The policy is not very good, either way. There needs to be international policy and more work done in co-operation with the governments that have issues..eg Sri Lanka

I was reading France deported 21,000 Afghans and I can imagine many will try it again or try their luck here. So we get this very mobile group that could perhaps cause great expense on numerous attempt perhaps in many countries. Also read different countries have different refugee criteria which would promote country shopping. All this money spent of a few could probably assist millions if an international solution was found.

What is happening in Indonesia is very bad government. They should have removed them from the vessel or sent them to Christmas Island. Then dealt with the consequence of their decision. This is a joke at the moment, a whole nation being held to ransom by a few. Will only increase antagonism in the community and send votes back to any Pauline Hanson type and this time it may stick.

Andrew Bartlett, you are a flawed man! You think that if you repeat lies often enough they become the truth.
We know the children were thrown overboard because the only eyewitnesses said they saw them thrown overboard!
Cornelia Rau is a German citizen and not an Australian citizen She lived in Australia using a false passport and a false name. The German government failed to identify her, as did the Australian government due to her successful lies. She was never found to be ill or psychotic. She was taken into custody by the Queensland State Govt. (lead by a Labor govt,) and the Qld. Dept. of Health found she was not bipolar or psychotic. She strenuously denied that she was psychotic. Yet you and your ALP mates attacked Amanda Vanstone because she failed as the Federal Minister of Immigration to take care of a woman held by a Labor State Govt.!
You and your mates, Sen. Faulkner and Sen. Cooke successfully turned these incidences into an attack on the Howard Govt by lying.
You used your terrified infant son in front of cameras to defend your drunken escapade when you stole wine from the Libs Christmas Party, and now you perpetuate your lies. You are a sad man, but even sadder, you are a paradigm of the left-wing politician.
Geoffrey Kelley

Andrew

Why do you try to rationalise Rudd's disgraceful performances in Indonesia.

It is obvious to us all he is spining out of control, has no consistant policy on border protection, is dealing with each boat crisis on an ad hoc basis, hasn't the guts to make a fit and proper decision on those unfortunates held in Indonesia and is leaving Australia's borders completely unprotected.

His current Indonesian solution is worse than anything Howard ever did.

Why are you his chief apologist? Why aren't you shrieking at him and his policy failure the way you shriek at John Howard and his policies, which worked rather more humanely than anything Rudd is currently espousing and you are endorsing/defending.

Why don't you ask the asylum seekers why they want Australian assessment rather than UN assessment in Indonesia.

Andrew your thought processes are at best muddled when you think you can dish up the tripe you have on this issue and expect to be taken seriously.

This latest post is the lowest point of your public utterances.

That's quite a feat Geoffrey - I've rarelt seen such a wide variety of nonsense packed into such a short comment. Perhaps you could try commenting on the issue instead of trying to smear people with a tirade of nonsense, but presumably you can't think of any factual arguments against what I have said, so you attack the person instead. Very admirable.

There were no "eyewitnesses" to children being thrown overboard because it never happened, you hateful idiot. The captain of the ship, HMAS Adelaide said on oath it never happened. Even the Liberals eventually admitted that the allegation of children being thrown overboard was false.

Cornelia Rau was and is an Australian permanent resident - the fact that she is also a German citizen is irrelevant to the fact that she was and is entitled to live in Australia. Your suggestion that she had no mental illness is false - and seeing this fact has been comprehensively established, you must know it is false, making you a knowing liar. Even the Liberal government admitted they stuffed up big time. They would hardly have forked out compensation money otherwise.

I am not in the ALP and have never been in the ALP, and have no Labor mates, and have been equally critical of Labor when I believe it is merited. I also don't have a son. I am also no longer a politician.

Your feeble efforts at spreading hate are completely outweighed by the volumes of publicly available evidence which show your lies for the nonsense they are.

I'm sorry Keith - I presume you haven't read my article. Either that or you feel duty bound to shriek at anything I write, with no regard to the actual content. I am not being an apologist for Rudd about anything. I am commenting on the current inconsistent political rhetoric being deployed by both sides.

As for your own views, you presumably are unaware that Australia has been funding the Indonesians + UNHCR + IOM to deal with asylum seekers in that country since well back into the Howard era, so anything you think is inhumane about what is happening now also happened under Howard. The 'Indonesian solution', if that's what people want to call this particular aspect of bodrder protection (not a very accurate name in my view) was established under Howard. The Australian funded detention centre which is finally getting some very overdue attention in the last week or so didn't just pop overnight. Nor did the others scattered trhoughout the region. So "why aren't you shrieking at Howard and his policy failure the way you shriek at Kevin Rudd and his policies?"

And any suggestion that the other policies of Howard's - detention behind razor wire for years on end, refusal to enable proper mental health treatment, pressuring people to return to danger, refusing to enable genunie refugees to settle or see their families - were "more humane" is not only wrong, but disgracefully and dangerously so. Still, you've rarely seemed to have much interest in either facts or humaneness so I suppose you're just staying true to type.

Andrew,
As I understand it there were no eyewitnesses to you stealing that wine. So I guess it never happened.