Where is the compassion and high moral standing in saying to desperate people,"Engage the services of organised criminals and risk your life on an unseaworthy vessel, and you will be given advantage over other refugees."?

Let's see:

Supporting organised crims:

Compassion: X High morals: X

Treating people unequally:

Compassion: X High morals: X

Giving incentive to people to risk their lives:

Compassion: X High morals: X

I am reminded of all the fluffy rhetoric in Europe about fixing the debt crisis, yet when it comes to practical solutions, nothing is done. You can spout all the fluffy rhetoric you like, but that doesn't hide the serious failings of the UN convention on refugees: Australia should opt out of this harmful convention.

What is needed are practical solutions, not fluff and waffle.

Fester, if your post was a response to mine:

You wrote ","Engage the services of organised criminals and risk your life on an unseaworthy vessel, and you will be given advantage over other refugees."?

The Malaysian swap addresses your concerns. The 1 for 5 swap will result in people realizing that a boat trip will not propel them ahead of those awaiting resettlement via formal pathways. It is a practical deterrent to boat arrivals. Concern hat we will end up with five times as many refugees "invading" Australia have to realize that as the deterrent bites, there will quickly be no arrivals and hence no swap necessary.

Forcibly turning boats back, besides being unsafe, repugnant, against UN convention and compromising our navy, is unnecessary in forming a deterrent.

Where's the fluff?

unsafe, repugnant.
Luciferase,
Go & spend time in those countries where they have already lost the fight against religious fanaticism invasion then come back & tell us your experiences.

Indy, you are skirting the point.

The swap will give you the result you want on boat arrivals.

Your concern is more to do with our total immigration intake, really a different topic.

John Passant linked to David Pope's cartoon on his blog.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/multimedia/32342/426554/december-23-2011.aspx

Says it all....

Luciferase,

The Malaysian Solution could at best provide only a slight and temporary stop-gap:

. In no time the 800 return seats would be filled - and then we're back where we started, and the people smuggler pamphlets will continue to stress what a welcoming place Aus is, and that the accommodations are at least far better than that available in Malaysia or Indonesia;

. The 4,000 we will 'inherit' will take the places of others who may well be more worthy of 'refugee' status;

. The Malaysian accommodations will Not be any holiday camp for the 800, and even worse for all the others who aren't able to get on a boat.

We can't solve mass starvation and repression in other countries by taking a handful of refugees here and there, and those countries will continue to have massive problems requiring international intervention.

The problems causing mass migration have to be solved at source.

Recent events in Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan should give us cause to re-evaluate what form international intervention should take.

Iraq provides a lesson in what Not to do - with Afghanistan a close second in the shamozzle stakes.

Our welfare system is already stressed, and adding a whole lot of extra mouths is not going to help - and is counterproductive when these could be housed, fed, educated and provided with jobs and opportunity far more economically in their home countries, if only their security and governance problems can be resolved.

We should be able to select who we want to migrate to Aus, and under what conditions.