I’m sure that Frank Brennan is well-intentioned.
However I have reasonable grounds for fearing that he is paving Australia’s road to hell.
Female genital mutilation;
Honour killings;
Child marriages;
Ethnic separatism;
Cousin-marriage and its attendant problems;
Over-representation in crime and incarceration statistics.
There is one religion which springs to mind when reflecting upon the fact that the above-mentioned phenomena are growing in all Western countries which have welcomed a particular “refugee” demographic.
Frank Brennan can’t seem to connect the dots but many others have.
These dot-connectors are often referred to as “racists”, although religion is not a race.
Go figure.
Most people just want a quiet life but also feel compassion for those less fortunate than themselves.
Sometimes, these impulses are mutually exclusive.
Terrorist threats, suicide bombers, race-based gang rapes, threatening ethnic enclaves which become no-go zones, relentless demands for special accommodation and permanently high rates of welfare dependence, etc, etc, cause compassion to make way for self-preservation.
Unless you’re a saint like Frank Brennan.
However, most of us are prepared to learn from history.
Many of us can see what is happening in other countries which have made the mistake of attempting to accommodate a certain brand of religious zealotry.
It makes the multicultural power-brokers feel good about themselves but at what cost to the recipient country?
We have also seen that the flip-side of the human rights machine is the punishment of heretics.
This experience teaches that one must be circumspect when dealing with Human Rights Commissions and their “independent” agents.
My comments should therefore be considered in the context of my assumption that Ali is a member of one of those evangelical churches of the religious right which have brought the above-mentioned problems to Australia.
We should ask ourselves whether we can afford to add to those problems.
Oops, I forgot.
That would be racist.

I don’t regard residents of other countries either as helpless victims of the evil white man or as childlike little brown brothers that we have to rescue. Development really should be easier for them than it was for our own ancestors. They know what is possible and what policies are necessary to achieve it, and can also learn from our mistakes and leapfrog over the obsolete. It took South Korea 35 years to go from being tied with Senegal for poorest country on earth to fully-fledged member of the First World, and it was about the same for Taiwan and Singapore. China has been making enormous progress in lifting people out of poverty. If other people can be determined to turn their situation around instead of relying on handouts ,from one generation to the next, there is a lot we can (and should) do to help, but if they persist in supporting corrupt and incompetent leaders, in denying justice to people in other ethnic or religious groups or in other social classes, and in keeping women barefoot, uneducated, and pregnant, there is nothing we can do about it, except to rigorously prevent their problems from becoming our problems, as far as possible.

Accolades to Frank Brennan for his tireless humanitarian work and of course we need to give refuge to the persecuted like Ali. Refugee intake is so far, a mere blip on the radar, however, I have gone from defending unauthorised refugees to pondering the global ramifications of the future.

One needs to look beyond the persecution of the defenceless and consider other factors in the long term. Afghanistan has a population of >33 million people and the population growth between 2002-2008, was 18%. Population density in Afghanistan is 60 people to one square kilometre and the land mass is a mere 647,000 square kilometres.

By comparison, African nations have a much larger growth rate than Afghanistan and that no doubt, is another very good reason why many Africans want out of Africa too.

Australia by comparison, is well off with nearly 8 million square kilometres of land mass and a population density of 2.7 per square kilometres, however, Australia also has 10 deserts and only about 7% of arable land which already feeds some 60 million people. Many of us believe that ecologically, Australia has reached a tipping point while others, who deny that global warming is anthropogenic, do not.

While the Muslim community should not be regarded as a homogenous society, a table prepared by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2004 showed that the Muslim birth rate in Australia is a significant factor towards Muslim population growth. It also showed that Muslims predominantly settled in Sydney and Melbourne and are increasing at an unprecedented birth rate from within.

It is obvious that the culture in poorer nations, despite poverty and persecution, is to have as many children as possible, which by default, creates very good reasons for people to seek a better life in less populated and more democratic countries but with a burgeoning global population, environmental, economic and persecuted refugees will significantly increase so where is it going to end or will it? Are we all to go down the plug hole together?

BEFORE WE GET TOO CARRIED AWAY ABOUT THE STORY ABOUT POOR ALY FROM AFGHANISTAN PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THERE ARE MANY MORE LIKE HIM IN VERY LARGE NUMBERS IN VERY LARGE REFUGEE CAMPS IN AFRICA AND WHO HAVE BEEN IN THOSE CAMPS FOR MUCH LONGER AND SUFFERED WORSE AND FOR MUCH LONGER THAN HE AND HIS FAMILY HAVE. WE SHOULD FIRST PLACE A QUOTA ON THOSE WHO ARE WORSE OFF VICTIMS IN AFRICAN REFUGEE CAMPS AND ONLY THEN GET AROUND TO PROCESSING THE APPLICATIONS OF AFGHANIS AND SRI LANKANS. NO ONE SHOULD THINK THAT THOSE WHO REACH A DESTINATION LIKE CHRISTMAS ISLAND OR AN ISLAND OFF AUSTRALIA SHOULD AUTOMATICALLY QUALIFY FOR VISAS OR CITIZENSHIP AND SETTLED IN AUSTRALIA. I AM GETTING QUITE FED UP WITH THE EASY ASSUMPTION OF THESE PEOPLE WHO ARENT REFUGEES IN THE SENSE THAT THE POOR AFRICANS ARE BUT ARE MORE STRIDENTLY DEMANDING AND POSE HUGE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRALIA.
BRING IN THE AFRICANS IN PREFERENCE TO AFGHANIS.

SOCRATEASE

Abbott, of course, is totally hypocritical about these refugees.

He bangs on about stopping the boats but they didn't. Not did they decide "when and how people entered this country". No, they just delayed them getting here by taxi servicing them around Australian waters in our naval vessels. But most of them still came here and are here now, angry and resentful.

There are some very obvious points people just fail to see or understand about Afghani refugees.

Firstly this continual rumour that they have, and pay, $16000 or thereabouts for their days in a leaky boat.

Having lived briefly in Afghanisatn years ago the truth is most of the population do not have enough money to even apply for a passport. That's why they don't have documents, they can't afford it.

But how, may I ask, do these people travel through all those countries and then produce all that money? It's impossible, they would be robbed, fleeced or jailed en route for others to get that money. Which I don't believe for a second they ever have anyway.

So, can someone explain to me where this money comes from? If they had $16K they'd fly in which is a lot cheaper. This whole thing makes no sense at all.

There are a couple of easy steps that will either totally stop the
boats or reduce them to single numbers a year.
Put the crew in gaol for 20 years, no parole.
Automatically send back all those that arrive from Indonesia without
their passports, after all they must have had them to reach Indonesia.
If they will not reveal their country of origin, or it is not obvious,
then put them in gaol until they do speak up.

If the crew will not get a six month holiday in Darwin, they will not
undertake the voyage in the first place.