Suse, its seems you just don't get it.

If people are trying to access Australia via an illegal people smuggler departing Indonesian shores, they are not fleeing for the lives. Returning these people back to Indonesia is not "... turn(ing) back out to sea, to either die at sea, or be persecuted or killed back at their homelands?"

No matter how bad you believe the policy is, our Navy personnel are not so cold hearted they would purposely jeopardise the lives of the boat people they are turning back. And if in the process of returning boats to Indonesia or simply turning them around, any boat sank and/or women and children died, someone within our Navy (a witness) would leek the story to the press. Members of the Navy are also everyday citizens of Australia, some will support the Coalition and some Labor or even the Greens. They serve the country, but they are still human and capable of seeing right from wrong, and knowing if a crime or atrocity has been committed. There would be at least one person on every vessel that would spill the beans if there was a tragic story the Government was trying to hide.

Please give more credit to the men and women of our Navy rather than bashing them via false and totally unsubstantiated accusations. Poirot, if you read this, it goes for you also.

Dear Suse,

<<If we don't, are we any better than the terrorist governments etc that they are fleeing from?>>

First, who are those "we"? Am I included? Do you suggest that I am no better than terrorist governments? Are you too?

Now you write: "If we don't": if we don't do what? From the context it seems that you meant "If we don't process them", but assuming so, am I obliged to process anyone and why? Are you suggesting that I or you or anybody else becomes a monster comparable with terrorist governments simply for their passive non-action, just getting on with their life?

Another point, you wrote: "No one is suggesting we have an open door policy for all and sundry to immigrate here":

Indeed I did not suggest that all and sundry should be able to immigrate, because I differentiate between migration and immigration, the former being natural, the latter artificial: almost all and sundry should not be prevented from migrating to the continent of Australia (apart from those who pose health/character/terrorist risks) - but that does not entitle anyone to immigrate and become a recognised member of Australian society. When someone migrates without immigrating, they should still be treated at least as well as animals who do the same - why treat humans worse than animals?

Runner, as usual, has nothing much to say other than an unrelated retort.

Hippie, I doubt many people would attempt a boat crossing where it has been well publicized by our Govt that many people (thousands?) have drowned before, if they weren't pretty desperate?

Our navy personnel do as they are told by this Govt. I doubt they escort the turned back vessels all the way back to land, do you?
So how would they know if the boats don't sink with all on board?
How would anyone alert any authorities if the boat sinks with all on board?

In fact how could either of us, or anyone else, know any of the things we have suggested are true or not, given that this Govt are playing secret squirrels business with the electorate?

Yuyutsu, you really aren't making any sense, or you are just trying to be annoying by pretending you don't know what I was trying to say.....

Suse, get real. If a boat sank with all lives lost, there would be relatives raising the question, 'what has happened to my family who boarded that boat?' The smuggler captain and crew of the boat would have family even if none of the passengers did, so an alert of a missing boat would eventually be raised. No such question has been raised to date, so no boats are missing.

And before you try to say, the secrecy of this government has prevented the possibility of missing boats making it into our media; nothing is stopping the Indonesians from alerting our media or even CNN, if something like what you are Poirot suspect has already happened. If the Indonesian government believed the Australian government or navy was complacent in the sinking/drowning of boat people, you can bet your bottom dollar it would be all over the news.

Don't cling to theories you are making up on the trot after they are debunked; it's a fruitless waste of time.

I do agree with your comments to Yuyutsu.

Rhian
"not everyone who advocates a different approach to asylum seekers is grandstanding or making vacuous claims on other people’s tax dollars"

But you are. You're still claiming
a) that your scenario is morally superior and
b) that everyone who doesn't agree with you should still be forced to pay the same amount regardless. The cost for them would be exactly the same.

So it’s a completely fake, facile, flippant proposal.

"if you want people to own the negative consequences of the things they advocate, you should also allow them to share the benefits"

You have completely failed to distinguish between their own property, and other people's taken under compulsion. All you've done is say you're willing to pay, on condition a) you don't have to pay, and b) the same amount is still taken from those who object, and this time paid to you!

As to the pragmatics, you also haven’t taken into account that offshore detention has stopped the boats, and so the cost is probably less, not probably greater. This fact invalidates your entire line of reasoning.

You haven’t addressed any of the issues at all. All you’ve done is demonstrate that you feel entitled to a big government handout *as well as* forcing people who don’t agree with you into paying for your pretended values.

"though I think Yuyistu comes close with the open borders + no government support model"

You have demonstrated no problem with a voluntary solution whatsoever. All you’ve demonstrated is that you are a hypocrite, just as fake as Justine, Foxy, and Burnside, and feel even more self-entitled based on nothing.

In these circumstances you have no valid reason why you should not either sign and post into this thread the Deed in its original form; or why asylum-seekers should not be locked up on Manus Island, since it is only your own callous hard-hearted selfishness (to quote Justine) that is preventing them being free in Australia and living at the standards you proclaim they should be living at.

Fake

Hi Suse,

Yes, you may be right, in the absence of any evidence one way or the other: boats may be being paid to go back, but it's all a trick: they are deliberately sunk, and thousands may be dying - but why stop there ?

How do we know that Abbott isn't seizing many of those thousands, bringing them to Western Australia to a secret torture centre, buried underground to avoid detection, where ghastly experiments are being performed on them ? And their body parts are being sold even today through the Chinese market ? And the rest of their remains are being made into dog food ?

OR the boat crews are paid to take their human cargoes back to Indonesia, where they pass the word on that it's all futile, don't waste your money, so people pack up and go back to their first point of exit from their home countries ?

Anything is possible when you don't need evidence :)

Cheers,

Joe