grn “Everyone is avoiding the central point in Legrain's article and it's a good one: . . . The whole refugee system is based on the bogus idea that we can winnow out real refugees with an acceptable degree of accuracy. ”

I disagree,

I would observe, confining ones selection to folk who are in UN or administered “refugee camps” and who could “evidence” their refugee history would ensure the recipients of refugee visas were “genuine”. I am sure there are enough qualifying refugees available to take up the quota from this source.

That is what I call a good basis for determining a “real refugee” from the flotsam and queue jumpers of the illegal people smuggling trade, who , by their efforts to break Australian migration laws have demonstrated a reckless and criminal nature which would deem them unsuitable for residency..

Oh Rhian – the ones of Nauru might have come from anywhere, one thing is certain, they did not come from a refugee camp. The refugee camp source is where we can be a little more “sure” of the authenticity of the refugee.

Rhian and Ludwig

No-one here that I can see is calling for a “let them all in” or an "open border policy" so those comments are misleading and quite unfair to those genuinely arguing for better treatment of asylum seekers. What is being suggested is just and fair treatment for all asylum seekers and a prompt processing of their claims.

grn

"The whole refugee system is based on the bogus idea that we can winnow out real refugees with an acceptable degree of accuracy."

So, what are you suggesting? It's all too hard, just send them all back? Regardless that the vast majority of claims are genuine and that sending them home can result in their death (as has been documented by both David Corlett and the Edmund Rice Centre).

Fencepost

.."all refugees shoud wait their turn whilst being sequestered in safe UN locations."

I agree 'waiting their turn' sounds like the fair approach but unfortunately it doesn't happen that way. In reality, most refugees will wait years and years and will never leave these camps. There is no queue - fair and orderly or otherwise. Bribery and political opportunism win the day as much as anything else. Millions and millions of people live huddled together in these camps in the most appallingly squalid and soul-destroying conditions. Watch a re-run of SBS's recent Rohingyas program if you can. I doubt you'd be so quick to suggest they 'wait their turn' if you did.

I am just amazed that people can advocate treating other people as if they dont deserve the exact same things as people in this country expect. The only (most of the time in this forum) criteria for deserving humane treatment usually revolves around where those people come and serving the interests of the people already in Australia.

Well may we argue for better treatment of Australians in various circumstance, but to do it only because they are Australian is wrong. First and foremost we are all humans, surely we have some responsibility to trying to provide the best and fairest world we can. Not simply excluding those "unfortunate" enough to fall outside the borders of Australia.

How about we use the simple principle of treating other people the way we would hope to be treated?

Ludwig, i wasnt directly referring to you when posting but rather a general dismay after reading these forums from time to time (including this one). However, how about we structure our thinking a bit more globally than locally sometimes. You raise one or two interesting points which i agree with, but there is NEVER a need to sacrifice the decent treatment of people.

Col Rouge - the neatly documented, certificated and approved refugees sitting in UN refugee camps were once themselves like the people who arrive on our shores – desperate, attempting to evade authorities who wish them harm, often without proof of identity or official sanction for their travel. A very large proportion were "unauthorised" once. The fact that the Australian government – to its credit – accepts significant numbers of refugees under its humanitarian programs in no way diminishes our legal and moral obligation to those who arrive outside official channels.

Bronwyn – re-read my posts and I think you’ll find I’m not so far from your position on this issue.

Nice article, Philippe Legraine, which reintroduces the notion of a social conscience to an Australian culture that has been sadly been losing it in recent years.

As for this from Col Rouge:

"I see views expressed of Leigh and Sage similar to mine.

As for the ignorant scrote who wrote this piffling dross, may he fall on his own pen and die of ink poisoning...

...The postscript “Perhaps feeding people to the sharks would be a more effective deterrent.”

Now there is an idea - maybe we could start with a test sample using Philippe Legrain,

Except the sharks would likely spit him back."

If it was at all possible, I would like to swap Australian "scrotes" like Col Rouge for those desperate but deserving people who increasingly frequently make the unenviable decision to abandon their homelands to try and make a new life here.

Australia has far too many heartless and sanctimonious bastards already. The fact that their government is on the way out seems to make them uglier and shriller with each awful utterance.

“No-one here that I can see is calling for a ‘let them all in’ or an ‘open border policy’ “.

Bronwyn, Legrain has indeed been calling for this, as I understand it.

“What is being suggested is just and fair treatment for all asylum seekers and a prompt processing of their claims.”

I don’t think that the treatment of asylum seekers has ever been bad enough to warrant significant complaint, throughout the history of this phenomenon in Australia. Less than perfect, yes. A few unfortunate cases, yes. But overall, quite reasonable.

Neither has the processing of most claims been unreasonably long. The long ones have been the complicated ones or the ones for which there has been significant doubt about the veracity of the claim of refugee status and an inability to confirm or counter it.

And then we’ve got to consider the fact that a far greater leniency in criteria for meeting the status of a refugee, and thus for being allowed to stay in this country, has been given to those who have arrived in our waters, than has ever been given to people determined as refugees as part of the offshore program within the immigration quota.