It's true. While asylum seekers should be treated decently, it's a mere distraction to the greater problems facing us with our current generation of politicians who are obsessed with increasing control and high-fiving each other over playing populist.

Some interesting issues you raise there Divergence, many of which I have responded to in the past.

However, they have nothing to do with the article I have written here, which was about Labor's policy changes in the area of immigration detention.

This has no relation to global population levels, let alone the size of Australia's migration intake.

2/9/09

Andrew:

I have been following this debate with abated breath, and it is becoming increasingly obvious, you are digging a chasm for yourself, and your erstwhile ex colleagues in the Senate.

My thoughts:
Why bother to defend the indefensible ? Shop lifting is a crime, but in the confines of the Parliament of Australia, it's a mental aberration - literally. Two-thirds have their snouts in the trough, so if the majority are party to the subversion of Criminal Law, it makes it acceptable. Here's the pinch - the great devide. One Law for the Elitist, another for the hoi polloi !

Ronald Reagan: " Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realise that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."

Robert Strauss: " If you're in Politics, you're a whore anyhow. It dosen't make any difference who you sleep with."

What a sad reflection of the times.

Shame.

The Australian Refugee Convention does not possess a mortgage on political wisdom or accrucasy,Andrew,nor do you.

The fact remains that any refugee who is a genuine refugee seeks refuge as near a refuge as possible and to get there ASAP.The refugees that came to Australia wsent sublimely past the nearest refuges available EVEN THOSE WHERE THE CULTURES AND RELIGION WAS THE SAME!!
Hello!
They took the longest route to their chosen refuge.It would have been cheaper and safer to arrive at a more fasmiliar and safe refuge nearer the place from they were uprooted dont you think.Or is the reasoning I have put forward also "IRRELEVANT"?
So why did they come to Australia and not to some other neatrer refuges places like Sri Lanka or Malaysia or INdonesia?
And dont say because they wanted to.

Could they have stortmed the Japanese Embasy or Consulate and asked for asylum?Or China? Or Korea? What was so undesirable with Bahrain,Kuwait or any other Emirate?
Ever thought of that?The Australian Refugee Convention found the answer too hard to face. ( naive buggers!)

Whoever the refugee advocates may be I wonder if they ever considered or still consider the options I have touched on.

socratease

socratease said "The Australian Refugee Convention does not possess a mortgage on political wisdom or accrucasy,Andrew,nor do you."

I don't believe I have ever claimed to have a mortgage on political wisdom or accrucasy (sic), socratease. However, it is a simple fact that a refugee who travels through a number of countries to reach one where they can claim secure refuge is still a refugee, according to both Australian law and the Refugee Convention.

There is no such thing as the "Australian Refugee Convention". There is an international Convention, adopted in the aftermath of World War II when nations saw what could happen to people denied the chance to obtain safe haven. It is not compulsory for nations to sign this Convention or the later Protocol updating it, but Australia has and has also (mostly) incorporated it specifically into Australian law.

It is true that many refugees stay close to the country they fled from, but in many if not most cases that does not provide them with safety from being returned to danger. The countries you name, such as Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia are not signatories to the Refugee Convention and thus do not provide a haven against being returned to danger for a refugee who seeks it. Many refugees - far more than have ever tried to come to Australia - none the less reside in countries such as these in a state of insecurity.

These questions are not simple or easy, but you are incorrect in your suggestion that they have never been considered.

Jacinta: Expressing my views on this topic has nothing to do with any of my ex colleagues in the Senate. I don't know if you are actually trying to make a point, or just enjoying yourself engaging in a few tired cheap slurs against all politicians. Many politicians are not immune to a bit of name-calling themselves of course, but for all their faults, most of them do a better job them you seem to be able to in engaging at least in passing with the topic being discussed.

Some background to asylum seekers' journeys 1999-2001.
Iran in the 1990s was commended by the UN for hosting over a million refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq. By 1999 with little support from elsewhere, Iran changed policy and set measures in place to get the Afghans and Iraqis to leave - some had lived there for almost twenty years since the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. This was one factor in Afghans and Iraqis seeking safety elsewhere.

Syria and Jordan as Iraq's neighbours were unsafe as Saddam's people operated in those countries. Although Iraqis being Arab nationals could get visas on arrival for both countries, the visas expired after 3 months. They were then there illegally and had no work rights so couldn't survive. If picked up by authorities they could be deported back to Iraq. Many had used people smugglers to get out of Iraq. Leaving Iraq without an exit visa before 2003 was illegal so if they were returned they would be punished on that basis alone, and usually they fled in the first place because Saddam's security forces had targeted them. So deportation back to Iraq was a death sentence.

Although easy to enter Malaysia, Iraqis were granted 3 week visas, no work rights. If they overstayed, they were subject to flogging, fines, detention and deportation.

In Indonesia if they overstayed their short term visas which did not allow them to work, the asylum seekers were locked up in immigration detention. I've spoken to many asylum seekers who were locked up in Indonesia immigration detention, some for years.

That was why they wanted to come to Australia - as a western democratic country, they thought they would be safe.