The work is indeed woth it but there remains a long way to go; there have been motions put by The YOung Liberal to sanction, for example Pietro Giorgiou, and other liberal moderates for their stand on detention seekers.
The real work is to derail those zealots before further draconian policies are cooked up by these nutters. Already leading health care workers in close contact with asylum seekers have declared many of those detainees are beyond help. Their experience of detention has left them permanently scarred.
Moves by the Commonwealth to slowly leach out detainees is primarily to assuage their conscience, paint a veneer of compassion and minimise the inevitable compensation claims thes poor bastards are entitled to make.
The polcy in practice is a mere symptom of a very sick and twisted mind set deeply rooted within the souls of the conservative movement of the day - the task ahead is to exorcise those demons from our nation.

All the males left behind have to do is say that they are female, and they will be released.

Problem solved.

When are the immigration activists going to wake up to the fact that that the strongest supporters of Howard's policy on illegal immigrants are the Labor Party's heartland? When we live in a democracy the security fears that are fuelled by terrorists, many of whom are illegal immigrants (see the figures for the arrests related to the London bombings) will ensure that both political parties will follow the people's direction and maintain a hard policy on immigration. The current situation is completely different from world war 2 and the cold war, when the number of refugees we received who had any sympathy for the regime they had just left was so small it could be ignored. With so many immigrants these days being economic migrants, sympathy for Osama et al is widespread, and we will not tolerate these people in Australia. When you look at the outlook for the next 20 years, with the inevitable world-wide collapse of living standards due to the end of the age of oil and the mushrooming world population, we should thank our lucky stars that we have a sea boundary. How many years will it be before the navy uses boats carrying illegals for target practice?

Howard, one of the most important pieces of unfinished refugee humnn rights business is the failure by the federal government so far to establish proper accountability for the loss of 353 lives when SIEV X sank in Australia's border control surveillance and interception maritime zone, where our authorities had a manifest duty of care, at the height of Operation Relex, which was being supported by intelligence from a, mostly covert, onshore Australian AFP/DIMIA people smuggling disruption program in Indonesia. We cannot shrug off this huge deathtoll as old history or as nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with us.

Yet the official cover-up and lies continue. Andrew Metcalfe, who headed the Border Control and Compliance Division in DIMIA at the time SIEV X sank, has yet to address this issue as DIMIA Secretary. The AFP has given no account of what it knew about the fatal voyage of SIEV X, and when it knew it. Lists of those people who lived and died on SIEV X remain national security secrets. The Senate has passed three motions demanding a full powers independent judicial inquiry, which the government has ignored. This is a confronting issue but we must not sweep it under the carpet now. I look to refugee and human rights organisations to continue to remember SIEV X, honour its victims, and demand justice and accountability for them. This is an Australian tragedy.

How many of the 671 detainees across Australia are so-called asylum seekers, and how many are visa overstayers and criminals? The author admits that boat-arriving asylum seekers are now not the majority, but just how many people who were seeking asylum are still in detention? As the most recent bus loads of ratbags were heading to riot and destroy public property at Baxter(in support of these 'poor' detainees), Senator Vanstone advised that the people actually in Baxter were not asylum seekers but people who had, among other things, overstayed their visitors’ visas or had committed criminal offences. So, the dirty hair brigade were doing their “good” work for people who had broken immigration laws enforced by all countries and some criminals. How noble!

Despite the “tens of thousands” of self-haters who delight in making a fuss about everything Australia does, mandatory detention of anyone entering the country illegally: asylum seekers, visa over stayers and anyone else who has no right to be here, is here to stay.

PART 1
As Author in the INSPECTOR-RIKATI® books on CD I have a considerable understanding what is constitutional appropriate in certain issues.

See also my book published 30 September 2003,

INSPECTOR-RIKATI® on CITIZENSHIP
A book on CD about Australians unduly harmed.
ISBN 0-9580569-6-X

Unless and until people are going to recognise that “citizenship” has got nothing to do with nationality (regardless what the Commonwealth of Australia purports otherwise) and the only way people can be placed in Detention and/or deported is by DUE PROCESS OF LAW by State Court order only, we will continue to have the problems ongoing.

The Delegates of the Constitution Convention Debates made clear that the Commonwealth of Australia was entitled to discriminate against any race by legislating within Section 51(xxvi) against a specific race. However, they also made clear that once a person was in the Commonwealth of Australia, and not subjected to disabilities applicable to a special race, then their rights would be the same as any other “subject of the British Crown”.

Meaning, that any denial of Medicare benefits or other kind of denial for employment is unconstitutional!

Quotation Hansard 15-4-1897 Constitution Convention Debates;

Mr. GORDON: One is that everyone born in the Commonwealth
is qualified to become an elector.

As such this is yet another indirect referral that any child born in the Commonwealth of Australia is an Australian national, regardless of its parents being aliens’!

Hansard 2-3-1898 Constitution Convention Debates, Barton;

If we are going to give the Federal Parliament power to
legislate as it pleases with regard to Commonwealth
citizenship, not having defined it, we may be enabling the
Parliament to pass legislation that would really defeat all
the principles inserted elsewhere in the Constitution, and,
in fact, to play ducks and drakes with it. That is not what
is meant by the term "Trust the Federal Parliament."

Would it not be nice if those people, such as Howard Glenn, did bother to consider constitutional matters appropriately and perhaps their arguments may be to the benefit of all, to finally get governments to operate within the law.

PART 2

In Inglis v. Trustees of the Sailor's Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. (3 Peters) 99, 120-122 (1830), the question squarely arose as to whether Americans are "subjects of the crown," a proposition
flatly rejected by the Court:
"It is universally admitted both in English courts and in
those of our own country, that all persons born within the
colonies of North America, whilst subject to the crown of
Great Britain, were natural born British subjects, and it
must necessarily follow that that character was changed by
the separation of the colonies from the parent State, and the
acknowledgment of their independence.
"The rule as to the point of time at which the American
antenati ceased to be British subjects, differs in this
country and in England, as established by the courts of
justice in the respective countries. The English rule is to
take the date of the Treaty of Peace in 1783. Our rule is to
take the date of the Declaration of Independence."

While the US no longer relies upon the English provisions in that regard because of its Declaration of Independence, the Delegates to the Constitution Convention Debates to the contrary did not want to sever ties with the British Crown, and as such again it shows that any person born in the Australia is an Australian native, and cannot be deported as “Stateless” as the Federal government now does with refugee children born in detention centres.

What we need is a total rethink of what really “citizenship” is and how franchise applies.

Ironically, on the one hand a child born in the Commonwealth of Australia by the rulings of the (unconstitutional) Australian Citizenship Act 1948 would be an alien (stateless) while for
election purposes the child, once an adult still could have voting right, unless of course we deny the existence of the child all together, and claim the child was never born!

VIVIAN SOLON never would have been able to be detained, let alone deported if government did apply DUE PROCESS OF LAW, that requires a State Court order to detain/deport a person

There is one way to legally arrive in Australia. Anyone who circumvents that must be an illegal arrival and should be detained. If they don't respect our country, our laws and our people why should we respect them.

Congratulations for changing the attitudes to asylum seekers and detention inmates. Still a way to go but at least the more human consequences of being locked up and displaced is returning to the general consciousness. The political value of creating fear of these people has waned as have wars which made the people asylum seekers.
There is still a need to correct actions of the past. One is the reason for invading Iraq, whose leader as late as 1990 was a favored character in the game of international politics.
The origin lies in colonial history but the trigger point for this episode was the spin of 2002. The memorandum from the British Cabinet July 2002. the Rycroft Memo., reveals the presentation tobe made in touting for war. The origin of course is more complex lying in part in the perceived American Century. However the point is that the UK and USA are shown to collude on war. Plans for the intelligence, later used as Australia's, excuse of misinformation, suited the need for war not the actuality. Since many contacts were made during 2002,the SAS was already prepared for desert war, and Australia was committed under the ANZAS treaty to help, it seems unlikely that Australia was not told at least by July 2002.
Yet we added our minor contribution, disregarding the UN and accepting the deaths that followed. These were largely of another race and terrorists to boot and thus of little human value, at least so seemed to be implied.
This imperial attitude the UN and the passage of time were meant to correct, for ruses for war were common historically.
We under the present parliament and electoral knowledge chose, as we did for contravening our obligations to UHNCR and the UN, to ignore such obligations.
This needs correcting, as does the spin for terrorists who main complaint seems to be the presence of others on their homeland. So says Prof. Robert Pape after analyzing the data on suicide terrorists 1980 to 2005.

I still dont get it. All this fuss about who comes here.

But as true blue Aussie I have my rat cunning to deter as many as I can.

Pass the web address to a few friends overseas and recommended they show it to any one contemplating coming here - a cursory read of some of the jingoistic, rascist and paranoid clap trap that appears in these pages will deter most would be immigrants - legal or otherwise.

Back in the fifties and the sixties we were panicked by the "reds under the bed" scare campaign now some are being duped by the "bombers in the boats". Even if the majority of people agree with detention in its current form it remains an abhorent practice endorsed by moral cowards. It represents the worst excesses of the tyranny of democracy. Most people used to think slavery was cool too.

Some one has got to tell me what are the "values" we all hold near and dear - fariness, honesty, compassion, trust and a respect for the rule of law, the right to protest - come to mind but some how I still feel terribly out of step. How about "do unto others" or something like that. I think some one said that once - a long haired dude, beard, wore a kaftan most of the time and hung around with a bunch of guys who looked much the same. They eventually went to other nations (probably illegally) and repeated what he said and started a bit of movement

Detention is supposed to be a nuetral experience - a bit like a time warp while people are processed and have their bone fides assessed but the Australian experience has it as a prima facie punishment and has been shown to do direct harm to people - most of whom are genuine and in the long run do adopt our values by and large.

That's the way, Sneekeepete. Call anyone who disagrees with you names like "racist". We've been called names by people who lack a proper arguments for so long it doesn't have any effect. Sorry I forgot to sustitute playschool for kindergarten. I'm feel sure that you would have had another go at me if I didn't satisfy you curiosity completely.

QUOTE 15-9-2005
JOHN HOWARD: … my responsibility and my authority extends to the appointment of ministers. I believe that the Minister for Health and Ageing has been an outstanding minister and I have no intention of terminating his commission.
END QUOTE

For so far I am aware of the Constitution provides that the Governor-General appoints and decommission Ministers, not John Howard!
Seems to me Howard is too busy in being a dictator then what is proper in Australia.

Again;
“my responsibility and my authority extends to the appointment of ministers.”

The written Constitution does not even mention a Prime Minister, so where is his claimed powers then? He goes about acting as a Governor-General, but that neither is correct.
The Delegates of the Constitution Convention Debates did intent to have a Prime Minister, but one that was like any other Minister of the Crown answerable to the Governor-General and appointed and having his commission revoked, if applicable by the Governor-General!

As long as we allow this dictator Coward to carry on like this, then we will continue to cause innocent people to suffer. Being it refugees, or others.

One of the posters argue that if they are illegal then they have no rights or cannot provided with any. Well, how do you establish in the first place if a person is illegal? We have a clear example with Vivian Solon that more likely because of her Asian looks she was deported, no matter her ill health!

No matter which side of the political fence you are on, any fair-minded person must have extreme concerns that arbitrary detention/deportation of Australian nationals can occur, with a gross denial of rights merely because someone happens to assume one is “illegal”, even so you may not be so!

As such, Sage may want to have “illegal” denied of their rights, even those who are wrongly assumed to be “illegal” as he does not seem to accept that DUE PROCESS OF LAW is required, not a judge and jury hangman bureaucrat in the Immigration Department!

RESPECT OTHERS THEIR RIGHTS, SO THEY WILL RESPECT OURS

Mr Gerrit H Schorel-Hlavka, the power to accept or exclude people is found in our Constitution. Our parliament may even declare the arrival of any person not authorised as illegal. As for detention, our high court has ruled that the parliament has the power to detain people.

The section of our Constitution giving our parliament powers to deal with illegal arrivals can be found here:

51.The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to: -
(xix.) Naturalisation and aliens:
(xxvi.) The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws:
(xxvii.) Immigration and emigration:

Sage, welcome to the constitution, but it is not that simple!

The Framers of the Constitution made clear that albeit the Commonwealth could refuse entry, once a person had entered the Commonwealth then it was for the State Courts to enforce Commonwealth law, or to nullify it.

“Naturalization and aliens” does not include declaring/defining the nationality of native born Australians! As such, children born within Australia are by birth native Australians.

As to laws to any race, the Framers made clear that any law regarding a specific race must be in regard of all people of that race. As such, the Commonwealth cannot, so to say, deny entry to some people because of their race while letting others who have, so to say, money to burn!
As the Framers made clear, Commonwealth law must be against all people in an equal manner.

As for the High Court of Australia ruling in regard of INDEFINITE DETENTION and other forms of detention, this it far to complicated to set out in this posting, but as like the Sue v Hill, Sykes v Cleary, Pochi case and other many cases, the High Court of Australia failed to appropriately consider what the Delegates stated during the Constitution Convention Debates, by taking part out of context!
I have set this out extensively in my various published books already.

Keep in mind that INDEFINITE DETENTION in a WA case in regard of a person who had committed armed robbery and had already served his sentence was held to be unlawful. Yet, somehow the High court of Australia subsequently argues that people who have done no wrong, and are acting within the rights of treaties the commonwealth of Australia entered into then can be detained INDEFINITELY.

DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY.

Citizenship is a state legislative power, nothing to do with nationality, even so the Commonwealth portray “citizenship” to be “nationality.
See also my 30 September 2003 book;

INSPECTOR-RIKATI® on CITIZENSHIP
A book on CD about Australians unduly harmed.
ISBN 0-9580569-6-X

www.schorel-hlavka.co

Mr Gerrit H Schorel-Hlavka, in Chu Keng Lim and Others v Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs, the High Court ruled on the detention of 'boat people'. It found that the government did have the power to detain aliens. It found that '...Parliament can make laws imposing burdens, obligations and disqualifications on aliens which could not be imposed on members of the community who are not aliens'.

I would hope that our Constitution was created with the intention of serving the needs of Australians and not aliens. Knowing the bizarre decisions of judges around the world, if someone waiting for execution in Peru could seize upon the fact that our Constitution grants him an acknowledgement, I could see that matter ending up in front of our High Court with the court ruling that as an Australian he must be brought to Australia. The capricious approach to our laws by the 'legal club' only leaves the public frustrated by the reconditeness of its decisions.

To highlight what I am saying, very recently a court ruled that an Aborigine was liable to be speared by his tribe for breaking tribal law. An act of violence I would think. Yet two homosexual Sri Lankans who fear violence in their village if Australia deports them took their case to court and won the right to enjoy our protection. How absurd! The court delivers one person to certain punishment yet another court abhors violence.

Well there are many like Howard Glenn who are very selective about which human misery on this planet they want to observe and be outraged by.There are just too many people on this planet Howard and millions are starving in Africa,and living in poverty all around the planet.They are more deserving than many of the refugees who arrive here illegally.There is however one important discernable difference,their suffering[The world's poor] is not in the lime light of our media so political capital can be made by interest groups wanting to advance their own agenda.

For every Australian there are at least 100 on our planet in serious need.How deep are our pockets?We make up less than 0.3% of the worlds pop and the task of righting the wrongs is just too great.

Yes we can afford to more compassionate now,but we also need a deterent to illegal immigration or become like the countries from which they are escaping.How are we responsible for the excesses of other countries in terms of pop growth and economic decline?

Sage,

The High Court of Australia is on record that the Constitution didn’t change but the application has. Now, this to me is utter nonsense.
We had the high Court of Australia claiming to be the 3rd branch of the government, another idiotism.
They are part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but are not part of the government, the federal executive.

I am all for protecting our borders, as any nation has a right to, but we must do so in the appropriate manner.

The Delegates (Framers) at the Constitution Convention Debates made it very clear that the Commonwealth of Australia could prevent anyone entering the country. However, once a person had entered then only by State law could any person be dealt with.

The High Court of Australia spin-doctor judges are simply twisting the truth and the true facts, and more acting as a bias court wanting to be part of government, then the independent tribunal it is to be.

If we want to prevent any “alien” to enter the country in the first place then we should not have the refugee treaty to allow them to enter to seek refugee status. What we have is that the commonwealth of Australia agreed to accept people to enter the Commonwealth of Australia to seek refugee status, but then are unconstitutionally locking them up, as if they committed some horrendous crime.
That is like you being allowed to enter a church or other religious building for a service and then being imprisoned and for trespassing, even so you attended because of the service and did nothing else but conducted yourself to attend the service in a peaceful manner.

As long as we have the refugee treaty we are bound to respect the rights of refugees, and I for one do not accept for a moment that some pen pusher can authorize detention/deportation as the Framers made clear that once a person has entered the Commonwealth of Australia then DUE PROCESS OF LAW by State Court litigation is applicable.

Vivian Solon case is a clear example how wrong it is!

it has been awhile since Ive visited this thread: It has been suggested I have just call people names and lack arguement - I dont know that I said anyone in particular was a rascist just that there are lot of rascist sentiments expressed in these pages.

And for some one to say I lack an arguement - Well! I never! Both my gob is smacked and my flabber is indeed gasted; if things get much worse my crest will be fallen as well.

I will re iterate: detention as implemented in the Australian experience is essentially evil. And it is perpertrated by evil people. It does harm and has been repeatedly demonstrated to do so. There is plenty of objective evidence to support that. Mandatory Detention is another example of the selfish mean spiritedness that has washed over this nation like flood of sewerage. Detention in countries with very porous borders and a more severe problem with asylum seeker/illegals or what ever you want to call them is less punitive and usally a short term solution. The basis of our detention is rooted in rascism and an irrational fear of that which is different and an over valued sense of national importance. If we were so concerned with who comes here we would go the tens of thousands of over stayers who fly in thorugh the front door from the more "civilised" parts of the world. Subtle changes in policy and a winding back of some of the draconian conditions palced on the innocent is testimony to a growing sense of guilt in the government over what they have done. It is a cynical exercise of trying to hose down a volatile social and electoral situation.

This has been sneekeepete.

Sneekeepete,instead of labelling all those who disagree with you as convienently racist,produce a factual and logical argument to support your assertions.

You see I believe that all races have good and bad genes and educated,productive individuals that can contribute to our society.We have in the past not been very selective about the quality of immigrant in terms of education and attitude.We have in Sydney ethnic crime gangs that are tearing our social fabric assunder.Both our Govts and the left are in denial.

Would you care to enter in constructive debate rather than making generalisations of us all being racists.It is a lot more complex than your simplistic musings.

Sneekeepete, When Arjay tells you racists don't exist anywhere you better believe it. He's an expert on where racism does or does not exist. Just ask him!

Since I've been reading his posts I've completely reviewed my beliefs about the Holocaust, South Africa, slave trading - you name it. I'm surprised the media haven’t approached him to write for them - & I wish he'd publish so all the world would be exposed to his deep intellectual insights into our human condition. Wouldn't that be fabulous!!?
He has no need to understand the scholarship that has generated thousands of books and articles written about and condemning racism.

"What use is that"? asks Arjay. (jeez, isn't that just so deep?)

Words and phrases like ethnocentrism, xenophobia, are all just part of a conspiracy theory to take over this country from good white folk and especially those suburbs around where Arjay lives. We are truly honored to be on the same internet forum with him. Amen, hallelujah!

Not one of my statements have you successfully rebuted Rainer. Your only defence is all Anglos are racist and xenophobic.The left and you just don't like hearing a few home truths and the best you can do is scream "racist"? Not good enough Rainer.

I agree that there are dangers in large numbers of refugees overwhelming the country but these refugees are not just overwhelming Australia (if you call it that), they are overwhelming the rest of the world. What else are we gonna do with them?

I also agree that the detention experience has been horrific and disturbing, and the last thing we need to do is create even more mentally disturbed people on our planet than there already are!

Give the refugees a bit of support. They have shown immense iniative, self-enterprise and drive to get to this far flung shore and isn't that what the Liberal goverment value system is all about?

Don not confuse refugees with terrorism!
Do not confuse refugees with recism!

Terrorism is best defeated by defeating the cause of terrorism!

Meaning, that those who support the death penalty, and so a disregard of the sanctity of life, can encounter others to act likewise.

That those who ignore the RULE OF LAW may encounter others to do likewise.

Time and again, I found that people contemplating suicide/murder, mass destruction, etc, were not concerned about the loss of life of others, rather saw it as an aid to get the message across as without loss of life of anyone likely it would be seen as a non event.
Therefore, when we look upon terrorism and implement unconstitutional legislation allegedly combating terrorism we as a society are in fact then giving credence to others to become terrorist.
We call them terrorist, but they themselves may call it being a freedom fighter.

When a person give me the understanding that the aim is to maximize the killing of innocent people as to ensure that then there will be an outrage by the community and perhaps then finally something will be done, is this then not underlining that people going through such extreme deplorable conduct could simply avoid doing so by governments being more alert to the need of the people rather then just trying to play politics at the expense of the people?

When a person needs to kill people as a way to try to attract the attention of the general public upon a certain issue, does this then not prove what a sick society we are, where ordinary communication no longer seem to have an impact. Then again, consider all my correspondence over the last 5 years or so, and consider the response on them then it is appalling, and I for one, albeit opposing any form of violence can UNDERSTAND others to seek the ultimate weapon to destroy the life’s of others, even if they are innocent.

One of the most simplest weapons to counter terrorism/violence is simply to learn to listen and consider

Arjay: I have made reference to rascist comments that appear in these posts; if any one or group choose to identitfy themselves with those references thats fine by me. I certainly have not called any one rascist.

And once I have met the requiremetns of the editor I am free like any one elase to make assertions and opine opinions. This is not political science or philosphy 101; I am not required to submit a bibliography or footnote my posts. Some times I support my claims and sometimes I do not.
Much of what I have related is out there in the public domain - common knowledge - I'm not going to waste time dredging up all the evidence all the time.

The harm bit re the detainees requires little support. There is enough popular press stuff almost daily to underline that. And the head of the medical team from SA investigating the mental health of detainees has gone on the record and said many of them are beyond help now. I would suggest to over see or manage such a scheme could be described as evil