I neglected to say:

Good morning Graham. Excellent article.

Hello Bigmal. You’ve got to wonder why Rudd tampered with Howard’s border-protection policies. My guess is that he wanted to put a Labor stamp on them by making them appear a little more humanitarian while not meaning to significantly weaken them. Crikey, how out of touch with reality was he!

The other thing that is absolutely amazing is that those closest to him, including Gillard, didn’t squeal loud enough to stop him doing this!

Was this because they were just as blind to the impact that such policies would have? Or was Rudd so autocratic as to simply tell them to shut up and butt out?

At any rate, for this reason, as well as a few others, Rudd is surely utterly untenable as Labor leader, and as a front-bencher in any capacity!

Now, I really can’t see why Labor can’t bite the bullet and embrace Howard’s policies.

If they were to elect a new leader and espouse a reinvention of themselves at the same time, it would surely work for them.

What else can they do?? They’re stuffed as they are!

It is surely of the utmost importance to them, and to the country, that they embrace a major change, in the ways I suggested in my previous post.

David G,
In relation to the illegal arrivals, we do know what we want.

Simply for them to stop coming.

We know they are shonks that fly to Malaysia and then choose to pay much more than the normal air fare so they can gate crash us. then lie to our officials and be given permanent residence so they can bring the rest of their brood out here. Most are on welfare for years.

Have a look at Paul Sheenan's article in the SMH this morning to see how generous we are.

We do not like to be conned as we are at the present time.

The most incompedent government since federation,

For me, the key issue in this 'asylum seeker' debate is the damage it is doing to Australia's highly successful immigration programme. Since the end of WW2, we have welcomed migrants from pretty much all over the world and their contribution to our national life has been extremely positive.

Despite the occasional outbreak of resistance, Australians have generally supported immigration with two provisos: first, that social cohesion is broadly maintained and second, that the Federal government is and is seen to be in control of the programme. The suddent arrival of thousands of boatpeople threatens both these perceptions. We now worry that the government is not in control of our borders and that some of the boatpeople want to challenge our way of life and the peacefulness of our society.

These two worries place the entire immigration programme under threat. The great danger is that an outburst of xenophobia initiated by the arrival of boatpeople will undermine one of the most successful programmes in our recent history. That's why we have to stop the boats - all of them, no matter where their passengers come from.

Yes but wanting something they don't understand at all doesn't make the punters right and it does not give any government the right to break the law.

1. there is no such thing as off shore processing, the idea is to push asylum seekers off to anywhere but here and make sure they never get here.
2. those refugees overseas have zero claim to come here - they are if you like the true queue jumpers because they already have protection in one country and want to move to another country as migrants - we know this at an intellectual level and the DIAC website says we will only accept them if we are the country of last resort.
3. we do not own the oceans and seas and cannot by law dictate to anyone who sails on them, why do we pretend so arrogantly that we do?
4. if a parliament cannot uphold it's own laws, and cannot uphold international law so it can appease peasants without a clue about the law then what is the point of calling this place a democracy?

And why do so many think they know what they are talking about when they don't?

Our internal law is that anyone is allowed to arrive and claim asylum.

Our internal policy is that we lock them up like criminals with less rights than mass murderers and claim it is legal.

We won't mention here that Pakistan is pushing out 3 million Afghans who cannot go home, what will we do if they come here?

. the ongoing human rights atrocities in Sri Lanka, we will applaud becaue the gangsters in Sri Lanka have arrested a few hundred refugees.

. the sectarian war we started in Iraq that has caused the absolute collapse of the christian churches that is sending the Iraqi christians fleeing.

. ongoing repression in Iran under the mullahs, the persecution of christians or the ongoing torture of Palestinians, the Syrian war, the Libyan war, the Egyptian uprising and return to islamism.

The alternative option was not included in the poll " do you support on shore or off shore processing " should have included or STOP THE BOATS.
A UN refugee camp was just set up in Jordon with TENTS while we give them better housing than lots of Australians have.
Also they said MOST that will arrive in the camp will be women and children, yet we seems to get boats loaded mostly with 95% men, this is something that the Government should be investigating why.

They know very well why Philip. And it makes not a jot of difference because no matter how much people whinge and whine it is a legal right which we cannot take away.

Is there something cretinous in this country that believes we have control over the world's borders and movement of humans around them?

We are whinging about .1% of the world's asylum seekers coming here by sea so I guess we are not that popular.

Why is it that so many in this country flatly refuse to understand that when the Universal declaration of human rights article 14 was declared in 1948 it actually did mean that everyone has the right to seek asylum from persecution in other countries?

The only execptions are those who have proven war crimes or crimes against humanity found against them under article 1 F.

The refugee convention only covers those who are seeking asylum, once people are refugees in any nation they are no longer covered but are under the protection of the state who accepted them.

Malaysia and Indonesia don't.
But why not be angry with the true shonks?

The record for the first quarter of this years shows that only 2% of Indian claimants are refugees, but 94% of Afghans are. We rage and rant about the Afghans and ignore the shonky Indians.

96% of Indonesian claimants are shonks, 94% of Iranians are genuine, 94% of Bangladeshis are shonks, 91% of Iraqis are genuine.

Yet we never mention the shonks who fly here and lie on applications.

We never talk about the 60,000 who simply can't be bothered going home each year yet they are lying about staying here.

We only punish and brutalise the honest and genuine.

Do you ever wonder why that is and why it is that Ludwig and co. still refuse to read the facts on refugee resettlement as distinct from refugee protection?

It's all available.