Jennifer,

I am a manager with a BSc elec eng, a BComm majoring in economics and quantitative analysis topped off with an MBA which does include some law and substantial maths, and whilst I have no problem personally revealing my identity my company does not encourage managers being overtly political. I have however, published technical papers which are not suitable for this forum. If you wish to contact me outside the forum, I will have no problem discussing this on a less anonymous basis.

You challenged Abbott to rationally explain how he would stop the boats. I provided an answer supported by figures and analysis, your responded by choosing simply "not to believe". As to the inference that fewer boats would lead to fewer deaths, that is obviously a logic contradictory to your beliefs that is easier to avoid.

Your article draws more from emotion than fact. Any convention or legal agreement requires one only to adhere to the letter of the law not the "spirit" the refugee advocates would like assigned to it. The act of "political bastardry" as you would phrase it, is legally only a difference of opinion. In the eye of the law it is inconsequential. I would challenge the refugee advocates to try and change the law and to remove the vast areas of ambiguity.

If you choose to stamp your foot and no longer converse, it will be I suspect more due to your inability to counter the logic of:

Fewer boats mean fewer deaths at sea,
The pacific solution dramatically reduced the number of boats,
Ipso Facto, the pacific solution reduced the number of deaths, and is counter intuitively more humane than the drowning and vast prison camps we have under the new policy.

Histrionics wont

Transmute lead to gold

Nor Illegal to legal

The 2001 Australian Electoral Study, which analysed the behaviour of the electorate, surveyed voters at the height of the campaign (the “Tampa election”) and found that, by a politically overwhelming margin of three to one, respondents supported the principle of a hard line position on boat people (secondary movement asylum seekers). This majority support held true across eight of nine occupational categories into which respondents were divided. In only one category, the so-called “social professionals” (typified by Jennifer Wilson), was there majority opposition to government policy, and this category only represented 10 per cent of those surveyed.

“The attitudes of the social professionals are quite unlike those of the rest of the sample”, wrote Dr Katherine Betts in an analysis of the electoral survey. “It shows how unrepresentative the vocal social professionals are of other voters; it is not just that they do not speak for the working class, they do not speak for a majority in any other occupational group.”

Author and journalist Paul Sheehan noted: “Had the government been perceived by the public to be allowing Australian sovereignty to be rendered irrelevant and public policy to be dictated by an alliance of people smugglers, asylum seekers, journalists and legal activists, the political upheaval would have been enormous. Real damage would have been done to the public’s faith in the legal system, the democratic process and the immigration system.”

An Essential Research Poll following the Labor Government's announcement two years ago that it was liberalising mandatory detention policy indicated that Australians still retain a hardline attitude towards secondary movement asylum seekers. Less than a quarter of respondents (24%) said the past policy on asylum seekers had been too tough, while 62% said it had been right or not tough enough. Those in higher income brackets were more likely to believe the policy had been too tough, while those on lower incomes were more inclined to believe it was not tough enough. The poll also reported that a majority of Australians think that the country is now taking too many refugees.

Educated folk

Don't buy the "illegal" lie

Like the hoi polloi

Shadow Minister
Which part of “I do not accept your analysis of the Pacific solution and I’m exercising my scholarly freedom to research other possibilities” do you not understand?

You write: “I provided an answer supported by figures and analysis, you responded by choosing simply "not to believe". As to the inference that fewer boats would lead to fewer deaths, that is obviously a logic contradictory to your beliefs that is easier to avoid.”

Umm, you provided your own figures, your own analysis, you cite no one else’s research, you ignore all other possible contributing factors by saying in your opinion they don’t count, and now you’re critical because I don’t “believe in” your conclusions?

Then you say you’re presenting “facts?”

I think emotion’s safer in this instance, coupled with research.

Yabby, et al: Which part of “It’s my opinion that we need to re assess our commitment to domestic refugee law and international conventions” do you not understand?

There are topics on OLO I can guarantee will bring out the same people with the same opinions they’ve expressed in the same way, I don’t know how many times before.

I know readers like it when authors engage in the forums.
But you really don’t offer us much incentive with your posts.
Hardly anything I wrote about has actually been addressed.
Instead, there’s the usual unsubstantiated rants written by people who haven’t got the bottle to put a name to their “beliefs.”

Did you hear the news yesterday that we’ve come to an arrangement with Afghanistan about returning those who don’t meet UNHCR refugee requirements? This will go some considerable way towards discouraging those who are not in danger from attempting to come to Australia.

More imaginative, more sensible, more decent than the mothballed Pacific solution, “stopping the boats” and “turning them around.”

Just took some intelligence, good will and patient negotiation. Not slogans and not propagandist cruelty, and not blind adherence to black letter law.

Pop over to Mirko Bagaric’s piece on morality today.

Express a bit of anonymous ignorance and prejudice to him. I’m over it.

Jennifer.

*Which part of “It’s my opinion that we need to re assess our commitment to domestic refugee law and international conventions” do you not understand?*

Which could of course mean anything at all, Jennifer.

Who you are, or any other poster for that matter, I really don't
care. It's substance that matters, even if its written by
the shoe shine boy. There are some very clever posters on OLO,
those gems make it worth trawling through the gravel stones.

Fact is this asylum seeker fiasco has been going on for far too
long, costing far too much and still the most deserving miss out.
The UN Convention is way out of date, they even admit it. The
Western world is overrun with economic migrants, a fortune is spent
sorting through them, its lose lose all round.

Fact is that Australia can't solve the world's problems either.
Millions would migrate here, if given half a chance.

So we need to decide on how many a year to take and then select
them in a fair and cost effective way.

But it seems that no politician is game to say what they really
think of the UN Convention, for the moment that he/she tried to
change the terms, refugee advocates would seemingly scream the
house down and all reason would fly out the window.

So the fiasco remains.