Under your plan the 43 refugees from West Papua would have been sent back most likely to be killed like some 400,000 of their countrymen and women since we voted for the UN to occupy and appoint Indonesia as the UN administrator of the colony in 1962 and '63.

Are you sure the vast majority of Australia's migration problems occur because of Indonesia? For decades Indonesia has enjoyed the profits of Indonesians conducting piracy in the Strait of Malacca and elsewhere, profits of selling passage to Australian shores, profits of selling mining licenses and protection services to BP and Freeport in the Pacific, and clear felling Australian rain-forests of Papua to make way for palm tree plantations and hundreds of thousands of Indonesian farmers.

Are you sure the problem doesn't have something to do with sixty years of cowardliness by our politicians to address our regional problems?

The Abbot Liberal/National latest multimillion-dollar Asylum Seeker annoncement on 'buying boats' from people in Indonesia's village people sounds like a never ending illogical rort. "The boats", said Morrison are "likely to be bought from fishermen, would be destroyed to stop them being used for transporting people."

The critical question here is how many boats does this Liberal political party plan to buy and where will this kind of budget end? [Sticky Business, seems there are many other constructive ways to engage with these poor villagers and the Asylum seekers themselves.]

New Book - "Border vigils: keeping migrants out of the rich world" ... resettlement is a small part of the bigger picture. Interview with author Jeremy Harding,

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/clandestine-migration/4902922

As said in the Irish Times, "Jeremy Harding writes from the front lines of the western world’s war against mass migration, the heavily patrolled borders, shorelines, refugee camps and processing centres, where he speaks to economic migrants, asylum seekers, people traffickers and those charged with stopping them. He explores the theories, legislation and contradictions underpinning the rich world’s immigration policies. And he repeatedly returns to the sad stories of desperate souls who have suffered and died, in cargo containers, rafts and the undercarriages of aircraft, trying to get in. Harding insists that Europe ’s tight immigration policy “brings its humanitarian pretensions into question: the holding camps, the charter flights with deportees in restraint positions, the virtual frontier creeping inexorably beyond the geographical borders”. Border Vigils is a devastating critique of a form of globalisation that favours the movement of goods and services over the movement of people (at least, poor people), and that claims to be fair but is, ultimately, rigged."

http://www.miacat.com/

Well the Magna Carta which is the basis for all common law is over 800 years old, should we repudiate that too?

And the notion that a piece of paper has anything to do with torture, war and persecution is deranged. Anyone who seeks asylum here has to prove they are tortured or persecuted and why.

Do go away now.

Too sensible ! Well done and argued, Ralph

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/23/syria-1-million-refugee-children

So Ralph, this 1 million children should live in hell because there is no protection anywhere or do you think they should all die?

>>Well the Magna Carta which is the basis for all common law is over 800 years old, should we repudiate that too?>>

In fact common law has evolved considerably since 1215. In I think King John and the barons would be astonished if you said the document they drew up to protect the rights of the aristocracy against the king was the basis of modern common law.

Further, statute overrides common law. The common law we see today has been considerably modified by various acts of parliament.

Jake G

There appears to be a bit of what could be described as traditional "trolling" in the article, but then that is perhaps to be expected in the current clime.

It is regrettable to me that there is such a gross amount of contempt for even some of the most basic principles of the judiciary, which like the churches/the religious, is in many ways fettered resulting in an on going situation wherein the fundamental 3 tiered nature of the guvment system is corrupted, i.m.o.

A gross example of this is when the departments, knowingly practicing policy outside the confines of the law, abandon reason with relish, and default to

" .. everything is fine because the minister says that it is fine. .. "

I shudder at times to count how many times I have encountered this.

And when all manner of shocking misfortune has befallen upon the dependent and the vulnerable, it is maintained that ones loyalty to ones employer supercedes the obligation to confide in the people as a whole via "Free Speech" the truth of these incidents, and where to dob in a war criminal is considered a betrayal and rewarded with deprivation of liberty, sleep and sensual stimulation.

As the ABC will be required to compete, so too should the politicians be made to be. Australia has a 2 party preferred system, not the coaltion and the ALP system, and neither should the incumbents be favored in my view.

No, I'm out and will seek exemption from the otherwise compulsory vote on the grounds that it is my sincere belief that it is my "religious duty" (of the moral variety) to abstain.

Not withstanding the fact that the Western Australian Electoral Commission does not recognises the plurality of the word "reasons" from the Act in this regard and further seems to dismiss the notion of moral duties, I am of the view that they deliberately err.

Someone said in the public arena recently, " .. Jesus Weeps .." to which one may reply:

" ... Yes, and ... "

The refugee convention, to which Australia is a party, is simply outdated and Australia should refute it asap. Australia can continue to be a compassionate nation - as it already is, and has proven many times. What Australia does not need is to be caught up in the religion inspired dioramas that are presently causing much grief around the world.

The Abbot Liberal/National latest multimillion-dollar Asylum Seeker annoncement on 'buying boats' from people in Indonesia's village people sounds like a never ending illogical rort.
miacat,
I'm sure that there are better options/ways of curbing the flow of illegal immigrants via Indonesia but, it is preferable & far more sensible than what the Labor Government is doing now by spending multi billions & not reducing the flow.