“ And it will take more than four years to undo the damage Howard did our reputation in the UN.”

What nonsense! The Howard Government treated the UN the way it deserves to be treated.

The US and Israel as “UN pariahs”? Being a ‘pariah’ in the eyes of the incompetent UN and Tony Kevin is something for both these countries, and Australia, to be proud of. The UN is a failed organisation, loaded with despots from backward, undemocratic countries.

“Australia offended the majority UN membership by the way we treated refugees in detention, by pushing refugee boats away…”, bleats the ALP admirer, Tony Kevin.

More rubbish. Australia played by the rules, taking in UN-processed refugees. UN requirements for refugee status were always more stringent than Australia’s, as the acceptance of most illegals by Australia showed.

Tony Kevin is a sad man, with nothing better to do these days than remind everyone how much he hated – and obviously still hates – John Howard. His exhortation to the Rudd Government to do: “…a big repair job to do at the UN, and on relevant policies at home, if we want to get onto the UN Security Council” when the poor quality of countries poncing centre stage at the UN is considered, really shows how out of touch he is

What a load of sanctimonious garbage.

How about the UN clean up its amoral, corrupt and destructive behaviour. The main goal of the UN is to transfer money from poor people in rich countries and send it to rich people in poor countries.

The mindless lefties that think the answer to a perfect world is a powerful UN should consider how difficult it is to get an Australian parliament to cater for the interests of Australians. What possibility will there be for the UN to respond to any electorate?

How about one of OLOs intellects writing about the UN's and South Africa's abrogation of responsibility for the human rights violations perpetrated by the mass murdering racist Mugabe?

The only good UN is a dead one.

That's the thing about 'hate' Mr Right.. it 'consumes' the hater..and Tony Kevin seems so embittered and full of hatred, and racist anti Australian-ism... that he only sees a very limited and short sighted way in front. In fact..I suspect he only sees things on the left of his head.

How shallow and short sighted are Anti Australians.. they are unfaithful to their own nations future and distructive to it's past. They seek to erect abhorrent, sickening memorials to our enemies and the socialist 5th columnists who seek to undermine the fragile cultural cohesian of this great land.

They speak about 'high moral ground'...yet ask them to censor disgusting degrading women dehumanizing pornography and they will whine and yelp and yap about 'freedom'... then they will try to condemn people who expose hate filled, warlike, child abusing, wife beating, Christian hating, Jew loathing cults from gaining a bigger foothold in our land.

No..the reputation I want us to have is STRONG IN DEFENSE of our culture, and values. And if that means putting a few verbal bloody noses on UN loving, Australian hating, Socialist promoting, Porn pushing, bigots..I don't mind a bit.

In fact..put me at the front of the line of patriots who will issue the first verbal thumps.

I guess based on the comments to the article so far Prime Minister Rudd hasn't shown his hand to quickly. He's showing the UN that his government sees things differently from the Liberal Party, wants to be a part of the UN and in a leadership role, and thus the UN could expect that there will be some kind of "reversal" or "repair" in Australia's behaviour to achieve this. Prime Minister Rudd is leaving nothing to the imagination!

Of course there will be those opposed to Australia's involvement with the UN, either in this capacity or full stop.

Richard left out a word

Justifiably i.e.

those who are justifiably opposed

This article had a thought provoking title but that was about it. There is one fundamental question that needs to be answered and isn’t addressed in this article; and that is why?

Why does Australian have to repair its relationship with the UN?

The organisation is fundamentally broken, mired in its own bureaucracy and incapable of decisive action. What possible benefit flows to Australia by taking a place in the Security Council alongside Burkina Faso, Libya and Panama? Perhaps they are seen as better allies than the world’s only superpower. Alternatively, we could be hidden in among the 192 member General Assembly of the UN which doesn’t even cast votes, they prefer a ‘general consensus’ on weighty issues such as improving global road safety and a possible declaration of 2009 as the international year of astronomy.

With a government driven by symbolism, hand-wringing and empty gestures we can expect more of this pointless activity. On face value it does us little harm but equally it does us no good while changing peoples focus from meaningful bi-lateral relationships to wishy-washy relationships based solely on non-offensive words to organisations such as the UN.

Just for your information. I don't vote Liberal or Labor and never will. So in the end it makes no difference whether your comments are justified or not. I'm all for Greens policy and that means tax, tax, tax! Especially you people who want to push the economy to its limits and at both ends of the scale. By all means you are entitled to win votes for the next election but you won't win mine.

As the holder of an Australian passport (and not a Labor supporter, by the way) I used to be proud of my nationality. Like many others, I now feel ashamed. Mr Howard debased Australia's standing and reputation in the world.

But the international community is forgiving and understands how party politics can affect any nation. I don't believe our standing in the world is irreparably tarnished. Fortunately, the most recent actions we take are the ones that are in the public mind.

As for the UN, for sure it is a monstrous bureaucracy. It has to be. And world governance is not in its hands, so much as it is in organisations like the Word Trade Organisation - and militarily in the US.

Accepting the UNs limitations, it's still best to belong and be a positive force and to work with the nations of the world than to stand apart and arrogantly frustrate mankind's best efforts. The UN has the impossible job of trying to pick up the pieces when nation states fail. Its job is made all the harder by the bullies in the world.

Here's to hoping that international relations is one area where Mr Rudd can excel.

For all the flaws that the UN has, it is still better to be a part of it than not to be, isn’t it? It is better to be in there trying to improve it rather than letting it languish.

Rudd’s desire for Australia to be on the UN Security Council is admirable.

Tony Kevin is critical of Howard’s policy on asylum seekers. But detention (rather than free movement in open society) of asylum seekers, processing (rather than their wholescale rejection) and the acceptance of those found to be refugees (accommodated in this country or in others), should be seen as a good policy balance between our national security in the face of a potentially huge rate of influx of asylum seekers in and after 2001, and the humanitarian treatment of all involved.

A policy of weak border protection, where we would have no or limited control over those who would come here, would fly totally in the face of good UN policy, surely. A country with poor border protection or poor management of its immigration and population growth would not deserve a place on the Security Council.

But Australia needs to radically improve its efforts in other ways to justify its place. Especially in dealing with refugees, by way increasing its international aid effort. It immediately needs to raise official development assistance funding to at least the UN recommended minimum of 0.7% of GDP for developed countries (Rudd has committed us to increasing our paltry 0.3% to 0.5% by 2015!)

Rudd also needs to commit to the acceptance of more refugees, while at the same time setting an example for the world about population stabilisation and sustainability. He can easily do this by reducing our immigration rate to net zero and doubling the refugee intake within it. That is, to about 25 000 per annum within a total intake of 30 000.

When Australia develops much-improved policies on global refugee and sustainability issues, it will deserve a place on the UN Security Council.

Ludwig I almost agree with you but again you are treating refugees like migrants or chess pieces to be pushed around as we see fit when the reality is completely different as we have seen first hand in recent years.

When Israel were bombing the bejesus out of most of Lebanon in 2006 the refugees fleeing, including 25,000 Australians, did not have time to wait in nice lines, to gather their papers, to ask permission to leave. They ran for their lives with the IAF, led by an Australian, bombing ambulances, cars with raised white flags and so on. Refugees by definition are not migrants wanting to move from one safe place to another which is why they have an entire convention based around their needs.

Locking them up is forbidden under that convention, yet Australia now has a law that says we can lock them up for the term of their natural lives if they cannot be deported, which of course makes them refugees.

Our other program is nothing more than an expensive hoax designed to appease DIMA's need for control. It has nothing to do with the refugee determination system and is based only on who is best for us.

People who are in camps are not having any fun but they are not imprisoned, they have protection already and under 1D of the convention are not entitled by law to any further protection unless that protection is withdrawn as happened to millions of Afghans and Iraqis in Pakistan and Iran in 1999-2001.

As for the US and Israel, they are rogue states who both act entirely outside of the law and the UN haters are deranged.

The UN is only all of us.

Given how much Messrs. Kevin and Loewenstein (and their ilk) hate Australians, white people, Christians, and Jews so much, perhaps they should migrate to "Palestine" and in a spasm of solidarity with their subalterns-most-worthy simply "Strap On" and stop lecturing the rest of us.

In fact we should be proud that the rest of the world has followed Australia's lead in dealing with border security.

As an American, I found Mr. Kevin's post interesting and thought-provoking. I always wondered why Australia supported U.S. policy (which has been often flawed) so closely. The near unanimous disagreement with Mr. Kevin's article gave me the answer: Aussies are almost as arrogant as Americans. Many Americans are now recognizing that being a military superpower is not enough. Among the talking points of two persons who hope to be our next President is to re-establish America's former reputation of being on the high moral ground and not rattling the sword at every opportunity. The UN is far from perfect but it is the best thing that we have to maintain stability in this troubled world. Reaching out to others and not clubbing them on the head could permit us to reach higher ground. Some of us in Amewrica see the handwriting on the wall. We can not continue to "control" the world while we get deeper and deeper in debt by borrowing from China and other countries who have a clear perspective of where they are headed. We appreciate the support of the Aussies but do you think that your blind support is in your best interest?

Marilyn, I am very pleased that you “almost agree” with me. I must say, I nearly fell awff m’ chair!

“…but again you are treating refugees like migrants or chess pieces to be pushed around as we see fit…”

I wouldn’t put it like that, but yes we have done a lot of strategic manoeuvring with asylum seekers and within them, those that were found to be refugees. Of course we did. The whole issue needed to be managed very carefully.

How would you have handled it?

For all of our recent exchanges on other threads, I still don’t have much of a feeling at all of how you would have dealt with it, apart from what has appeared to be your desire to see refugees move completely freely across borders, regardless of numbers. That can’t be the case if you are in any way agreeing with me now. Could you please clarify your views on this. Thanks.

Tony Kevin is spot-on with his review of Kevin Rudd’s stance in relation to the US, China and the UN. I fully support signs of change toward a more multilateralist line.

Admittedly the UN as presently constituted is sometimes corrupting, bureaucratic, and ineffective, but for all its shortcomings continues to play a vital role in a rapidly globalising world.

Alexander Downer, former Minister for Foreign Affairs is on record as having attempted to convince the Coalition Cabinet of the need for Australia to play a more productive role in the UN, only to have his views rejected by John Howard.

Howard’s problem stemmed from his attachment to an idealized vision of Australia as he remembered it. In many ways his views were hopeless outdated but were reassuring to white Australians increasingly threatened by an influx of refugees and migrants from cultures different to ours.

As scientists accumulated the evidence that greenhouse gas emissions imperil millions of lives Howard followed the lead taken by President Bush who stated: “We will not do anything that harms our economy, because first things first are the people who live in America”. “The American lifestyle is not up for negotiation”.

Australia’s too close an alignment with Bush Administration policies has made us many unnecessary enemies. Our support for the US war against Iraq has cost us dearly, while trade policies pursued by the US is driving millions of impoverished farmers in developing countries ever deeper into poverty.

Rudd appears to be clearing the way for Australia to take a more involved and responsible path in world affairs. My response to this promising start is to wish “more power to him”.

Austria and New Zealand are just two other developed economies, besides Australia, bidding for a place on the UN Security Council.

Austria has a good advantage because of what Austria and her citizenship has achieved together, in rebuilding her country, since WW2.

Citizens of Austria, unlike those in many western economics, are highly sensitive, earnest, utterly aware of the need for world balance. Through economic capitalism, Austrians demand their government be respectful in the way it addresses social justice, through the Law and on Human Rights. For an Austrian, ‘small is beautiful’. Cultural diversity is everything. Their citizen concerns that the “other” is defended. It’s a fabric that builds that economy. An economy that pro-actively participates in advocacy of those disadvantaged people’s in “other” cultures.

Under Helen Clark, New Zealand has a similar agenda. Citizens of New Zealand are getting there. As a young developed nation, NZ has embraced the idea of “capacity building” through e-commerce and e-democracy. In the past two decades New Zealand has shown the world that war, and the threat of war is “no game” when the crimes underlying the causes of war; dominant groups over-powering the lawful citizen rights of minority groups, where the minority groups (fractionised) have often poor access to land/housing, health, education, employment, the press and representation through the law and their government.

After WW2 the Marshall Plan and Human Rights was to be the bases of a collective knowledge learnt. The “cost of civilian life” lost during WW2, was supposed to be the sacred memory that we promised ourselves “not to forget”.

To dig deeper, one might compare the technical aspects of the"Treaty of Versailles". Look where we are today? Is it a case that mirrors us as a wheel rotating through time, a world human race mislaid, forgetting the relevance of all life, lost in our recent and ancient past.

Australians need to do more than ‘navel graze’.

Be it Zimbabwe, Darfur/Sudan-Congo, Kosovo, Burma- Tibet, the children of Iraq, Afghanistan, and all in-between… we are all farmers…

What would you do if you were in the UN?

http://www.miacat.com/
.

Ludwig, refugees are allowed to freely cross borders. That is the point. To deny them that right is to be complicit in the torture, genocide and ethnic cleansing of human beings.

We don't have to treat them with such disrespect do we? After all 5 million people travel here every year, they are not really screened by anyone and about 60,000 or so every year choose not to leave.

We have enshrined the right to seek and enjoy asylum into our law, then ignored it.

Kapeesh?

And the clown that says other nations are copying our "border" protection is a fool. We don't have any borders, we have a very long coastline which makes it very difficult to even get here.

Well Kevin did you deliberately provoke?
One really must not offend the nationalist sentiment so fostered by Johnny, flags and all. Pastors give the line on ethical behaviour.
I largely agree with your thesis and I am sure those people berating the UN, blame someone!, will soon realise that we are all members of the UN and if the UN is unsatisfactory it is our fault.
Australia could have stood aside from Iraq and offered advice and counsel but chose to participate in an illegal war contrary to the UN.
We may have abided by some of the agreement on refugees but not all, and denigration of refugees was churlish, the behaviour of small minds. Our method of advertising the dangers of becoming a refugee cruel and against the humanitarian use of created law.
We do indeed have some apologising to do

There's no denying the UN is a monstrously undemocratic, deeply flawed organisation. One bomb, one vote? Very enlightened.
It's still, however, just about the only international forum we have.
We can't fix it by turning our backs on it.
But before we (Rudd) attempt a louder voice in the forum, we should perhaps first remove the plank from our own eye, before trying to remove the splinter from our neighbour's eye.
I really don't think our domestic situation is quite 'export quality' yet.

Dear Joe in the USA....

get back to us when you have to speak Spanish cobber.

How do you feel about lax border security and the daily flood of Mexicans who are openly saying things like:

"All we have to do is survive.. we are breeding, we are millions...and the white poeple are not having babies, we will take over" etc.

It's not 'arrogance' from which we speak...its down to earth common sense and the ability to 'read the tealeaves' of history.

The tragedy is, many Americans appear to be oblivious of their own decay and destruction happening on their doorstep, and they have swallowed hook line and sinker the Left's propoganda.

Bush? he is an idiot.. have a look at this for why.

Go straight to 2m40s on the vid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipsYKjHJktQ

In regard to Tony Kevin’s comment on the asylum seeker issue, perhaps I may be permitted to quote Dr. Katherine Betts of Swinburne University of technology in Melbourne who is an expert on the Australian public’s attitude to immigration:

“the evidence shows that there was no sudden desire to close the door on boat people dating only in the last couple of years. This has been a slow and growing trend over the last quarter of a century. Critics are quick to dismiss this attitude as narrow minded xenophobia, the mindset of a paranoid people still gripped by 19th century fear of invasion.....

But many intellectuals are tone deaf to the ideas of nation and peoplehood and the power these ideas have for most Australians. People who are secure in their identity may choose to act compassionately, as in the case of the Kosovars, but resent attempts to coerce them to share their home with outsiders.

Critics who cannot understand this imagine that if they assault and insult the idea of nation with sufficient vigour we will all become generous internationalists living in a world of peace and harmony.”

May I also quote Paul Sheehan from his excellent book “The Electronic Whorehouse” which critiques the bias of the Australian media on various issues, including the significant bias of ABC reporters on the asylum seeker issue:

Despite media uproar about the “demonising” of boat people, the argument failed to have moral resonance with the majority of Australians. The 2001 Australian Electoral Study, which analysed the behaviour of the electorate, surveyed 1702 voters at the height of the campaign and found that, by a politically overwhelming margin of three to one, respondents supported the principle of a hard line position on boat people. This majority support held true across eight of nine occupational categories into which respondents were divided.

In only one category, “social professionals”, was there majority opposition to government policy, and this category only represented 10 per cent of those surveyed. “The attitudes of the social professionals are quite unlike those of the rest of the sample”, wrote Dr Katherine Betts in an analysis of the electoral survey. “It shows how unrepresentative the vocal social professionals are of other voters; it is not just that they do not speak for the working class, they do not speak for a majority in any other occupational group.”

Had the government been perceived by the public to be allowing Australian sovereignty to be rendered irrelevant and public policy to be dictated by an alliance of people smugglers, asylum seekers, journalists and legal activists, the political upheaval would have been enormous. Real damage would have been done to the public’s faith in the legal system, the democratic process and the immigration system.

Marilyn, I think I kapeesh.

It seems as though I kapeeshed some time back, but refused to believe the message I was receiving from you….because…well, it is truly unbelievable.

Your argument is that refugees can cross borders….end of story. No matter how many, nor what effect they may have on a host country. And no matter how long the movement might continue.

You apparently feel that onshore asylum-seekers (whether refugees or not) should have always been and still be allowed to come to Australia unrestricted and be accepted into mainstream society straight away. You condemn anyone who thinks otherwise.

Been out of town.

Franklin -- right on.

Paul Sheehan(ex labor party) also outed the great lie of multiculturalism in Among the Barbarians i.e. the policy had very little to do with empathy and humanitarianism but had every thing to do with importing a political constituency (votes). BTW I am a migrant.

Isn't it interesting that populism is only a dirty word when uttered by the chattering leftists while deriding those who possess a traditional sense of fairness.

Lindsay Tanner once informed me (in writing) that there are no illegal migrants simply because it is not against the law to be in Australia without permission. Truth is stranger than fiction.

I know what you are thinking, but Lindsay insists this is the case! My correspondence with him resulted from a TV quote of his, "after all they are only guilty of wanting to be Australian". I pointed out that if this were true then, "thieves were only guilty of wanting to be affluent" hence his response.

This simple fact probably led to J Howard holding our uninvited guests off shore. Interestingly, I do not recall the Liberals wanting to create a law that would make the activity illegal.

Wouldn't it be nice if the 6:00 news were as uncomplicated as it is presented?

Be honest and accurate Marilyn

The border they are allowed to cross is the nearest one not ANY border in the world.