Hi Jardine K Jardine, if we processed refugees quickly they could be in the community, getting jobs and not costing us billions to keep them detained in foreign countries with our tax dollars. This is what we used to do. We had a huge influx of Vietnamese boatpeople in the 1970s and we weren't as rich a country then, but we treated these people with humanity and compassion.

The Abbott government uses tax dollars in ways that I think are extremely anti-social, like choosing to give $8 billion to the Reserve bank that it didn't need or ask for. It wants to give carbon emitters $2.5 billion without any accountability, rather than getting revenue from emitters via the carbon tax. $12 billion for controversial new joint strike fighters. We have funds for war, coal miners and banks, but we don't have money for health and education - hmm.

It costs $1 billion to keep refugees in detention - nearly $4000 a day! Now that is expensive!

We are spending huge amounts of money in ways that hurt people. We could do things much better and more humanely. We are a rich country. We should be able to do better for our own disadvantaged and for refugees. We can do this - we just have to ask more from our politicians.

Just to clarify that was $1 billion per year on off-shore detention - we are spending nearly $4000 per person per day.

@Jelly,

<<SPQR - how can PNG be called a safehaven for refugees? PNG is a poor nation with its own social problems>>

What a piece of gobbledygook Jelly!

If you applied this part of that equation <<A poor nation cannot accommodate refugees>>
The only countries in the world that could take refugees would be the affluent western countries

And, if you applied this part <<nations with social problems cannot accommodate refugees>> No country --including the affluent western countries-- would qualify.

Take your head out of the open borders advocates handbook of excuses and try and channel reality.

Bjelly,

Off shore detention is not a solution that anyone likes, but it is completely clear that asylum seekers getting on illegal boats is a guaranteed recipe for deaths at sea, and that almost any alternative is better.

While we might debate methods to deter people getting on boats, the only proven method of preventing people getting on boats is to provide deterrents ie, turning boats around and off shore processing.

At the height of the crisis nearly 1000 people were arriving a week, your proposed solution of providing safe transport will only work if the numbers reach hundreds of thousands p.a. which will overwhelm Australia's resources.

So unless and until there is a workable alternative to the present solution the status quo must be maintained.

Hi SPQR, These refugees came to us asking for asylum as is their right. We have a duty of care for them - they are human just like us.

If we as a country want to become people traffickers we should at least choose somewhere they will be able to live in safety with their families. This is not the case in PNG or Nauru where refugees have been physically attacked. Reza Berati died after being beaten and having his head crushed in one of our detention centres. 77 more were injured or badly wounded.

If they can be attacked and killed in one of our centres how are these people supposed to feel safe outside the centre? They left their own countries and families to find safety, we are treating these people as bad if not worse than the governments they fled from.

Hi Shadow Minister,
Isn't it strange how there have so many deaths at sea since 2001? I mentioned one strange case from 2012 where over 100 people died. In this case we know Australian agencies heard their cries for help and ignored them.

There was also the SEIV X case where 353 people drowned in contentious circumstances. PM Howard at the time falsely stated that the boat sank in Indonesian waters. One former diplomat suggested the vessel may have been sabotaged in order to send a message to boat people. Senator Faulkner was curious to find out exactly how far the Indonesian police trained by the AFP went to discourage people smugglers, but he was not given any answers.
http://sievx.com/archives/2002_10-11/20021022.shtml

Maybe we don't need to giving billions of of taxpayer dollars to corporations to detain people at the cost of $4000 a day but where detainees have limited access to clean water never mind other necessities of life. Maybe if we had answered distress calls we could have avoided many of these deaths.

Jelly,

Is there some factory that clones all your advocates …churning-out hundreds of durecell-like bunnies all mindlessly beating the same drum?

1) << These refugees…>>
They are not <<refugees>> till they are determined to be such. I love the way you guys have coerced & corrupted the discourse . So now we have European media calling illegals who boat in <<migrants>> . They are illegal immigrants

2) << they are human just like us…>>
No they are more likely humans just like Mr Monis

3) << If we as a country want to become people traffickers…>>
Please don’t feign contempt for the smugglers. You by your advocacy subsidize them.

4) << If they can be attacked and killed in one of our centres…>>
Again, you are twisting the truth. We have seen how these <<humans just like us>> behave whilst in Oz centres trashing facilities and attacking staff. Please don’t try and sell us on the line they are sweet little innocents.