Don't worry, King Kong - when it comes to asylum seekers, OLO is not quite as bad as wingnut blogs like Bolt et al, but it's getting up there lately. I gather you're new here, but this litany of lies, bigotry and distortion is pretty much par for the course here whenever somebody posts an article that advocates decency and humanity with respect to asylum seekers.

Let's go through some of them briefly:

Ludwig: << it resulted in the big majority of asylum seekers being accepted as refugees >>

Bulldust. They would have been accepted as genuine refugees wherever they were processed. Their continued detention after being found to be bona fide refugees sent more than a few of them nuts.

Banjo: << It matters little where the illegals are processed,what stopped the boats was not giving permanent residency >>

More bulldust. They're not "illegals" and virtually all of the detainees imprisoned on Nauru were granted permanent residency eventually.

Dickybird: << why should they jump the queue unpenalized. >>

Yet more bulldust. There is no queue.

Leigh: << very few people even coming near fulfilling the UNHRC criteria that qualifies them as worthy of international protection >>

Complete fabrication. You just made that up, didn't you Leigh?

Etc etc.

Bulldust, bulldust, fear, loathing. Same old, same old.

You're right though, King Kong. It is a bit dispiriting at times. Hatred's like that.

Welcome to OLO anyway :)

Rhian - okay, the consensus has since been broken but it was interesting there for a while. Sure conditions in those camps could have been improved, and they weren't prisons but such points could be fixed. I doubt very much whether conditions were quite that bad. The authors complaints that she had trouble getting into the place do not count, considering that she probably raised a ruckus over almost everything and they got sick of her after a while.
And would it have been any better putting a camp in East Timor? I wonder?
In any case, the Pacific solution worked. the refugee quot was filled by taking people directly from the camps overseas, and the ones here eventually wound down. We are only faced with this problem because the government took its eye off the ball.

Gillard could win this coming election hands down with one announcement, at the risk of splitting the Labor Party and ditching the chardonnay sippers. This would not really be much of a risk because the loony left really has no-where else to go, as they are not going to vote for Abbott.

The announcement would have to say three things:

1. The government was abrogating the Asylum Convention.

2. All illegal boat immigrants would be declared to be enemy aliens.

3. The armed forces would be ordered to prevent the enemy aliens from reaching Australian Territory.

As for all the internationalists out there, particularly in the media, remember that in elections votes are filled out by the people, and when there is an issue that they feel passionate about, theri power cannot be overcome.

Susan, you overlooked mention of the main reason you attack the holding of the illegals offshore.

We remember how the thugs who supported the queue jumpers used to push over the fences of the detention camps, in Australia, and encourage and inspire the troublemakers and vandals amongst them.

Remember all the taxpayers' property they used to destroy, and the great headlines awarded to the thuggery and vandalism perpetrated in support of the the illegals?

On the other hand, you now have some advantage in being able to concoct your stories about Nauru, without fear of contradiction from observers, because there are none. Who else would want to go to Nauru?

But you could not resist a scurrilous allegation about the Howard Government, which is easily refuted, and has the effect of demonstrating your attitude to the truth, and helps us to gauge the substance of the rest of your allegations.

As a CONSTITUTIONALIST I proposed to the Federal government for many years how to deal with refugees and pretended refugees in an appropriate manner and on my blog http://www.scribd.com/InspectorRikati I have posted articles about this.
We must ensure humane treatment while at the same time avoiding to make it worse by opening the floodgates as then many more people will loose their lives in leaking boats. We need to remove the incentives for people smugglers while not jeopardising the rights of genuine refugees. Julia Gillard simply tried to use my proposed system in her way and that simply doesn’t work.
It must be done in an appropriate manner so that it is so to say be a win-win situation.
Take the politics out of it and lets work genuine on it and we can resolve most of the current problems for both the refugees and for Australians.

How much longer do we have to read these lies and deceptions from Susan. I find the looney leftists incredibly arrogant to think they have the right to impose their views on the rest of us. Frequently I hear the view that the political parties should not be allowed to express such views with respect to asylum seekers and this morning I heard the view that the political parties were now just using the population debate as a smoke screen to attack immigration and asylum seekers. My old friend Senator Natasha was basically saying we should not be able to express such views. What a load of rubbish. Australians have for too long not been able to express their views on these topics and they are now begining to do so. I feel quite strongly most Australians are not only against asylum seekers taking advantage of us, but they are also against the massive immigration intake we currently have. I feel many Australians will express these views quite loadly at the next election.

So by all means the looney leftists have a right to express their views, but they should not be allowed to bully and intimidate others with alternate views.