Robert, Miranda and Davo, you all gave different yet important sides to the issue.
Miranda, to your headline comment

"Political refugees have fled from traumatic situations and locking them away only creates further stress and mental illness"

I respond with a question "are they" ? (political refugees) or... well thats the point isnt it .. I reiterate my point, that it does NOT take a long time to make a few phone calls, or contact 'our people' in various places and get a quick idea of the bonafides of people who come here and say who they 'really' are. Detention keeps them under our control while we do a)health and b) security checks. I think even you would agree that until we KNOW their true status, its best to keep them under wraps no ?

Davo, well said. Our country was built on a lot of things, and immigration sure was only a small part of it. The 'migrants' came to a 'young country', they didn't make that country.

Robert, I do agree with your emphasis on humane treatment, but only after the initial security and health checks. Then, I would insist on a hefty deposit being lodged by any relatives or a community organization to guarantee they dont become an expensive risk to us.

1.
I'd just like to comment that at this moment there are still genuine refugees in detention and some have been in there now for 3-7 years. Obviously the system isn't working so it needs changing!

2.
Australia actually was built on immigration amongst other things including convicts and British children forcibly taken from their country of birth... in fact besides the original Australians already here we ALL came from somewhere else. Yes, we are all Boat People!

3.
I think political persecution is not easy to understand if you have lived your whole life in Australia so I'll give one example.

Imagine you were from an ethnic minority who could not work, study or even own a house/land in the country where you were born. Imagine if the government of that country wouldn't give you either a birth certificate or passport to travel out of the country of your birth. Then imagine if you walked down the street and feared for your life. Just remember this is the country of your birth. You have no birthright. What would you do? Remember you have no documents (the government won't give you any) so going to the embassy of another country won't help.

Get it?

4. We can have hostels for asylum seekers where they stay while being processed and can come and go. It is in their benefit to not disappear or they won't get a visa. It happens in New Zealand. All you need to do is get rid of the fence!

Miranda, can u please expand on point 1 of your reply ?
If they are genuine refugees, why are they in detention ?
Is it because the DIMA found they are not refugees ? of not this, why are they there ? Perhaps u would know more than me.

As for your portrait of a 'persecuted minority' I totally agree. The issue of birth certificate or documents is not what I was referring to as much as 'name', and 'location'. They know who they are and where they came from. If the story they tell is true, then it is also verifiable. They will have kinship ties with many people, and the government has enough resources (Including Asio) to sus out what is really going on in these places.

I make one important point in all this. Even IF there is such a minority, one needs to know firstly are they a LARGE minority and how does their population numbers relate to OUR population ? It is conceivable that there might be a group numbering 100s of 1000s in that category u mentioned. Such numbers would threaten our own political stability and social harmony. So, this bring me back to my major point, and that is 'control'. We have to ensure that we don't allow an 'Ivory Coast' situation to ever even begin to develop here.
(Have u read up on the History of that conflict ?)

I would prefer that we put political and diplomatic and even military pressure on the likes of Sudan, where there ARE not just hundreds of thousands but millions in the condition you described. Would you accept the whole of Southern Sudan here ? I somehow doubt it :)

Miranda, the crux of my argument is that people living in the troubled parts of the world should'nt simply run off to a western country. They need to resolve their problems sooner or later.

Detention centres have the effect of the word getting around on the grapevine that Australia is tough on illegal immigration.

More needs to be done for self help in some of these troubled countries, rather than offering an easy escape to a western country. It seems the most troubled countries in the world have the highest birth rates. So the problems are going to multiply if they don't do more to resolve their problems.

I refuse to accept Australia was built on immigration. Perhaps I am being provocative, but if Australia was built on immigration, it was immigration from Britain (not the Middle East, not Asia and not Africa). Australia now has a developed economy and developed infrastructure. You cannot just rock up on a leaky boat, and expect to live here. And then multiply rapidly and give us social problems.

In reply to BOAZ_David:

"If they are genuine refugees, why are they still in detention?"
ie. after 3-7 years.

When asylum seekers arrive in Australia by boat or plane they are put in indefinite mandatory detention. Then they are interviewed by a case officer who works for DIMIA (Immigration Dept) who asks them questions about their 'story', interviews them. Translators are sometimes available in the language of their choice. Often case officers are petty bureaucrats who have only lived in Australia and these largely under-trained individuals are the ones who decide if a person receives refugee status (we're talking political refugee here not economic). I have heard tapes of these interviews and some only go for ten minutes and often only a few questions are asked.

If the asylum seeker is rejected at this point then they can apply to go to the RRT (Refugee Review Tribunal) which is in fact one person only - employed by DIMIA on a short-term contract and who must reject a certain percentage of the people they interview. More...

I agree that years in detention is entirely unsuitable. It's bad for the asylum seekers and it's bad for the taxpayers. Releasing them into the community is totally irresponsible, as the British experience has shown.

The only way to get the asylum seekers in and out quickly is to speed up the Justice system. It's no wonder some are in detention for years when they and their blood-sucking lawyers (who make a very good living trading off their misery)use every available avenue of the Australian Justice system to stay here.

Genuine refugees are processed reasonably quickly, (of course there is always much room for improvement). Queue jumpers should be given no opportunity to disappear into the community.