Yes, Des Moore. Violent political activists who entered our country illegally – and stayed, thanks to our pathetic laws – to carry on their anti-Indonesian activities from the safety of Australia.

And yes, indeed. These fake asylum-seekers, as with all such people who sneak into Australia, have left behind them all other Papuans to stick it out.

And the moralising sob-sisters Australia is blighted with don’t think to ask, ‘Hey, if things are so bad in Papua and other countries, why are we not getting fleets of boats coming here?’

Asylum-seeking is the greatest con trick of our age. Asylum seekers are cowards, and it’s good to have a contributor who is not afraid to say so. If people want reforms in their country, they should at least fight for them in that country and not prance about in a safe haven while their countrymen stay at home. Particularly as Australia does not support independence for West Papua anyway

Mr Des Moore,
You have written a list of un-truths, you have been lying to support your unfounded view point.

1) West Australia voted to be part of the Federation, had its act of self-determination; live with it.

2) West Papua has never been allowed to have an act of self-determination;
although their 30 years of preparation for independence and the installing of an elected national Parliament 5/Apr/1961 does tend to suggest that they wanted independence despite any claim of Indonesia that it was 'freeing' them from Dutch colonialism.

3) The West Papuan public has neither acted outside international law, nor taken part in some armed rebellion as you infer. The only illegal action taken by some people has been the kidnapping of people in misguided attempts to get the media to report West Papua's situation to the world. Mark Davis' 1999 documentary "Blood on the Cross" gives a very good account of one such attempt during which the TNI used a Red Cross helicopter to committed the Geselema massacre. But point withstanding, it is still less than one tenth of one percent of West Papuans who have taken part in such unlawfull hostage takings.

The FACT is that self-determination is a universal human right declared in the declaration of human rights, and specifically in the UN Charter and UN General Assembly Resolutions 1514 and 1541 which both Australia & Indonesia voted for in Nov/1960.

West Papua is entitled to self-determination as defined in UN GA Resolution 1541.

You have no right to delay it on behalf of the TNI Generals and their business associates at Bechtel Inc. and Freeport McMoRan who are mining Papua as fast as they can dig it out of the ground.

Des Moore,
Your argument that the good people of Western Australia did not start an armed fight against being forced into being part of the Federation of Australia does not compare with the plight of the West Papuans.
The Colonial States of Australia in the nineteenth century were populated with British Christians.So to suggest that they would fight their fellow Britishers is way of the mark.
The West Papuans are racially,religiously and culturally different to the Indonesians. They have longed to be independent like their kinsmen in P.N.G.
The Australian position now with regard to boat people is somewhat confused.
Any person who illegally arrives in a country, no matter how grieved they migt feel toward their homelands government must accept what ever the host government decides.
If that means that they have to stay offshore,I am certain that it is am improvement on where they were before.
Yes,criminals do arrive illegally,in boat loads.
Will we welcome every Rascal Gang member.

Leigh and Des, what a pair. How does such ignorance get to fester among you and others like you.

People from Iraq who came here were allowed to under our law and the refugee protocol of 1967 which we signed in 1973 which removed all geographic boundaries for refugees and allowed for free movement of refugees without documents.

Claiming that Saddam Hussein could get refugee status here is an absurdity because he would be automatically excluded under article 1F of the refugee convention which covers crimes against humanity. Get a chance and go and read the convention.

The conventions are human rights treaties and don't have a single thing to do with Indonesia's politics.

We sat on our hands complicit in the slaughter of 183,000 of our East Timorese friends and then kept them living in limbo when they applied for refugee status. We have refugees here from Ambon, Aceh, Indonesia proper, West Papua, Sulawesi and other regions - all fleeing the Kopassus.

Not once has the Indonesian government behaved so stupidly and not once have we behaved so stupidly about them. Now though it seems that we hand in Australians to be shot, allow Indonesia to strip the resources of West Papua and starve the people and then try and turn away people our own incompetent DIMA decided were genuine refugees.

I can't find anywhere in the refugee conventions, the ICCPR, the CAT or the convention on the rights of the child that says we have to take into consideration how the Indonesian government feels.

Unless of course you think the 4 year old girl was freedom fighter worthy of being denied refuge.

There are exclusion clauses - we adhere to them rigidly therefore you are wrong about them acting outside the law.

After all the government supported with glee those Iraqis living here who wanted us to blow their country to pieces in the name of "democracy" and we all see what a success that was as the Iraqis here go silent at the despair and destruction. Ditto the Afghans.

"The West Papuans ... have engaged in armed insurrection and outside the law."

How such a person ignorant of the facts could reach a high position in the Australian Government would be surprising if it were not for what we know about the Jakarta Lobby's control of DFAT and other key departments. Any objective study of the issue would reveal that the West Papuans have generally chosen a path of non-violence to achieve their political aims such as through setting up the PDP and through diplomatic lobbying. This is especially so since the fall of Soeharto. The OPM guerillas are largely a force of the past and are operational only in very remote regions. I spent two weeks in West Papua and I wouldn't call these people in any way cowardly.

Anyway, by linking the migration law changes to the West Papua issue, the author makes it clear that the changes are designed to make Indonesia happy. Thank God for those moderates in parliament who are able to see through the nonsense.

Leigh, Coach

just admit it, you don't like people who don't who don't look like you (white male im guessing)

It dosn't matter what issue we are debating, you simply have a problem with people that are different to you.