James, the only ear-piercing voice around here is yours. It gets shriller as your arguments get more ridiculous.

Aside from there being no evidence that the Indonesian court was responding to the situation with the West Papuans, and aside from the role of the AFP (which you do not mention), there are a few other issues with this post.

“Many Indonesian judges even have trouble constructing a sentence…”.

If you make a derogatory generalisation of this kind, you need familiarity with the Indonesian language and legal system to back it up – perhaps you could post the details of your research.

“Saying to Indonesia that West Papuan asylum seekers faced a real threat of persecution … was a slap in the face to the Indonesian Government …”

No, DIMA was simply applying the Australian migration laws in force at the time. If that upset Indonesia, well, so be it.

The implication of your argument seems to be that, if applying particular Australian laws is going to upset another country, the laws should not be applied – or should be applied differently. Are you seriously suggesting that Australia’s legal system should operate according to the desires of other governments? What about, say, the laws designating certain organisations as terrorist organisations? Designating some of these organisations has upset certain countries in the Middle East. Would you argue that the organisations should therefore not have been designated?

“The Howard Government knew that it would have to act to protect Australia’s interests … and proposed changes to Australia’s Migration Act. The changes were not controversial”.

Get a grip. The Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee - including GOVERNMENT senators - recommended that the proposed changes not proceed at all (http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/migration_unauthorised_arrivals/index.htm). Aside from criticising every aspect of the Bill, the Committee pointed out (paras 3.197-3.199) that it was not clear how crucial elements of the new regime would operate.

Of 136 submissions on this “uncontroversial” piece of legislation, 135 were opposed to the Bill. The remaining one was written by DIMA!

to be continued...

continuing the previous post...

“frivolous and vexations appeals that … cost Australians millions of dollars a year”

You can’t reduce rights to a question of cost. But if you want to make financial considerations central to public policy, think about the Senate Committee’s conclusion that the proposed new migration regime would likely be much more costly than the current one (paras 3.74-3.82).

“The civil libertarians have not only become loud and extreme, but now pose a threat to the values that ordinary Australians cherish”.

You persistently set up this distinction between café-dwelling, “well-groomed” elites and “ordinary hard-working Australians”. I don’t know what café you’re going to – Australians of all backgrounds quite enjoy a latte.

On a more serious note (and alarmingly from someone who has been a law academic), you’ve missed the whole point of human rights. The majority of any given society don’t usually need them. Their interests are protected through parliamentary processes. Human rights are for everyone, but primarily they are there to ensure that the marginalised and unpopular – who are ill-served in representative democracies where parliamentarians can score votes by playing to popular prejudice and vilifying them – have basic protections

A serious law an order approach to the drug trade demands that the chains of supply be followed up to the sources. While draconian treatment of low level suppliers and mules might satisfy the less informed members of our community as an appropriate response to drug related harm, it achieves nothing in real terms.

Most of the so-called “Bali 9” are, from what I can tell, low level players. No serious players get caught with the stuff. Part of the problem is that the high profits to be made in the drug trade almost invariably corrupt police and other officials involved in the control of the trade. This has historically been a major problem in all countries including Australia, which, in world terms, is a country relatively free of official corruption. It would defy belief that such corruption is not a major problem in Indonesia.

So was the chain of supply followed up from the Bali 9? Well, yes. See:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/dead-reckoning/2005/08/01/1122748530625.html

I enjoy sitting in cafes but not with ear-piercing people and I do not like lattes. Also I do not regard common good as ugly and common sense as an impossibility. But I do think our methods of dealing with asylum seekers are cruel and immoral.

When I try to untangle the complex web of James McConvill's article I suspect his real agenda is in fact support of our Governments new immigration laws, which I personally disagree with.

He tries to hide his total lack of reasonable argument with insults and stereotyping and the absurdly long bow of forming a connection between the Papuans and the Bali nine, which he does by certain assumptions about the Indonesian justice system.

I will donn a right wing hat (what coffee should I drink when I am wearing it?) and ask why my taxes should have been used to pay for the salary of one who appears to have so few principles and mounts such a disgracefully illogical argument.

Abd by the way Bali is predominently Hindu not Muslim.

Why do civil libertarians defend so vehemently the sentencing on drug smugglers and alleged terrorists, yet cannot raise a whisper when an "australian" Islamic leader threatens our Prime Minister with possible rioting of young muslim,if he says anything they do not like?
When Islamics bombed Bali,9/11,Bali again, we heard nothing from these "freedom lovers"
One can only assume they hold total contempt for Australia and Australian well being and safety. I wonder if any of their children died of drug overdose, if they would still be so reverent of drug dealers and terrorists.

What a load of excrament. Two points

1) The Bali nine knew that there was a chance that their appeals would not be upheld, they took that chance - I doubt that our decision to allow papuan refugees into Australia had any bearing on the case.

2) Why should we allow Indonesia, or any other country, to dictate our immigration policy? We are a soverign nation.

That's the problem with hard right commentators, the harder right they are, the more infantile their arguments - just look at Andrew Bolt and some of our radio shock jocks... and now apparantly, James McConvill.