CJ,

Who's being precious now. I'm not vilifying the boat people, simply commenting on their legal status.

As a significant number (incl 6 from the Oceanic Viking and who now face indefinite detention) are not granted asylum for various reasons, their status until granted is "unlawful non citizens" indicating that they have entered the country (immigrated) in a fashion non compliant with Australian law (illegal)

The term cast no aspersions as to their character, but their advocates are trying to discourage the term for one more politically correct such as "special" is now used for disabled. This process also known as green washing only fools the intellectually "special"

I do however, notice that you have refrained from the childish name calling.

"Hater" is just as fair, accurate, and reasonable as "open borders traitor". It represents an attempt at "rednecking", raising allegations of racism to poison a debate or divert discussion from the issue at hand to racism. Among those of us who have problems with the refugee advocate agenda, I have rarely, if ever, seen anyone call for not taking any refugees or for discrimination among them on the basis of race. Personally, I have no problems with even an intake of 20,000 a year, which some refugee advocates have called for (although doubts can be raised about their sincerity).

Since we obviously cannot take in everyone claiming to be a refugee or even all genuine refugees, why do you care whether we take them from boats or from camps, when the latter is obviously much cheaper? The saved money can be spent on refugee settlement services or even on some of the unmet need in the existing population. Furthermore, taking refugees only from the camps would not involve luring people onto leaky boats, especially women, who may not be given a choice, and children, who certainly aren't. Your stance on this raises the suspicion that your real agenda is a very much higher, uncontrollable intake, regardless of the problems that it causes for the wider society.

It is true that numbers of boat arrivals are still small, but asylum claims started small in Europe as well. Asylum claims snowballed there during the 1980s, with increasing proportions of failed asylum seekers, who usually could not be sent back. From Home Office statistics, the UK, for example, had half a million asylum claims, not counting dependants who arrived later, between 1997 and 2004. Only 23% were found to be genuine. 14% got special leave to remain, sometimes for humanitarian reasons, but often because the home country would not or could not cooperate with deportation. Of the remaining 63% who were rejected and ordered to leave, only 24% were deported, with the other 76% staying on as illegal immigrants. See

http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefingPaper/document/108

It's a very naive person who presumes illegals allowed to come to the mainland to collect their very own visas, courtesy of OpenDoor-Rudd, are 'genuine'.

Australian immigration officials have proved to be totally incompetent in the past - German resident locked up, Asian-Australian citizen locked up, can't stop them escaping Villawood etc.

Anyone who is a reasonable liar can be accepted as a refugee by Australian officials. And, now that they have been told not to detain illegal workers and visa overstayers because their is no room to lock them up (and further show up Comrade Rudd), they are probably saying, "What the heck. Let's let all the buggers in. It makes our job easier." Can't say I blame them with the cowardly, back-sliding of their employer, the Rudd Government.

However, anyone who thinks that people passing successfully through the thin veneer of 'border protection' is a genuine refugee is kidding himself.

another murder this morning of a Sudanese man in Perth. Can't be racially motivated because main suspects are Afghan. What a wonderful society we are creating with our misplaced compassion.

Shadow Minister: << I'm not vilifying the boat people, simply commenting on their legal status >>

That's a particularly disingenuous claim, even for you. Although you know that 90% of asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat are subsequently proven to be legitimate refugees, you persist in dishonestly portraying all 'boat people' as "illegals". Why would you do that, if not to vilify them?

Sorry mate, you belong firmly in the category of 'haters', along with most of the contributors in this thread. That's because you post misleading comments that are designed to portray genuine refugees in the worst possible light by associating them semantically with criminality. That is hate speech, and you provide pseudo-intellectual succour to the more obvious haters at OLO.

That's not being precious. Precious is whining about being characterised as a hater while doing everything you can to vilify refugees. Why is it OK for you to incorrectly call 90% of asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat "illegals", and not OK for that hateful activity to qualify you as a hater?

*Although you know that 90% of asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat are subsequently proven to be legitimate refugees *

That is the thing CJ, they are never proven to be such a thing
at all. As long as their story is consistant and they claim
to have feared for their life, we have to prove that they
are lying, which is pretty difficult to do, given that information
from the third world is hard to collect.

So how many are really genuine, nobody knows, the system is
wide open to rorting.

It seems that some on Christmas Island are complaining about this
and that, the time taken etc. Let me tell you, if I came from
the third world and had genuinely feared for my life, I would
regard the place as a holiday resort. Life is relative and
if you have really feared for your life, then you appreciate
how pleasant it is, not to fear for it any longer.

So your 90% figure is irrelative. Every boat would be different.

Take them from refugee camps and you know why they are there,
its cheaper, you are helping the truly needy, far more cost
effectively.

That was the amusing thing, when I heard on the radio, the
comments from the woman of the Tamil Association. She wasn't
even claiming that they were fearing for their lives, simply
stating that they would make good migrants. Well duh, so
would lots of people.