For the benefit of Severin:

Severin sees things as black and white .Two distinct categories
1) The airport arrivals –often “ people who are on holiday”
2) The boat arrivals – poor unwashed escapees.

The reality is a great deal different –have a look at this-from today’s SMH
http://www.smh.com.au/national/revealed-smuggler-arrested-over-gangs-plot-to-ship-afghans-here-20100711-105p8.html

Note these passages:

1) “The journey began in … city of Quetta in western Pakistan… Most clients paid $US6000 to $US9000.”
2) “They travelled to Islamabad, some staying in the al-Hira Hotel, before flying to Indonesia in late October.”
3) “Even though they were all Afghans, they obtained valid visas to Indonesia by posing as a Quetta business delegation with the apparent endorsement of the Quetta Chamber of Commerce.”
4) “The ‘'delegation’' were even treated as official guests in Indonesia for a few days after they arrived.But authorities became suspicious when they learnt that Mr Hussain had obtained a big blue and white boat at Lombok.”

Now tell me again that the distinction is the backpackers are in holiday mode – and the others are not!

Amazing how this subject always deteriorates into 50 ways to justify why i hate refo's. I don't have any particular problem with boat people just the exploitation of their position by the smugglers. For at least three elections we have argued this subject and no one has secured a workable policy. The pacific solution was a winner for Howard as it did stop the trade and in the end most of the refugees got to come here anyway. The sad bit was how it all evolved at the time.
The current policy being put forward by Julia seems to be a good one. It will involve the region not just us and establish a long term sustainable way of managing what is unlikely to be an improving problem in the years to come. unfortunately, as has become this governments modos operandi they forgot to consult with the stake holders and put a clear plan together first before announcing it..
Truth in the end is we have to many people here now and don't need more until we can get on top of the problems we have with supporting the current population.

Severin:>families will pool what money they have to get a family member to safety who can then apply for help for their families, far from cowardly, these men are very brave.<

I believe the boat "refugees" pay $20,000 to get to Australia and up to $45,000 to get to Canada (what a snub). I also know that the average household income in Afghanistan is $300 per year, in Sri Lanka the average is $800. So the boat person going to Canada from Sri Lanka payed 50 years wages per person, and the Afghani refugee landing here payed just over fifty years wages. Sort of like a morgtage is it not.

My issue is not refugees but boarder security, and I would like to know who put up fifty years wages to plant these "refugees", bypassing a handful of countries on the way. Family funding thats a laugh.

Actually it may just be that those pushing backpacker refugees applications are pretty closely related to/with those pushing boat people applications.

This is from Overloading Australia – By Mark O’Connor & William J Lines ( Page 113)

“One would imagine that few tourists in backpacking hotels are refugees. Yet backpacker magazines contain advertisements from lawyers offering to arrange refugee application"

I finally was able to read the article without the need for a cut lunch and a toilet break.

"The choice of words is significant. Supporters of more liberal immigration laws almost always use "refugee" or "asylum-seeker" and tend to be Labor or Greens voters, while Liberals, Nationals and others favour "immigrant"."

Immigrant? Really? I think not. The term they use is 'illegals'.
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"..............it's odds-on refugees >>>>>will inject themselves into the next federal election <<<<<<, and that's bad for Labor."

How very pushy of them.
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The beat goes on.
and on...
..and on..
an..

Of course refugees will be an election issue. Politicians have been appealing to Australian xenophobia and racism since before Federation - indeed, the very first Act passed by the first Australian Parliament was the Immigration Restriction Act 1901. The nation was created by 'white' politicians who did so with the express intention of keeping other 'races' out.

I think that Graham's analysis of current sentiments towards asylum seekers as reflecting the ideological divide between equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes is interesting, but underestimates the entrenched antipathy towards non-'white' immigrants that has existed in Australia since the 19th century.

Indeed, none of the comments here thus far has been framed in terms of equality of outcomes or opportunity - rather, it's mostly just a rehash of the usual entrenched positions. While there may indeed be people who rationalise their attitudes to asylum seekers in those terms, they don't appear to be here.

I'm wondering if there's anybody at OLO who's actually considering changing their vote on the basis of Gillard's 'new' approach to asylum seekers. My suspicion is that all this dog-whistling isn't designed to actually attract votes, but rather to deflect attention from other more important policy areas where the Government has had a less than stellar performance.