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.