<< We should stop treating legal asylum seekers as criminals. >>

This is such an unfortunate statement Alan. Detention is necessary. Australia’s detention policy evolved from open centres to centres which asylum seekers were not supposed to leave, to centres with high walls and razor because a fair few of them did leave open centres and obfuscated the authorities.

We know that abscondment has been a real problem in countries without mandatory detention.

Putting people up in detention centres is NECESSARY. They are NOT being treated as criminals by being placed in these centres, or by arriving unannounced in the first place.

<< Children must never be gaoled. >>

Statements like this just don’t help your credibility, I’m afraid. Detention centres are not gaols, for goodness sake! And it is not straightforward that children are necessarily better off outside of them than being kept with their parents, guardians or the group of people that they travelled with and know, instead of being put somewhere totally alien to them, away from the people they know, no matter how much better we might think the conditions would be for them. I’d also think that the stress levels of parents and guardians would not be improved by the removal of their children.

<< Look, Australia does not have an unmanageable refugee or asylum seeker problem, courtesy of your impressive moat. >>

Yes! Our asylum seeker issue is not huge compared to some countries. It is not huge in terms of the number of people that are involved, but it is pretty huge in terms of the political and social impact that it has had and continues to have....and the expense!

So we really should decisively end onshore asylum seeking (and the fly-in bit), and then compensate, or actually well and truly overcompensate it by way of considerably increasing our refugee input overseas and accommodating a few thousand more refugees per annum than we currently are.

[No, I just can’t fit this post into 350 words] Continued…

I just don’t get it Alan – why are people of yours and Bruce’s persuasion so hung up on allowing a small number of asylum seekers to continue to come here on leaky boats and commercial airlines, and apparently not interested in boosting our refugee intake through our formal immigration programs and boosting our international aid directed at refugee issues?

THAT’S what really counts isn’t it?

So, let’s STOP the boats and improve our formal refugee assistance programs!

Dear Alan Austin,
You have just outed yourself as a totally unreliable witness.

1)The Toronto Sun was citing a Canadian govt survey , and

2)The other report was from …wait for …The Sydney Morning Herald!,
NOT The Australian . Clearly you didn’t even bother to read either–the contents were too challenging, eh ?

If you can show either of the above reports were fabricated –please feel free to present your evidence.

Dear SPQR,
My response to you was intended somewhat more whimsically than you seem to have received it. Sorry if I came across as more earnest than intended.
But seeing as you have raised the matter of reliability, perhaps you can advise us, regarding the Toronto Sun article:
It starts: ‘A secret government survey reveals the majority of successful Tamil refugees travel back to Sri Lanka ...’
Hmmm. ‘Secret government survey’. This could be serious.
But this reads to me like a fabrication in the style of the ‘Aliens abducted my Grandma’ for which The Toronto Sun is famous.
But if you are right and I am wrong, SPQR, can you tell us the title of the secret government report? Which government department commissioned it? Who or what office authored it? Can you give as an actual quote from the report? Or just the general drift? If the report was a survey, how many thousand people were surveyed? Or was it just a token survey of four or five hundred hand-picked people?
The article then quotes James Bissett, who I respect. What was his connection with the report? None?
SPQR, ‘A secret government survey reveals …’ is usually code in newspapers in the style of Murdoch’s tabloids for ‘We want to sell papers so we are making up something scary.’
So get back to us as soon as you can, to verify this ‘report’. (And don’t spend too much time on the Sunshine Girl in the sports section.)
Then will be very happy to deal with the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian in due course.
Cheers, AA

Dear Alan Austin,
I detect a curious double standard here:
If one jumps off a boat and says: “I have no ID, no past, no evidence (though, I do have a mobile phone!) but hey, take my word for it I’m asylum seeker” , you ( and Bruce) respond “Come hither poor fellow …go straight to Centre Link, collect $500”.

However, if one reports there is something shonky about asylum seeker claims, as research & personal experience show most return to their old countries on R&R (or worse).You suddenly become a “I need solid proof” aficionado.
i)First shooting the messenger (even before you had read the article!) “the most notoriously unreliable publication in the English speaking world” (and in the process wounding the wrong newspaper LOL)
ii)Then you start playing the I’ve got a 1001 questions game :unless you (SPQR) can answer all my questions about the source, then I must be right and you must be wrong .

No, it doesn’t work that way Alan .
If indeed “secret government survey” “is usually code [for] …we are making something up” then someone had better break the news to Julian Assange & Wikileaks.
And if the Toronto Sun was the only source perhaps we could excuse your ignorance.
But as it turns out there’s corroborating testimony ----volumes of it.
1) We’ll start with James Bisset “ who (you) respect “
http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/background/research/refugees/stop-bogus-refugees-before-they-get-in-2007-by-james-bissett/
It seems James is very concerned that large numbers of bogus “refugees” are entering Canada

2) Then we have this
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2009/1230/A-US-pipeline-for-jihad-in-Somalia
Somalis’ having secured a meal-ticket in the US, return to fight for Al Shabab
( clearly they weren’t attracted to the US by its liberal ideals!)
And, in case you think it wouldn’t happen here –here’s the OZ chapter.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/somalia-jihad-drive-probed/story-e6frg6of-1111115033793

3 And here’s what Indian sources say:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/beware-of-asylum-seekers-bearing-tales-of-woe/story-e6frg6zo-1225850659899

What does all this indicate?
Most of the “I am fleeing for my life” stories are phoney ( right up there with the alien adduction stories, which you seem so familiar with!)
The real driving force: to get into an affluent western country.

So um, Alan, old maaaaaaaaate...

Do we have a discussion happening here or have you conceded that I am right and you are woefully off-track??