering at the exorbitant cost of transferring and maintaining all these people on Manus Island anyway. Are we really saving any money?

What of all these high tech orange 'lifeboats', costing many thousands of dollars each, being tossed up on foreign beaches, and thus 'gifted' to Indonesia, after we send back asylum seekers?

We are the laughing stock of other nations and are getting a bad name for our treatment of the world wide problem of ever increasing numbers of travelling refugees.

If that worry means I am a 'bleeding heart', then so be it.

I would rather have that than a heart of stone...

Andrew different people will use the term in different ways. I wasn't aware of the catholic connection.

The way I've understood the term to be used is a little different to what you describe.

I've understood the term as implying someone who acts with a form of compassion without real consideration (or in deliberate denial) of the larger consequences of that action.

As an example
Those who would put the suffering of a serial rapist or child abuser due to prolonged incarceration ahead of the harm suffered by potential future victims when the indications are that the offender is not cured or genuinely reformed.

A bleeding heart in my view is someone who acts from a very blinkered form of compassion rather than striving for the best overall outcome while accepting that there is often no perfect solution.

In regard to the refugee issue it is a difficult one. I wish we had the political leadership and creativity to find better solutions, solutions that did not leave our doors open for others to bring the problems of their origins here but was still able to act with compassion. The existing polarisation of the debate does not appear to provide much hope of creative solutions.

R0bert

Dear R0bert,

<<A bleeding heart in my view is someone who acts from a very blinkered form of compassion rather than striving for the best overall outcome while accepting that there is often no perfect solution.>>

The conclusion as if there is no perfect solution is derived from the idea that everyone's solution must be the same and everyone should strive for the same goal(s). If that were the case, then indeed there would be no solution fitting all and one would have to compromise on some elusive "overall outcome".

Still, for each and every one of us there is a perfect solution, only it differs from person to person (and at times even for the same person at different periods of their life).

Everyone should follow their own duty - and if one doesn't know what their duty is, then their duty is to listen within and find it. Some people's duty involves protecting society from harmful elements while others' duty involves compassion for the souls of those who harm, yet even those souls who are perceived to do harm may also be carrying their own duty... A perfect world would occur if everyone followed their own duty and not that of others.