There are two facts relating to refugees that I wish the bleeding heart brigade would face up to:

1. The strongest supporters for John Howard's policy on refugees are the Labor Party's heartland. I do not know of any other political issue that has been in this category.

2. Somehow this whole refugee problem is supposed to be temporary, with the peoples of the world set to live in peace and harmony any time soon.

Get Real! The world population will rise to 10 billion in 40 years, and the tide of refugees trying to get to Australia could rise to the level that the navy uses their boats as target practice. The imminent end of the age of cheap energy will cause a tidal wave of misery, unemployment, war and famine around the world, utterly beyond our ability to ameliorate.

None of this will be of our making, and we will have little choice but to watch in horror.

Thank heavens we have a sea boundary.

We have glorious isolation, and hence the ability to controls 'floods' of human movement, which as plerdsus pointed out, will seek to come in the near future as the population explosion continues, and resources become scarce. (remember "Lot and Abraham"?)

I find the arguments advanced in favor of 'humane treatment' of assylum seekers, notably lacking on the issue of 'numbers'. i.e. how MANY assylum seekers are u prepared to accomodate ? The points suggested thus far are spurious and shallow and lacking in foresight.

There is nothing 'inhumane' about providing shelter, food and safety for those who are seeking to enter this country illegally. I emphasise ILLegaly, because people who have travelled THROUGH COUNTRIES where they can receive assylum are not.. repeat NOT assylum seekers under the UN CONVENTION, which does say something about 'nearest' port of call.

The other point which needs to be made is that when you add together the 'lets be open and let them in' to 'No discussion of limits' you are basically on page 1 of the International Socialist web site about 'open borders and destruction of nation states'.

I would much prefer that Ideological Socialism is NOT dressed up in the pathetic disguise of 'humanitarian compasssion' but is just stated to be what it is. (and also that susceptable individuals would think more b4 jumping on the bandwagon)

Its just the same old "Ur a Racist" and "Ur a Xenophobe" if you disagree about the 'Left' version of migration etc. "Your inhumane" if you want to restrict the numbers of, and set the living conditions, including detention of would be refugees.

Well, I don't have a problem with the Irian Jaya mob (who are 'my' mob... Christian) being held at Christmas Island.. gee.. I've had months of similar restriction myself during language study and orientation course.. it aint that bad ! They can use the time constructively.

I doubt it will take long to determine their status, coming from so close.

On ABC radio today, a story was recounted of a program of technical assistance to ameliorate the situation of an Ethiopian subsistence farmer. His land was of poor fertility with poor access to water. Life was a struggle for him and his family of ten.
The narrator noted a number of things being done to improve the farmer's lot.
But he did not go on to consider how the next generation of ten might cope when they reached maturity. It is inconceivable for that plot of land to be enhanced sufficiently for division into ten parcels for those children to carry on in heir parents' tradition of fertility. To survive and maintain that tradition, they would have to migrate. But where else in Ethiopia could they go? - throughout that country every female has an average of 5.9 children. The population increases by almost 2 million each year. If an average Ethiopian were to touch down in Australia and claim asylum, it would be heartless to send him/her back.
And so it is for too much of the world. Just how many putative refugees are there? How many would Australia be able to accommodate?
When the Nansen Passports were conceived the world population was less then 2 billion. At the time of the post-WWII refugee conventions, human numbers were less than 3 billion; and that was the commencement of the time of antibiotics. The human rabbit has more than doubled its numbers in the half century since.
In 1994 the world got together and decided that nations should shoulder the responsibility to keep their own populations in check within their own boundaries. Their continuing neglect to do so stokes the fires of social discord in the Sudan, the Middle East, and most other trouble spots.
It is a pity that Guy Goodwin's article did not hook the historical perspective of migration into the present situation.

Aristotle once said that “the highest morality is the protection of your own people.” It is clear to me, as a former member of the disadvantaged class, that Australia is short changing it’s own poor people to support a bunch of asylum shopping “refugees” who quite clearly do not make good citizens. One only has to look at the Lebanese “problem” and the Vietnamese “problem” in Sydney, to comprehend that our refugee intake is doing nothing more than filling our jails and our dole queues, and creating other intractable social problems that were completely avoidable.

It is abundantly clear that the primary direction of “refugee” flow is from failed states to the countries of the North European Protestant people. Obviously, our culture is doing something right. But to listen to the logic of the “refugee” huggers, white culture is the personification of everything that is evil.

Instead of constantly criticizing their own people and their own culture, the “intellectuals” would be much better employed criticizing the cultures that are obviously miserable failures. Feminists in particular will always shriek at western societies for not having absolute sexual equality, but you will never hear the likes of Germaine Greer saying anything bad about the reprehensible treatment of women in Islamic societies. Which of course, is one of the prime reasons why Islamic societies are failing and generating endless “refugee” queues in the first place.

Giving endless aid to failed states has done nothing except to make these failed cultures dependent upon aid for survival. Birth control projects in Africa failed because of African cultural aversion to using condoms. The result has been an explosion in AIDS infection, which once again, the Africans demand the rest of the world to alleviate. But you will never hear "intellectuals" have a shot at African attitudes or culture.

The simplest way to prevent squabbling over Refugee Treaties is to simply abrogate them. In Australia, the welfare of Australians comes first.

Colinsett, you make the case well....not for offering assylum, but for population control measures and changes of culture in such places.

The 'incentive' for this may well have to be a widespread dying off of the unsustainable population. This might seem a little harsh and cold hearted, but if the actual root cause is not addressed, any such people who come to Australia, would bring that same mentality with them and repeat the problem, if not sooner..then later.

Most animals will breed well when food is abundant.. like Roos and Rabbits.. but as soon as the drought comes OR.. they simply outbreed their food supply, they die off and the cycle continues.

The point about the division of the land for the 10 children is something I can identify with very closely. I will face that with my own 3, and my wifes culture is very similar to the Ethiopian one, but at this stage there is no food shortage.

The idea that unsustainable family and cultural practices should not be discouraged by those who can see the ultimate outcome, is rather silly. If people do not get the message one way... perhaps they need to get it another ? What do they actually expect ? I mean..seriously.. do they just expect to breed and breed and breed in the same way they have always.. even though its as plain as the nose on their face that resources are limited ?

Again, we are confronted by Lot and Abraham "And Lots herdsmen quarrelled with Abrahams, over lack of pasture for their herds"...
There are only 4 possibilities..

1. move on to vacant land...
2. TAKE someone elses land, by driving them off or killing them
3. DIE out.
4. Reduce the number of offspring and cultural practices which cause the problem.

In the absence of "1" being available, the immorality of "2" and repugnance of "3", "4" seems the best.

Unfortunately, many cultures depend on large numbers of male children just to survive. So its catch22 and destined for self destruction.
When you have denuded the hills of firewood.......its gone.

'owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such fear, is unwilling to return to it.' So says the UN's guideline when trying to identify a refugee. And that wording is the Archilles' heel of the refugee issue today.

According to Australia's clerisy it's axiomatic that all on board any leaky boat on the horizon must be refugees. Saddam Hussein, guilty of no crimes at this stage, would be guaranteed refugee status if he was on one of those leaky boats. And granting him refugee status would be emblematic of the shambles that is the refugee policy.

The abstrusity of decisions made by our courts when dealing with refugee cases clouds the issue further. We granted two homosexuals asylum because they feared violence if they returned to their village in Sri Lanka. If an Australian woman fears violence in her town the best she can hope for is an AVO. To further muddy the waters Lambert Ndakaza of the Rwandan & Burundian Assoc in NSW expressed fears that Hutus guilty of genocide in Rwanda might be living in Australia. And Ahmad Shayeq Qassem, Afghanistan's First Secretary says that it is safe to return Afghanis but our high court says no. Then the Full Court of the Family Court ruled that it had jurisdiction over children in detention only to be told by the high court that it did not.

Enter the captious Dr GG-G, a research fellow and professor no less, who deigns to remind us of our objectionable sovereign self-interest. Would the good doctor think it clever if we abandoned sovereign self-interest and allowed in hordes of Palestinians and Israelis to live side by side in St Ives?

It can only work when there are rules.