No Western Red...you are not 'racist' :) but you are naive. (or have a dark political agenda or..have relatives you want to help get here)

You try to push the 'emotional' button and distort the picture in line with that buttom push attempt.

If we don't control who comes here..and how... we are plain stupid and will be trampled by the rush of half of Afghanistan and 3/4 of Bangladesh, not to mention a 1/3 of India.

So...obviously.. control and predictability are important.

Deterrent is needed because 'reason' is not getting through.

These people come to Australia through many other countries for one reason.. "a better life"

The UN CONVENTION says nothing about "a better life" in regard to refugees.. it does however speak about 'safety' which can be obtained in any one of various contries they have come through to get here.

This is where you do one or more of the following:

1/ Tell me that 'those other countries' are not signatories to the convention.
2/ I'm plain mean and lacking compassion.

You must be a socialist or a Green (same thing).. or a left wing Labour supporter..or a heretic Liberal like Georgio.

Emotion rules sense in your case... sad..tragic.. but fixable...with sufficient therapy (from the rest of us)

As I said.. 'incarcerate the captains and crews' for 10 yrs or so..and publicize it.. pretty soon the flow will dry up.
If they claim 'forced' ..then incarcerate the pirates and the outcome will be the same...

Further to ALGOREisRICH’s comment about our need to get serious about the penalties we impose on people smugglers.

Refugee advocates are usually very big on our need to satisfy various UN Conventions .They are, however, strangely quiet about our commitment to this one :
http://www.uncjin.org/Documents/Conventions/dcatoc/final_documents_2/index.htm

What a miserable little hate fest this thread is. Well said, Western Red - it's not worth seriously responding to this virtual Ku Klux Klan meeting. I mean, Enoch Powell FFS? One clown even manages to bring feminism into it.

Lampooning the haters is probably the only sensible reponse - LOL @ "Border Cleansing".

The previous Liberal Coalition policy worked.

We were not innundated with all these boat loads of economic opportunists parading as refugees.

The present crisis is merely the consequences of people being silly enough to elect a socialist government to power. A socialist government who, like socialist governments before them, promised heaven on earth but delivered only waste and misery.

Maybe the Australian electorate, having been reminded of all the socialist follies of this and previous socialist options, will see sense and choose a liberal coalition government at the next election

who will come and work tirelessly to repair the damage done by socialists across so many areas of the national fabric.

It's always ugly, lancing a boil.

It's even uglier, of course, when everybody leaps in to squeeze their zits at each other.

Altogether a classic thread.

There are of course just a couple of inhibitors to the "final solutions" that we have seen paraded here.

>>... deport all illegal immigrants to their country of origin... Whenever Qantas has an empty outgoing seat, fill it, only detain people until a flight out is available.<<

One or two teensy issues with that.

How do you determine which country, for a start? If I had fled for my life from, say, Sri Lanka, would I tell you my country of origin? I'd just keep saying "New Zealand", wouldn't I?

Or Cuba.

The second problem is that Qantas doesn't go to Kandahar. Or Havana, for that matter. You'd need to persuade another airline to take them on their onward journey, and that ain't gonna happen. We'll see why in a moment.

>>Australia must hold the CREW of any ship ABSOLUTELY accountable...<<

That might be a problem, Boaz. There are some fairly widely recognized, and respected, rules that govern "stowaways, refugees and persons saved at sea".

Check out GARD,

http://www.gard.no/

or the International Maritime Organization

http://www.imo.org/

for details.

One of the problems - which applies equally to lugging them across the world in spare Qantas seats - is that you can't simply dump them at the next port of call.

Another problem, which clearly wouldn't trouble you lot one jot, whit or tittle, is that it is the done thing for a ship at sea to provide aid to another ship in distress, and to take responsibility for the people it saves. Remember Captain Arne Rinnan?

You'd just look the other way, and let them sink, of course.

What a lovely Christian thought, eh. Leave all that hearts-and-flowers stuff to the Samaritans.

After all, it is their choice to become refugees. They have to live with the consequences, and if that means drowning, while Boaz waves at them from his yacht, so be it.

Why is it that a refugee can increase his chance of asylum by engaging the services of criminals?

Why is it that anyone should believe that people smugglers do not select passengers on their ability to pay?

If people risk their lives sailing across treacherous waters in dilapidated and unseaworthy vessels, then what can be said of the judgement of a government that selects such people preferentially to the poor and wretched without the resources to engage the services of people smugglers?

Australian policy should not encourage people to risk their lives and support organised criminals. They could do this by preferentially selecting refugees close to their source.