Bruuuuce!! Come on!!

You wrote:

<< It beggars belief that the Minister for Immigration, the luckless Chris Bowen, should seek to punish refugees on Christmas Island for the problem he has created. >>

So the minister should just completely not make any attempt to rein in those who started, promulgated or otherwise took significant part in the fracas, eh? OF COURSE he should make attempts to discipline those involved.

Quite regardless of the causal factors or legitimacy or otherwise of the complaints of asylum seekers, we CANNOT have that sort of thing happening. OF COURSE the minister should move decisively to stop it from happening again. And of course he should seek to deal with those who were most seriously involved, rather than treating everyone the same.

<< it is the same as the mean and narrow John Howard saying, "We will determine who comes here and when" >>

So Howard shouldn’t have said that eh? OF COURSE we (the people of Australia, and our government) should be able to determine who comes to this country and to be able to have full control over our borders. Of COURSE the PM should be able to assert this without being condemned for it. Of COURSE it would be (is) ludicrous for us to not have control over our national borders!

Bruce, it would appear that you are just going to be condemnatory of Gillard, Abbot, Bowen and Morrison, no matter what, short of them just doing away with detention altogether and just letting anyone who wants to come into this country do so completely free of restrictions, regardless of the number of arrivals!

We CAN and should have a big national input into refugee issues, including a considerably larger intake than we currently have, while having full control over our borders and bringing an end to this this terrible onshore (and fly-in) asylum-seeking mess.

Bruce, your whole tenet seems to be completely bonkers to me.

Sorry, but we SHOULD have every right to decide who comes into this country, and most definitely SHOULD be allowed to base this on character grounds.

For character grounds- there is absolutely no reason why an Australian must have their life put in danger because we let a mentally-unstable and extremely violent character force themselves on them because of the fact that THAT character's life would be in danger instead if they do not.

The priority of rights should always be the person to whom is being imposed upon (us), not the person doing the imposing, if that person only hurts the rights of the person they are imposing upon.

Let me provide some alternate scenarios:

If someone needed a kidney transplant and would die without one, should you be nominated to be FORCED to donate yours?

If a crazed group of criminal gang members were being chased by an enemy gang, and were banging on your door fearing for their life, and were screaming and threatening to kill you- and for good measure, set fire to your letter box- should you let them in?

Instead some people feel we should instead prioritize rights based on the squeakiest wheel, or to the highest bidder.

Tell me, if the people who set fire to the place (a rather extreme act even by rioting standards)- were indeed just inclined to violence, and they assault somebody when they get here- would their victim have been harmed for a good cause?

RexW,

I think you will find, if you research, that the quote you attribute to Barton was made by Alan Jones in 2007:

http://www.nationaltrust.com.au/mttf/treasuremessage.asp

who adapted it from the words of Theordore Roosevelt, which Jones says was from 1907, but other sources say 1919, after WW1.

LB

I am sure I am right but will check. I really would not like anyone to ever think that I believed Alan Jones ever said anything that was worth quoting. :)

LB Loveday,

I bow to your superior research capability and knowledge.

The speech itself does appear to have originated in the US.

The words are still of great importance, in my opinion and my comments on the value of Edmund Barton as an early polit5ical figure are valid.

Thanks LB.

Ludwiiiiig, maaaaate,
Your criticisms of Bruce’s piece seem a bit unfair.
‘So the minister should just completely not make any attempt to rein in those who started, promulgated or otherwise took significant part in the fracas, eh?’ No, Ludwig, this is not what Bruce was saying at all. Rather, that the handling of the fracas should have been done differently. Which is a fair observation.
And I think you may have missed the point about Howard’s famous ‘We will determine who comes here ...’ The literal sense of that sentence is of course unexceptional. Everyone agrees with the direct meaning. But what the dogs to whom Howard was whistling clearly understood by this euphemism was ‘We will stop the Asians, blacks and ragheads ...’
Bruce’s piece was not challenging the right of our government to control the borders at all. But to do so in accordance with international conventions. We should stop treating legal asylum seekers as criminals. We should treat those who arrive by boat the same as those who arrive by plane. The processing must be fair and swift. Where we must detain arrivals, the conditions must be humane. Children must never be gaoled.
Look, Australia does not have an unmanageable refugee or asylum seeker problem, courtesy of your impressive moat. We here in France can receive in a weekend the number you get in a year.
Of course it is in the interests of your shock jocks and some politicians to create the illusion of a problem. They should be told politely to go away.
See? Not really bonkers at all.