Ludwig,
To speak of “advantage” in these circumstances is grotesque. What you are saying is that, because there are desperate children rotting in refugee camps in Africa and Asia, the desperate children who arrive on our shores should be rot in indefinite imprisonment too.

Individual,
Australia is a migrant society. More than a quarter of us were born overseas, and a further quarter have at least one overseas-born parent. Yet I don’t see a society in “disarray”. By most measures we are one of the most successful societies on earth – ranking second on the UN’s Human Development Index, for example.

Ralph,
Of course Bindi is entitled to her opinion, as are you and I, and others in this forum, and my next door neighbour’s teenage daughter. But Bindi is not an expert in demography or human settlement or even ecology, so her opinion carries no more weight than the rest of us. Your argument was constructed as an appeal to authority, and she isn’t one.

How we treat asylum seekers has zero effect on global population growth. This is a giant, smelly red herring intended to provide a fig-leaf of moral respectability to a position that is fundamentally inhumane.

I have greater respect here for the views of Jay of Melbourne. I disagree with almost everything Jay says, but he is at least honest about his motives and coherent in his arguments.

The lowest act so far has been the invitation that Greens/Rudd/Gillard sent to illegal immigrants leading to over a thousand deaths (including children).Really can't go much lower than that.

I'd let them in, on the condition that every one of them spend 2 years in work camps in out northern, or southern national parks.

They would have to spend that time clearing feral weed & other plant infestations, & removing the dangerous build up of highly flammable litter.

They would have to supply verifiable evidence of their place of origin, & full information of their method of transit to Oz to be eligible to stay. No use of legal aid should EVER be permitted.

No access to be granted to welfare until a minimum of 5 years tax returns proves they have been self supporting.

They would have to be refused re-entry to Oz if at any time they chose to voluntarily return to their country of origin, especially if that return was to select a wife. This activity proves that their country of origin holds little if any danger for them.

Any even minor law breaking, either by design, or incompetence should lead to immediate deportation, with no recourse to the courts.

Under such conditions, I would expect almost all such people would make excellent citizens, & be an asset, rather than the drain most are today.

Runner it is the wars that have caused millions of deaths, those who drowned did so only because Australia let them and then used that as an excuse to torture others.

There is something sick in the minds of the likes of Ludwig and others like you that think that people who ask us for help are sub-human things to be demonised and brutalised because we feel like it.

For the last time - the resettlement of a few thousand refugees from overseas is nothing more than an expensive con, we don't accept anyone from the camps because they simply have no way of applying to even get here unless they have family and that family has to apply in Melbourne or Sydney.

The only people we have any obligation to are those who arrive here.

It's on the DIAC website and the UNHCR website you lazy cowards.

Hasbeen asylum seekers are not criminals, they are refugees forced out of their own countries by the likes of the taliban.

Why is it that you want to punish them again.

Rian,

You have done it again ! Bagged Bindi Urwin and ignored Sir David Attenborough , Melinda Gates , CSIRO, Australian Academy of Science , ACF, WWF and the United Nations.

A sad specist, Rian . Like racism and sexism , specism should be minimised .

You are a dedicated propagandist promoting habitat and species destruction, while cloaking yourself in open borders nonsense.

Of course you can have refugees, within a balanced migration design.

Ralph