The government is showing leadership it simply isn't doing what you would like. That isn't a lack of leadership is just a disagreement on strategy.

To bring up Turkey shows you're just not serious, care to recount how well Turkey is going with it's minorities?

In the end the long term solution begins and end in Myanmar.

I can't see how you can say that the Government's actions on this issue are not an example leadership. The country has taken a non-negotiable, no nonsense stand regarding these people.

We've shown other western countries (especially Europe) how to deal with people you don't want. Now that's Leadership!

I'm all for immigration (including refugees) but let's be wise about who we let in. People who are going to be an excessive burden of the tax system and who do not integrate easily into our society shouldn't be let in.

The problem with showing leadership on this issue is that it requires a tacit admission of the ginormous lie we have consistently accustomed the populace to since the Tampa political manipulations - the queue jumpers, economic refugees,etc.

It will take a new national leader, a clean skin or one who still believes in salvation through confession, to take on such a leadership role.

Until then the lie and the hypocrisy about stopping people from drowning at sea will continue until such time as international events smother our role as the last-standing white man in the Far East pontificating on human rights, compassion and generosity to what is in our bones the nowhere near as wealthy or civilised Asians.

That was what happened to the Chinese in Australia. Intensely vilified and persecuted in the C19th as the Yellow Peril, allowed to remain at Federation as tolerated aliens (who would fade away with the White Australia Policy), courtesy of the international dictates of the British Empire,until after WWII during which time they underwent a gradual rehabilitation as honest reliable workers - paving the way for the Colombo Plan in 1951 to bring in a few hundred thousands of Asian students over the following decades(dominated by those of Chinese descent in the White colonies in Asia) to train them (upon their return) as bulwarks against Mao's Red Menace, and in the last 30 years or so for the Chinese to become all right as we get used to the fruits of our immigration policy that focused on the high achieving Asian professionals and/or the monied.

Hopefully with the Rohingya refugees these "second rate Asian nations" might shame us into thinking about what it is to be decent human beings as distinct from the entrenched hairy chested political gladiators - all motivated by the calculus of winning the next Federal elections, at all cost.

Alice, before abusing hard working Australians for not solving the “refugee” problem, an anthropologist should place it in the context of: massive concentrations of wealth and global disparities; geo-political conflicts over strategic resources; endless local wars with displacement of people ( a record 38 million people have been internally displaced due to conflicts around the world, according to a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council-11 million people were newly displaced in 2014); a new report by the UN has revealed that more than 1 in 4 people go hungry in 20 countries around the world- the annual hunger report found that 795 million people globally suffer from malnutrition. Threatening the whole world has been the doubling of population since 1960, with numbers still increasing most in poorest countries. Over the same period, per-capita cropland has fallen by more than half ( just imagine the catastrophe if/when predictions of climate change are realised). But your diatribe is the work of a propagandist, not an anthropologist

Saying no to incompatible People, particularly when Muslim societies are much closer, is leadership!

These Ghettoized people (Trespassing/squatting undocumented Bangladeshi) were rejected by their former host communities for the same incompatibility reason!?

And because that is so, they should be our problem?

I mean it's not like we first offered sanctuary or a service, then withdrew it! We've been upfront from the get go!

Nor have we loaded the unwelcome into rickety old boats and tried to make them someone else economic problem, by just shoving them out to sea!

We have a very generous pro rata refugee intake! Let them line up for that!?

UNHR has agencies in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia!
Rhrosty.

All people who try to enter countries illegally are the "most unwanted people in the world". This current lot are not the only ones. And the "good news" is that Malaysia and Indonesia will soon be trying to push them off to Australia.

Tony Abbott is doing the right thing in this case by refusing to "show compassion" to yet another horde that thinks other people should solve its problems. Compassion is just another word for the weakness that has already seen far too many inappropriate people living in Australia at our expenses. Compassion is a word used to instil guilt into people. Compassion has been so overdone, overworked by the left wing spoilers that it no longer has any effect, even on rabbit-brained politicians.

And, no Alice, quoting ratbags like Clemintine Ford will have no more effect on Abbott's rightful decision than will your blatherings.

If you don't like our "callous, narrow-minded nation", hop on your bike.