really sad that Online Opinion is running an article from more than two weeks ago. Reading it in one location was enough.

Sev is out spreading his new right wing propaganda and misleading facts. Scary that he used to be Human Rights Commissioner.

a few points. The difficulty at the moment in sending many people home has nothing to do with them having destroyed documentation, it is because we don't have agreements to send people back to countries like Iran. They won't accept them, documents or not.

and many people do not have documents, eg if they grew up in a country that doesn't provide birth certificates, etc. or their documents were taken from them in their country, or they were a minority not entitled to Citizenship. Really an ex human rights commissioner should know this.

the recent increase in boat arrivals is clearly connected to the collapse of the Malaysia arrangement, not to processing some people in the community. Even DIAC admits that detaining refugees has never deterred boats. It is shocking that a former human rights commissioner is talking this way. Most plane arrivals are already processed in the community, they usually come in much larger numbers than boats, and they don't wait 5 to 10 years for processing.

this is such a bad piece, without any answers, not sure what it is doing on here. But could be why I don't come here much these days, sadly.

Rangeroad:

A host of OLO readers object to the opinions of others; one must be tough to survive debate on OLO: That is its main attraction to me.

diver dan, I like diversity of opinion and ones that give me something new to think about but this has already been published weeks ago and it doesn't offer anything exceptional. It is not informed and it is naive. I didn't even bother critiquing the whole piece but the idea about Indonesia shows such ignorance. Is he not aware of Indonesia's views on the signing the convention or on processing thousands more asylum seekers in their country. It is articles like this that stifle debate and keep people uninformed on actual facts. is it any wonder most people are confused on the subject?

and this ex human rights commissioner was one of the commissioners who conducted the review into children in detention which came up with a damning report. One of the findings was 'In particular, Australia's mandatory detention system fails to ensure that: detention is a measure of last resort, for the shortest appropriate period of time'

How disgusting that he now calls to keep that system in place knowing what he does.

There are 2 simple answers.

1/ No person who comes in without prior approval, & correct paper work should be ineligible to ever have access to family reunion.

Any boat illegally entering our waters should be ordered out, & sunk forthwith if it does not comply.

No further boat people, after a short period.

To me the main problem with illegal immigrants is that both sides are talking past each other, and that consequently nothing changes. We have a group of internationalists on one side, who seem unable to appreciate the principle of territoriality, and that admission to a territory must be by leave, and that entry without leave constitutes invasion. On the other side we have a country that has one of the most successful refugee resettlement programs in the world, which has settled well over 1 million refugees since WW2, and which is at risk because of illegal immigration. What I would love someone to explain to me is why a person who arrives illegally is more entitled to live here than someone who waits for years in a camp for permission to settle. If it is accepted that we cannot and will not accept the 150 million + people who would like to come here, what is wrong with Australia selecting people from the camps? I think a lot of activists want unrestricted admission, but just won't admit it.