BJelly,

With all due respect I asked you only one question. Can you come up with an alternative to the boat turn backs and off shore processing that won't lead to thousands of deaths as occurred under Labor?

Clearly you can't.

Siev X sank 70km off Java in international waters, and within Indonesia's search and rescue zone, and the disaster was the trigger for the coalition to try and stop the deaths by drowning. This lead to the pacific solution which was effective and stopped both the boats and people drowning.

The proof of this was that once Labor relaxed the PS, the boats started coming again and people started dying. This lesson was learnt even by labor who reinstated off shore processing at Nauru and Manus.

SM,

"I always wonder at the mind of the far left whinger, and its capacity to completely ignore or green wash out inconvenient facts even huge glaring ones such as the thousands of men women and children struggling and screaming helplessly before breathing in water and suffocating horribly."

So in light of your above comments, you appear to be saying that Australians as civilised people have correctly set up a system whereby we psychologically torture thousands of people in camps. Where we set up a processing centre which does almost no processing. Where we imprison children and adults in humid tropical locations, in ammentities that range from tents to run down buildings, which (from the many photos) are dirty and in a state of neglect. Where health outcomes are dubious, and medication is strictly rationed.

I mean, from the standpoint of Australians considering themselves advanced and upholders of civilised values - How did we get to the stage where to ostensibly save people from drowning, we give ourselves gold stars for terrorising the leftover flow in barbwire camps - as a deterrent to others.

I was raised to believe that Aussies had died fighting people who did these things to others.

Other cultures, more depraved, locked people up in putrid conditions, threatened refoulement, humiliated them and took away their hope and dignity - not us - not civilised Australia.

I have a huge problem knowing that Australia runs what amount to concentration camps on Manus an Nauru - almost no processing takes place. These places should be an abomination to any country that calls itself civilised...and what do we get instead? Cheers and plaudits from many Australians celebrating our depravity - and excusing our blatant sadism by squeaking "there's no-one drowning".

And believe me, I'm just as concerned about Australia's loss of humanity - as I am any other aspect of this.

THIS FROM LEGO'S POST ABOVE IS HIGHLY NOTABLE:

<<AN IRANIAN immigrant sentenced to eight years’ jail for raping a teenage girl The university-educated Mohebbifar, who came from a middle-class Iranian family, told a psychologist that Western women were “portrayed as whores” in Iran>>

Hmmmmm! now if Anglo-Ozzie had made that point the PC brigade would be up in arms.

Hi Shadow Minister,
I think a good start would be to investigate why so many people started to drown in recent times. Some people find it offensive to ask these difficult questions as it suggests we may have done wrong. I don't know if we have created a culture of letting things happen or not - that is where an investigation would be useful and also would provide practical suggestions to improve our procedures which could decrease the number of refugees drowning at sea. I know from reading the coroner's report about the Christmas Island tragedy our navy recognizes its role in monitoring vessels, but is less clear about its SOLAS (Safety of Life At Sea) obligations. That could be looked at.

The truth is people will flee persecution - they can only be stopped by force and cruelty as Operation Sovereign Borders has proved.

I love my country too. But I am not blind to the fact that everyone is capable of evil and wrongdoing. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

People who are being threatened by their state have a right to leave that state. It is weird but states who abuse their citizens often like to torture them but won't allow them to leave - sounds an awful lot like an abusive relationship doesn't it? We don't expect the abused to fight their abusers - we think it is best they be allowed to leave and find safety. The Refugee convention recognises this and provided a way for people to escape persecution. States that say they value concepts like human rights should follow through and put their ideals into action - to do otherwise is hypocrisy.

As I stated before, IMO the best way to solve the problem practically and humanely is to work with Indonesia and Malaysia and help our neighbouring countries by lessening their load, and by processing refugees in a more efficient, orderly and humane way. This to me is a win win - it increases co-operation and it lessens human misery. Anything else is putting our fingers in our ears and going "lalala"

BJelly,

Everything that goes wrong in the world is not the fault of the West. I am not condoning bad behavior by transnational corporations or the military adventures of Bush et al., but people have been driving out and killing each other since before there were modern humans. The basic problem is Malthusian trap societies - virtually everyone before the 20th century. The world's trouble spots today are mostly still in the Malthusian trap or have only recently left it. In such societies, people "multiply beyond their means of subsistence", as Charles Darwin put it, and often make their situation worse by overexploiting their environment and by other forms of mismanagement.

A graph of human well-being over time in such a society is a downward sloping curve, punctuated by occasional spikes where new crops or new technology have expanded the carrying capacity, or where some disaster has pruned back the population. The good times never last, however, because they just result in more and more mouths to eat up any surplus. This article by Prof. Paolo Malanima shows that an Italian labourer had to work half again as long for bare subsistence in the 19th century as in the 15th after the Black Death ("the Golden Age of the worker"), despite 400 years of technological progress.

http://www.paolomalanima.it/default_file/Articles/Wages_%20Productivity.pdf

Eventually (if there is no collapse), the curve levels out due to higher death rates, and because the market for labour has collapsed and the ratio of people to land has become so high that not even slave labour can add enough production to pay for itself. This changes children from nice little earners to expensive luxuries. People get serious about controlling their numbers, often in very brutal ways before modern contraception. If there is no strong central government to stop them, people try to drive off or kill their neighbours, often under the pretext of sectarian or ethnic differences, but other excuses can always be found if these ones won't do - social class, politics, etc. The immoveable property of all those Hazara refugees now belongs to someone else.

(cont'd)

Yes the SIEV X was in international waters, but it was in waters where Australia under Operation Reflex was conducting intense surveillance. It is still not clear how it was not detected and how it could take so long to find survivors. There were calls for an independent inquiry, but it never happened - why?

Senator Faulkner had grave concerns about what might have happened - as his license to kill speech shows. The last couple of minutes are chilling.
http://sievx.com/sound_clips/20020925Faulkner.mp3

I am curious about how and why incidents like the SIEV X happened. We live in an age of mobile phones, GPS etc - people who know more about these matters think it is strange too - it is a shame they aren't being given answers to simple questions.