Published in the Green left weekly?

'nuff said.

Simple,effective solution to this problem.Enter Australia illegally and the offender is on the first flight back to country of origin,once that is established.

No whining,no whinging,go home,make the best of it,if it's broken you helped to break it,you help to fix it.

We have more than enough homegrown deadbeats without importing more.

the results of Mr Rudd's compassionate/tough approach. Pink bats, massive extortion of funding for schools and immigration. What else can the Government demonstrate its incompetence in. This poor Tamils situation is a direct result of the Greens/Labour invitation. Unfortunately they will bleat on about how compassionate they are while more die answering the invitation to their slimy political rhetoric.

'How long must we wait?'

The answer to that seems to be -
as long as it takes to have their status
assessed. There are no quick solutions
to this problem. Refugees are waiting in
camps in countries all over the world.
Why would these people expect a "quick fix?"

It often takes years - while people are moved
from one camp to another. At least they are
being fed, they have access to medical help
if needed, surely conditions on Christmas
Island are better then conditions in camps
in Indonesia? Another question is - have
conditions changed for them in Sri-Lanka?
Can they be sent back? And now that the
Government has also decided to stop processing
applications for asylum from Sri Lanka and
Afghanistan, for a while at least,
I guess the wait will be even
longer. Perhaps an option could be to offer those
that want to return to do so - if they're not
prepared to wait their turn?

*Now, after ten months in hell*

Err hang on, taxpayers coughed up something like 300 million $ for
that place, it has everything that opens and shuts and is hardly
a hellhole. In fact its better then many a mining camp.

Life is relative. If my life had really been on the line, or I had
been living in a real refugee camp, Christmas Island would feel more
like the Hilton!

Some spokeswoman for the Tamils was on radio saying that these would
all make great migrants, for they are nice people. She misses the
point. This is not about if they are nice people or would be an
asset to Australia, it is about wether they are genuine asylum
seekers or not. If not, they are taking the place of those in real
need, who cannot afford the trip to Christmas Island.

*Perhaps an option could be to offer those
that want to return to do so - if they're not
prepared to wait their turn?*

Foxy, its a good idea but you are reinventing the wheel here,
for that option already exists. Anyone can leave at any time,
they simply don't have free access to come and live permanently
in Australia. If they want to live in Australia without claiming
to be asylum seekers, they will have to join the long queue of
others wanting to live in Australia too.

Dear Yabby,

Perhaps I should have re-phrased it, or put
it in better terms. All I meant to say was
that if they're not willing to wait and
be assessed according to proper procedure,
and they tell people that they want to leave,
then they should be "encouraged" to do so
with all the means at our government's
disposal. In other words Yabs - our government
should - call their bluff! Because that's all
it seems to be. They feel that the more noise
they make - the quicker they'll be processed.

An excellent article from Malcolm Fraser in today's 'National Times':

<< Take politics out of border protection

The major parties should quietly agree on a humane refugee policy.

THE political debate over asylum seekers demeans Australia and severely damages our reputation as a compassionate and humane country. Both political parties are at fault. The opposition has unashamedly continued to play a race card as it did over Tampa. It has said time and again that the government has lost control of Australia's border protection knowing that that charge is false.

It is false because the number of asylum seekers - whether it be 4000 or 5000 a year - is not enough to alter the complexion of Australia or to challenge Australia's values. It is false because the number of asylum seekers who come here by air with falsified papers has always outnumbered the number who come by boat. >>

http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/take-politics-out-of-border-protection-20100414-sdyo.html

*It is false because the number of asylum seekers who come here by air with falsified papers has always outnumbered the number who come by boat*

Sheesh, these people just don't get it. Compassion is no excuse
for stupidity. The fact is, it is the human nature of some, to
rort the system, if doors are left open so wide, that it is easy
to rort. From insulation, to building school halls to asylum seekers,
voters expect Govts to minimise the rorting that is going on
at their expense.

If people are rorting the system by air, so stop them, don't try
to use that as a justification of rorting the system by boat.

The fact remains that there are millions of refugees in the world.
The fact remains that we can only take a small number of them.
The fact remains that our present system of first sailing or flying
over the line is hardly a fair one to select the most deserving.
The fact remains that our present flawed system, is also a huge
waste of taxpayer $, in terms of doing things efficiently and
spending money wisely, to achieve what is a very unfair outcome

And of course CJ who is the model of compassion wants politics taken out of the illegal arrivals so we can suck up to the UN. Give us a break. Why is it that the so many on the left want to be so compassionate with Government (other peoples) money.

Sheesh - these people just don't get it. Yabby repeats his usual lie that boat people are "rorting the system", as if there's a coherent system for processing asylum seekers where they come from, while runner displays the Christian compassion we've come to expect from him.

CJ, applications to live in Australian, are taken at any
Australian Embassy around the world. People are free to apply
and take their chance, as other migrants do. Some people wait for
years, for applications are overwhelming.

People can apply through the UNHCR in places like Indonesia.

The Govt already has a system of selecting 13'000 a year, or
whatever is left, after those pushing their way in on boats,
get through the system.

Fact is that millions of Afghans continue to live in Afghanistan,
Tamils live in Sri Lanka. Unless of course they think that they
can push their way through, by paying people smugglers.

Malcolm had better get his compassionate head around a number
that he thinks we should take, before genuine asylum seekers living
in refugee camps, are taken into consideration.

Come on Yabby, don't be disingenuous. I said a coherent system for processing asylum seekers, not an imaginary queue where those seeking asylum supposedly line up with all other potential immigrants at the Australian Embassy, much less the laughable situation in the camps in Indonesia.

I agree that Australia should certainly take more refugees from offshore camps, in addition to ceasing to play political games with the lives of onshore asylum seekers. Of course, a very simple way of doing that would be to increase our self-imposed quota of humanitarian immigrants, while simultaneously cutting the number of 'skilled' and 'business' immigrants that we accept.

CJ, in that case your problem is with the design of the queue.
Even if more are taken each year, there are even more waiting
in camps. So even that is not a solution, it just means we
take more then what we did last year.

I know one thing. Those people waiting in refugee camps are
genuine refugees, or they would not be there. Unlike our present
system, which is open to rorting. That is exactly what most
Australians are unhappy about. They hate seeing our nation
being taken for a sucker, as is happening now, at great
expense to the nation.

So its rubbish to say that Australia is not a generous nation
etc. The reality is that our politicians simply don't have
the intelligence to come up with a fair system, that is cost
effective and not wide open to rorting.

That should be their goal, not the bleatings of Malcolm.

The situation is hopeless. Whether they arrive by air or sea and are
without a visa they should be turned around and sent whence they came.

There is a legal queue and we simply cannot take all those wishing to
come here. None of them have walked into Australia as they have all
passed through "Safe Havens" so they are not our responsibility.

They should be sent back to their last port of call.
That is easy with air travellers, the airline has to take them back
and any ship which arrived with them would have to sail with them on board.
So what is the difference between ships and boats ?
Keep the boats they arrive on and if they scuttle their boat, take
them halfway to their last port, put them on one of the boats and
wave them goodbye. It might be cheaper to fly them back. If the crew
are with them it would be harder for Indonesia to refuse them.

There just has to be an end to all this. It has been going on for
years and has to be brought to an end some time soon.

Do these refugees really expect permenant residency only after two weeks on Christmas island.They talk about the difficult boat trip to arrive at Christmas island but where was there original point of departure? Shri Lanka or Malasia? How did they arrive at Malasia? By plane, possibly, and if this is the case why not take the plane direct to Australia,no they won't do this for they have no visa and to apply would mean to wait and go through correct channels and there would be the possability that they would be placed on the next flight home. To arrive by boat means housing and food,which I suppose is not to bad for if conditions are as bad as they say it is I would be thankful for the safety ,food and bed of Christmas Island.Also why not apply for refugee status in Malasia. No this won't do for there is no money given out freely there in the form of welfare no free housing. They would still be safe there and if I was fleeing for being afraid of dying in my homeland I would take any place that would accept me without fear of death.
If the roles were reversed these people would not be as generous as australins are, they would jail us and expect us to arrange our own transport back to our point of origin or else we would be left to rot in jail.