Aidan
Refugees are systematically misrepresented to the public by the media. politicians and particularly by the churches.
According to the government statistics 94% of the people who arrived by boat in roughly the 2010-13 time frame were young men on the run from the law in their home countries.
Ask yourself why 99.9% of, for example Sri Lankans quite happily live under the laws of the land and have little contact with the authorities yet this tiny group of men arrive on our shores illegally with stories of torture and summary arrest and detention?
Australians go to Sri Lanka for holidays, expats shuttle back and forth as they like,it has a thriving economy for a third world country and has been stable for many years now.
Clearly "boat people" are on the run from just punishment or inquiry into their affairs at home so they should be treated as criminals and locked up until they can be returned to their home country to face whatever consequences arise from their past actions.
Australia goes to great lengths to extradite our own criminals when they're overseas on the run, these Sri Lankans, Afghans, Iranians and such should be extradited back to their own countries to face the authorities and receive their punishment.

The only thing asylum seekers are victims of this the international planners and controllers who want to even out the gap between 3rd world countries and 1st world countries by moving people from the 3rd world countries into the first world countries as is what is happening in Europe.

Why does the media give these people the title of asylum seekers anyway? Do Australians really believe that every single one of these people face an imminent and serious risk of torture and death if they set foot back in their own country?

IMO most of these people are demanding citizenship and not requesting asylum anyway. Asylum implies temporary refuge not a free passage to permanently live in a much better country.

Funny, that all they ever seem to have to prove is their identify not that that they are under any imminent risk of torture and death back home.

If anyone is stupid enough to think Labor learnt a lesson from losing the election after letting in over 50,000 refugees think again as this following story indicates.

If they arrive Labor will let them in.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/asylum-seekers-flown-back-to-sri-lanka-from-cocos-islands-20160506-gonsvx.html

Labor wants answers after asylum seekers flown back to Sri Lanka from Cocos Islands

Labor has called on the government to assure the Australian people it has not returned refugees to harm, after officials bundled a group of asylum seekers on to a chartered flight to Sri Lanka.

The asylum seekers, whose wooden boat made it to within 500 metres of the Cocos Islands on Monday, were flown to Colombo in a highly-secretive operation under the cover of darkness on Thursday night.

The government has refused to comment on the forced returns, with a spokeswoman saying only: "we do not comment on operational matters".

Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles said this was not good enough.

"The Government needs to provide an assurance it has not returned anyone to harm," Mr Marles said.

"Australia has international obligations that this Government simply can't ignore. It is not good enough to try and dismiss this as an operational matter."

To me this is evidence Labor will not stop them under the current leadership.

Do Australians really believe that every single one of these people face an imminent and serious risk of torture and death if they set foot back in their own country?

Of course not Referundemdrivensocienty, most of us realise that once they have their publicly funded homes all nicely furnished, they will be off back home to pick up a cousin or 3 to marry.

Well that's the ones who have not pulled some rort so they can draw Oz welfare while living back home.

'Why does the media give these people the title of asylum seekers anyway?'

think about it Referundemdrivensocienty

when you have courts who have let a man like Monis who had multiple sexual assault charges against him, threatening/sick letters to widows who had lost soldiers running free then you get into the minds of the lefties. They are masters at twisting definitions often so free speach can be silenced. On top of that in their own perverted minds they are the compassionate ones. Look at the rot Bruce writes. He knows his policies (if you can call them that) would lead to open slather again and I doubt he would be prepared to give any of his tax payer funded pension up to support such gross negligence. No wonder the abc luv to sprout his views.

Haigh and Pilger,
And fools like them are responsible for the terrorist guerilla,type war attacks we now have on Western and European home soil.

They still persist in blaming everyone else, who Actually had the intelligence to see the dangers inherent in multiculturalism. Even as western civilisation faces the biggest threat to its cohesion and security from within because of the foolish, hippy, communist love and peace idealism these idiots are brainwashed with.

I say to Pilger and Haigh you are clueless whilst still believing you are above others
In what you think you know. You do not see it for what it is ,idealism, not fact.