“We should make it clear, through all possible means, that no future asylum-seekers from countries beyond our immediate neighbourhood who present at our borders will be settled in Australia, irrespective of their status.
They must go through the same channels as the others we accept whose applications for refugee status are processed overseas.
Such arrivals will be detained and deported without delay to countries with whom we reach agreements for this purpose.”

Without delay? - given the difficulty of establishing the country of origin of those holding no positive identification, that could take some time. Legal appeal processes also might dim the glow from the bright spark of quick action.

Those of us who are sceptical about asylum seekers are motivated as much by compassion for those who miss out, as by self-interest.

One of the main problems with the current system is that it teaches all immigrants that the LAW in Australia is completely flexible and can be flouted with impunity. This leads straight on to Cronulla beach etc.
Once Labour/Green politicians have committed this serious mistake it is very hard to reverse it. But somehow it has to be reversed as the rule of law is the foundation of all civilized existence

"One challenge will be convincing the UNHCR that, although Australia will remain in breach of its obligations under the Convention, this is a preferable option to the present unsatisfactory regime."

Send them a quick memo, "sorry, the Australian people, who did not know this was being signed up to on their behalf, withdraw. Most Australians are horrified to find out that successive governments joined a society of thugs dictators and self interested parties, without their consent. The goals of the UN DO NOT take precedence over the Australian people's will .. ever, and if the will changes, then the terms change, we are a sovereign conotry after all"

Let's have a referendum on whether we want to be a part of the UN, and on what terms .. the terms we signed up for back after WWII are long defunct, and it is now a debating society of parasites and finger waggers.

The perception in the community is whenever the threat of UN rules and regulations is quoted, then the argument is already bankrupt and we are now being argued at under "higher authority", as if that cancels out the will of the people.

There are ways we could improve dealing with asylum seekers, but we can't come up with a national strategy AND pander to the whims of the UN at the same time, too often they are at odds with national opinion and perceptions.

Trying to satisfy world opinion, is just a cop out and the dregs of cultural cringing .. who cares what they think? Why does that always trump Australians in the left wing view of the world?

Dickybird, Australian law allows anyone from any country to arrive by any means without any papers and request asylum here.

Why then doesn't everybody respect that law and stop calling them "illegals?"

Five proposals?...lets see now, 5 take away 1 equals..aah...Hey Percy, come here a minute will ya?

With 25 years experience aboard The Briny it has always been a mystery to me how people negotiate a passage from Middle East countries in rickety old bum boats to a staging port in Indonesia without any ID or travel authorizations.

The answer according to my investigations, is those of the Muslim faith do not need any documentation to travel between Muslim countries.

One wonders how Western Border Control feel about such a cosy little arrangement?

Your ideas make sense, but I think, Scott, that you need to turn your mind to a further problem--that of where asylum seekers are supposed to go. It is not reasonable to expect them to remain in camps where they are at risk from the groups of people from whom they fled in the first place. Nor is it reasonable to expect them to remain where the sewerage is inadequate and the water supply polluted. Afghanistan is ruled out on both accounts. Indonesia is marginal on the second.

We should also take into account the circumstances of any country in which we expect asylum seekers to remain while they are processed. How many refugees do they already have? Do they have the resources to provide for more? India, for example, has done more than its share--and has a very large population of very poor people to attend to. (Or are you proposing that we will provide the resources--say to East Timor?)

And of course we cannot ask them to remain in countries which make a policy of refouling them.

That does not leave many countries in our region.

It is probably easy to have compassion for boat people, when one is in a secure, well funded retirement.

I have more compassion for our own pensioners, living a hand to mouth existence, often in accommodation much less desirable than we provide for these invaders of our country.

Yes invaders. They come uninvited, & make forced landings, forcing their way in by exploiting our humanitarian instincts. This must be the only time in history that the invaded have given alms to the invader, to help them.

Well I'm sick of it.

Let them in, give them a tent, & tell them to live by the sweat of their brow if you like, but no more. Why we should supply them with accommodation at half a million dollars each, I have no idea. I'll bet the boat people numbers would rapidly shrink.

No more of these people living better, at our cost, than our own pensioners, & others of us, who have not learned to exploit the system, as have the boat people.

We recently learnt of a neighbour pensioner who had been living on tin & dried food for 6 months. A community service takes our oldies into town once a week for shopping, & a bit of socialising. It was one of their volunteers who noticed what his shopping included. His fridge died so he made do, while he saved for a replacement without complaint. Unlike boat people, he had no idea how to use the system, let alone exploit it.

It was interesting that many of those who died in the shipwreck had relatives all ready living in Oz. It would appear that we are paying, with our welfare, the people smugglers charges, to bring in the rest of the extended family.

They sweating

Usual rubbish.
And why do you keep insisting YOUR values that WE aren't living up to are "ours"? They sure aint mine.

The problem with the morals of 'sharing' is that it takes two to do so. My immigration policy is to restrict it to those who are themselves sharing- and in things that are good to recieve: the problem with many arrivals is the only things they have to exchange for our goodwill and resources, are religious fanaticism and theological prejudices. Similarly, compassion to people who have not an ounce of compassion for others in their body and will most likely make you regret helping them?
No thanks.

Allow me to make some better Policies:

1- We have a referendum on the status of our UN signature, along with our involvement in Afghanistan, to ensure no obligation is required. As Australians were never, ever asked to take part in either of these, we deserve the right to review.

2- We implement a basis of discrimination, that asylum-seekers who are either mentally, emotionally or socially incompatible with a secular western society are returned to their countries of origin regardless of dangers. Therefore, we specifically weed out religious fundamentalists, opium farmers, criminals, political extremists and warlike tribalistic peasants who wouldn't know the first thing about being a decent voting citizen of a democracy- or neighbor in an Australian town or suburb (and I can vouch for the latter of the two personally).
And as it renders any other discrimination unnecessary, it is more liberal, fair, and free to asylum seekers who are moderate, secular, are the 'sharing, caring' type, and likely to integrate into a society that holds these values (And considering the vast majority of Australians evidently are moderate and secular, these likely ARE "OUR" values).

Thus, I have single-handedly in Rule 2, created a system of immigration that specifically rules out the people Australians most likely secretly want kept out and most likely to pose a detriment by coming here, without unfairly catching innocent people in it also.

That's cool, King Hazza, do you want to apply the same discriminatory processes to Australian criminals, pedophiles, mentally, socially and/or emotionally incapable (in your judgement) of properly participating (in your judgement) people, and send them all off to an island somewhere, or let them float around the globe on a ship of fools?

What makes you think any country is entitled to "weed out" so called less desirables, its own or anybody else's, and what makes you think you or anybody else has the authority to determine what criteria will establish who is and isn't "desirable?"

You know what I'm sick of, Hasbeen? I'm sick of people who believe they're entitled to something better than most of the rest of the world have, and that they're entitled to keep it in the face of hellish conditions around the globe. I'm sick of people who believe the West has no responsibility for circumstances in the countries refugees flee, and that the West is entitled to keep its privileges and let everybody else suffer.

I'm sick of people who perpetuate these garbage narratives about bludgers, and queue jumpers, and terrorists.

We invite the boat people. They are invited. If you don't like that, get the politicians to change it.

But make no mistake, Australia invites asylum seekers to come here, so don't blame them when they accept, expecting to be welcomed.

We're the two-faced bastards, not them.

I suggest it is immoral to encourage illegal immigration that puts peoples lives at rick as demonstrated by our current Government. I also suggest it far from compassionate making people in other nations living under great hardships to have their place taken by those paying people smugglers. There is no denying this, no matter how hard it is disguised. I also suggest the general population are more awake to this matter than given credit for. That is why Labour lies at election time knowing they will cave to fake compassion (predominantly by Greens) when they need the numbers.

"That's cool, King Hazza, do you want to apply the same discriminatory processes to Australian criminals, etc"
As they are the product of our own society's ills, they are our responsibility to deal with properly, for all of us as citizens with a say in this country's management.
My policy is that whatever Australians hold sovereignty over, we are responsible for, down to every citizen. Thus, our own vulnerable, the product of our folly, must be cared for.
Though I feel that taking refugees is the right thing to do but beyond that, we are not obligated to house also the brain-damaged nutters from overseas conflicts beyond our control (and yes, Afghanistan would have played out the same way even if we rightfully boycotted- our only input is to withdraw and compensate all the damage we've done).

"What criterea/who" Being a democracy, I would let the people and elected representatives to put up ideas to be voted on. After all, they alone know what they are willing to sacrifice and know what "our values" actually are, instead of some tosser who wants to pat himself on the back over making others do it for him.

"You know what I'm sick of, Hasbeen? etc"
I'm personally sick of idiots like you trying to pretend the debate is about people being 'generous to the less fortunate' or not as a whole, when my points, even before, clearly stated otherwise.
I'm happy to be generous to the less fortunate- and even more so to reward generous people with more generosity. I refuse however to be exploited by somebody who only takes from others.

As soon as you open your house to whoever asks- regardless who they are- even Runner if he so chooses, to use as their own and implement their own house rules that you must accomodate, you can lecture me about my heartless lack of compassion towards other heartless, compassion-less people.

A moderate secularist community deserves the right to its own security from people who care less but want what they got anyway.
Go figure.

As an Aussie Citizen I should have some rights too .

For example I should be able to have the same rights that the boat people do , should I decide to opt out of Aus because I feel threatened and I do feel threatened now by Muslim Fundamentalist behaviour exposed every day by our Media so my options should be; finance to migrate to the United States then Maintenance to establish permanent accommodation in the United States (I have six kids and own my own home) then as a displaced person from my own Country free Air Passage back to Aus. Visitation Rights every few years or whenever close relatives pass on .
I would I assume be entitled to the same payments the Muslims receive ie; 2.3x the Boat people get that Homeless Oz. people don't , I could go on and on but I won't because everyone knows about the farcical fiscal madness applied to Boat people .

Briar Rose,

Most refugee crises and examples of hellish living conditions around the world can be well explained by too many people and not enough resources, as well as by bad environmental management, bad governance, often supported by voters who want preferential treatment for their own ethnic group or religious sect, and people hanging on like grim death to cultural patterns that have become dysfunctional. No capitalists or evil white men are required.

After the earthquake in Haiti, there were a number of articles on OLO banging on about Haiti's tragic history of slavery and exploitation by Western capitalism. None of them mentioned that there are well-run middle income countries in the Caribbean where the people also have to live in a world with rapacious multinationals and are also descended from black slaves. (For that matter, if you could go back far enough in the family tree of anyone at all, you would find slaves - and slaveowners.) Barbados, for example, has about the same GNP per capita as Portugal or Poland and is ranked by the UN as a very high human development country.

In Rwanda, the population tripled between 1960 and 1990. The former agriculture minister, James Gasana, wrote an article on the genocide assigning primary (but not exclusive) responsibility to the population growth. It includes a table showing the correlation between massacres and calories per person in different districts in his country:

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/524

Gasana points out that there were no massacres in districts with more than 1500 calories per person per day.

Afghanistan did get invaded, but their government provoked it by harbouring the terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center in New York and killed around 3,000 people, an act of war in anyone's book.

Massacres and dispossessions have been going on since before there were modern humans. There are many examples in Prof. Lawrence Keeley's book, "War Before Civilization". Many of us reject the idea that poor people lack agency, so we must be responsible whenever bad things happen.

King Hazza's example of the private house is actually quite good. Briar Rose no doubt feels that her house is hers because her parents left it to her or because she worked for it, and would be most indignant if she were required to share it with strangers.

The same is true of our collective property. Australia is not some sort of lucky dip to which existing citizens or permanent residents have no special claim. It is a relatively decent place to live because our ancestors and predecessors worked to build it and because we have been working to keep it that way. It is our taxes that have been paying for the roads, schools, hospitals, sewer systems, libraries, etc., etc. Young men have been drafted or volunteered to serve in wartime, and their relatives had to see them go, knowing that they might come back with pieces missing or not come back at all. I would say that they have earned the right not to have Briar Rose and her friends dilute their share of a healthy environment and of infrastructure, public services, and amenities.

Ross Gittins has pointed out that just such dilution, in the form of very high immigration rates, is responsible for the deterioration many of us are experiencing in infrastructure, public services, housing costs, etc., even if the better paid migrants will eventually pay their share:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/beware-gurus-selling-high-migration-20101219-19201.html

Infrastructure Australia estimates that there is already a $700 billion dollar backlog. Paying this off over 10 years would amount to $37,000 a year for every man, woman, and child in Australia.

Like King Hazza, I am not opposed to taking refugees, up to say, 20,000 a year, but we have also obligations to our children and other fellow citizens, and to our bit of the environment, not just to meet the humanitarian needs of foreigners. Scott McInnes is right about the (impossible) open-ended nature of our obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Australia is also a decent place to live because of the contributions to the economy and the culture made by refugees.

How very comforting for you to believe that the primary cause of genocide is less than 1500 calories a day.

Can you explain the Holocaust in terms of the SS daily calorie intake? Rhetorical question only.

I would have thought that boat arrivals have a considerable amount of agency, probably a lot more than is average. That's one of the reasons they'd make excellent citizens.

We're all strangers in somebody's book.

No No No

It's all too complex.

Let's just set up an office outside our embassy in Jakata with a big sign over it.

'Asylum seekers, guaranteed visa in one year, identification a must, only AUS$5000.00.'

Bingo! end of the dangerous leaking boats and people smugglers.

Leave or increase our quota for genuine refugees and just take anyone else prepared to pay.

Then everybody gets a fair go, including the Aussie who is funding the current fiasco.