It is not Australia's fault, it is your own fault, we had no say in why you were going to risk your life by trying to enter Australia illegally, it is time all illegal immigrants blamed themselves for the predicament they find themselves in on these boats with the loss of their many lives including children. STOP BLAMING US

Here we go again with the usual nonsense from the likes of Philip. It is not an offence to enter Australia without a visa or passport to claim refugee status and has never been.

All the babble about smugglers preying on them is also nonsense, the people we saw interviewed were articulate and educated and made up their own minds.

The Indonesian crew seem to have saved many lives by going back, storms are usually the cause of the deaths at sea but in international waters when we don't rescue people calling for help it is our fault because safety of lives at sea is paramount, not arbitrary.

Marilyn Shepherd - It appears you did not get the information that they were traveling on FALSE SYRIAN PASSPORTS.

When you have an arguable point please come back but you usual comments are just like that about they have no substance.

TO quote you "All the babble about smugglers preying on them is also nonsense, the people we saw interviewed were articulate and educated and made up their own minds."

So they made up there own minds to break to law and travel on false documents, I REST MY CASE they are criminals.

Therefore they do not stand the good character test.

Thank you for that assessment, now you are supporting criminals.

Need I say more.

<<Here we go again....>>

Yeap, great stuff PhilipS, keep it up!

"We need to stop the causes of the people inside the boats."

Islam? Tribalism? Greed?
Good luck "stopping" that.

"our prime minister... realise that his honourable mandate for humanity"

Ah, no such thing.
His sole mandate is the self-interest of our nation.
A responsibility no prime minister in living memory has taken seriously.

"nothing to lose and everything to gain"

And we have nothing to gain and everything to lose, throwing millions down the bottomless pit of "aid" and welcoming even more chip-on-the-shoulder aliens, who secretly or not-so-secretly hate our guts.

<< Australia shame on you, that your new rulers have reached the stage of killing people --Ali Khoder, Lebanese Sheikh, speaking of the recent drownings just off the coast of Java(as quoted on SBS)>>

This is straight out of the text book that brings you the line that the crusades were an unprovoked aggression on a peaceful Muslim people.

I'm with PhilipS, heaven forbid if we allow such thinking to embed itself in OZ!

And, did anyone see the vid taken after the incident. Have a close look, it appears like the father of the deceased children is calm --unperturbed even! until he is queued that he is on camera, then he puts on a performance --have a geeza and see what you think?