Bruce this rant is not even a disguised version of I hate the LNP and love the ALP. I wonder we have to read your sanctimonious bleating which is all just biased rubbish.
Rudd is all good? Remember he is supposedly the leader of our country and the Libs are all bad and its all their fault!
Honestly this is beyond a joke.

the lack of compassion towards those waiting in refugee camps and those who have paid to be drowned by Bruce and the left is astounding. Mr Rudd does not care what policy he has as long as he can be elected. Labour have been shown to be chief hypocrites changing every doctrine they have before having to admit they were wrong about the people smuggling trade, global warming and squandaring a huge surplus. Now they are getting 'tough 'on people smugglers, dropped the carbon tax and are going to be fiscal consersatives in order to pay the decades of debt they have created. Oh that's right they are also now in favour of 'gay ' marriage. How anyone could defend their hypocrisy really just shows their hatred for Abbott. At least his policies have been consistent as shown by Labour pretending to adopt them.

Thanks for the article, Bruce. It must be achieving something, if such constructive critics as JBowyer feel they have to read it.

There is a minority of voters who share your opposition to a policy built on deterrence. I am one of them. From this point of view, comparisons like apartheid are easy to make, but I am conscious that they just don't gel with people who hated apartheid and yet support the deterrence response to boat people.

I think Australians are stuck in a spiral of prohibition here. As a point of collective psychology, Morrison's declaring the 'war on people smuggling' shows how much this situation feels to many like the equally unrealistic 'war on drugs' that we are still struggling to bring to an end. All the drownings just serve to make tighter prohibition feel more urgent.

As we saw through the war on drugs, when prevention fails it is natural that people will want to crank up the deterrence. And when that fails, they will want to crank it up further. We have to accept this is largely a response in good faith, like people struggling to cope with the heroin traders next door. But real leadership would be to recognise this escalating cycle for what it is, and find a different way.

Quote "The ‘policies’, recently announced by both major parties, do not make us feel good about ourselves"

Please be so kind as to use the correct English words especially in the first sentence, I have corrected it for you.

"The ‘policies’, recently announced by both major parties, does not make me feel good." ** NOTE I have changed it to your opinion not everyone's **

At no point did you ask me or approx 20 million other Australians before you included us in your statement.

I do back anything the Government does to STOP the Economic Invaders.

The $60 million dollars damage on Nauru could have built a nice school in Australia, it was a premeditated thing they packed all there things and removed them from the buildings before the riot

Time to grow up Bruce. You have obviously spent too much time in the privileged elite world to have any idea of how the real people of Oz live.

Far too many are working too hard, & are too close to the bone to have much if any sympathy for the bludgers who are gate crashing our borders, chewing up our welfare, public housing & legal aid funds, when they can't get access themselves.

I know it would be hard for you, but go spend a few days in the mortgage belt, looking at how these people struggle to survive. Better still, try living on a checkout chicks income, with a couple of kids for a few months, them talk. Otherwise you are just a waste of space & generating a great deal of hot CO2, for no good reason.

Thank you Mr. Bruce Haigh for sharing your thoughts with the On Line Opinion community. Unfortunately, refugee policy is not the only area where Labor and the LNP have harsh, discriminatory and unsustainable policy positions which harm Australia's image and reputation on the world stage and dumb down the democratic process for the sake of chasing votes from red-necks.

Australia's policy on Macedonia is a case in point where both the Rudd Government and the Opposition lack the political courage and honesty to do what is right and recognise the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name as guaranteed by the UN Charter and has been done by over 135 countries at the UN including the USA, Canada, Britain, China, Russia, Indonesia etc. etc. .

Australia deserves better leaders and sensible policies. The upcoming federal election is a good time to elect new talent.