Is it not true that illegal people movements drop around the world in the same period?

Excellent article Alan.

As an expat from the UK, I feel able to give have a perspective on the social effects of the different illegal immigration laws in use in the UK and Australia.

In the UK there are around 80000 illegal immigrants awaiting their asylum applications to be processed. If rejected they have the right to appeal - if unsuccessful most just disappear. Many law firms have sprung up just dealing with these cases, and have become very, very good at delaying the process as long as possible. To prevent the south eastern port towns of Kent being overwhelmed the labour government uses a dispersal scheme to shunt illegal immigrants around the country, with ghettos springing up in nearly all major cities and towns.

The social effects of this system are horrendous. An entire slave economy has sprung up with asylum seekers working for no pay all the hours on building sites and fruit farms. These workers pay no taxes, receive almost no pay, and are hugely abused.

Illegal immigrants have no interest in learning the English language or about British culture - because of the fear of detection and removal their societies are hugely insular and are in no way assimilated. This leads to intense fear and resentment from mainstream British society - the growth in the vote for the British National Party (BNP) is evidence - they polled 200,000 votes at the recent election. The drain on resources is also enormous - immigrants must be housed, fed and receive medical treatment.

continued...

...continued

Australia, on the other hand, just simply does not have these problems. Those who break the law by coming to this country illegally are detained, and rightly so. The system works - why change it?

As a legal immigrant I had to go through a long and drawn out process to emigrate as the partner of an Australian citizen. I am not entitled to any benefits outside of basic Medicare for two years from my date of arrival. And rightly so. Why should I assume that Australia owes me anything? It doesn't. I believe need to earn the right to support from the Australian state by paying taxes, contributing to the community and becoming a citizen.

Coming from a country where immigration policy has failed so completely, I hope Australia does not follow the UK and Europe down the same path. Australia has an excellent system.

Finally, I think the UN treatment on refugees needs to be revisited. I think the 1951 treaty does not recognise that most refugees are economic migrants, not real refugees. For example, to get to the UK all refugees need to pass through many other countries, all of which they could have stopped in, and would no longer be persecuted. The UK is seen as an easy option because of the welfare system and free healthcare. How are refugees who reach the UK not economic migrants?

Just my two cents

It is clear that the Leftist moles in the Liberal Party realise that they won't get any more preselection so they have broken cover, determined to do as much damage to Australia before they are delected. Keith

Alan Anderson continues with his oft-expressed views from the far right, but that does not mean that they are right. It is true that the Labor Party introduced the mandatory detention policy for asylum seekers - they also once had a "white Australia policy" - but Howard's application of the policy has a distinct smell of racism about it.

After the "Tampa" and SIEV X incidents and the scandals at Woomera and Baxter it is hypocritical in the extreme for Howard to claim that his policy is "working". The white Australia policy also "worked" but it was still wrong.

I can't help but wonder what Alan Anderson and others of his ilk would be saying if there were a boat full of Brits seeking asylum off our shores. I can hear their silence already.

So tell me what justifies the millions and millions already spent on detention centres or bribing Naru to take refugees when it would have cost tax payers far less to have refugees in our communities?

Do the maths. Do some research. Think for yourself.

$72 million for the camps in Nauru,

$24 million for the detention centre in Papua New Guinea.
In addition, over $230 million has been wasted on building detention centres in the past 3 years.

Thats a hell of lot of money just to prop up some old protectionist and racist ideologies from the last century.

Alan Anderson justifies an inhumane approach to assessment of refugees by saying it has halted the influx of boat people. Inhumane treatment of many people has been justified throughout history through such spurious reasoning, eg Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews claiming that Jews held too much economic power.

The OLO poll on Mandatory Detention speaks volumes. Clearly many Australians believe that there is a fairer way to manage asylum seekers than holding them in concentration camps. This poll has been a source of solace to me, given the vehemence of many far right posters to this forum.

We have managed boat people humanely in the past without the catastrophic results people such as Anderson claim. Time to return to a fair, humane approach.

I think the only way of convincing our wonderfully compassionate Rainier and Trinity of the merits of mandatory detention would be to have boatloads of white Poms, Americans and Zimbabweans land on our northern shores. I wonder who the rascists would be then? At the very least the silence would be deafening.

Bozzie, Good point but even if this happened I don’t think you'd be lining up with every right wing lunatic in the country declaring them criminals, cue jumpers and terrorists.

My point is that too much of the debate has gone to the very extremist levels of hysteria and the call for caution is being used by these extremists to garner the support of much more compassionate people.

Rainier - whilst not necessarily being terrorists, they most certainly would be breaking our immigration laws and I'd be the first to call them cue-jumpers. Although anyone wanting to escape the opressive regime of New Labor deserves all our sympathy.

If our aim is to stop boat people illegally coming to this country then the governments strategy has worked. It's not very compassionate to encourage people to risk their lives in leaky rotten boats - The SIEV X tragedy illustrates that.

What the SIEV X taught us is that our government is capable of mounting a covert sabotage operation in Indonesia specifically to deter others thinking of coming to Australia by boat from doing so.
It mounted this operation because the policy of mandatory detention in very inhumane conditions had manifestly failed as a deterrent.
The question is: since the sinking of the SIEV X has apparently succeeded in stopping the flow of boat people, why continue with the discredited policy of mandatory detention?
Dare I suggest that the vested interest of a certain American corporation specialising in the imprisonment business would be affected by closing the detention centres, thus imperilling a source of funding for the Liberal Party? No! That would be too cynical!

OK Bozzie sweetums, in your little world it is justifiable to incarcerate people up in appalling conditions and for indefinte periods despite the fact that we have effectively and humanely assessed boat people in the past.

No one has suggested that refugees be allowed in 'open slather' - just a return to a more humane process.

Sympneology - no you're not too cynical the thought has occurred to me also. I suppose the sinking of SIEV X was OK for bozzie and his ilk as well.

However, the OLO poll flies in the face of anything Bozzie et al have to say.

I see three problems with Alan Anderson’s case that mandatory detention must continue, if we want to protect Australia’s borders from uncontrolled hordes of illegal immigrants:

1. It is factually wrong. It was not mandatory detention that stopped asylum seekers coming in late 2001, it was the fear of death by sabotage of boats. The sinking of SIEV X which drowned 353 people on 19 October 2001 - whoever planned and instigated it - inevitably sent a huge deterrent message that promptly dried up the demand. Sympneology is right. Anyone who doubts the evidence that there was a sting operation to sink this boat and send a deterrent message, which Abu Quassey was either party to or unwitting agent for, should read my prizewinning book “A Certain Maritime Incident: the Sinking of SIEV X” (Scribe, 2004). There is overwhelming evidence set out there that explains why the Senate has called three times in three years for a full-powers judicial inquiry led by an independent judge into the sinking of SIEV X and the Australian Government’s people smuggling disruption program conducted by the AFP/DIMIA People Smuggling Strike Team (which still exists). The book is obtainable from quality bookshops or you can order direct from www.scribepub.com.au .

For a short introduction to the topic, and discussion of some important new evidence that came out of the recent Khaleed Daoed people smuggling trial in Brisbane, listen to the audio of Fran Kelly’s interview with me on Radio National Breakfast last Thursday 9 June:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/brkfast/stories/s1388160.htm (interview segment URL)

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/brkfast/

( “Breakfast” URL )

I urge the people who have contributed to this thread on Alan Anderson’s side of the argument to go out, read my book, and then come back with considered rebuttals. Until then, they lack data to conduct an informed argument about this.

My points 2 and 3 follow in my next post

(continuation of post from Tony Kevin):

2. Even if mandatory detention had stopped the boats coming – which I simply do not believe, as noted in my post above – it would be incompatible with the ethics and values of Australia as I understand them, for our country to hold large numbers of innocent people, men women and children, as hostages in gulags like Baxter in order to serve as a deterrent to others coming. For it is clear what we are doing to these people: indefinitely long detention is driving the adults like Peter Kasim mad , and depriving the children like Naomi Leong of their right to a normal life. No civilised person who had any normal capacity for empathy with other human beings could seriously support such a national policy.

3. Mandatory detention is becoming unworkable now because the Australian people at gut level are beginning to reject it in larger and larger numbers, because there is a basic decency in the Australian people. They know systemic cruelty when they see it. Once the politicians and their hangers-on begin to smell the coffee, it will change very quickly. Petro Georgiou’s group, to their credit, understand this. Their views will win in the end, because they are in the right.

As to what we do about illegal immigrants – I don’t know. I just know that we can neither arrange for others to kill them, nor lock them up forever in gulags as hostages. If we go on doing either or both of those things, we will become monsters.

OK, I'll take the bait Tony,

1. Your arguments on SIEV X have been rebutted in a variety of ways. For a good summary I would go to http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/02/1030953433853.html?oneclick=true/ (reg required). To quote six questions the article asks of Tony's book;

* Why does his paper not concentrate on or at least begin with the key issue involved - international people smuggling?

* Why does he simply assume that all "asylum claimants" are genuine when the evidence strongly indicates that most are not?

* Why does he never apportion any real responsibility or blame to Indonesia for any of the people smuggling problem in general or the SIEV-X and Tampa incidents in particular?

* Why does he never address the question why Australia and New Zealand are the only signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention in the whole Asia-Pacific area, and why after 52 years do our neighbours still refuse to shoulder their international responsibilities in this regard (and apparently escape any condemnation for it)?

* Why does he have such an Australia-centric view in blaming only Australia for seemingly every ramification of what is actually a regional and wider problem?

* Would he be willing to see the longstanding international law regarding the interception of slave-carrying vessels extended to people smuggling vessels (so any naval vessel could intervene anywhere to stamp out the trade)?

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2. For Tony to equate the Australian immigration system to the horrors of the Soviet gulag is to do the memory of those who died in that system a gross disservice, and he should apologise. To say that 'No civilised person who had any normal capacity for empathy with other human beings could seriously support such a national policy' is to condemn every Australian who voted for John Howard at the last election. I think Australia's response to the Tsunami showed how shallow this view. Think before you type Tony.

3. Demonstrate any evidence for this point. Just because YOU think this way does not mean everyone else does, and in fact I would say most of the Australian electorate does not agree with you. And, as is typical with this point of view, you have no real answers ('As to what we do about illegal immigrants – I don’t know'). The system works, the people support it, get over it.

Lets see you write articles about some real human rights abuses such as Zimbabwe or China.

gw

Well, I will rise to gw’s bait too!

Tam Long’s article in Webdiary on 2 September 2002, “Pamphleteer polemics”, was well rebutted in Webdiary five days later, “Long Comes Up Short On SIEV X”, by Marg Hutton and others - now archived also on Hutton’s website

http://sievx.com/archives/2002_08-09/20020907.shtml

Tam Long has not been heard of since 2002.

Many facts about SIEV X have come to light since September 2002. The Senate has voted three times, in 2002, 2003 and 2004, for a full-powers judicial inquiry into the Australian government’s people smuggling disruption program in Indonesia, conducted by the AFP /DIMIA People Smuggling Strike Team out of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. Recently, Senators Bartlett and Brown renewed those calls, and Senator Faulkner told me he is ready to do so whenever questioned by media.

The Australian Embassy Jakarta cable sent four days after the sinking, finally released in Fenruary 2003, contained detailed facts about the boat and voyage that can only have come from sources within the people smuggler organisation. Senator Cook then reflected sadly in the Senate on the lies officials had told under oath during the initial Senate enquiry. The smuggler, Abu Quassey, was repatriated to Egypt and sentenced to a laughable 7-year jail term there, after the AFP conspicuously ignored its clear opportunity to bring him to Australia on homicide charges. The AFP admits it has passenger lists for SIEV X, but refuses to release them. There is currently no AFP investigation into the sinking despite the Senate’s expressed concerns. Justice Minister Ellison recently finally admitted the boat sank in international waters, ending three years of official cover-up on that crucial matter. There is new evidence out of the Khaleed Daoed trial in Brisbane strengthening the case that SIEV X was intended to sink.

My book “A Certain Maritime Incident - the Sinking of SIEV X” (Scribe, August 2004) , which just won a NSW Premier’s Award at the 2005 Sydney Writers Festival, is a digestible way to learn this story. It was reviewed in “Online Opinion” by Gavin Mooney in September 2004
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2592

(to continue)

(continued)

There was a substantive exchange of views on the SIEV X issue between Bishop Tom Frame, Anglican Bishop to the ADF, and myself. His review in “Public Administration Today” and “Defender” (September 2004), and my reply in “New Matilda” (January 2005), can most easily be accessed on line through my website URLs:
http://www.tonykevin.com/SIEVX-PublicEthics-TomFrame.html

http://www.tonykevin.com/GodnCaesar.html

The SIEV X evidence was also the subject of debate in the JAS (Journal of Australian Studies) Online Review of Books in February 2005, between Dr Jennifer Clarke of ANU and myself:
http://www.api-network.com/cgi-bin/reviews/jrbview.cgi?n=1920769218

The debate about how 353 people died on SIEV X has moved far beyond Tam Long’s views in 2002. It is now a debate about real evidence of major criminality, possibly involving Australian national security agencies, and about the failure so far of the Australian criminal justice system to deal properly with that issue. There will be whistleblowers. The SIEV X story is far from over.

Briefly, on gw’s response to my second and third points: the cruelty now being exposed in our detention centres is real, major and systemic. As an Australian, I feel ashamed of that. It sickens me. Many of us feel this way now.

Rightly, there is growing support for Petro Georgiou’s efforts to find a better solution. Gw needs to think more deeply about what it means to be Australian. Decency, like charity, begins at home

Great riposte Tony.

I am very concerned at the lengths people like gw will go to in order to justify cruelty.

It is true we do have to monitor our borders and that not all refugees are genuine. This fact still does not justify inhumane treatment of human beings.

It sickens me also that people think cruelty is justifiable under any circumstances.

I can't speak for the actions of other countries, however, as an Australian, I am very troubled by our complicity in SIEV X and the scandal of TAMPA.

I believe that Georgiou will make a difference and salute the brave libs who are actually standing up to Howard. Pity the opposition is languishing in dither-land. So many opportunities for Beazley to take a stand so many opportunities lost.

There is one thing about the whole illegal immigration debate that seems to have been ignored by everyone - that is that the strongest supporters for John Howard's tough policy is the Labor Party's heartland. The latte left seem to lack any vision in this debate; where do they think Australia will be in thrity years, when the world population will be 9 billion, and the hordes of illegal immigrants will be enormous. If we can establish Australia as tough country to take on, we will be spared the need to declare illegals to be enemy aliens, liable to be shot on sight, or for the navy to use the illegal's boats for target practice. You can be sure that the Australian people will not tolerate a massive influx of illegals, and will elect politicians that will carry out their will. Thank heavens we have a sea boundary.

plerdsus and gw nailed it pretty well.We either make a stand or end up being a poverty stricken 3rd world nation ourselves.This is about the survival of our society and economy.
There are too many interest groups pushing their own agenders i.e. immigration lawyers and bleeding hearts with no concept of the consequences down the track.
People like Rainer are always pushing their racist barrow but have failed to recognise that we take more diversity of immigrants than any other country.The English language is the predominate culture here and we should not be swamped by a revolution of cultures that don't respect our achievements.We are a big country with a small economy and should develop with a single consciousness of being firstly Australian.It is far too easy to get Australian citizenship.

Arjay, Thanks for your "insightful" comment. It reveals far more about you than it does me. But the really sad thing about this is that you'll probably never know how or why.

Arjay said, "People like Rainer are always pushing their racist barrow but have failed to recognise that we take more diversity of immigrants than any other country." More than the US or Canada? I don't think so. And so what if we do? The Snowy scheme was built by the labours of a great diversity of migrants, mostly from Europe. Is it their origin that makes this sort of migrant intake OK, or the fact that they were mostly Christian? There were similar objections to the present ones raised when the Vietnamese boat people were arriving here, but no-one now can deny the valuable contribution they have made to our society, even though they were of a different complexion and only some were Christian.
Let's face it, all our ancestors came originally from Africa and the differences that are visible now are the result of geography not just genetics. The non-visible differences, like language or religion, are products of the human mind and can be accommodated by the application of that mind. There is nothing to be gained and a great deal to be lost by indulging in xenophobia.

Sympneolgy and Rainer,I'm talking about the pace of ethnic change.Don't try to corrupt my perceptions with your ego-centric idealistic perceptions of how Australia should be.
I ,like most Australians deal in realities,and we should always consider the values and aspirations of the predominant culture,since it was,and is the culture that gives us so much prosperity ,that so many travel half way around the world to find such prosperity.
I have many friends of different ethic origins and they have become part of the Australian character.It takes a couple of generations for this to happen.
If we swamp our country with too much change,anarchy will prevail and your children too, will lament such impulsive and stupid policies of the weak left.
Face it ,the world has too many people and not enough resources to raise their living standards to that of ours.
Are you willing to forgo all that you have, so others can take your job for cheaper wages?
I've been to many third world countries and don't want to see Australia become just another "Banana Republic in the South Pacific."

I'm sure you're ethnic friends are just as bored as I am with listening to your broken record ideas.

I wouldn't dream of corrupting your perceptions, Arjay, any more than Alan Anderson (remember him?) has already done. As for my perceptions, they cannot be both ego-centric AND idealistic. I deal in realities too, all the time, and I doubt whether the "values and aspirations of the predominant culture" will be adversely affected by allowing a few boat people to make their contribution to it.
During the nineteenth century our country was "swamped" with an enormous amount of change, but anarchy did not prevail (except, perhaps, from the point of view of those who thought this was THEIR country). Anyway, how can a few hundred people "swamp" a country this size?
As for others taking our jobs for cheaper wages, it is the leaders of our "predominant culture" that are off-shoreing the jobs of Australian workers to countries where wages are low and unions are powerless or non-existent. And now that he has control of the Senate, Howard plans to make Australian unions just as impotent, so we will all be working for cheaper wages. You can't blame the asylum seekers for that.

The people who make the decisions to sack workers are the owners of big business and the politicians who serve their interests. Migrants (along with Aborigines and other minority groups) are useful scapegoats to divert attention away from the real culprits -- themselves. But try telling this to the paranoid delusionals, the dogwhistled zenophobics, the reds under our beds alarmists, who incidentally all believe in aliens (cos they've been abducted and had their genitals probed) and you'll find yourself dealing more with their fears than you will with their ignorance of the facts.
Big business and the politicians that serve them know all to well that its easier to manipulate with fear than it is with facts.
Poor Arjay is just one living example of the post Hanson era that are finding it hard to let go of a simplistic formulae for all political, historical and human analysis. And that is this - "when you don't know the facts, blame outsiders. If your peers don't believe you, blame them. Its a fool proof circular ad-hominem that makes the ignorant feel comfortable with knowing nothing at all

Just disprove my logic and that logic that most Australians exercised at the last election.Your rantings have amounted to nothing.

What logic? Your unsupported assertions only serve to show that you are totally devoid of any ability to think logically.

The Australian people voted Howard in again out of fear, not logic. They believed his mendacious claims about interest rates and forestry and the phony "war on terror" and were afraid. Hyping xenophobia to win elections does nothing for the average Australian voter but it allows the Howard government to get away with blatant abuses of the human rights of people who have already endured too much abuse. Your callous support for such policies displays your inhumanity, not logic.

Arjay, You are the one using this so called logic to support and prove your own bigotry and fears. Show me the evidence that the last election gave Howard, Vanstone and Ruddoch a clear and unambiguous mandate to lock children up in detention. While you're at it -- you might like to address how this last election provided a mandate for Howard et al to place and deport Australian citizens. What about the mistreatment of the Bakhtiyari family? What are your views on the Convention on the Rights of the Child of which we are signatories? This logic you assert is then in breach of several key provisions of the ICCPR, in particular Article 9 which forbids arbitrary detention and Article 10(1) which provides that ‘All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person. If you and your family were imprisoned in another country you too would be depending on this convention to ensure that you or your families were treated humanly and with dignity. And by the way, just remember that I and others such as Sympneology, -those you accuse of being narrow minded, trendy, ego-centric idealistic, barrow pushing, bleeding hearts would be first ones standing up to support you and yours. But hey, don’t let this get in the way of spewing out your bilious crap just because you’re too lazy to get off your backside to look beyond you’re your vexatious and highly prejudiced worldviews.

Arjay, despite your unexpected display of a SOH on another thread I have to support Rainier and Sympneology. The previous election was based on economic security - that was the platform and that's what the majority of Australians voted for; the belief (whether right or wrong) that the economy (stupid) was better in the hands of the Libs.

Human rights, welfare, IR and other social concerns did not get a look in. Labour failed to emphasize these issues and Howard blithely side-stepped the issue. Ergot - the lack of mandate.

We did not vote for inhumane treatment of people be they our own (disabled, poor or aboriginal) or seeking asylum.

If you voted for the incarceration of children at the last election - time to have a good hard look at yourself.

Arjay, I very much doubt whether it would be possible for your perceptions to be corrupted any further. Your continuous reference to the “predominant culture”; your claim to the understanding of an “Australian character”; your insistence on the use of terms such as “swamping”, “limited resources”, “forgoing prosperity”; your “reality” of “anarchy”, “job taking”, “ethnic change” and your assertion that any contrary reasoning is “impulsive” and demonstrates “weakness” leads me to the conclusion that this corruption is absolutely unsalvageable.

I gave up responding to Arjay ages ago. IMHO, he and a few fellow travellers get far too much of this forum's oxygen.

(Yes, I'm aware of the irony in me giving him some more...)

Worry not,the Labor Party will rebuild more towards the conservative right,since that is the only chance they have of gaining power.It will probably take two more electoral floggings ,but finally the electorate will drag them kicking and screaming to their domain, instead of your social engineering experimental disasters.
Good to see I'm getting up your nostrils garra.Perhaps you should have me banned from this forum and then you could set up a mutual admiration society for the mono-tones of the left.

The vast majority of Australians see what I see,and you can call us all the names you damn well please,but we have at determination to see a more disciplined,ethical,committed, hard working ,patriotic,country no matter what your ethic background.

We are not going to stand by and watch this great country go down the sewer on the basis of your whims and fancies.