Bruce,
You were a former diplomat or public servant, so you are not ignorant.
Banjo,
Just think this bloke would have had a lot to do with training those who are now doing this kind of work. He's obviously got his huge public service pension, so why doesn't he just leave the scene ?

Bruce - just to add to the chorus of posters pointing out the blindingly obvious, which you've missed.

The refugees arriving by boat are, in effect, queue jumpers. The Government has quotas for the number of refugees it can accept. So if we accept the boat people that does not mean more refugees come to Aus, it means that refugees elsewhere miss out. The quotas can only be altered by Parliament.

There is no discrimination for or against those who come by air except that those who come by air come singly, not in boatloads, and are more likely to have papers that prove or disprove their stories, as other posters have noted.

The government literally has no choice but to institute the Malaysia strategy or something like that. They cannot be seen to encourage the people smuggling trade with its risky practices, particularly as we end up with the same number of refugees no matter what happens.

I get tired of these "boat vs plane" arguments.
I would imagine that the simple answer is for most people that we don't want anybody coming in via any channels at all and instead sent back- if they are the same caliber as Hilali and the Skafs; Therefore, if any fundamentalists were coming in by planes, we'd want them detained and deported just as much as any fundamentalists that arrive by boat. Simple.

But no- that's not the answer the asker wants to hear- in fact, in most cases the asker didn't really want to do anything else but obfuscate the issue by riding on the label "boat people" which is not even used by anybody outside the media.

Instead of addressing the issue directly, some people would rather joyride the spin even further away from the point of the issue, and expect everybody to follow them.
My solution- every person entering the country gets screened initially- a simple Q and A to determine if that person has comparable values to the average Australian (at least values consideration and respect for others, morals, secularism and the civil rights we provide)- if they do, they get processed in the community- if not, they are deported immediately.

I thought it was a good article, and asked a lot of good questions.
What about some answers? What is Bruce Haigh's solution to the problem?
Training refugees instead of importing already skilled people makes sense, even if it is more expensive, but shouldn't we train our own people first?
It seems to me, the crux of the problem is the length of time it takes to process these people. Even for Australian bureaucrats, several years seems a tad excessive.
Perhaps we should get the tax office handle the process...
I have to admit, I'm inclined towards the King's solution.

Could the handwringing and wailing be any worse?

Bruce,

Why is it that you are devoting your energies to people who have 10 to 20 thousand dollars to get into this country illegally? And not on the millions who don't, and are stuck in abject poverty across the globe? Why is it that these people, who pay criminals to deliberately try and avoid our customs and immigration vessels, and destroy their identity cards to make returning them more difficult, are those you choose to bestow your sympathy on? And not on those in refugee camps across the world who want to come to Australia and have applied and been assessed as refugees?

With Australia'r refugee intake set at roughly 13,000 , and with over 6000 refugees arrived by boat this year (with an eventual acceptance rate of over 90%), it its obvious that without a change in course, the majority of refugees we take in the near future will be those who arrived illegally.

It just beggars belief that anyone who claims to have an interest in social justice could support such an obviously flawed system. Yet they do. And why? Because the current progressive left is totally absorbed by gesture politics.

Instead of building support for the acceptance of more genuine refugees, they have instead waged a campaign of antagonism towards those who rightly feel that the continued illegal arrival by boat is NOT a desirable outcome.

They refuse to see that the perverse incentive that they have created has led to the current sham that our immigration policy has become. It has led to the most important factors in getting permanent residence, being

1) whether you have the money, and
2) the disregard for the law, and
3) the willingness to risk your own life, your families, and those of Naval/Coast guard/Customs personell

Crazy.

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed the article. I have saved a copy to use in class when discussing emotive language and empty rhetoric. It contains many emotive terms, few backed by any hard evidence. Take the first couple of lines for example:

1) The word 'persecute' denotes a system of mistreatment of one group by another. It has connotations of the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, Christians thrown to lions, inquisitions, Moors driven out of Spain. By denotation there is an argument for its accuracy; by connotation, it is plain misleading.

2) Our PM is behaving in a 'vindictive' manner. How so? As a very public figure, Bruce could have given at least one example of a vindictive speech or act.

3) Our opposition leader is 'erratic'. As above. Especially when he is accused of 'racist bile'. A link would suffice; a quote would be even better.

4) Apparently we 'bully and beat' refugees who arrive by boat. News to me. Do we do that before or after they sit on the roof to get a better view of their detention centre burning? Or have I got it all wrong? Are WE burning the centres with them inside?

5) Secular Australia is a 'cesspit' and our representatives are 'morally bereft'. Well, he may have a case for the latter - but he's too lazy to build one.

6) The bizarre rant with our national anthem as a motif is just that ... a bizarre and incoherent rant.

7) John Howard's mysterious charter for social engineering: can I please have a copy?

To be perfectly honest, some of our more obtuse regular posters on here put together much more coherent arguments. Every one of my Year 8 students could, too.