"We may be appalled by Donald Trump's proposed border wall....".

We should be appalled that anyone would be appalled by an attempt to prevent illegal entry, but this silly woman clearly thinks it is wrong for a country to protect its borders. She is appalling.

Border protection has nothing to do with asylum-seeking, or the legitimate arrangements a country has to deal with asylum seekers. Nor has it anything to do with 'international obligations', which apply only to Western countries, it seems, that allow themselves to be bullied by the United Nations. Enough of crackpots like this!

Risible rubbish written by an apologist for the criminal people trafficking organisations?

What a wonderful world this would be if every other nation just respected other nation's borders, sovereign rights, except where UN concurrences has declared them a rogue nation that risks the peace of almost any and all other nations!

And how nice it would be if Mr Putin just ordered his Russian "advisers" to stand down in the Ukraine and Syria etc. If only North korea weren't hell bent on building a bomb or backing the simpleminded notion that they could threaten anyone or weaken international resolve by actually sending it over to mainland America or here as IBM delivered Nuclear weapon!

Before hitler and after the war to end all wars, who'd have thought a madman would have been mad enough to attack Poland and start WW11?

And who would have thought the world would have stood idly by and watch the genocide of Rwanda, Pol Pot and Idi Amin.

And who but rank nutters, peace freaks and fifth columnists would not be seriously disturbed by the quite massive military build up taking place in Mainland China or over the annexation by them of disputed territory.

You clearly have no understanding of the issues in play, or the Asian mindset and just how vulnerable we really are if China ever decides she wants more than we are willing to sell?

Almost every boy and his dog were shocked speechless when an major Asian military force bombed the piss and pick handles out of Pearl Harbor and again when it was sent as an instant replay into Darwin Harbor!

There's nothing wrong with building dream castles in the air, always providing you don't move in as a permanent resident?

Our peace was purchased at enormous price by folk you clearly disrespect to hell and back, and is only guaranteed by eternal vigilance and folk, who unlike you, are prepared to put everything on the line!?
Alan B.

Again Kellie personifies the Green-Left cause supporting queue jumpers who can afford to pay people smugglers $10,000 a seat. Kellie cares not for the real refugees in Africa who are starving with no money.

Any of the Trotskyite uni students who do the actual writing of "Kellie's" articles knows that Australia will have no operational "P-8A Poseiden aircraft and medium altitude unmanned aerial systems [presumabley Tritons]" until the early 2020s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon#Australia

It is the Coalition Government and even the ALP Opposition who support successful Operation Sovereign Borders, leaving Kellie duped by people smuggling organised crime.

It's perfectly extraordinary that anyone should hold that border security oughtn't be anything to do with the military. What the hell do these people suppose "having a country" is actually all about? And who the hell do they imagine is primarily responsible for ensuring that Australian territory is actually held by the Commonwealth of Australia? Holding territory means that you get to decide who does and does not enter it.

It's really, really basic.

If the military are not supposed to defend our borders, what are they supposed to do?

Australia also has the right to monitor, regulate and stop young male Muslims - with a high risk security profile - from entering Australia by boat or plane and if/when they are let through.

I wonder what position Kellie or our elected "representative" Sarah Hanson-Young would take (or explain away) after a siege or mass shooting?

"The poor killers were misunderstood victims of oppressive Western society" maybe?

There appears to be, a significant proportion of any population who can only think in terms of absolutes. Such people comprise the "activists" for every cause imaginable, and they all have the same mindset. That is, they take what may be considered a reasonably good idea, and then demand that nothing less than total extreme commitment to that idea is acceptable.

Religious nutters of every religion and denomination think exactly this way. No amount of easily understood science and common sense can deflect them from the absolute belief that the entire universe was created in six days, and that fossils are just creatures which did not make it into the Ark.

Vegans take the really excelent ideal of "kindness to animals" to it's most absolute extreme, and refuse to eat even milk or honey because they claim it is "stealing from animals." Some people obsessed with their health and fitness have been known to exercise themselves to death.

Kellie appears to have the same mindset. The perfectly reasonable idea that Australia should take refugees in Kellie's mind become a moral absolute. Kellie seems to think that anybody who calls themselves a "refugee" has the absolute right of entry into her country. Nowhere in Kellie's article did she even mention to what extent Australia should do this, so I can only assume that Kellie would not care if a million people turned up on our doorstep every year. That this would have a catastrophic effect on her own country and people does not worry Kellie one whit. All she can see or understand is the moral absolute.

As a student of history, I have always been amazed at how influential people who think like Kellie have been when it comes to creating catastrophic situations. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and Hirohito, all thought in absolutes like Kellie. Some of the most disastrous military defeats in history were all the result of generals who thought entirely in military absolutes. Goering once said of Hitler," His answer to everything was war, and his answer to war was to always attack."

Every country has the right to defend its borders. Every country has the right to say who can, or who cannot, enter its borders and more importantly, who may remain and live within its borders. However, when an allegedly humanitarian country, such as Australia, has signed an international agreement with the United Nations to accept people seeking asylum and seeking refuge, there is an equal obligation to comply, or withdraw from that agreement.

And complying with this agreement does not mean foisting people off onto third world countries and placing them under house arrest off-shore, in detention centres, in appalling conditions - and expecting them to be pathetically grateful.

The trouble is that now successive governments have painted themselves into corners and have nowhere to go. They feel they cannot let these "illegal asylum seekers" into Australia because this will enthuse the people smugglers to commence operations, but in doing so, they are dooming hundreds of people to a life of misery, at vast cost to the Australian electorate.

I would far rather Australia be completely honest and withdraw from its agreement with the United Nations; and openly state that it will no longer accept any refugees, rather than to continue to try to pretend to be one of the good guys. We are not. The entire world knows that are the nasty guy. We need to stop kidding ourselves.

I wish that I had the answer to the refugee problem, but like everyone else, I do not. After all there are over 61 million of them at last count. But I do know that every time that I see the Australian Parliament open with The Lord's Prayer, I despise its hypocrisy. And I despise the hypocrisy of every so-called Christian who supports such an unjust system. Whatever happened to Christ's Command to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself?

I guess that some people will find out when they rock up to the Pearly Gates and are told, sorry, no entry, our border is protected and you will just have to find refuge for eternity elsewhere.