The author claims that "The government's policy is unsustainable. In the long term it will not stop boats taking to the high seas and for all we know it may not be working in the short term". These claims are at odds with the facts. The author seemingly will not be happy until the flood of boats and deaths at sea (stopped by the policies he criticises) resumes once more.

Nobody condones the violence against asylum seekers at Manus Island. That said, I don't think the asylum seekers there will be in a hurry to riot again. Part of the problem with disturbances at detention centres is that there generally are little in the way of consequences for rioters (except maybe in PNG).

Bruce has to understand that the Government's supporters are cheering them on. In fact a lot of opposition voters are also cheering. Bruce, matey we vote! It is going to go our way. Bleat all you like but I and most people think your opinions are foolish and wrong.
Last time I looked we were in a democracy which is why you are welcome to voice your opinions and I mine. Mind you do a poll on the "Refugees" opinions and I bet you would be horrified what they support. Certainly not any opposing views.

Bruce you are way out of touch.

The boats are stopping and the detention centres are emptying. Why don't you praise that instead of forecasting future doom?

Why haven't you praised our great humanitarian success this government is having in saving lives at sea?

Why are you never critical of the Indonesians in refusing to assist us in that endeavour?

Why are you not critical of the Indonesians for not being thankful that our policy is reducing the numbers of illegals entering Indonesia?

If you had one modicum of praise about stopping the boats and saving lives your bleating about one death in a detention centre at the hands of Papua New Guinea police and our governments refusal to acknowledge responsibility would have some credibility.

As it stands you just look silly running around screeching like chicken little. Your cause is lost. You have nothing else.

Bruce old feller, perhaps no one has told you, people retire when they are past it.

Mate that most definitely applies to you. You are so far out of touch with Oz, & what the Oz people want, it would be funny, if not so pitiful.

Perhaps all that time in the heat in Pakistan and Afghanistan was too much for you, although I'm sure the Ozzie taxpayer is most adequately compensating you for your efforts.

That being the case, pull your fool head in, & let us get on with making sure we can find the money to do that. We have enough trouble finding the money to support broken down bureaucrats, including diplomats, without idiots running interference, & trying to waste even more money.

Do find a nice rocking chair, in the sun, & spend your declining years peacefully, out of sight.

The last four posters should open their eyes and switch on their reasoning ability if they have any.
The matter Bruce is discussing is not "stopping the boats" but Ministerial accountabilty, particularly the readiness to stop disclosure of the facts under the pretence of "operational security".
Instead of throwing personal abuse at Bruce, the writers would be better off in attempting to verify or discredit government statements.

Ponder you don't get it! These rascals started a riot! They attacked and threw stones at a mob of coppers. That was going to end it tears, even you would know that. It takes Australia and the rest of the world months to interview and sort out what from where in situations like this.
You want instant gratification? Well you are not going to get it with this Mate. The majority are satisfied with the Minister and Prime Minister. In fact delighted would be more accurate. Your complaint is noted and adds only to my enjoyment of a bit of backbone being shown at last.
I am also a migrant, paid my fare, worked and happy to be an Australian.
Free country, do not complain, leave!

Bruce, when I read your article I made a small bet with myself that the majority of the comments would attack you and not discuss the issues. I further bet myself that the attack would come from the same people who make the same comments on every issue raised by an author who has the temerity to question the current government. Bet easily won.

Amazing really how, without an inquiry being held and reporting, they just know what happened, and it was all the fault of the refugees. Talk about operating in a fact free bubble! Never let it be said that facts, or the relevant law, or notions of ministerial accountability, will intrude upon their sociopathic view of the world.

One might wish that they might wait until we have some actual facts rather than Morrison and Abbott's self-serving obfuscations before leaping in. Alas.

Ponder

Bruce insults my intelligence by expecting me to accept his silly and completely unsubstantiated claims.

He also slurs and or insults Abbott, Morrison, Campbell, Manus Islanders, Papuan Police and Indonesians (with his idiotic remark about China).

Why shouldn't I insult him for his obvious blind hatred and lack of intelligence?

'If you had one modicum of praise about stopping the boats and saving lives your bleating about one death in a detention centre at the hands of Papua New Guinea police and our governments refusal to acknowledge responsibility would have some credibility.'

That is addressing all the issue not just a small piece of it. Haig bought up boat turn backs, ignored all the positive aspects. He also did not sheet home any responsibility to Rudd or Gillard for the spying nor for any deaths at sea.

It is not me who has my view blinkered to all the facts. I am insulted that I am expected to ignore those things too.

Tell me do you blokes still want people to die at sea. None of you praise our current government for preventing that from happening.

Keep quite until you can acknowledge that fact ... you'll never do either of those things.

Bruce's article operates on the same intellectual and reasoning level as this guy berating Tony Abbott:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/this_pack_hate_of_abbott_should_stop_before_worse_happens/

What a great guy Abbott is; and what an absolutely great job Morrison is doing.

These people in Manus are NOT refugees; they are troublemakers, primarily muslims, who will bring their strife to Australia. The only ones responsible for their problems are themselves.

Seriously, this article is obscene, a travesty; when Rudd and Gillard's policies led to the deaths of 100s of these pseudo refuges people like this author were silent. The hypocrisy and moral self-aggrandisement of the left do-gooders is sickening.

Bruce you are flogging a dead horse, with the extreme right wing contributors of OLO, the LNP cheer mob who accept and enjoy being used as a voice; for the most socially destructive government Australia has ever had.
The majority of Australian did not vote for the LNP, and those that did, what a regret you will have.

Feel free to leave anytime Kipp; people who can't support our democracy should have no place here.

Bruce Haigh Is a liability to this country & Kipp is proof of that.

Bruce has demonstrated in previous articles on OLO his difficulty with facts. He does not recognize them. He presents his fanciful compositions as fact because they support the unfortunate political viewpoint to which he subscribes.

Morrison is administering a policy which is proven to work. This fact is inconvenient to Bruce, so he does not recognize it.

Only if Morrison follows Bruce’s addle- brained advice, will he fail.

Write off this attempt, of yours, as yet another failure, Bruce.

'He is not a fit and proper person to be responsible for vulnerable lives. ' unbelievable self righteousness Bruce. And I suppose you would be.Had not Rudd/Gillard made such a mess more than likely there would be no one in detention.

"Morrison is administering a policy which is proven to work. This fact is inconvenient to Bruce, so he does not recognize it"

When Abbott is quizzed about what's going on at sea and in PNG he bleats, "the important thing here is the boats are stopping!"

He'd be at home in Nazi Germany "the important thing here is the Jews are leaving!"

The ends do not justify the means and all you usual apologists for this cowboy outfit of a government should acknowledge this.

cohenite's last post just shows how hopeless is this expectation. He and his ilk have been emboldened on OLO since the election, clearly baring their ugly fangs with not the faintest nuance of care or understanding of what Australia's response should be under the UN refugee convention. Why doesn't Abbott pull us out of it? Because he's a coward and doesn't want the international community to think even less of him.

Oh, and please stop telling Australian citizens to leave the country if they disagree with you. Failing to support secretive government actions in Australia should not force one to have to seek asylum elsewhere.

Continue enjoying your mutual back-slapping fest.

Luciferase,

supports drowning people at sea.

Luciferase, you are not only keen to back Bruce’s dishonesty, but have picked up on the fraud backers’ use of baseless invective in their comparison of people with a valid, fact based opinion, which naturally differs from theirs, with Nazis.

The attempt by you and your ilk to drag OLO down to your level is not appreciated.

Abbott was elected on a promise to stop the boats, and he has done so, in keeping with his commitment. The dishonest criticism by Bruce and his accomplices is deplorable.

its not difficult TO DEFINE FIT AND PROPER
do you have a HUMAN Response..or humane..BUT THOSE NOT Fit..and not proper[THEIR THE ONES SCREWING THINGS UP
http://rss.infowars.com/20140220_Thu_Alex.mp3

Luciferase; the UN Convention on Refugees was written in 1951. It is obsolete. The world has moved on. A new agreement taking into account the fact there are now over 20 million official refugees and their circumstances should be written.

The Manus Island rioters are not refugees. They fail every test under the old Convention. They fail because they have financial resources, they have deliberately obliterated their identity, they have moved from country to country freely and we now see their home country, Iran in this instance defending their rights.

Your indignation is bereft of reason or a sense of reality.

So what about the glossy pix on wall of NORFORCE HQ a few years ago, by the way, whilst the Ruddinator was at the helm?

Electronic whorehouse & others said "6 boats intercepted off Ashmore Reef..." that day...same PC3 Orion pass with pix uncropped showed 36 boats of foreign origins...SIEVS/fishing boats, and such in frame.

We have not been & are not getting the truth from any government whether under Howard/Rudd-Gizzard/Abbott.

The boats are still coming...we just don't have enough NORFORCE patrols on the ground or Customs/RAN at sea to monitor and report. Thus by way of paying Serco/G4S and foreign parties we have been exponentially losing that capacity to detect, monitor, and intercept and that is precisely why the Abbott government modus operandi is disinformation & by proxy - no information...divide and conquer ! Everyone on this weblog page has fallen to this ruse.

Be worried, very worried, all you bleeding hearts, as the least of our problems will be Islamisation, human rights abuses, etc...what is there not to understand ? Purely and plainly it will be foot and mouth and rabies coming ashore with the undetected landfall SIEV's.
But yes your lecturers and others at your chosen educational establishment, the great unwashed masses in the cities where the majority of votes will count next election will applaud you for your caring and humanist concerns...well done and pat yourselves on the back !... while a whole continent succumbs to the Hell Unleashed in the form of rabid wildlife and a decimated if not obliterated primary industry.

The forthcoming diaspora from the Syrian conflict is yet to happen...stay tuned.

Best bang for your taxpayer dollars would be drones over Indonesia and Timor/Indian/Arafura/Torres Strait with follow ups by M2 and a couple of belts of .50 cal.

Yes as I posted here on OLO a few years back...now I hear the loud footsteps of the old Chiefs & PO's Mess at HMAS Tarangau echoing the words from 40 years ago..." We (Australia) need to be careful & mindful of Indonesia...& so evidently it seems, not for purely military concerns either.

I would suggest to Bruce Haigh to stay out of things he obviously was failure in himself. How could anyone with his working background come out with nonsense like this. It clearly shows that our paying him is a gross waste of tax Dollars if not misappropriation.

Secrecy and a complete lack of any genuine empathy was all that was needed by a homophobic third Reich, to murder six million innocent Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals!
I'm not saying that is happening here or even implying it, but there is a disturbing lack of information, about a policy outcome, which most Australians seem in favor of!?
Surely, any information pertaining to the success of our current bold border protection policy and it's successful outcome, can only harm the would be people traffickers?
Even so, there remains a duty of care and common humanity, for those we incarcerate or detain, for any reason!
We are not Nazis, nor do we need to give criminal organisations, and or their servants, any reason, ability or opportunity or ammunition, to be able to imply or or impugn that that's who we are?
Rhrosty.

Cohenite, you are partially correct, although in your case that was probably inadvertent. The 1951 Convention was written to reflect the post world war 2 refugee situation. Although it had several good principles that were greater than the specific situation it was designed to address, circumstances do change. That is why a Protocol was written in 1967. Australia ratified that Protocol on 13 December 1973.

There is always a case to be made for re-evaluating a Convention in the light of changing circumstances. But at least one should start from the last point, in this case the 1967 Protocol, and not pretend that the 1951 /convention is the last word.

Hi Bruce,

You have now written 134 Articles relating to Immigration, Border Protection, Refugee Advocacy, Pacifism, International Diplomacy and a range of Social Topics.

All of which are nicely positioned and aligned with the progressive left of politics. For this I thank you.

I thank you because if it were not for progressives like you publicly declaring themselves to be so remote and disconnected from the majority of Australian values, we might still have Gillard/Rudd.

So to you and yours I say thanks and ask that you and your fellow travelers keep up the good work for a least the next 12 years whilst the adults get on with repairing the things people like you broke.

We need you as a reminder of what happens when ideology gets confused with critical thinking

spindoc, your flatulence remains boundless.
http://soundbible.com/680-Rigid-Fart.html

Well James, supercilious and ungracious as usual.

Now address the real point; how many of the opportunists rioting in Manus are genuine refugees?

the mis information and propaganda spread by the ABC at its luvvies is more dangerous than the lack of information.

Hi Luciferase,

Many thanks for sharing with us the location of your intellectual suppository.

You can take the Lucifer out of Luciferase, but you still end up with “ase”.

Many of these so called refugee's are little more than country shoppers. Many do come from war ravaged countries to escape. You would have thought that having reached a SAFE country such as Indonesia which is also a predominately Muslim country, they would be more than happy to settle in that country. Instead they decide to go on to Australia. Why ?.

Cohenite, To answer your question in as gracious and unsupercilious manner as I can muster. I do not know, and indeed no-one knows because their claims to refugee status have not been considered in a proper manner by the proper authorities.

What we have done is intercept these people and then ship them off to some malaria infested camp where they have been told that even if they are found to be refugees they will still not be allowed into Australia. That is in breach of numerous obligations Australia has.

We learn today that the lamentable Julie Bishop has asked the Cambodians to take some refugees. That would be laughable if it were not so tragic.

We also learn that our non-wimp (per Abbott as though it were a plus) minister Morrison has got it horribly wrong yet again. He is either poorly advised or a liar or both. It does hold a lesson for some of the above commenters however: stay quiet until all the facts are in.

James O'Neil it must really irk you that this is going so well for the Government.
See, here is the thing, these shysters are all after easy money from us. We pay, they play. Terrified but as soon as they have status they are straight back home for a visit.
This is the solution, pay an even worse third world country to take them as refugees. I am staggered that the EU have not followed suit.
I thought Kevin Rudd could not think and it was his solution! Well done Kevin, now you can go and fleece people with your charity nonsense.

JB "This is going so well for the government". What parallel universe are you occupying?

Nauru, Manus Island, Morrison a fool and a liar. A 15% swing against the LNP in the Queensland by-election. Bishop raising Cambodia as a possible venue for asylum seekers. Spying on the East Timorese at the instigation of Downer and then Downer takes a plum job with Woodside, the principal beneficiaries of the spying. Removing funding from alcohol and drug advice quango. Abbott et al shown to be complete idiots on science. Abbott dividing the world into "goodies" and "baddies" to the consternation and merriment of all.

That is just a sample, and they have only been in office 5 months. What further trashing of our society and our international reputation will they achieve in the next 2& 1/2 years.

No doubt you and your fellow fruitcakes will see it all as a glorious success.

James, I am not going to deal with the litany of other complaints you list against this government. I'll stick with the Manus island one.

The number of genuine refugees on Manus is zero because all of them had the financial where withal to get to Indonesia and then pay a another considerable sum to corrupt Indonesians to hitch a ride to Australia, while simultaneously disposing of their identification which they had when they entered Indonesia legally. They therefore fail any definition of refugee.

I don't know why that is so hard to understand, it is so plain.

Perhaps your litany of complaints against this government does come into play because obviously you are not a supporter and obviously you are a leftie who cannot distinguish plus and minus aspects if you are so emphatically opposed to a government. That is unreasonable!

All I say to you James O'Neil is suck it up princess.
Tony Abbott is running things very well thank you. You will just have to wait for the next election.
I think if you are spewing like this after 5 months what will you be like in another 31 months?

Yes, James, perhaps we should not be so pleased with the Abbott government when we consider the matters you raise.

I thought we were ten thousand times better off than when we had the Labor shambles, but if we deduct points for the negatives you have raised we might be only be 9.9 thousand times better off.

It is a great feeling to have a properly managed country again. After the 6 years of insanity we have endured, it is satisfying to see new management in place, and the clean-up of the Labor debacle started.

Cohenite, your second paragraph may be what you want to believe but it is either unknown or simply wrong. The definition of a refugee is in Article 1 of the Convention and part of our Migration Act. the people on Manus have not been processed so we don't know what their status is. What we do know is that 88% of people claiming refugee status in Australia in the past several years have been found to meet the relevant criteria.

My objections to their treatment is apparent from previous postings. I would not like to think that Australians actually condone what has happened on Manus in the past week, at least as much as we know what has happened, pending a proper inquiry.

JB & LL: You are obviously so wedded to the LNP that you are incapable of rational discussion. Whether a government is doing the right thing or not is a different concept to whether the ALP was good bad or indifferent. Because in your view the LNP is better (and you are entitled to argue that view) is irrelevant to the question of whether or not they are pursuing policies that are fair, rational, likely to work etc. You won't be marched off to a detention centre if you concede that the Abbott regime has got off to a less than brilliant start.

Where do you get your 88% from James? And could you specify the definitions in the respective Acts?

The Migration Act, from my reading, rather supports my point, especially in respect of the protection of third countries which is where these illegals were coming from; an issue you avoid.

Anyone, the illegals are not honest brokers; and I dare say once Morrison clears up who betrayed him in his department [in respect of giving him false advice, not that it matters since the illegals did riot and commit serious criminal offences; and it needs to clarified whether the dead Iranian, whose relatives in Iran have requested his body returned, so how could he have been a refugee?!] it will be clear that the rioters were typical troublemakers, country shoppers and malcontents.

The fact is Australia cannot take all 25 or so million genuine refugees in the world and every illegal who comes here or who causes Australia to waste money on them prevents a genuine refugee from arriving; another issue you avoid.

The left on this issue beginning with the psychopath Rudd's dismantling of a working system and ending with the current remnants of Gillard's corrupt government falsely claiming success in stopping the boats has been consistently putrid, offensively hypocritical and responsible for the deaths of many 100s of people.

Disgusting.

spindoc, so witty and cutting, do you write your own stuff? http://soundbible.com/2010-Laughter.html