franklin,
Thank you for the link to the 'Age' story as it was most informative.

Do you have any further information as to how these 'secondary movement' asylum seekers get from Pakistan or Iraq to Indonesia and/or on how they are accomodated whilst waiting in Indonesia for the final sea voyage to Aus.

anansi,
I agree with your views on skilled migration, but it is a bit off topic so I will not take it any further.

About our humanatatian intake, I read recently that our intake (you say 13000) is the highest on a per capita basis of any western country. You could explain that to your kids.

It is not a matter of being frightened of 'illegals' It is simply that I believe in a fair go and do not want gate crashers, queue jumpers, con merchants, fraudsters, cheats and liars. The illegals are not what they say they are. I do not accept we should take them in ahead of many other more deserving legitimate refugees.

You should click on the link to the 'Age' that franklin provided,on page 8, you might just learn something.

Well said inded, Anansi.

To those who persist in wishing to change the subject from Australia's failure to provide asylum to refugees who clearly had "well founded fears" for their lives, no matter how you wish to twist the facts these unfortunate people had every right under Australia's current treaty obligations to get themselves here by whatever means in order to seek asylum.

The fact that they were returned to be murdered is evidence of gross miscalculation on the part of our immigration authorities. We have blood on our hands.

There may well be good reasons for the international treaties and covenants pertaining to refugees and asylum seekers to be reviewed, but until that time and while Australia remains a signatory to them, we are legally and morally bound to provide asylum to bona fide refugees who seek it in Australian territory. To refer to these people as "illegals" and to imply that their reasons for seeking asylum are not genuine is not only offensive, but inhumane.

When will the people who use names and abuse in their pathetic attempts to howl people down provide the legislative tract which says that it is OK for people to jump from country to country to get to Australia in order to claim asylum.

As far as I'm aware, no such legislation exists, and signing any international agreement does not nullify Australia's sovereign rights. No action could, or would, be taken against Australia if it refused all refugees (including those processed by UN officals) henceforth.

We don't have world government yet!

Mr Right

Take your proposition to its logical conclusion, we'd all be gone from here except the Indigenous population.

Anansi, “compared to the approx 49 000 visa overstayers.”

Who get locked up and deported when they are caught

“The saddest part is that right wing thinkers love screeching 'bleeding hearts'”

Ah that sounds like me…..
And I am legal allowed to be a “right wing thinker” in Australia because I waited in line to be vetted and accepted by the Australian Migration services when I applied to migrate to Australia (after waiting 7 years for my qualifications to be deemed “in demand”), unlike those who try to circumvent Australia’s Migration legislation.

“Poor nations are being plundered of their skilled and wealthy citizens,”

So we should ban the migration of people with skills, regardless of their personal aspirations for a better life for themselves and their children instead taking in just the economic and social ‘basket cases’?

“If we need more people in this country, they should be refugees, displaced peoples. Not educated, skilled people from other nations.”

Why – because that way you will feel you have someone who is less than you to look down upon?
(oh, there is nothing worse than an immigrant who does better than someone who got here by accident of birth)

“If we need skilled people then we will damn well train and educate Australians who are already here and refugees ourselves.”

There are a million opportunities in australia and a lot of Australian who seem to prefer to want everything handed to them on a plate, ie… training the untrainable is a non-solution.

From Anansis post I would suggest we desperately need to increase the intaking of skilled migrants. We obviously need to enhance the gene pool, not dilute it with just the flotsam and jetsam of the Oceans.

The 2001 Australian Electoral Study, which analysed the behaviour of the electorate, surveyed voters at the height of the campaign (“Tampa election”) and found that, by a politically overwhelming margin of three to one, respondents supported the principle of a hard line position on boat people, ie: secondary movement asylum seekers.

This majority support held true across eight of nine occupational categories into which respondents were divided. In only one category, the “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.”

Author/journalist Paul Sheehan noted: “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.”

Fast forward from 2001 to the present time. An Essential Research Poll following the Labor Government's announcement that it was liberalising mandatory detention policy indicated that Australians still retain a hardline attitude towards secondary movement asylum seekers. Less than a quarter of respondents (24%) said the past policy on asylum seekers had been too tough, while 62% said it had been right or not tough enough.

Those in higher income brackets were more likely to believe the policy had been too tough, while those on lower incomes were more inclined to believe it was not tough enough. The poll also reported that a majority of Australians think that the country is now taking too many refugees.

Also refer to commentary by Douglas Kirsner of Deakin University:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23471228-5007146,00.html