Briar Rose,

Utter, shrill, nonsense,

Under you definition, if all the millions of displaced persons showed up on our doorstep tomorrow, we would be obligated to take every last one of them. This is insane and no-one beyond a few crazies would accept it. Yet this is the core of your argument.

But we cannot take all the worlds refugees. We have a quota of roughly 15,000 a year. It is our right to make such a determination.

You continue to ignore the OBVIOUS social justice implications of preffering "wealthy" boatpeople to the poorer (and law abiding) refugeees in camps across the world. In what world must you live to believe that these people have greater claim than those without the money to pay people smugglers, or those who accept our rules for claiming refugee status?

Contrary to your hysteria, we DO have the right to decide who comes to our country. We do NOT invite these people on their boats (except that under the current labour policy they are more likley to achieve refugee status). All of these boatpeople engage people smugglers (criminals) with rickety boats, often paying up to ten thousand dollars for the privilege. Any law abiding person who payed 10,000 dollars for a ticket from Indonesia to Australia would expect first class treatment, champagne etc. Boatpeople KNOW they are breaking the law. so do people smugglers.

Its people like you who complained that the Navy didn't protect the boatpeople who recently came to grief on Christmas Island. The same boatpeople travelling in huge seas, at night, doing their level best to AVOID the navy.

Howards policy worked. Any honest look at the statistics on arrivals by boat makes this abundantly clear.

We have the right to decide who comes to our country and who doesn't.

Anyone encouraging refugees to pay people smugglers a small fortune to convey them to Australia, on rickety boats, risking their lives, their childrens, and the Navy personnel, should be ashamed of themselves

PaulL

We may not be obliged to permanently settle millions of new arrivals, but we would be obliged to admit them. That's exactly what has happened in Pakistan, Ethiopia, Kenya and many other countries readily accessible to refugees from neighbouring trouble spots. There are more than 1.5 million refugees in Pakistan:

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/page?page=49e487016

The few who make it here are a tiny proportion of the total of the world’s refugees, and a very small proportion of our total migrant intake. The inconvenience they impose is insignificant, especially compared to the burden carried by many other, much poorer, countries.

I am saddened by the increasing callousness and lack of compassion we display towards these people, and the lack of proportion in much public debate on the magnitude of the problem.

Technically it can be argued they are all illegal immigrants until they can be prove themselves to be genuine refugees.

Then again, they could as easily be considered refugees until proven otherwise.

It depends of whether they are considered innocent until proven guilty or guilty until proven innocent?

Refugees and asylum seekers are two different classifications.

Also, the notion of "passing through five Islamic countries" is not only incorrect, it's also misleading.
There are only a handful of UN Convention signatories that are obliged to take them and we are one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Refugeeconvention.PN

Those who arrive by sea, or if they flew in on chartered private light planes or whatever, contrary to border controls may not be 'illegal', but until each individual's claim for asylum is established they have arrived contrary to immigration law.

Or are those who state that all people who arrive by boat contrary to law are 'legally' here? If that is the case they are establishing a defence for those who seek to enter Australian territory with other less than legal intentions.

At best 'boat people' are unauthorised arrivals, whose claims and identity have to be determined. As they have not entered Australin territory within migration law, it is a convenient shorthand to call them illegals. They remain illegal until their claims, if accepted, are determined by law.

Or doesn't anyone else get that idea?

Jennifer Wilson

Shows that "illegal" is used

As propaganda

Convenient for

Some perhaps, but their motives

Are quite obvious

The term illegal immigrant was common usage by the authorities a decade ago, and is still used in some official documentation in spite of being politically incorrect.

It is illegal to enter the country without official permission, and until their status is resolved, (many of whom are refused) they are not legally entitled to be in Australia.

Until the law or the dictionary definition is changed, the detainees are illegal immigrants