Well, well, this is as nice a bit of hysterical propaganda I have read for some time.
The only sensible statement is that ".......we should withdraw from the (1951) Convention......' Agreed.
People who arrive by boat are illegal and should be returned from whence they came, safely in planes, not leaky boats.
If anyone is lacking a moral compass, is guilty of moral bastardry it is the writer of this article who conveniently ignores the fact that millions of displaced people wait, more-or-less patiently, in terrible camps, under horrible conditions for a country to offer them a home.
The illegals displace these people and that is morally reprehensible. It is also morally reprehensible that people such as this writer advocate for illegals who not only put their adult lives - their choice - at risk, but also the lives of their children. Children have no say in the matter.
I, like many other compassionate people, would like to see our humanitarian intake of genuine refugess lifted and the processes that assess them streamlined.
But, I seem to recall that recently both sides of politics said our official refugee intake would not be lifted, or by very few. Now, this is also morally reprehensible because, if we can afford to house and support thousands of illegals, then we can comfortably do the same for genuine refugees.

Jennifer, thank you for yelling out what should be the bleeding obvious to every Australian with a modicum of intelligence and humanity.

It's been going on for many years, yet I still cannot quite believe what has happened to our country. I used to be proud of its caring response to the refugees from Vietnam and Kampuchea, for example, but no one seems to remember how nearly all of them settled into our community and, through their children and grandchildren, have contributed so much to it. Many survived traumatic warfare and fled to Australia in poorly equipped boats, on the way braving pirate-raids, storms, starvation and disease. Others spent time in refugee camps in other countries but we still took a significant quota of them.

After befriending some of those Vietnamese and Cambodians on their arrival and watching their courageous and enterprising progress in an utterly alien culture and land, I am inclined to say we should reduce skilled migration drastically and replace them with refugees.

And at the same time there should be a whole-hearted effort by Australia and other developed countries to find humane solutions to the displacement of people world-wide.

Instead we get this bleat from shrivelling hearts and vegetating brains: "Stop the boats!" How unbelievably pathetic!

Similar to Jennifer, you are on the right track about the boat people, Crabsy.

Certainly just stopping the boats, like Abbot, could mean not sinking the boats, but just as bad by turning them away with armored vessels, not interntionally sinking them, but having one sink just the same with terrible loss of life, as happened under John Howard.

Abbott's sentences can certainly be short and sharp, like his term - Just Crap - for Global Warming.

Regards, Bushbred.

You say:

But is that the point? Isn’t the point rather about being a country that cares about the morality and ethics of its way of being in the world? A country with the common decency to abide by its commitments?

Again, yours is a naïve expectation of a politician, one expectation in which I am sure you would not hold too much hope. In this country Australia, the moral and ethical argument disappeared like “Noahs Ark” when it grew ashamed to acknowledge its Christian heritage and the plethora of moral codes and ethics of Christianity.

The sheading of Christianity as a back-drop to society, has plunged that society into a void without a moral compass to guide it, and relegated decision making into a cauldron of emotive rule. Morals have been replaced by the fleeting nature of emotiveness and political expedience in decision making by the same politicians responsible for the simple welfare of desperate and needy refugees in a boat.

On the other hand, In Islam,(the religion of many refugees) the expectation of the weary traveller arriving on the doorstep of a stranger is to be welcomed as the servant of Mahmoud and to be treated as such. Imagine their disappointment on arrival in Australia with no corresponding religious ethics, even the most minimal a corresponding Christian ethic would afford; to be welcomed by a “Gun Ship” bearing an Australian flag; now would that fall into the category of bullying? It is a very sad situation and to me, yet another sign of western moral decay

Its all very well to bleat about what we should not be doing. The whole piece ignores what she thinks we should be doing in any practical sense. How about some reasoned suggestions about where we should house these unfortunate people, what jobs are we going to provide them with, what insights into life in an Australian community are they going to be given, where are their children going to school. These are the important questions to which these arm chair academics should be giving their attention.

David

Ibbit, did you actually read the article?

The whole point of it is that under Australian law boat arrivals are NOT illegal.

The point I am making is that we are inviting asylum seekers to seek refuge in this country through both domestic and international law, no matter how they arrive, or where they come from. As soon as they declare themselves asylum seekers our law says they are permitted to request proper processing to establish if they are refugees or not.

How can we turn around and blame asylum seekers for accepting our invitation?
That's the question you need to answer.