The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Morality, politics and asylum-seekers > Comments

Morality, politics and asylum-seekers : Comments

By Scott MacInnes, published 21/2/2011

Could these five proposals ethically solve our refugee problem?

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. All
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?
Posted by Wakatak, Monday, 21 February 2011 8:43:44 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
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.
Posted by ozbib, Monday, 21 February 2011 8:44:39 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
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
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 21 February 2011 9:46:07 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
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.
Posted by King Hazza, Monday, 21 February 2011 10:00:26 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
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.
Posted by briar rose, Monday, 21 February 2011 11:18:35 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
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.
Posted by runner, Monday, 21 February 2011 11:19:03 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy