It beats me how penniless asylum seekers, escaping with what they stand in, can find the money to pay people smugglers $10-15,000.00 for the boat ride to Christmas Island?
Clearly people, [shamed and or brutalised women and children,] are being exploited, and not just as fare paying passengers!
There are no visas or passports, where there are, we have enough eyewitness accounts, to establish that they are advised to throw them overboard.
We might as well run a water taxi service for irregular arrivals, given what is occurring now.
Criminals, simply posing as asylum seekers have entered and or beaten our validation system, the reason for destroying documents! Means we have no choice but to reimpose temporary protection visas.
Take Burma as a case in point.
Recent changes there and democratisation, means, many people fleeing for their very lives, and therefore genuine asylum seekers; may now find that is actually safe to return?
As Marilyn states, seeking asylum for or by genuine deserving refugees is not illegal!
And those who keep calling them illegal boat people, need two lessons, one on international law and another on basic humanity.
Even as I pen these lines, an 11 year old Afghani girl is fleeing inhumanity. You see, her father contracted to the Taliban to grow poppies.
However, the Afghani govt is trying to stamp out this terrible trade in dehumanising misery and or premature death; and consequently, found and destroyed this farmer's crop.
The only way he could avoid the promised repercussions, was to offer his 11 year old in marriage to a very old man.
This poor little bugger now moves from refuge to temporary refugee, and fears for her very life.
This is what we would call a genuine refugee, and ought to welcome her here with open arms!
As opposed to patent criminals, with absolutely no scruples or conscience, who'se initial goal is to beat our identity validation system, and the second, to reside amongst us, belittling everything we believe in or stand for, which includes our laws and the orderly arrival of intending asylum seeking, genuine refugees!
Rhrosty.

seeking asylum has nothing to do with smuggling,
Marylin, Shepherd,
It has EVERYTHING to do with it when asylum is used as a diversion to the real agenda.

Rhrosty.
You've made two similar "Bleeding heart" posts today, explain to me how I'm responsible for all these "Evils" in the world, if I bear some responsibility for the Holocaust, or Slavery or John Lennon's lack of songwriting talent then so does that Afghan child. Your posts make no sense, (neither do the lyrics to Imagine BTW) only gullible middle aged women fall for that kind of romantic nonsense, which may be a handy tactic in a romantic situation but in a serious debate it's just not going to cut it.
Your position is: "Afghan people make me sad because they can't look after themselves, let's bring them all here so we can feel better".... hey, they still can't look after themselves here, they still contribute nothing to the world but at least you'll feel better about yourself eh?

The offshore refugee resettlement has zero to do with the proctection of refugees here.

there is no legal basis for it.

And the idiotic notion that we can push away one set of refugees so that we can pay to take in another set is ridiculous.

BTW the Wilhelm Gustloff sinking claimed the greatest number of civilian lives in a maritime disaster during the war, over 8,000 German civilians died after the ship was torpedoed by the Soviets.
It's interesting to me that the politicians aren't discussing a solution like that applied to Vietnamese boat people in the 1980's where a large number (90,000?) were re settled en masse creating an instant and to a large extent self reliant community.
I suspect the reason they need this drip feed system is so that their joint venture partners in people smuggling, Anglicare, SERCO, the Salvation Army etc can maximise their income, it wouldn't do to have Sri Lankans and Afghans congregating in one area and developing support networks of their own.
The past model of refugee/migrant settlement worked well and enhanced multiculturalism because it created communities which could fend for themselves, releasing and dispersing small groups of asylum seekers all over the land only creates dependance and disadvantage.
What's upsetting a lot of my people is that the current practices are anti egalitarian and un-Australian, what's more if an ethnic community, for whatever cannot sustain itself and provide it's own culturally appropriate support sytems then what is the point of them being here?
Importation of an underclass which is immediately doomed to failure is insane but it looks to me as though that's exactly what's happening, detention drives people mad, some 60% of "Asylum Seekers" are said to be mentally ill, what do the pro boaties expect to happen when these people are scattered all over the place in small groups?.
Why not just say, we'll take 40,000 Iranians, 40,000 Afghans, 10,000 Burmese in intact family units who have proper documentation, then no more?

A constitutional change is required to ensure that bleeding hearts and political and social climbers are restricted to inviting refugees and boat people EXCLUSIVELY to their own residential neighbourhoods.

Put these slimey excuses for humanitarianism in their PLACES!

Apart from that, this desert land does not have the environmental depth (Mountains and rivers) nor the SECURITY infrastructure to deal with the large scale immigration intakes we are currently experiencing. Boat peopling to Australia that took place in the past cannot take place NOW. Bob Carr wanted to put the "FULL" sign up at least a decade ago.
What if you ran a motel chain like a Australia and kept bringing in clients after the FULL sign went up. There would be pandemonium - just like we are seeing in our hospitals, schools and on our gridlock highways. Far too few people are benefiting & the ones that are benefitting are NOT humanitarians but rather corrupt to the core like The tripple 'a' Premier of Sydney Barry OFarrell.

As for the UN and its immigration quotas. This is just one more failure of an organisation that helps Syrian citizens by counting their dead bodies. The UN would betray Australia into the poverty and violence of another Libya or Egypt at the drop of a hat. Damn them and their bloody ill conceived humanitarian quotas when they ought to be demanding birth control instead.

There is only one planet and the corruption of its human leaders is enough to destroy it within a generation without any additional people at all. If it is insurance to stop CO2 emissions against the weak probability of Global warming then it MUST be insurance to stop women breeding against the high probability that mankind is within a generation of wiping his species off the face of this planet.