David G, if ever you get some descent reason why we should take in the sharpies who arrive by boat, be sure to let us know.

Meanwhile spare us the emotive claptrap, & weak attempts at undergrad humour.

The number of refugees illegally entering Australia is trivial by world standards the 'problem' is mainly manufactured by the Coalition and its supporters in the media. If members of the government had any spine they would point this out to the voters and so not give the Coalition's fear-mongering any oxygen.
As 'stevenlmeyer' has indicated our real problem is the number of legal immigrants, there are too many vested interests profiting from our high population growth rate-many of them are Coalition supporters.

Yabby, you're assuming that those 16 million are all hanging out to come to Australia.
What a scaremongering assumption, by you and Sheridan.

I think we should take the people who are arriving by boat and are judged to be refugees by the usual processes.

That's not 16 million, never has been, never will be.

What do you think we should do about the 50,000 overstayers who've already arrived by plane, with passports, and are living illegally in the country, according to Amnesty. They are possibly claiming welfare benefits and almost certainly working illegally, for much less than Australians would be paid?

They probably don't qualify for Australian passports, but we've got them here anyway, draining the welfare system and pinching jobs.

I don't hear anybody shouting about this. Only about the boat people from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

Is this some racist thing?

The illegals had passports etc. when they flew to Pakistan or Indonesia on the way here. They destroy them, on smugglers' advice, before they make the boat trip here because they know they have more chance of conning Australia without documents. They also avoid any attempt to gain asylum in the countries they pass through, even though UN facilities are available once they have left Afghanistan or Sri Lanka.

The old chestnut about illegals coming to Australia not being able to obtain documents, or losing documents, is a joke

Don't compare them with people who have arrived legally. The over stayers who, at least arrive legally, have been found of suitable character to be issued with an Australian visa. If they don't go home after their visa has expired, then of course they should be detained, and then deported - which many of them are. But they are not always easy to find.

Until either group is interviewed, Immigration doesn't have any idea who is 'fleeing torture'. There are Afghans and Tamils awaiting deportation now because they have not proved that they are in danger where they came from. They will be deported when it is safe for them to be deported in accordance with the UN ‘refoulement’ requirement, even though they were not in danger in the first place.

The fact of war being waged in a country is not sufficient for anybody to be granted international asylum. And, if an individual can prove a real threat of personal danger, no country is obliged to provide permanent asylum, which was the reason behind the Howard Government’s Temporary Protection Visas. People can be returned to their country of origin when it is safe for them. Nobody is entitled to expect asylum for all time, and only the country of asylum can decide whether or not they will be returned, not the United Nations. The increase in Australia’s population must be reduced and controlled. The only people allowed to stay permanently should be those invited here because they will fit in and be assets to the country.

Australia has the highest per capita intake of offshore refugees in the world. There is nothing 'trivial' about it - fewer white European Australians (compared with UK and America) so more chance of being over-run.

Or perhaps we are no longer allowed to do our bit while still retaining our own culture? Run ourselves down and into the ground, and lose everything?

I can't believe even the most irrationaly self-hater can want that!

briar rose,
You should know that most boat arrivals come by firstly flying unto Malaysia, for which they need passports, visas, etc. They destroy these docs so we cannot positivly identify them and send them back if we doubt their stories. The ones that come by air and then seek asylum have valid visas and if we doubt their stories we sent them packing. That is why the success rate for those that fly here is dramaticly lower than the boat arrivals. I suspect you know all this anyway.

Please tell me why a legitimate refugee with docs would discard his docs and pay a smuggler far more than the air fare from Malaysia to Aus. He would be here in a few hours and at very little risk as well as not be detained on arrival.

Or are you saying he walked from say Afghanistan to Indonesia.