*That's why if we had a large number of humanitarian visas and it was known that if you are a genuine refugee your chances of getting to Australia is actually a reasonable possibility, there would be little excuse to venture out in a dismal boat.*

Given the fact that there are roughly 20 million refugees at any
one time, wether we took 10'000 a year or 30'000 a year, would
hardly increase their odds of a cushy life in Australia. What
you call a dismal boat is fairly standard in the third world,
so why should they not have a go, if its relatively easy?

Fact is that we are not so isolated. The Indonesians regularly
fish in our waters, all in so called leakey boats.

Fact is, the easier we make it, the more will come. Given the
difficulty in renegotiating international treaties (the UN
does not really do things in a hurry), the best option is to
stick to Howard's doctrine, ie. we will decide who comes to
Australia. Fair enough, it seems the majority of Australians
still agree with that concept.

Col Rouge,

You quote the following words of mine to illustrate ad hominem attacks:

1. “A pair of neocons out with lemmings”
2. “hateful psychobabble”
3. “Polycarpian scare-monger with half-truths and exaggerations.”

No. 1 is an accurate description of you and your mate (although the lemmings bit was a word-play on an earlier post).

No. 2 is a description of hate-inciting nonsense dressed up in psychological jargon. Again accurate.

No. 3 describes Polycarp's usual modus operandum. Again demonstrably accurate.

Now, when you tell Fractelle, "you cannot defend Moron’s stoicism in the face of ad hominem attacks when he and you have been authors of so many", you are truly engaged in ad hominem attack. CJ Morgan is intelligent and articulate and knows an argument based on logic and evidence.

Your 'moron' ad hominem is clearly used to save you the effort of actually responding to his arguments.

You remind me of GB Shaw's drama critic who complains that the playright's name had been withheld from a private show. "How can I tell whether it's a good play," he demanded, "unless I know who wrote it?" (Ref: Stuart Chase, 'Guides to Straight and Crooked Thinking')

Free advice: read the posting before reading the name of the poster.

Anansi & Spikey

I always know I have gotten the better of Col when he launches into character assassination. If he put as much effort into providing real evidence for his views (other than hearsay) we may be able to engage in a productive debate.

As I have previously stated:

1. We need border control
2. We need swift and effective processing of refugees.
3. Leaving people to languish in refugee camps indefinitely is unreasonable and cruel. I and many others have provided substantive links to prove such.
4. We also need to evaluate a sustainable level of immigrants/refugees intake. This means active education, housing and placement of migrants where they are needed.

Some facts to consider:

34 million people around the world today have been displaced by war and conflict

On average refugees live in “temporary” camps for 17 years.

Around 13,000 refugees come to Australia each year

Some refugee camps in Africa have one doctor for every 100,000 refugees

Some refugee camps hold as many as 500,000 people

Globally, up to 6,000 refugees die everyday from cholera and other diseases

Two in 10 babies die at birth in refugee camps due to lack of proper medical facilities
Malnutrition is associated with at least half the deaths of children under five in camps
Two-thirds of Darfur’s population are now living in “temporary” camps as refugees or internally displaced peoples
In Democratic Republic of Congo, 7% of the population have died from poverty and disease caused by conflict.
Today in Rwanda, there are as many as 20,000 children, now teenagers, born of Tutsi mothers raped in 1994 by Hutu men
The number of people displaced by war and conflict has increased nearly three-fold since the 1970s
There are as many as 250,000 child soldiers around the world

75 per cent of recent conflicts are fuelled by foreign powers

In 2004, 10 million people were unable to reach humanitarian assistance because of conflict

Source: United Nations High Commission for Refugees

We cannot solve all the world's problems, but we can certainly help

*3. Leaving people to languish in refugee camps indefinitely is unreasonable and cruel. I and many others have provided substantive links to prove such.*

Fair enough. I agree that swift and fair processing is important.
In that case, it is only reasonable to expect that they turn up
with their papers in tact, othewise its they themselves who
are obstructing the efficient processing of their claims.

If documents are dumped overboard, of course there will be
huge delays. Gaining evidence from some places in the third
world, is not the easiest of things to do.

franklin: << Is CJMorgan against all forms of discrimination, and if so shouldn’t this discrimination be eliminated ? >>

I've already said both that the UN convention may well be in need of review and that our system of offshore processing needs to be improved. However, your claim of discrimination is as disingenuous as Mr Right's purported environmental concerns. Face it, you guys simply don't want any refugees coming to Australia and you'll use any specious argument you can to back up your xenophobia. While it may technically remove "discrimination" if absolutely no refugees made it to Australia, that would be an even less humane situation than the current approach.

Ludwig - "border protection" is a classic jingoistic trope because it's a figure of speech that is designed to stir up patriotic support for any government that deploys it in its propaganda. Howard's "We decide" rant following the Tampa incident was a highly successful example of such base political tactics.

It works because its sucks in not only the racists and rednecks, but also those like you whose concerns are motivated by somewhat less objectionable sentiments. It also feeds directly into fostering the kind of "civil unrest" you fear.

CJ, I’d call Howard’s “We will decide who comes to this country, and the circumstances under which they come” an eminently sensible lynchpin statement.

It is just so straightforward, benign and totally agreeable that it baffles me as to how anyone could have a problem with it or read anything devious into it.

Obvious the opposite; ‘we’ll let others, such as asylum seekers, decide whether or not they come here and under what circumstances’, is just totally untenable.

Whether or not a basic statement of fact or policy appeals to rednecks as well as to sensible people is completely incidental.

All policy positions need a simple statement that covers the basic motivation. All too often it is lacking, which leads to confusion in the general community. But in this instance, Howard nailed it.