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The Forum > Article Comments > The return to Rudd: a turn for the worse on asylum seeker policy? > Comments

The return to Rudd: a turn for the worse on asylum seeker policy? : Comments

By Azadeh Dastyari, published 11/7/2013

We got an old/new Prime Minister in Kevin Rudd, found out that our first female Prime Minister was quitting politics, and learned what the Foreign Minister Bob Carr thinks of refugees and our international obligations to protect them.

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There was nothing hypothetical about the Bakhtiari case. The family told a story about long-term residence and persecution by the Taliban in a small town in Afghanistan. The Melbourne Age sent reporters to Afghanistan to verify their claims. The people in the town had never heard of them, and the Bakhtiaris had gotten local customs and local history completely wrong. Their story had clearly been concocted, either by them or by the people smugglers. It later turned out that the father was an electrician in Pakistan.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/22/1029114162991.html

The US allows refugees to bring in family, but in this report, they found DNA evidence of widespread fraud (people claiming to be related when they weren't):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121919647430755373.html

Rhian would probably say that it is better to let in a hundred fraudsters than send back one genuine refugee, but in the real world, resources are not unlimited. Britain has spent billions of pounds on asylum seekers, At the same time, there has been scandal after scandal in the news about the National Health Service hospital system, with the problems mostly attributable to underfunding, including cancer patients being forced to wait for surgery until their condition becomes inoperable. Does Britain owe a greater obligation to foreign asylum seekers than to its own citizens?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8668906/NHS-delays-operations-as-it-waits-for-patients-to-die-or-go-private.html

https://www.facebook.com/pages/NHS-Cancer-Delays/376574043047

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/apr/18/nhs-cost-cutting-surgeon-warning

I agree with Loudmouth on this. If asylum seekers haven't got travel documents, especially if they must have had travel documents to get through third countries, they should be required to prove their case in other ways or be deported. It is interesting that only about 20% to 30% of asylum seekers who arrive by air are accepted as genuine refugees, The difference is that they are not allowed to board the plane without valid travel documents.
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 16 July 2013 5:29:18 PM
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Have to agree with divergence. Yes sure, people fleeing from persecution may well be regarded and treated as genuine asylum seekers.
However, we are one of just a half a dozen or so countries willing to accommodate some of over ten million claimants, and therefore, must select from the most deserving or waiting the longest!
We know that there is a parasitical criminal element, who charge exorbitant fees, just to put people on boats, regardless of their true status or motivation!
We definitely need a regional solution.
That solution could be much more efficient processing centres in both Malaysia and Indonesia.
Where claimants could present replete with their travel documents, real or counterfeit!
These claims and or documentation must be far better tested, with vastly more rigorous means. We have space age lie detection technology.
Only vastly over inflated egos, keeps so called examiners from using same, to test their own perceived accuracy, which is simply failing any objective assessment.
The latest most up to date non invasive lie detection technology, ought to be made mandatory, regardless of any objections from far too "helpful" Public servants?
So helpful in fact, that they have allowed entirely unsavoury people smuggling criminals, to displace more genuine applicants.
The improvement in regional processing as outlined, will create a genuine queue for genuine claimants.
Those that then chose to avoid this queue should have an automatic fail stamped on their application, and be sent somewhere, awaiting mandatory repatriation.
This would completely deprive people smugglers of a product to sell, and dry up irregular arrivals.
This in turn would save considerable money, which could then be redeployed, resettling increasing numbers of genuine asylum seekers into mandated locations.
I'm not against genuine asylum seekers, just the financially motivated humbuggers and the crims, who try to rort the system, and or push the genuine article further back in the queue!
I believe that it's disingenuous in the extreme, to read something wrong into our quite reasonable expectations of currently safe, genuine asylum seekers?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 2:38:12 PM
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Maybe I'm wrong but isn't it illegal to leave a country without notifying the authorities by, at least, filling out exit papers, for example, that little card that they give you when you go overseas ? And then you have to fill out something similar to ENTER another country ? I don't know much about these things, I've live a very sheltered life, but wouldn't that be the same for every country ?

So people leaving, say, Indonesia, by boat, may not have really complied with their usual exit procedures - is that right ? So when a boatload of genuine refugees is picked up by our navy, if the people on board do not have exit documents, then they are in a sort of limbo - have I got that right ?

So, if they are brought to, say, Christmas Island [why hasn't it been incorporated into Indonesia ?] then the authorities need to ensure that they are okay, healthy, and able to travel, and then put on a plane and taken back to wherever they came from, so that they can acquire the necessary exit documents, and take their place at the end of the queue ?

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 4:58:40 PM
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Hi Joe,

<<Christmas Island [why hasn't it been incorporated into Indonesia ?] >>

Fair go! give them time to digest West Irian first.

All that giving, ceding or selling Christmas Island would mean is the asylum scammers would then fly into Christmas Island airport rather than Jakarta.Then they would catch a boat at Christmas Island jetty and sail the rest of the way to Oz
Posted by SPQR, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 5:10:43 PM
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