It seems sometimes that people on different sides of the illegal immigration debate are on different planets. Those proposing abandoning detention do not seem to realise that this would mean that anyone coming from a country that will not accept back its own people would effectively migrate, and that we would then have unlimited immigration for this category of illegal immigrants. Those favouring detention are not sadists; many have the vision to forsee twenty or thirty years down the track, and are hoping to avoid the need to have illegal immigrants declared enemy aliens, liable to be shot on sight, or for the navy to use boats carrying them for target practice. We are in a world where the population will increase by at least 50% over the next 50 years, with almost all the increase occurring in the underdeveloped world, and all countries in the developed world will face increasing pressure from desperate migrants. The desire to exclude unwanted intruders is one of the basic aspects of territoriality, which we share with many other animal species. The immigration question is set to blow the European Union apart, especially now that Spain has given residency to 700,000 illegal immigrants. Theoretically they will soon be entitled to move on to the UK, but I would think that political survival will ensure that the UK government will find a way to stop them. Hopefully when John Howard gets his Senate majority in a few weeks he will be able to amend the Migration Act to get these detained people out of Australia, possibly to a refugee camp in Pakistan or similar, where they will be safe but will have no hope of aspiring to our standard of living.

The above posting assumes that Australia is the country of choice - luckily for you, we are an island rather far from the hordes apparently invading Europe. The same countries that complain of these hordes also complain of falling birth rates and lack of skilled workers. A refugee eventually becomes an immigrant. One would think an immigrant may be keen to work and learn skills- this is usually the case with new immigrants, they contribute to their new country. Morover, these same immigrants are not babies that need to be maintained for years before paying taxes. The real issue clear in the above posting is that 'they' are different to 'us'. At the same time that the developing nations are spending millions to breed infertile women - we spend as many millions keeping fertile women out. Now to Stuart Ress's article, the minions below take their instructions, whether implied or openly given, from above. This Government is one of control - this Government would never let a 'minion' create policy. This Government makes policy and ensures it is carried out to the nth degree. You will find, however, when someone needs to be blamed, it will be a minion.

I do at least admire Pierdsus for his honesty. It does indeed seem as though we live “on different planets”. I suspect Pierdsus works or has worked in a defence or national security area. It is important to try to engage with his arguments ( I assume Pierdsus is male).

Pierdsus says: “Those favouring detention are not sadists; many have the vision to foresee twenty or thirty years down the track, and are hoping to avoid the need to have illegal immigrants declared enemy aliens, liable to be shot on sight, or for the navy to use boats carrying them for target practice”. Essentially, he seems to be saying that our nation must regard itself as effectively at war with people who try to come here illegally in terms of our current migration laws; and that we are now in the preliminary stages of defensive war, during which we try to repel boat people through forcible military border protection operations like Operation Relex; or for those who still get through, lock them up indefinitely as public examples (hostages) in order to deter others from coming. Any weakening of mandatory detention would be a signal to others to come; and then we would eventually have to kill those who come later, regarding them as invaders. To avoid this anticipated greater evil down the track, “we must be cruel to be kind” now.

As a former Australian diplomat who spent 30 years working within the national sovereignty/security paradigm, I recognise such social Darwinist logic. I am glad it is out in the open, because these are the kind of thoughts some of our military and other national security people have when they speculate about possible strategic futures for Australia.

Why is Pierdsus wrong? His logic falls down on both moral and practical grounds. To go on in this direction will eventually bring the wrath and disgust of the world down on us, as was the South African white elite’s experience in trying to maintain apartheid. Eventually it all came crashing down, under both internal and external pressures (see second part).

(continued) Does Pierdsus imagine that our ADF personnel would stand for using boats carrying refugees for target practice? Or that our multicultural Australian community would stand for it ? There would be major civil dissent here, extending to armed struggle as in South Africa, because many Australians would feel passionately that a state that behaved with such cruelty had lost legitimacy.

Or does he think that major regional military powers like India or China would stand for Australia behaving in such an internationally criminal way ? These are sick officers’ mess fantasies, and they need to be held up to the light and rejected as such.

Yet our country is starting to go down that road. We drive people mad in long-term indefinite detention. We destroy the childhood of children taken into detention centres as babies or children. Our detention centre regimes encourages sadistic and dehumanising behaviour by guards. Our ADF already uses, fortunately empty, asylum-seeker boats as target practice. Our Federal Police and DIMIA run a covert people smuggling disruption program in Indonesia, as a result of which 353 people on SIEV X may have lost their lives, and the Australian Government blocks a proper investigation of that suspected great crime. The red warning signals are flashing in Australia now.

There are alternatives: recognition of the world’s shared common humanity under God (or without God, if you prefer), supporting policies for a progressive evening-out of the world’s wealth, decent altruism towards our neighbours, the building of ethical structures of regional cooperation, the maintenance of a humane international refugee system that offers hope for genuinely displaced persons. We need to work on such alternative policies, as the same time that we reject mandatory detention, a cruel practice which only makes us, as its instigators and supposed beneficiaries, more and more ashamed and sick at heart.

These are sound moral and practical arguments: let us now hear Pierdsus' response.

Stuart Rees talks about immigration officials “stereo-typing” asylum seekers and proceeds to “stereo type” immigration officials – presumably because they are attempting to do a job he knows he cannot do himself.

I must admit I see a tendency for the bleeding hearts to stereo type asylum seekers as victims regardless of the real circumstances and presume that any murdering gangster or religious zealot, hell bent of destruction for whatever reason, who decides, in a state of economic or fevered desperation, to drag himself and his family half way around the world to Australia, rather than seek “asylum” closer to home, must be a "victim". Maybe he is a victim – maybe he is not – sure as anything immigration rules are their to protect this society from, among others, those who would fail the migration laws by virtue of flawed character. I have, from time to time, needed police checks and character testimonials to allow me residence in different countries – same should apply for everyone. Better we are cautious than regretful.

As for any detriment to those in detention remembering, no one forced detainees to seek illegal entry in to Australia, I suggest the following precident suits the circumstances -

"volenti non fit injuria" -

"to a willing person, no injury is done."

Tony Kevin said "We drive people mad in long-term indefinite detention"
Its rather sad to see such amazing bias and blindness in that statement alone. Particularly from one who trumpeted his vast experience and expertise. The person most likely in his mind as he wrote that is the long term detainee who has been referred for psychiatric help. That would never have been neccessary if he just told them WHO HE IS ! This person apparently has something to HIDE, or he would assist the authorities in giving his verifiable true identity ? right ? What am I missing on this ?

Pierdas made a CRUCIAL point which others seem to have missed. Refugees become Immigrants, now, to extend this one level further, they also become VOTERS. i.e they have political potential which any astute politian would enjoy tapping.

This very fact is highlighted by Tony when he says "our multicultural community would not stand for" such and such. There it is, our POLITICALLY significant ethnic minority pressure groups will seek to grow, and then to diffuse any opposition to the furtherance of their own agenda and objectives.

One only has to look at the lather of Hispanic politicians in California who are opposed to any measure which would tighten up the flow of illegal economic opportunists from Mehico from coming in, or gaining state support in welfare etc.

Pierdas makes the excellent point about porous borders=massive population shifts from poor areas to richer.