What to make of this phrase in Article 31 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 'refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened', in light of the fact that pretty much every asylum seeker who arrives in Australia by boat has travelled through many territories where they could have sought asylum, on the way?

Agree....these wretches seem to circumnavigate every country on the planet (specially the muslim ones that might make em work for a living) till they see Oz..then their boats seem strangely to fall apart and they need rescuing by the Navy

Deary me, here we go again.

The UN 1951 convention is 60 years out of date. Today it's
being largely misused and abused by economic migrants who want
the cushy western lifestyle. Not just here, but in Europe and
elsewhere.

Perhaps its time for the UN to do a bit of navel gazing and
update the convention so that resources are best spent on genuine
refugees living in refugee camps, not the flood of economic refugees
as we have now.

At the end of the day, our abiding by the convention is purely
voluntary. We are doing more then our share. The fact remains,
Australia cannot solve the world's problems. At the moment,
the generosity of our taxpayers to fund all this, is being misused.
Tax resources are hardly being spent wisely.

Wait, so Australia's laws DO in fact state that we are within our rights and responsibility to bar anauthorized people entry and detain them, but this, despite being an actual law, must be trumped by a non-enforceable declaration signed 60 years ago by someone who did not even have a majority to do so on our behalf and when world issues were unlike today?

Sadly the rest of this article wallows in superficial statements and ignores virtually every point detractors would make, such as Yabby's point about crossing multiple countries- which logically disrupts the 'need' to actually settle in Australia at all to 'escape';

The bottom line of this article is "The UN says so, so it is right and you are wrong, full stop". And it strikes me that a lot of people who disagree with preventing refugees entry find (pseudo)-contract red-tape as a convenient excuse to hide behind.

The only thing this article achieved is to clarify that Australian law DOES, in fact, allow this practice.

Asylum is one thing; occupation and usurpation is a tottaly different thing.
Dont confuse the two.
Asylum was never meant to be permanent. It means "shelter" from something. When the cause of the need to seek asylum has ended it is time to return to where the asylum seekers came from.
Does that make sense to you? Are we agreed so far ?

What this lot do is in fact no sooner have they landed in Australia they want citizenship. Does this look like they believe that "asylum" means temporary protection?

socratease

All you've done Rose is to underline again why Australia MUST either:

Add exception provisions to our signatory status

and/or

REMOVE out signatory status from the convention which is being used by Socialists to undermine our sovereignty and independance.

So..as for 'international law' and our 'obligations' ? ? ?

WHO voted for those 'obligations' ? I sure as heck did NOT.

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mikh,salaam malaiqum, you are transparent where you are coming from

socratease

Interesting, with most posts indeed making making frank points and raising issues that, regardless of stance of posters, are fairly neutral; not to mention Al/Boaz's matter of fact statements as to what we should do internationally (add conditions to a refugee signatory to accommodate more issues and implications involved in taking people as refugees- or revoke our signature if this cannot be done and if we cannot live up to our expectations in the statement- which are based on good points), and Mikk somehow finds 'bile' and assumes we're all Christians (picking and choosing what we profess).

[Deleted for abuse.]

[Removed as referred to deleted post.]

Mkk

I dont know how we are ever going to make it plain to you and your ilk that we are called "racist" by people like you just because we want to keep what is ours or at the very generous most we want to decide for ourselves who we would like to share our country with and with how many of the same ?

You object to that.
What you secretly hope for is that we open the flood gates to those who come wanting "asylum" or "refguge" disguised by Article 31 of the UN sponsored Convention and eventually dispossss us of our birthright. "BIRTHRIGHT"...yes.
Ok,then if that causes us to be seen as racists then we wear it proudly as our badge of courage..and why dont you find yourself another "asylum" or "refuge" get the hell out and then take over the the unsuspecting hosts of gullible and bleeding heart nations and leave us alone just as is hapenning in Europe or bear the consequencews later.

socratease

Socratease,
You are wrong. MKK and his ilk call others racist simply because they have no valid or practical argument to support their stance in support of the 'illegals'

They simply refuse to see that the illegals are conning us and coming here by fraud, deceit and bribery.

We object to the illegals because we do not like being conned. The rate of acceptance as refugees that apply overseas is about 20% yet here they get 95% acceptance, because we cannot precisely identify their place of birth, because they destroy their papers.

They are gate crashers and are costing us millions. Genuine refugees come here with our governments approval.

*What the hell is an "economic migrant" anyway? Do you really think it is such a heinous thing to want to improve your circumstances, economically or in any other way?*

Err no Mikk. But screaming "racism" is hardly a logical reaction
by you. Perhaps you couldn't think of anything else to scream.

Fact is that we have an orderly system, economic migrants can apply.
Last time I checked, Australia had about 1 million applicants a year,
the Govt only takes a small % and its up to our orderly system for
them to decide, who they take.

But given your perspective of wanting anarchy and no orderly system,
more like a collapse of the present one that we have, I'm sure that
you would love to see our borders flooded in a complete free for all.

Most Australians happen to disagree with you. So you will have to
continue to sulk, pretty much alone.

Those unthinking Aussies who would call us racists and heartless should take out their calculators and do the maths:

Ready ?

Take a basic total population in Australia of a hypothetical 100 Aussie and other ethnic groups.
Before any Muslims arrive there is a 100% Aussie population + other non-muslim. Correct?
Then suppose we allow a small migration of muslims that in time begins to bite:-
95% Aussie + other ethnic groups
5% are Muslim
Aussie birth rate is about 2 per family ... = now 190
Muslims have an average from 5 to 6 per family = now 25 to 30 approx

Next year the Aussie share of population is 190...right?

the Aussie 190 x 2 per family = now 380
Muslim population 30 x 5 = 150 which is 49% of Australia in such a short time.

Isnt this logic quite clear to everyone reading this post?

This is what is happening at an alarming rate in Europe especially Belgium andHolland and UK. How long will this peaceful occupation eventually make Europe a Muslim conttinent ?
Where the population is most noticeable the demand growws that by applying the democratic principal of one man one vote the power shifts irrevocably to Islamisation. And there is now NO ONE to appeal to against the permament nature of this OCCUPATION BY STEALTH !! It has been all very peaceful with not only the consent of the indigenous population by by their contrivance and misplaced sense of generosity. This is what the bleeding heart industry are actively assisting in, and I hate every one of them for it.

In Australia it is not too late, thank God to put an end to it. Dont expect Gillard and CO to lead off on it. She is doing her damnedest to slyly speed up the process.

socratease

Calm down a bit, mikk.

Given that this was an article about 'Asylum seekers and the law', I thought it quite pertinent to point out where it appears that boat arrivals may be circumventing the law.

Hardly racist, is it? Unless, of course, 'racist' is simply shorthad for 'someone who disagrees with me, and I don't like it'; somewhat interchangeable with 'fascist' or 'nazi'.

Feel free to use all three until such time as you can construct a cogent argument, but don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

The convention on refugees covers people fleeing from persecution, not those simply seeking a better life, and gives the right to nations to exclude economic refugees, and those with a criminal past.

Further more it does not specify how this is determined, and gives the UN (specifically the UNHCR) no authority to determine this status. Considering that the UNHCR has neither the resources nor inclination to complete a thorough back ground check, documentation from the UNHCR certifying refugee status is barely worth the paper it is printed on.

Even when refugee status is confirmed, the requirement is that they are given refuge for the period of potential persecution in their homeland. Permanent residence is not mentioned, and should only be granted if the reason for persecution is unlikely to abate.

Julia Gillard has no desire to create a rift with her new Green allies, and is perfectly happy to string out the pretense of trying to establish an off shore processing center.