There is a very simple reason that a majority of the public are very concerned about the arrival by boat of people who claim to be "refugees". many people see the boat people as defacto immigrants who are trying to circumvent our selective immigration process.
Australians have been and remain a most generous people but we do not take kindly to being taken for a ride by people who use the UN convention a s a flag of convenience, especially if those claimants have spent long periods of time in third countries.

Kevin Rudd, truly the light that failed. For a while there after the 2007 election it looked as though Labor was going to steer Australia back from being a uptight, inward looking, paranoid country to a more open, happier more generous place.

Sadly though, Labor ran out of puff pretty quickly. Rudd could have used the Liberal fear-monging about asylum seekers to show some leadership and given one of the great speeches of our time. In this speech, he could have said that he was elected by Australians to do something about the numbers that really matter. Numbers like the fact that there are in NSW alone 10,000 children in foster care, which is many more than people who are arriving seeking our help by boat a year.

He could have talked about the number of homeless in Australia again numbers far greater than the asylum seekers.

To address the inevitable howlers from blogs like the Bolt's who would wail that these people are stealing our quality of life, he could have pointed out the numbers of people coming by boat are very small and what great Australians, people who have come here by boat and seeking asylum over the years have made.

He could have talked about being a good world citizen and doing our part. He could have talked about the cost of detaining these people who are almost always found to be refugees for months in terms of money and reputation to us, and the huge cost in these people in mental health.

Instead he relapsed into the same old Howard mindset and is leading from behind. Rudd the dud indeed.

Well said, Bruce Haigh.

<< Why take such a path when events on the ground will inevitably prove the Australian government wrong, sooner rather than later? >>

Two words: Federal Election.

Such naked political cynicism by the Rudd government makes me ashamed to be Australian.

Anybody would think that Rudd had actually cracked down on illegals, as he promised he would. Instead, he has opened the gate to more illegals than ever.

The freezing of visa processing for Sri Lankan and Afghan illegals hasn’t fooled anyone. The boats are still coming, and visas will again be handed out willy nilly to anyone arriving illegally the moment the election is over.

It is just too much to expect people to believe all of these illegals face personal danger in their own countries; most are taking advantage of Rudd’s weakness to dodge normal immigration processes so that they can live in the lap of relative luxury at the expense of Australian taxpayers and Australians looking for houses to rent. Twenty years waiting time for public housing if you are Australian; move right in if you are an illegal who has put it over our dumb immigration officials.

As for these ‘poor Tamils’, give us a break! They will cause the same problems in Australia as they have caused in Sri Lanka. And, whoever said, as Haigh suggests, that “Evans, Smith and Rudd….want to stop the boats…” These three liars never intended to ‘stop the boats’. Politicians dismantling a scheme that that HAD stopped the boats, advertising that they were extending Christmas Island to take more illegals, and backing down every time they were bullied by non-Australian interests, never had any intention of stopping the illegal smuggling of people into Australia. It is probably another of their sneaky ways towards a ‘big Australia’.

And, if these ‘inevitable’ refugees in Afghanistan showed some backbone and took up arms against the Taliban – instead of leaving it to Australian and American troops who are being killed for them – they might be able to stay in their country and make it a better place, instead of slinking off to safety and leaving the majority to it.
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.......And, if these ‘inevitable’ refugees in Afghanistan showed some backbone and took up arms against the Taliban – instead of leaving it to Australian and American troops who are being killed for them – they might be able to stay in their country and make it a better place, instead of slinking off to safety and leaving the majority to it.
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“When will it be that the taxpayer funded AFP acts to uphold human rights?” asks Bruce Haigh. What nonsense! Australian taxpayers have spent enough on illegals, whose so-called ‘rights’ are wide open to question. And, the “cowardly and bullying act(s” relate to the Rudd Government’s cowardly refusal to take action against illegal arrivals by sending them back, and the bullying of Australians by government and the loud-Left into thinking that objection to the present open border policy is ‘bad’, ‘inhumane’ and ‘racist’.

Contrary to what Haigh believes, any “turning in their graves” at Fromelles from our dead Diggers would be caused by the stupidity of opening up borders they died for, and the total lack of disregard for Australia and Australians displayed by the Rudd socialist government and the mad-Left.

"Illegals"?! Read the Refugees Convention. You have serious problems with honesty Leigh -- why would the Tamils cause the same 'problems' in Australia as they did in Sri Lanka? Would they fight for an independent Tamil state in Northern Queensland? I don't think so. There are so many Tamil doctors, lawyers, bankers, engineers etc in Australia. THey are a highly performed migrant group.

Lets face it, you don't like them because they aren't white. That makes you and your opinions irrelevant and false.