Dear oh dear! The basic tenet of this article is just ridiculous! How on earth can you Susan Metcalfe rationalise Rudd’s weakening of border-protection policy as an insignificant factor in the recent escalation in arrivals?

OF COURSE it is a significant factor, and probably the key factor.

At any rate, Rudd knows that the push factors have increased. So it follows that a dilution of Australia’s policy at this time is just plain stupid. It needed to remain strong, if not strengthened further.

What a silly concept: criticising the opposition for complaining about the weakening of this policy and pointing the finger at them for spreading the word around the world and thus possibly spurring an increase in boat-people movement towards us, but to not apportion any blame to the instigators of the new policy. Crackers!

“Australia’s major political parties must find a way to deal with the subject of boat arrivals within a mature and humane bipartisan dialogue and both parties must maintain a responsibility to ensure that this is achieved into the future.”

So what would you have our political leaders do Susan? Please tell us…what is your solution or best option or point of balance between accommodating a small number of desperate asylum seekers without opening the proverbial floodgates? Should we just let them come here with open borders and minimal processing? Or should we be striving to close off the onshore asylum seeker route entirely… and boost our offshore refugee efforts and input into addressing the causal factors?

It's quite disapponting to read such a niaive posting. So what if none of the illegal immigrants (correct use of the term because they had not at that stage been assessed as legitimate asylum seekers) had heard of a particular form, process or entitlement. Apart from the fact that everything that comes out of their mouth is not gospel and they will lie and cheat when they think they can extract advantage from doing so, I bet their people smuggling hosts had heard and I bet they had also been waiting until the ALP once again had its hands on the levers of power in Australia. Every business, legitimate or otherwise should have been preparing contingency plans for a change of government well before the November 2007 election, to do otherwise would simply be poor business planning.

To suggest that the Rudd Government quietly and without fuss changed the policy to a more humane one while blaming the Opposition for telling the world about Australia's welcome mat is simply poor form. Nice try ... big fail.

“Agents are not at all interested in whether their human cargo is processed in Nauru or Christmas Island or if people will receive a temporary or permanent visa.”

They are also not interested in whether their clients are genuine refugees or economic migrants posing as refugees in order to settle in an affluent western country.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/12/1037080728677.html

Good post, Ludwig. Ms. Metcalfe clearly has not seen interviews of illegals in which they say that it is Rudd’s softening up that has made them try another run. Some of them have been sitting in Indonesia for 8 years for an opportunity as good as the one Rudd has given them.

The idea of “bipartisan dialogue” on this matter – which has clearly divided Australians – is absolute nonsense. The woman would have voices of at least half (probably more) of her own countrymen silenced for the sake of foreigners who might or might not be genuine refugees.

These bleeding hearts certainly have strange morals. They are all for believing people who turn up illegally, with their set patter to fool immigration, but they don’t spare a thought for the brave, stolid people left behind in places like Afghanistan, who plod through life, taking what comes

"In desperation people sell everything they own, or they borrow money from distant relatives, friends or unscrupulous money lenders, to buy their way to safety."

I was reading the “Jack the Insider” blog in “The Australian” recently and came across this comment made by a contributor named “Ironside”.

“I was actually involved in the border protection operations off Christmas island in both 2001 and 2003 …… I have actually been on the SIEVs ….. I have seen the so called refugees on many of those boats throw their paperwork over board to prevent them from being identified, I have been on board those boats as the “refugees” have done everything in their power to destroy the boats including but not limited to, trying to set them on fire, destroying the engine or steering gear and chopping holes in the hull. I have also searched the luggage of people who have been detained and found tens of thousands of US dollars (it’s almost always US dollars by the way) stashed away. These people are not legitimate refugees they are economic migrants who are trying to get the best deal for themselves.”

Detention centers had facilities for the safe storage of cash and valuables carried by asylum seekers, a newspaper acticle I once read on this topic noted the amount of cash in storage was in the many hundreds of thousands of dollars. I wonder if a freedom of information application could establish exactly how much cash was held for asylum seekers in detention.

Of course it is the Rudd government's fault, it is happening on their watch.

Regardless of the spin, as this article is trying to generate, the blame is correctly sheeted home to PM Rudd and his cohorts.

If PM Howard had tried such a ridiculous and contrived cop out, the media and other bleeding hearts would be screaming about propaganda and manipulation of information