Well written article. As some pointed out the usual suspects needed to express their fears about 'others', nothing new really.

What I think quite interesting is the number of people who truly and sincerely believe that in the rest of the world, in every refugee camp, in every heavily censored totalitarian state, the local populace is intimately involved in the flavour of our political government and minutely up to date with every policy change. These places must be bristling with satelite dishes pointed towards Australia receiving signals directly from our 'left' wing ABC.

We think we are important, but folks, even 75% of the population of our dear allies, the US of A don't know where we are, who our PM is, that we even had an election or that we regard ourselves part of 'the coalition of the willing'. The USA, Europe and Canada get many, many more requests for asylum than we do.

Australia just doesn't register much on the radar, Europe and the USA do. Simply by the size of their armed forces in many of the trouble spots.

Kim Huynh poses the question “who is responsible?” – a better question might be, who is to be believed?

We should treat any analysis by a ¬teacher of Refugee Politics– with the same degree of skepticism as we would a tobacco company’s study on the affects of smoking.

Kim believes the stories of ‘persecution and conflict”, despite such stories being at odds with the facts:
--Though the true believers will deny it, long, & loud .It’s OFTEN the case that asylum seekers are fleeing REGIONAL disturbances , NOT NATIONWIDE conflicts. If their intent was purely to escape danger, they might have managed that in many cases by relocating within their old country!
--But having decided to leave their old country, why didn’t they apply for asylum in any of the intermediate countries they passed through?
Not being signatories to refugee conventions does not preclude countries from accepting refugees – especially if they’re the same religion/race i.e. Sri Lankan Tamils to India – ME Muslims to, proudly Muslim, Malaysia or Indonesia !

Kim wants us to believe the numbers are small “and well within our capacity to deal with”
We should be careful about believing any such assurances :
1) “ For ten years I was head of the UK immigration service. I have long known that the Home Office statics’ bear no relation at all to the true facts on Immigration… the actual number was more than twice the official one” -- Peter Tompkins

2) As of 2005 some 449,000 New Zealanders lived in Australia…in the years 2004-05 33,905 came to Aust as permanent residents ..of these 23% were not born in NZ.Like Italy vis-à-vis Europe, much of what NZ ‘accepts’ ends up in Australia .

The full cost of any intake is not just the 100-200 that are initially accepted, but the 1000s who will inevitably follow …And, the creation of a self perpetuating bureaucracy to cater for/study/advocate for them …including, such -highly productive- positions as …teacher of Refugee Politics at the Australian National University!

wing ah ling,

where do you get your 12%? in case it wasn't clear, i was talking about asylum seekers who make it to australia. of these, amnesty international says:

"Generally, 84 per cent of all asylum seekers arriving in Australia without proper documentation are found to be legitimate refugees and are able to stay here."

as for both parties "being tarred with the same brush", yes that is true. but only one party dipped the whole damn bucket of tar over themselves. labor was (and is) disgusting. except in comparison to howard, and reith, and ruddock, and the rest of that loathesome bunch.

CJ

My questions to you were:

What do you think Howard should have done at the time?

Do you really support Rudd’s watering down of this policy which despite what you say appears to be highly significant in the escalation of boat-people numbers, especially at a time when the driving forces for this movement are increasing, as is being repeatedly expressed by Rudd and his ministers?

Surely it was vital that a strong policy be left in place if not boosted at this point in time, yes?

You wrote:

“In response to Ludwig's questions, I think that the most obvious consequence if Howard hadn't shamefully appealed to Australia's racist underbelly around the Tampa incident would have been that he wouldn't have been re-elected. Also, several hundred legitimate refugees wouldn't have had to endure the inhumane conditions to which they were subjected by his regime before they were eventually accepted.”

Excuse me, but that’s not an answer to the above questions, it skirts around the first question and completely fails to address the other two.

Comeon, you branded my first post “ignorant comments”. So it is time to put some substance behind your rhetoric.

The three questions above are hanging out to be answered.

You ask a question of me:

“What makes you think that Howard's policies towards asylum seekers stopped them from coming?”

I’d love to answer it. But fair’s fair – you answer mine and I’ll answer yours.

"Some posters believe they may be the spearhead of some vast invasion fleet that is going to destroy our society from within but let's simply imply that their claims are all fake and just want a better way of life."

I personally believe the vast majority of asylum seekers do primarily come here for a better way of life and that they are not Barbarians. That doesn't mean that physics doesn't apply though. If enough people of any particular race/culture settle in a country, it's just natural they clump together to form a bloc. So an ordered immigration policy that controls overall numbers as well as numbers of particular ethnic/cultural types is absolutely essential to ensure that our way of life isn't destroyed.

However, ...
Do asylum seekers, as humans, get the rough end of the stick? Absolutely. Is it fair on them? No. Should there be less "skilled" migration (where some of the migrants granted such visas disappear into the unskilled workforce)? Yes. Does the ultimate solution to the asylum seeker problem lie in improving the rule of law in developing and underdeveloped countries so that people have no need to flee in the first place? Yes. Are these easy problems to fix? No.

The best a Government of a developed country can do is to maintain a migration policy that best balances all the competing forces. When the overall paradigm shifts, they then need to shift to a new balance point.

In a liberal democracy people have the right to hold and express diverse opinions, as reflected in the robust discussion above. A fundamental measure of whether opinions are civilized and morally defensible is how they perceive and portray other humans. At one end of the spectrum are those who seek to understand, respect and care about others, at the other are those who choose to be judgemental (they would probably say "realistic"). The real question is which approach is effective is sustaining a harmonious, tolerant, caring, fair and just society? Many of the people who have settled here have fled societies where conflict, violence and inhumanity are common in the absence of decent and humane values. Only the ignorant and arrogant believe that humans are really any different (or of less "value") because they come from somewhere else.