Steve Madden and Marilyn, you should both get jobs writing such corn as "The Young and the Beautiful" or such , with violins sobbing in the background.
All your bleeding heart's sympathies are for the poor ,poor 'Asylum Seekers' who have paid big money to leave a SAFE Islamic country to shove themselves on a western nation and with hand out say, here we are feed us and shelter us and we want this! and we want that!
And we do not want to live by your laws because our sharia is far better .
One never senses a small skerrick of interest in anything Australian in your posts. The only feeling either of you have for Aussies is detestation. What a pity you do not find somewhere else more suitable to live.

OK, we are still dealing with the same tired old delusions that Ruddock peddled with the TAMPA and they were not true then and they are not true now.

About 1 million Iraqis have had to flee their homes in the last three years because of our actions. What should we do if they have to come on boats again because they cannot get legal travel documents? The first time around we owed them a moral obligation as refugees because we had blown up Iraq in 1990 with the US, ran blockades with sanctions, ignored the plight of the Kurds and Shi'ites whom Saddam was killing and so on.

Then we get to the additional protocol on refugees which became law in Austraila when we signed it on 3 December 1972 and then enshrined it in our law. In the protocol it makes it clear that geography is not a problem. When people fly here from Russia, Peru, Brazil, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, Fiji, Ukraine, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Lebanon and from all corners of the earth, from the other side of the earth we don't whinge and whine like spoilt, pathetic brats about them being queue jumpers.

In fact of the 70,000 asylum seekers Australia has had in the last 17 years only 14,000 came on boats and were automatically locked up. Over 12,000 of them are our neighbours. What happened to the others you ask? Nothing. They made their claims for refugee status according to our law.

Our law to this day does not exclude anyone from coming on a boat. I am sick to death of the ignorance, the bigotry and outright stupidity shown by grown men and women who only have to note that 98% of those evil queue jumpers still live here and thousands of them are now permanent residents and even citizens.

Which puts the lie to the stupid argument that they could have stopped elsewhere or that they had to stop elsewhere.

Marilyn... still waiting for specific answers rather than shotgun blasts of emotive name calling. But.. I don't mind a name_or_2.

The people on the Siev X (for Tony's benefit also)
COULD have gone to the following close and easy to get to countries.

Countries CLOSER than Australia who are signatories[S] to the UN convention OR have ratified [R] it.

Azerbaijan. Accession 1993
Turkmenistan Accession 1988 (Closest to Afghanistan)
Turkey 1951 (R+S) (CLOSEest to Iraq/Iran)
Netherlands 1951 (R+S)
Italy 1952 (R+S)
Israel 1951 (R+S)
Greece 1952 (R+S)
Germany 1952 (R+S)
France 1951 (R+S)
IRAN 1976 (R)
Eqypt 1981 (R)

There are in fact many others.

At this point we have ask some down to earth questions.

First.. in order to establish MOTIVE we need to remove the 'out' of "they can choose any country" because clearly this would fail the test of 'reasonableness' if it can be shown that there were either family or economic grounds for them coming to Australia, rather than any of the other countries.
It would fail that test, due to the nature of the Convention, which is simply to offer a safe haven in the light of feared persecution.

Reasonableness, requires that the nearest country with the least risk would be the chosen destination. Instead, they have chosen to take the FURTHEST country with the MOST risk. Thus, I find that their journey to Australia is unreasonable in terms of the convention, and their applications should be disallowed on these grounds.

It may be countered "There IS no 'test of reasonableness'". And I would simply add 'not yet'. But in time it will come, just as the 'particular social group' term in the convention was defined by Australia NOT to mean those threatened by the one child policy of the Chinese government.

Clearly also, to defy the lawful policy of a government, by having another child, constitutes a crime, which further disallows acceptance as a refugee under the scope of the convention.

Covert Actions by intelligence agencies enter the blurry water of touch and go legally, and could be avoided by sound policy from the start.

Mickijo

Come on you can do better than that. Your attempts at ridicule and insults are as pathetic as your posts on OLO.

You should get over your hatred of anybody with different views to your own small minded bigotry.

Those nasty followers of Islam really get you scared don’t they? You are exactly the reason why our shameful Govt. gets away with its pretence of being tough on border protection when 50,000 real illegal immigrants arrive in Australia every year.

Get the TV show correct as well it is The Young and The Restless or The Bold and the Beautiful. Sorry I only worked on Number 96, Prisoner, Carson’s Law good Aussie shows.

My background is Irish. Watch out we are all terrorists as well :)

Surely when people risk their lives to come here claiming that they are refugees and frightened for their future, we should have the decency to respect their views and be polite and helpful.

After examination of their claims we may or may not decide that they they have a reasonable claim but at least treat them with dignity while they are here. Especially the children. Oppressing them in the way Howard and Ruddock are doing in order to discourage them is not to my taste.

It requires bravery or desperation to board an unsafe vessel, and don't forget Afghanistan is a landlocked country and most of the asylum seekers had probably never seen the ocean before. That would be scary for them. Fortune seekers such as during the Alaskan goldrush don't bring their families.

Also many of them were not Muslims but Christians. Perhaps they had come here thinking that our country's leaders were Christians!

And please answer the arguments of those who disagree with you but don't insult them. Often a good argument is lost because of the tone of the postings.

Wow, this thread is quite a read! Lots of things to comment on, but I’ll restrict my comments to the last post.

Logic, you wrote:

“Surely when people risk their lives to come here claiming that they are refugees and frightened for their future, we should have the decency to respect their views and be polite and helpful.”

and

“After examination of their claims we may or may not decide that they have a reasonable claim but at least treat them with dignity while they are here.”

Absolutely. But the situation needs to be kept under tight control.

I guess that you feel that putting people in detention centres is not respecting their dignity. But Australia’s detention system evolved from non-detention beginnings, through a phase of low-security centres and into the razor-wire lined centres as a matter of necessity, after people bucked the system.

“Oppressing them in the way Howard and Ruddock are doing in order to discourage them is not to my taste.”

What would you consider to be appropriately dignified treatment for asylum seekers? How are they being oppressed beyond what is really necessary?

“And please answer the arguments of those who disagree with you but don't insult them. Often a good argument is lost because of the tone of the postings.”

Totally agree.