ShazBaz continues;

ShiLanken Food is to die for, I have a favorite S'La Eatery in Melbourne I always order the Combo , comes on a SS Tray a pressing with about 7 offerings with a Lassi Glass in the center , Pure unadulterated Magic.......Let them IN let them in Let em IN I love em it's just like the Italians 50 years ago when I used to frequent a Restaurant about diagonal across from The Southern Cross that used to be so crowded it was ridiculous , Look what they did for us (the friggen Dagoes) do you live on Casseroles and Irish Stew and jelly of course you didn't ! Let em in Let em

Brian Holden,

You say that “the point of (your) article is that if we are going to be cruel, then let us admit that we are and not pretend to ourselves that we are beyond reproach.”

Who are these cruel people? John Howard, Kevin Rudd? People like me who voice an opinion that nobody who is not invited to Australia should be allowed to invite themselves? I think that Howard was weak, not cruel, for having allowed any people who arrived on boats to stay in Australia; I think Rudd is even weaker – he talked tough but he has failed to keep his promise about border protection. He is not cruel: he is encouraging people smugglers and their paying passengers to come here by word and by deed.

As for people like me, a majority of Australians who, according to polls, want a stop put to illegal boat entry – do you regard us, your fellow Australians, as cruel people?

We cruel and you are kind?

I have one 3 year old granddaughter, like you. I also have two 3 year old great-granddaughters, plus two baby great-granddaughters. Not one of them thinks that I’m cruel. I don’t think that I’m cruel.

So, why do you assume the right to call people you don’t know ‘cruel’ just because their integrity and loyalty to Australia and the Australian way of life leads them to want our governments to protect our borders from people we know nothing about?

You are an intelligent man, who writes well. You’re fictitious (presumably, you were not actually in attendance) account of the last minutes of SIEV-X was dramatic and did the job for your fans. You are not like the usual yobbos who call people names like ‘racist’ to try to silence them. So, perhaps calling people who don’t agree with your attitudes ‘cruel’ is you polite, gentlemanly way of doing the same thing as the louts? Whatever, I will accept your denigration and being called a racist by the less literate if that is the price of free speech.

....continued,

So, back to your 3 year old granddaughter – the innocent child you used to tug at the hearts of the already converted. I don’t believe that you would even dream of taking her on a smugglers boat with the obvious risks, any more than I would dream of taking my family on such a stupid, unnecessary voyage. It would be ‘cruel’, wouldn’t it Brian?

So who are the cruel and self-centred bastards really, Brian?

You also object to the word ‘illegals’ being used. They are illegals, Brian. None of the objectors to the word have ever been able to produce evidence that country-shopping is OK, even for genuine refugees. Do you have evidence, Brian? I would be pleased to see it.

The only true measure of 'Humanity' must be the ability to feel another's pain; to imagine being in someone else's position. I think, Mr Holden, you did this very well.
Sadly, looking at these posts, it only works on the already converted.

Grim, I'm afraid to say you also fall neatly under my statement of the egocentricity of the statement "A better way" and how some people failing to register different points of view as anything but a failure to live up to their own.

Just because some people feel unsafe around a desperate individual knocking on their front door (particularly if that individual grew up and educated about life in a mean place)- instead of sympathetic- it does not make them "inhuman".

How do we solve the problem of the boat people?
That's the question that's going to perplex
us for sometime to come.

Foreign arrivals in this country have never been
a problem in the past until the media started to
make a big issue out of it, and the politicians
use the issue for their own agendas.

The records show that illegal arrivals by plane
or overstayers, exceed boat people arrivals by 500%.
Yet nobody makes an issue out of this. It is easy
to overlook a handful in a plane than dozens on a
boat.

Illegal arrivals on a plane if intercepted by customs
are turned around and sent back. Why not escort the boat
people back to their point of origin? This was a
question that has been raised in the past. Unfortunately,
using the navy for those purposes is very expensive and
the government may not want to spend the money. This tactic
may also appear to be "politically incorrect."

Don't forget that these boat people have ended up in
Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and other areas and
the governments of these countries are just as anxious
to remove those people as soon as possible. They end up
on their way to Australia. Australia can take their example
and send these people onto New Zealand, and ports beyond.
However, Australia has signed a legal agreement which is
binding and the government has to abide by that agreement.

The result being - that whatever the government
decides to do, they must undertake it in a logical,
humanitarian, and expedient manner that the bureaucracy
permits.

This is a universal problem and as long as wars, famines,
natural disasters, et cetera, continue -
history has shown that people will be
continually on the move. Unfortunately, at present
many feel that it's somebody else's problem -
and they don't want this
problem in their backyard. However, the problem is not
about to go away any time soon.