The boat people issue is a deliberate distraction to keep insecure morons anxious and the Govt push agenda's like stealing our freedoms under the guise of false flag terrorism.

Far more people stay here illegally via plane than by boats.

Notice how our Govts don't want to keep criminals in gaol.The laws are to keep order but there is no deterent.So we all cry for more restrictions on our own freedoms to be free from crime to no avail.

It's disapointing to see some people have so little grasp on policy-by-policy logic in favor of sticking it to a generalized stereotype;

Our freedoms are not being impaired one single bit. Only the freedoms of non-citizens who attempted to enter the country in a manner our law considers illegal, are being impaired (at the demand of enhanced personal liberty of a large portion of voters). Not a single lurch towards totalitarianism comes out of this policy, and much freer countries, with no terrorist police laws and no participation in the War on Terror AT ALL, have even stricter entry requirements.

Please do, next time try to see the world as more complicated than being either a neocon crusade to take everyone's freedoms or a liberalist crusade to grant more to everyone- the more you try to make that definition true, the more you focus power into the hands of real neocons who actually do fit your description; when there are plenty of socially moderate viewpoints that would also demand strict refugee policies too.

Be a little more open minded and percieve that refugee policies, the war on terror, and fascist local laws can be completely separate.

Does anyone know how the number of asylum seekers who fly in compares with those who come by boat?

I'm going to limit myself to the judgement--this time.

The judgement is based on Chapter 3 of the the Australian Constitution. That requires that any administrative judgement is able to be reviewed by the courts as to its legality, and inter alia, as to whether the proper procedures were followed. (There is no implied power to review the judgements made by officials as to the merits of the cases.)

The judgement held in effect that both the Howard Government and the Gillard one were wrong--one cannot evade this overview by means of excising offshore islands, and it also follows, by doing the procedures on Nauru.

In the two cases in question, the court held that the asylum seekers had not been treated with procedural fairness--that is, the treatment was contrary to law. Specifically, the original processing and the reviewer relied upon what purported to be facts without giving the asylum seekers a proper opportunity to demonstrate that those factual assumptions were false.

That is all

No, Candide, but I know it's a much greater number who come in by plane, usually with a valid visa whether or not the passport is valid, than the number who come by boat. It's many times more.

This is a quote from a Background Note prepared by researchers in the Parliamentary Library in Canberra.

"In Australia, the vast majority of asylum seekers applying for protection arrive originally by air with a valid visa and then apply for asylum at a later date while living in the community. Boat arrivals only make up a small proportion of applicants. Estimates vary, but it is likely that between 96 and 99 percent of asylum applicants arrived by air originally. However, those who have arrived by boat are more likely to be recognised as refugees.

The complete document is here: http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/bn/sp/AsylumFacts.pdf