"Why would a few thousand more create social disturbances?"

Because they are very different migrants.

"It is economically irrational to spend $123,000 per asylum seeker each year in detention centres where we damage the physical and mental health of many who we later accept."

Would it be economically rational if we did not "damage the physical and mental health"? Anyway, I thought it was a moral issue, not economic. It's not economically rational to spend as much on health care for the financially unproductive old as we do, but very few offer that as a reason to stop it.

In your costing, have you considered the economic benefits of detention - construction jobs created, security staff being employed,...........? It is so easy to throw these "costs" around as if they were gospel.

"..the boat arrival's lie..."; "...public servant's could plan...";

Appalling misuse of the apostrophe. Does it matter? If it does not, and, or, you don't know the correct use, better to never use it.

I did not include "...social tension's being exploited..", as, just maybe, you have used it correctly (but if so, the rest of the sentence is grammatically incorrect, as are other sentences)

Of course we all can make serial mistakes, can't we? But we should not in a serious, published paper.

It's good to see a feminist come out and comment about this issue, even if the author could not bring herself to name Julia Gillard as the driving force behind this despicable, ignorant and financially insane treatment of boat arrivals.

I would very much like to know WEL's position on Ms Gillard's right-of-Howard and Ruddock asylum seeker policies, particularly her desire to expel unaccompanied male and female children to Malaysia, given the celebrations among some feminists when Gillard took over the leadership role and in spite of the manner in which she achieved this.

Briar rose, I'd be interested in Ms Cox's view on public servants and academics "lobbying" government behind the scenes more generally. Does she only deplore it when the briefings are contrary to her own view, or is she opposed to the idea in principle? what about other groups that might include public servants and academics among their members? Groups like her own, the Women's Electoral Lobby and Emily's List, which exists solely to get women elected as ALP members. Julia gillard was a founder of the group. Should such groups eschew members who hold public office?

I don't think Ms cox has thought this through very well, somehow. You can hear the creaking as the knee jerks from all the way back here.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12595#217711

Why do Ms Cox & briar rose hate australian women & girls so much?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJjSzXkm55o&feature=channel_video_title ah, so that is the problem, they are mostly white women of british & european decent who deserve a good gang bang.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSnk-YdRMHs&feature=related & here we see the results of mass migration & multiculturalism. this is what Ms Cox wants for your daughters.

The proponents of the matriarchal, closet communist regime want more women raped so they can continue blaming men for everything going wrong, tighten the noose/laws around our necks even more.

http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/even-when-they-are-starving-somali-muslims-continue-raping-little-girls/ there is nothing Eva will not do to get your daughters raped, to keep your sons unemployed.

Either that or the SWP/RED/green/trotskyists want to foment the glorious revolution.

Well i am not buying it as are 60% to 80% of the population. We have sedition & treason laws for exactly this purpose. Charge all members of "emily's list" with it, jail them for life.

I agree with the author about refugees, completely disagree about the public service.

The public service, so-called, is the executive arm of government. They are the constitutional and official instrument for those in charge of the state - politicians - to carry out their policies by using or threatening force. How could they be anything but political tools? How could the distinction between what advice is "frank and fair" and what oversteps that mark, be anything but arbitrary and political? Also the fact that advice is "wrong" obviously doesn't disqualify it. Very much political advice, including Eva Cox's other sexist and discriminatory agenda, is wrong!

The problem is not caused by government departments giving advice they anticipate will please their political masters. It is caused by the fact that both Labor and Liberal want to claim the kudos of human rights heroism on the world stage by signing the Convention, but behind the scenes, do everything they can to prevent any refugee actually taking them at their word and applying for refugee status on that basis!

This root of the problem is Australia's signing of the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, which prohibits refoulement (return to home state) of *anyone claiming refugee status inside Australia, but not outside*.

So if, in law, they are genuine refugees, Australia may legally reject their applications for a protection visa if they are offshore, but not if they are onshore. *That* is what sets up this entire dynamic of people desperately trying to get onshore.

This is the missing piece of intelligence without which the entire debate doesn't make sense

If Australia withdrew from the Convention, it would in no way restrict our ability to accept as many refugees, for whatever reasons, in whatever groups, by whatever process we think best. It would confer great flexibility and remove the advantage that people now obtain by coming onshore, rather than applying offshore.

The narrative of "people smugglers" versus "legitimate refugees" is a complete furphy. The problem is the legal restrictions which the Convention imposes, and which both parties obviously have no intention of honouring.

Well I’m sure all our public servants will know in future what the correct procedure is for public utterances.

I expect the brilliant Ms Cox has arranged for all public servants to clear their future submissions with her, & the Women’s Electoral Lobby, before handing them to their ministers.