" ... However, asylum seekers in Indonesia do not have their applications considered by the Indonesian government, as Indonesia has not yet signed the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 (the Refugee Convention) and its 1967 Protocol. Instead, the UNHCR branch in Jakarta considers their applications. If successful, they will await resettlement in a third country. ... "

The above is an extract from:
http://insideindonesia.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=475&Itemid=29

an article by a Canberra ANU law student at that time.

..

The article also purports to convey testimony of Asylum Seekers who have allegedly been locked up in Indo for more than 40 years. So, for some, in attempting to flee one sh!t hole, they end up in another. One assumes that word of mouth carries the reality of the plight of these individuals from one country to another, and bearing that in mind, it becomes clear why say in the instance of people fleeing Sri Lanka that they attempt to bypass Indonesia altogether.

So, it seems to me, that when certain individuals of the liberal party talk about their previous domestic solutions with delight, what they are actually referring to is an artificially engineered situation which is in its own right every bit as unpalatable to prospective refugees seeking asylum as such places as Indonesia.

Thus, in reality, their demonstrated behavior is indicative of the fact they do not want to be a party to the Refugee Convention or uphold the Human Rights of individuals seeking our protection.

So, it begs the question, why are they so gutless as to not just stand up and say so? Something like:

" ... There are huge numbers of refugees and plenty of them want to come to Australia, BUT, we simply do not want to know about anyone who has not the intelligence/education/training and money to come via state mechanisms alone. .... "

But then, why would anyone expect anything other than political cowardice from child abusers. What we see in them is the shadows of the White Australia policy and it speaks volumes as to the rotten heart of this country.

>> So any one who raises concerns about this issue is dog-whistling eh?

yep, pretty much.

Has any one heard of Tamil Nadu? Sonewhere in India, isn't it?

I have some strange feeling that it's the ethnic homeland of these people in question.

I have another strange feeling that it is a bit closer to where they are coming from, than Oz. Of course, they would be expected to earn their keep there, so not too attractive.

1. When asylum seekers flee from Afghanistan to Pakistan, the get to stay in camps ridden with dysentery and cholera. They are subject to rape and murder by the same groups from whom they have fled. They include some of the most traumatised people on earth. It is profoundly immoral to try and compel them to stay there. It is absurd to suppose that they had a duty to stay there and wait till somebody processed them. It was disgraceful to treat them as they were treated in Australia’s detention centres in order to try and deter others.

2. It is also immoral to expect poor countries to hold and process asylum seekers rather than their being supported and processed by wealthy ones like Australia.

3. In spite of the unreasonable processes used by the Immigration Department under the Howard Government, more than 90% of boat people were determined to be genuine refugees. Of those that were rejected, a small number have been killed and some more, having fled elsewhere, were determined there to be genuine. Ruddock should have resigned or been sacked when the first two were killed by those they said they were fleeing from, in 2001.

4. To assert that the cruel approach worked as a deterrent without proper research (i.e. merely on the grounds that the numbers declined) involves the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

5. Howard’s assertion that ‘we will decide who will come to this country’ etc was a childish response to criticism from overseas experts. The issue was never who should decide, but what decision ought to be made, and on what grounds.

6. Refugees who are granted permanent protection visas are expected to work for their living, like any other Australian resident. What is this nonsense about cushy lives?

Hasbeen - India is not a signatory to the UN Convention, so Sri Lankan Tamil refugees have no hope of being granted asylum there. You seem decidedly ignorant about these things, so perhaps I should alert you to the fact that Tamils are but one of many ethnic minorities in India.

Ludwig - Woof woof. Would you like a Schmacko?

I love the way this subject divides people so passionately into hardline groups - arguments based on pure emotion with little in the way of real facts to back them up.

Statistics and facts are just brushed aside when they conflict with personal prejudices.

It's no wonder some politicians like to use it to divide the community into groups to fight among themselves - one Party in particular it seems.