I'm glad this isn't a "everyone who wants strong border control is a racist" piece.

For those who favour a liberal approach, what sort of numbers of "unconventional arrivals" are you prepared to contemplate accepting?

Let me set a benchmark.

It is estimated that around 500,000 people from Mexico slip into the US every year. The US has a population of approximately 300 million.

Scaling it in proportion to population this works out to accepting about 38,000 "unconventional arrivals" per annum in Australia. Are most posters here prepared to accept that number.

Note that boat arrivals are different to people who arrive by air and overstay their visa for two reasons:

--We have documentation on the latter group - we know who they are. Most unconventional arrivals have no papers.

--Most of the latter group are simply taking an extended holiday and intend to return to their home countries. This is not the case with boat arrivals.

In this, as in so many cases, unless you are prepared to talk numbers you are saying nothing.

I doubt those who are in favour of a more liberal approach to unconventional arrivals will be prepared to talk numbers other than to express the pious hope that not "too many" will arrive.

For the record:

I think Australia could easily accept an extra 10,000 or so refugees over and above the 13,750 that are already accepted. After that I think we start having problems.

The more important question, by far, is how many LEGAL immigrants? Those number are an order of magnitude greater.

Graham Young makes the observation, in seeking to explain the willingness on the part of both politicians and the public to keep revisiting the asylum-seeker debate, that:

"So it [the refugee/asylum-seeker/immigration issue]
typifies a deep cultural debate which can be boiled
down to an argument about two different types of equality
- outcome and opportunity - mixed in with conceptions
of cultural and national identity."

I suggest that the asylum-seeker issue is willingly revisited because it constitutes an opportunity for many Australians not of the commentariat to rebel, and at that legitimately, against the debate-suppressive dead hand of Political Correctness and the imposition of an elitist, as opposed to popular, policy with respect to immigration in general. Perhaps this desire to rebel is driven by an unarticulated resentment held by many Australians at a perceived implication of the policy of Multiculturalism, closely aligned with the immigration issue, as being an implicit disparagement of Australia's legal and constitutional heritage that has been developed in its own unique way, one derived largely, as is known by all, from Britain to which the large majority of Australians can trace their origins.

This disparagement is exemplified by the 1982 'conditional' disfranchisment of British subjects, such as many of the 'ten pound poms' (as are, self-descriptively, Julia Gillard's own parents) who migrated to Australia, despite the existence of an implicit right to enroll and vote contained within Section 44 of the Constitution. Up to a million of them, many of whom, like Julia, have lived here since infancy, robbed of a right to vote they used to have! At a time when others can just rock up in a boat by way of secondary-movement asylum-seeking and get citizenship (and thus the vote) within a few years!

Add to this implicit disparagement of Australia's historical polity explicit elitist accusations as to the existence of widespread latent, if not overt, 'racism' despite evident acceptance of migrants, and you will get an even deeper smouldering resentment against those perceived to be upholding those policies.

Thats your problem, Julia.

My problem with boat people is with Que jumping, but not in the sense that Graham mentions.

We have huge ques for public housing, people are waiting for years, even decades.

I will never accept that anyone should be able to jump to the top of that Que, simply by arriving in Oz waters, illegally, on a boat, without papers.

Just how long will it be before welfare agencies advise Ozzie citizens to jump on a boat, throw away their passport, & claim asylum, to get into a house?

All those Mexicans arriving in the US are no drain on US welfare. They disappear, as quickly as possible, get a job, & support themselves. This is quite different to the over half a million dollars in housing, & settlement grants our illegals get, followed by up to years of welfare support.

It's an old truism that charity should begin at home, but it should be applied here. No refugee should be given comfort greater than we give our own, & that is not the case now.

Until it is, I am against all refugee assistance, except that offered privately, by individuals.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/un-convention-misunderstood-and-its-not-working/story-e6frg6zo-1225889968841

Greg Sheridan wrote this interesting article in the Weekend Australian, where he highlights the real problem. The 1951
UN Convention is long out of date and is being misused for
modern day mass migration purposes.

It seems that Tony Blair could see it 10 years ago, but other
politicians seemingly never had the guts to back him. The
cost for Europe has been enormous. We learn nothing
from their mistakes it seems.

It amazes me how humans love someone to hate! Australians are no different.

Why we, who have so much, would pick on some miserable, bottom-of-the-pile folk from impoverished countries, some of which we are helping to destroy, is beyond my comprehension.

Why don't we hate the warmongers and the greedy? They are more deserving of hate.

David G writes:

"It amazes me how humans love someone to hate! Australians are no different."

David G I do NOT hate asylum seekers. I do not blame anyone who seeks to escape from places like Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan or similar sh*tholes.

If my family were living in Diepkloof in my native South Africa I would grab any chance I could get to move them to Australia.

But I do think we need to set firm limits to the number of refugees we are prepared to accept.

I suspect most people who are uneasy about the arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers are like me. Not haters, just rational human beings thinking about numbers. Branding us as "haters" is not only childish, it displays a quite stunning degree of self-righteousness.

You are sounding like CJ Morgan using his favourite "I" word.