Hi Noel,
Thanks for the sane article on this question of asylum seekers. You conclude by saying to the prime minister "Do the right thing! The consequences might not be so bad after all!".

While I also encourage her, I think we will need to offer more than such encouragement.

It's time for people who care about refugees to put their own concrete ideas out there for the experts to evaluate as it is obvious both the government and the opposition are at a loss. Indeed while the Greens have a policy to process asylum seekers here, they don't say exactly how they would house them, provide meaningful work or integrate them into society.

The idea I put out is once they are cleared for health and police, to offer asylum seekers 15hrs/wk work on public 'eco'housing & gardens in exchange for food and accommodation & pay them an income adjustment based on their eligibility for social support - see http://bit.ly/fAWRjc

I believe such an approach would help us and them to develop the new society we are all going to need.

'we've had enough of supine, me-too-ist governing'

It would seem that had both Rudd and Gillard adopted a fair dinkum me-too-ism, instead of their pretend variety, they would have not changed John Howard's Pacific Solution, and we wouldn'nt have had 9000 odd asylum seekers arriving here over the last few years. We wouldn't have had the drownings at Christmas Island.

We wouldn't be having the current debate.

I expect every person who proposes the onshore processing of future boat people agree to accept part of the responsibility should any further drownings occur

ps

did anyone else see the 7.30 report last night?

I thought that Clarke & Dawe's answer to the lie that this is about leaking boats or breaking the smuggler's business model was a hoot!

They said we should just send in our own seaworthy boats to pick them up from Malaysia - that would break the smuggler's business model and would keep them safe from drowning. Let's start an honest conversation.

There are currently 153000 asylum seekers in the Islamic countries trying to get here, most from Afghanistan, others from Iran, Yemen, Tripoli,Libya, Pakistan and Iraq just to name some. Then there are Somalis and Sudanese,Rwandans and others from Kenya and the DRC about 30,000 approximately. Malaysia has about 15000 Burmese refugees.
They are all with rights for safety and a better way of life. To end the debate as to how many should betaken in how wouldit be if we took the whole lot in and the clamour.Is trhat too many? Then please someone put a figure to how many we should accept. There has to come a time when we can say to the bloody UNO we are now full up and fed up.NO MORE!!

How can people as naive as this bloke get to be academics, or is it mandatory for these ethics types.

If it’s not naivety, I’m just cynical enough to wonder if our elites, who favour this flood of unsuitable immigration, are hoping that the boat people may provide a supply of domestic servant they find lacking in Oz at the moment.

What ever it is, they most certainly show very little interest in, or respect for the great unwashed, who provide their income. Our interests are the least of theirs.

You could say they make me sick.

Yes Landrights, the boat thing is a furphy, there’s not much wrong with most of the boats, for the purpose. I have myself, & know hundreds of others, who have spent their entire wealth, & a number of years, acquiring boats much smaller, & definitely no more seaworthy, & preparing them for sea. Often this is for around the world voyages & for extended periods at sea.

Woe betide any of these should they turn up in Indonesia, or many other places, without the right paper work. The accommodation they will rapidly find themselves in would make our detention centres shine as the holiday camps they are.

No one mentions the rights of those who have been waiting to come to this blessed country legally for years. Family members must be distraught or very tempted to tell their relatives to jump on a boat and rip up their paperwork.

Why are our academics to thick to see that billions would rather live in Australia than elsewhere. They never put a number on how many they think should be allowed to come on the Manly ferry before we deter this method of transport. They are usually the first to scream the over population mantra. Why don't they publish how much it cost to take in illegal immigrants. They know those struggling to pay bills would be horrified.

Most Australians are fair minded and are happy to accept refugees. They are smart enough to know that we need some sort of order in doing so rather the rhetoric of the left who ideoligal dogmas work to destroy this great nation. Obviously Dr Noel is not happy to accept the wishes of the vast majority of Australians.