We can never be any good as international citizens while we continue to have a racist PM, a racist opposition leader, a racist parliament and courts who flout laws, the rule of law, the constitution and human rights at will.

The abuse of refugees and aborigines is egregious, they don't seem to want to listen to anyone even the head of the UN.

We should be kicked out of the UN, not allowed to join in.

WE are now forcibly deporting Sri Lankans even while the government is accused of hideous war crimes, we are torturing children for politics, wasting billions in the process and the moron parliamentarians are claiming we have to do this to protect our borders from the victims of wars we started.

No country in the world will listen to us while we don't listen to anyone.

It's disgusting that you can even shrug off the fact that policy won't change, it can't be shrugged off like that.

WE are committing crimes against humanity to appease racists and that is the bottom line.

The abuse of refugees and aborigines is egregious,
Marilyn Shepherd,
It's not a good situation at all I agree, but what do you suggest be done ? Let every refugee who desires to come into Australia ? Let the Aborigines laze & drink themselves into earlier & earlier graves ?
For a start you could provide 3-5 points of what you suggest should be done with refugees & to get the wayward indigenous on a good track similar to what 10% of them are.
btw, what are these abuses which weren't brought on by themselves ?

Dr. Alison Pert;

IThanks for your clarion call for Australia to take a lead role in the Security Council.

The upcoming Commonwealth Summit-2013 in Sri Lanka would be a great opportunity for us to follow suit Stephen Harper of Canada and David Cameron of the UK.

Syrians or Sri Lankans, we should never let them take us backwards into killing own citizenry and impunity

But surely our grovelling acceptance of insane UN climate predictions, and our government's willingness to inflict financial pain on its citizens as a result, must have bought us deep affection and commitment from such up-and-coming UN stars as the Maldives and Fiji?

And who knows, if we continue our march back to the Middle Ages, one day we might even attract the approval of a genuine democracy.

But I won't hold my breath.

The enormous amount of money that is being totally and utterly wasted by the political class on things such as attaining a non-permanent seat on the Security Council is causing great concern to a large number of taxpayers. When governments are forced to look at budget cuts, as at present, the first item to be considered should be politicians salaries, and the second should be foreign aid. After all, charity should begin at home. As for international law, what a joke! Beginning with the Nuremberg Tribunal, where Nazis were convicted using retrospective legislation, international law has continued to be invented by lawyers without any authority from the people. It would have been far better and more honest if Churchill's suggestion had been followed and they had been just put up against a wall and shot. The Melbourne paper the Age is not known as right-wing, but has recently described the current status of politicians as "subterranean".

When are we going to get real reform such as:

1. Excessive spending by politicians on election campaigns to be controlled by providing that the only money they can spend is that raised by putting their daughters on the streets.

2. All international conferences, meetings etc. involving politicians MUST be held at the Woomera detention centre (as currently constructed).

I have a further list of necessary reforms, but those two will do for now.

>>Perhaps Australia’s two-year tenure on the Security Council will be an opportunity for it to regain some of the reputation it has lost in recent years.>>

Reputation with who?

Who are these paragons of virtue into whose good graces Australia should strive to wriggle?

I thought the main role of a security council seat is to enable second rate politicians from a minor country to delude themselves that they are movers and shakers on the world scene.

I now see I was only partially correct. Another function of the seat is to enable members of the "Leftariate" to delude themselves that by offering advice to aforementioned second rate politicians they can influence global events at one remove.

Never before have so many Australians paid so much to gratify the egos of so few!

As for R2P – I would have thought the primary responsibility to care of the Australian government is to its own citizens and if that involves pulling back from international conventions that are no longer fit for purpose then so be it.

Ego driven pollies with delusions of grandeur again supported by the naive and immature in the community who just love to see us as actors on the world stage. We paid off a number of developing countries to buy their vote and now seek to take moral high ground in order to lecture to the rest of the world about right and wrong.

We are a minute player in world affairs who, like angry adolescent, needs to be recognised and feted simply for being us. The pollies love it. Junket trips, mixing with the big boys and getting those photo ops which make us all look so good to the rest of the world.

Maybe Bob Carr or Kevin Rudd can represent us and single handedly prevent WW3 save the worrld!

While Australia remains a sycophantic pawn of the U.S., our role in the U.N. will be a non-event.

I mean, Australia is already in the Israeli-cheer-squad and is encouraging the IDF to bomb-bomb-bomb because, as we all know, their five killed is a far greater disaster than that of the 140 Gazans including many women and children.

Australia once stood for something. It is now an American suck-hole!

140 Gazans including many women and children.
David G,
Don't tell us the obvious, tell the families of the bombers to stop & Israel will stop.
You can't expect Israel t just sit back & let itself get bombed by fruitcake Palestinians & do nothing ? If Palestinians tolerate bombing Israelis then they also have to tolerate reprisal.
Where is the complexity ?

This from a mind that actually lectures our gullible uni students.

Really, until we had got those rose coloured glasses surgically removed from some ladies, they should have been kept bare foot & pregnant, behind a kitchen sink. At least there they just might be able to effectively care for a family, rather than go tilting at windmills, trying to care for the whole world.

I suppose I could be wrong. It could just be a nice soft cop, paying very good money, & easier than actually doing something useful.

Hasbeen wrote:

>>This from a mind that actually lectures our gullible uni students.>>

LOL

Australian academe is riddled with these types and they're not all ladies you misogynist you ;-)

Individual, you are a strange individual. Perhaps you don't know that the Palestinians are under either Israeli blockade or occupation and have been since 1948. This means that many people who live there have never known freedom. Never.

Now obviously you don't care because you have freedom. But if the German/Japanese try for world domination had succeeded, you would have been under their occupation since 1945.

You probably would sing a very different tune had that happened. And you would've encouraged Australian freedom fighters to do what they could to stop the German/Japanese occupation, wouldn't you?

Put your brain into gear for a change, man.

Eveyone has the right to seek asylum.. There is nothing that can be miscontrued there is there? Is there some ambiguity?

Marilyn Shepherd,
This is not the answer I asked for, it's a cheap co-out.
Again, what should be done ?

Now obviously you don't care because you have freedom.
David G,
I live in an Indigenous community & you reckon I have freedom ? You'd better get real.
Had the Germans succeeded we'd be living in far better world now. Trouble is the do-gooders couldn't see it 60 years ago & they won't see it in another 100.
The problem in Palestine is that the Palestinians keep throwing bombs at Israel & Israel responds. There's no ideological this was then & that's why things are now. The point is that there is an Israel & there is a Palestine. Live alongside each other. Look even the Serbs & Croations have come to their senses & no-one would have put a bet on that.
Australians need to get a grip on reality also before it's too late.
My great,great,great,great ,great uncle had trouble with my neighbor's great, great, great, great, great uncle about the fence line so I suppose I'd better start throwing crap over the fence into my neighbors yard. That's the sort of mentality you're dealing with David G.
How on earth can you ever get peace like that ?

Marilyn Shepherd wrote:

>>Eveyone has the right to seek asylum.. There is nothing that can be miscontrued there is there? >>

Nothing to be misconstrued. Everyone has the right to SEEK asylum.

Now:

Is it in the best interests of Australians to grant asylum to everyone who seeks it? If you think so please explain why.

Please note the phrasing of the question.

I am not talking about obligations Australia may or may not have under various international agreements. States do from time to time withdraw from agreements. They also vary on how they implement them.

Nor am I talking about what you think Australia ought to do because that's what your moral code dictates.

I am asking you what would be in Australia's best interests.

I shall add a rider. Unless you are talking numbers you aren't really answering the question. So how many asylum seekers is it in the best interests of Australians to accept?

10 a week?

100 a week?

1,000 a week. (I think it could easily get to a thousand a week)

Even more?

I emphasise again the test is "What is in the best interests of Australians?"

Not what is in the best interests of the political class.

Not what is in the best interests of people who get to feel good about themselves by being asylum seeker advocates.

Not what is in the best interests of people who make a living from being asylum seeker advocates.

But, coolly and dispassionately, what is in the best interests of Australians and why is the course you advocate in the best interests of Australians.

What do numbers have to do with seeking asylum? IN the last 23 years a mere 90,000 or so people have sought asylum in Australia with 57,000 of them flying here and not usually being refugees.

There is no quota system for asylum, 11,000 Syrians fled on one day without the neighbours endlessly whinging about it.

Everyone has the right to seek asylum.

What part don't you understand and where is there any room for Australia alone in the world to believe they are acting or allowed to act under different rules.

And Steven, the protection of refugees is not about us, it is about them.

Are you completely stupid.

"Had the Germans succeeded (in WW2) we'd be living in far better world now," says Individual.

Well, that statement destroys any credibility you may have had, sir.

Tell me, do you have a NAZI uniform hanging in your closet, just in case Hitler rises from the dead?

Australia has been put there because we suck up to the USA and Britian.We were given a position on the security council because we are USA puppets.

Arjay:

"Australia has been put there because we suck up to the USA and Britian"

Are you aware that the UNSC seat is voted on at the general assembly where the entire US and the whole of Britain give us a total of... 2 votes? You can do all the sucking up you want but this is the most number of votes you'll get.

Hay Luddy, thanks for the laugh old mate. I would called my self one of those things you called me, if I could spell, or pronounce the word.

Actually old mate, I'm not too sure some of those ladies are really ladies, female yes but lady no. Does that make me a worse one of those things.

do you have a NAZI uniform hanging in your closet,
David g,
I can do better than that, I'm surrounded by Labor supporters. You know, National Sozialisten as in the acronym Nazi.

Oh, c'mon do-gooders, ran out of academic hot air. Better get some steam up again.
Marilyn Shepherd when can we expect to get to see your solutions to the asylum seeker problem ?
David G ah, never mind.

AVV, the USA, like Australia, spent many millions of taxpayer dollars on bribing other countries to ensure Australia got the temporary seat, because that is the same things as one more seat for the USA. If anyone, including the author of this piece, thinks Australia is going to act independent of the wishes of USrael, then they're completely bonkers. We are a USA subsidiary to be used and abused at their whim.

The only racism in Australia is from those organised to live from it. The various tribunals, "Marilyns", University posers, their ABC and others Takers types who build castles in the air to get their hands on the money, a truly viscous, parasitic type of life. Individuals with weird race ideas are just idiots.