Divergence, I appreciate your presentation of statistical data.

Similarly franklin contributes objective data to the thread.

Fractelle those who arrive here but attempt to avoid the migration services are actually “unlawful non-citizens” per the Australian Migration Act and deserve to be incarcerated prior to being returned from whence they came.

It is you who repeatedly attempt to obfuscate the difference between them and real "Refugees", not me.

“I have worked for over ten years with immigrants”

Well that should discourage them from coming here (I find just reading your drivel is discouragement enough)

“resort to telling people to "shut their big mouths"”

Please quote

in which post (date/time and thread title will suffice) I used that phrase

or

Withdraw your desperate and feeble lie now.

“waste of my valuable time.”

That must qualify as “Oxymoron of the Day”

“However, to remain silent is just as reprehensible . . . hence my response today.”

Like most of the rest of your post, you have that wrong,

You are as reprehensible when posting as when you remain silent.

Mr Right and myself are free to express our sincerely held view.

When low lifes like Spikey

using phrases like

“This is one of your sillier posts. Read it again, dear boy, and see if you can spot the flaws in your logic.” And

“Well then, dear chap, stop posting shallow emotive “ Or
“babble away telling others to get 'the big picture',”

and Fractelle says “Another poster with anger issues” and
“Incapable of providing facts, ….are as flaccid as they are spurious.”

it hardly entitles either of them to suggest ““That you continue to deride, insult and avoid questions”

Btw "shut their big mouths" was written ONLY by fractelle but as is often the case, she deceitfully used it to highlight her "truth-free" vilification.

Look up the phrase "rank hypocrites"

to see picture of fractelle and Spikey

oh, some one put bug repellant out for the resident moron, he is beneath me bothering with.

CJ Morgan,

CJ Morgan might be your real name; on the other hand it might not. I would not be surprised if you are really a member of the Greens, though: they are about the only party suitable for a destructive, left-wing loony and control freak in Australia. But, even they, would accept your membership only to get another name on the roll. I’m sure you could be easily found – the village idiot in your community.

I’m not interested in ‘tracking you down’; I am not interested in making barely veiled threats of violence against you (like you have against me and others) just because of what you say here. Unlike you, I have no desire to harm people who disagree with me.

You say that you “…stand by the ideas and values that I express here in real life”. Well so do I, buster and I’m sure Col Rouge does too. We both disagree with everything you stand for. You are the worst type of bully and thug. If you are a member of the Greens, it is very apt. The Greens will never have to put their money where their mouths are.

Unlike you, I have a real life away from OLO, and people don’t rush up to me saying, “Leigh, Leigh please tell me what you think about illegal immigrants, refugees, multiculturalism” or whatever. Nor do I go around preaching like I’m sure you do. I owe allegiance to no political party and my only influence is, like most people’s, through the ballot box.

If a controversial subject is brought up in my presence, I state my views. People with opposing views can take it or leave it. If you mixed with people other than Greens and bores, you would know that, in most cases, people with different views usually change the subject and talk about something else. Life for them does not revolve about political parties and the manic desire to change everybody else’s mind.

Please buy a Thesaurus and expand you vocabulary. “Odious” a few other of your pet words are wearing very thin.

It is only since Howard encouraged use of "illegals" and "those kind of people" to describe boat people that these derogatory - and inaccurate - names have been thrown about. Anyone around in the 70's would be aware of the flight of refugees from Vietnam when the term 'boat people' was first coined. I don't recall any resentment of the fact then; most objection was on the simple basis of race rather than their manner of arrival.

In this era it has become seemingly acceptible to label refugees and asylum seekers on the basis of how they arrived in Australia and not much else. In many cases the country of origin does not have a functioning administration yet after reading some of the rants here you'd think an Australian embassy opens 9 to 5 in the CBD of every major settlement on the planet.

I've still to hear of anyone trying to avoid the migration services. If anything that's what they're after. If you do not have faith those services will do their job that's another matter. Perhaps the UN convention on refugees does need to be revised. Great! Until then do we honour it or do we disregard it because we're special? I thought only the US practiced exceptionalism.

Please note, stats for British migration have as much bearing on this country as do stats for British sun cancer. They certainly have problems but such alarmism detracts from your argument.

Mr Right: << barely veiled threats of violence >>

Leigh, you seem to be a experiencing some kind of paranoid episode. If you construe any of my comments as implying any kind of violence you're seriously deluded.

I have no personal interest in you whatsoever. However, rest assured that I'll continue to respond appropriately to the more egregious comments you make, under whatever alias you're currently hiding behind.

As I've said, on the basis of what you've posted in this thread there's no point in arguing with you about the topic, so feel free to continue to post whatever misanthropic drivel floats your boat.

Ciao for now.

CJ Morgan; “Ludwig - yes, Ruddock was making all sorts of claims prior to the Tampa incident”.

This may cause you rush outside and throw up in your garden, but I think that Phillip Ruddock was one of the few truly genuinely honest say-everything-at-face-value politicians of our time (unlike some of his colleagues, such as Abbot and Costello). When he said that there was a build-up of asylum seekers heading towards Australia, and when he elucidated the various supporting evidence, I believed him….at face value.

Anyway, even if he was mistaken about the escalation, it was clear that there was an established asylum seeker movement and that boats would keep coming after the Tampa incident with no end in sight, if the border-protection policy hadn’t been tightened. Even if the rate of arrivals hadn’t increased, we would still have had twice as many, or perhaps ten times as many people to deal with within the next year or so.

If the issue had dragged on, the Australian public would have demanded tough action…and in just the same way that Howard’s tough stance strongly assisted him in winning the following election, a lack of strong action would have severely hampered his chances of re-election….and greatly increased the resolve of Labor to decisively deal with the issue.

And there would have been much more pressure to assert a much harsher interpretation of the 1951 refugee convention criteria…resulting in a larger proportion of arrivals being sent home.

Surely there is no doubt about either of these points.

.
Forrest makes a very good point about regime change and the feeling that Afghanistan was a much safer place after American ‘occupation’, and that people could be sent back on that basis. It proved to be fallacious, but I’m sure you, CJ, can see that it was a genuine belief at the time.

I've read through many of the threads again and the issue that comes up time and time again is the anger towards refugees that arrive here as 'secondary movement' asylum seekers who are 'jumping a queue'.

We can talk till we're blue in the face, but obviously we are not going to agree on the 'illegal' bit regarding refugees. But there certainly is frustration from both sides of the fence on how people who arrive here without a visa are dealt with. Neither side is happy on that score.

The facts are:
-millions of displaced persons are living in very often appalling conditions in refugee camps, many for YEARS.

-all these refugee camps, from which secondary movement occurs, are in poor third world countries. Those countries have a huge refugee problem.

-Can Western countries expect that these poor countries will care that by getting rid of a few refugees through people smuggling it will cause no end of angst in some comfortable sububurban homes?

-a yearly intake of 13 000 refugees is not a queue. It is a laughable number considering the number of immigrants per year that come into Australia.

My view is that if Australia, and please let's not constantly compare ourselves to little crowded European countries, changes the 'mix' of permanent arrivals into Australia by having a much, much larger number of humanitarian visas then maybewe can start referring to 'a queue'

At present the chance of being able to apply for one, let alone obtain a visa, is so remote that people will start looking for alternate ways of leaving a life in limbo in some refugee camp.

I know the temptation is big to resort to 'bleeding heart' and 'do-gooder' tags in response to anybody who suggests that just sending asylum seekers away, or putting them in some 'exclusion zone' is not dealing with what is.

Why can we in Australia not be more pro active in dealing with both the numbers of people who are looking for a safe haven and our need for new citizens?