I don't mind measured and reasonable articles on this subject - but this is just a hostile rant that is selective in it's quotes and downright dishonest ..

For instance "Such repetitive nonsense took place in August 2001 etc etc there were, many argued, bin Laden supporters hoping to infiltrate Australia on derelict vessels.

Who were "the many" of "many argued" ..?

Why was there any fear of Bin Laden in August 2001?

That was one month before Osama Bin Laden was blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.

This appears to be an outright lie. Correct me if I am wrong.

MP Wilson Tuckey, like him or not, is an elected member of our parliament, by a community whose attitudes he reflects since they continually re-elect him.

Comments he made, are the same as MP Michael Danby, ALP, said back in May.

I note you choose to leave that out?

Why is that?

Dog whistling perhaps?

FYI .. the major difference between people who arrive by air and overstay their visas and these boat people is, most boat people conceal their identities. (We know who overstays their visa when they arrive by air)

Why should we not be suspicious of people who decide to be anonymous?

Do they have something to hide?

".. unhinged and paranoid", appears to describe your behaviour, more than MP Wilson Tuckey, though yours appears to be of fellow Australians.

His suspicion, and ALP MP Michael Danby's, is of people who want anonymity, from the people they want to save them from whatever it is they "say" they are running from.

They lack honesty about their past and identity, but are going to be good "honest" citizens .. right?

The anonymous manner in which they come to Australia creates unease, that's why it is emotive (duh).

We have some choices to make about immigration, but it is far from settled in our community and articles like this are no credit whatever to the debate.

When talking about the Sri Lankan Tamils we are confusing the terms "illegal immigrants" and "asylum seekers".

Get one thing quite clear. Asylum for these people is very much closer..the land of their origins and where they have been visiting all these years. It's not only closer but a hell of a lot safer. It's not asylum they are after.There's no local CentreLink anywhere in Tamil Nadu or free medical aid.

They want to settle here. They are "illegally here.

Friends of ours from South Africa had to wait 2 years before they were called up for their qualifying tests. One is an ex-pat Brit doctor and the other is a highly credentialled physioThey were given 1) an argumentative esay 2) a comtrehension test, they had to listen to a CD recording taped report and were then questioned about it( answers had to be written!) and then they were subjected to i/2 hour face to face interviews. Ofcourse they passed. When they got here they had to qualify to practice.
Shouldnt all immigrants have to go through the same process and then be tested to accept their o'seas qualifications? There are Iraqi and Paki doctors preactising after failing their qualifying their accreditation tests!! Where is there any justice in our immigration policy?

There is discrimination of the most blatant kind in practice but Aussies arent aware of it. You only need to blow in on leaky boats and claim immigration and we are scared to apply the same stringent conditions to them. I know who I would rather have as my neighbours. Do I sound as though I am discriminating? Ofcourse I AM. The government is my mentor in this. I am only too happy to follow their example.

socratease

'The election of the Rudd government was meant to be a watershed in various policies adopted and practiced by the previous regime, keen practitioners of “fear” strategies.'

And here lies the problem that the gullible and the Howard/Bush haters became so embittered that they refused to accept any logic. Obama/Rudd are now having to show some leadership which they have failed at miserably. Mr Rudd has said sorry but things are at very best no better for the indigenous people, he has signed the Kyoto farce which at best has achieved nothing. Mr Obama has received a peace award and yet Afghanistan is is a mess. The message of encouragement to people putting their lives at great risk to the boat people has ended in untold misery. Now he is trying to revert to Mr Howard's sensible policies of not encouraging people putting kids lives at risk. If Mr Howard had made such a mess as Rudd has the self righteous left media would be hounding and hounding. Instead they are trying to get a view from the hapless me to Turnbull. Quite pathetic.

Another racist rant from Kampmark. How dare Australia have the cheek to be at all interested in protecting itself, eh?

Not that his comment about a “military threat” to Australia is at all relevant to the problem of uninvited, illegal interlopers who wish to over-ride Australia’s controlled intake of refugees.

Kampmark likens the ‘Indonesian solution’ to the previous government’s Pacific Solution. He is totally wrong, of course. The previous government actually stopped the boats. Since the Ocean Viking circus, two more boatloads of illegals have arrived in our waters. And, although the Indonesians have demonstrated that they don’t want the illegals to stay with them (apart from the President who is apparently not as powerful as we have been led to believe), I haven’t noticed anything from Kampmark making the same slurs against the protesting Indonesians as he levels at us.

And, given that Rudd has now decided to enlarge the Christmas Island facility, how can Kampmark compare anything Rudd does with the previous government’s solution? On top of actually encouraging illegals to turn up when he disbanded the Pacific Solution, he is now extending the invitation by making extra room for more to come!

I have never noticed any Australia politician or officials reacting in the “near-hysterical” way in relation to “fantasies of invasion” in the matter of illegal entrants that Kampmark accuses them of doing. Poor old Wilson Tuckey has referred to the possibility of Tamil Tigers being among the recent Sri Lankan illegals, and the Australian Tamil community has agreed with him. Hardly ‘invasion’ talk.
call one of your own ‘racist’, you might like to think about this bloke for a change.
Kampmark even talks tripe about ANZUS. So far away from and discussion on illegal entry! He even seeks to call us ‘racist’ because of a statement by a Colonel Blimp in 1938!

Kampmark was certainly in an anti-Australian mood when he decided to churn out this piece of drivel.

Continued...

I noticed there is a poll today asking whether we should take a “softer approach to the ILLEGAL refugees,” It is currently running at 6 to 1 against.
It does not reflect well on our nation.
Many people voting no in this poll may well have been refugees or migrants who were fortunate enough to have an embassy, and the due process to apply for this wonderful opportunity to come to our shores.
I wonder what they would have done if they had not been accepted and then had the opportunity to come here by an alternative method. Even if they were not being intimidated, threatened or exterminated when they decided to applied to Immigrate to Australia, because they thought that this would be a better place to bring up the kids..

It may have been their families sitting out there in a leaky boat at the time.
Instead they are now able to sit back enjoying a Fosters and Mackas,’ happily giving their opinions on whether or not there should be a softer approach on the current ILLEGAL asylum seekers.
It embarrasses me to admit, as I have had to in recent years, that we have become a very racist and intolerant nation.
These people currently in the spotlight on the Ocean Viking, as were the people on the Tampa and others, are human beings. They have found themselves in a situation none of us would like to be in. I, for one have sympathy for them and wish them well.
Are they Illegal Refugees or Asylum Seekers? Let’s get them off the ships and find out. Figures from the previous governments’ exercises show overwhelmingly that a vast majority are in fact REFUGEES who deserve asylum.
Get on with it and fulfil our obligations as a humane society. If they were sheep, dogs, cattle or horses out there on the ship, there would be total outrage.
I wish people would take a step back and have a good look themselves as human beings and not for whom they voted for at any of the previous elections.

...continued

My memory of Q & A last Thursday is that “No one cared, or dared, to answer” the question about the illegals who flew in was because Tony Jones ruled it as a comment. We all know that the lazy incompetents of our laughing-stock of an immigration department should be doing something about the airborne illegals, too. But that doesn’t mean that we should continue to tolerate illegal boats, as Kampmark seems to think.

Hooked on his ‘scaredy-cat’ and ‘invasion’ beliefs as he is, Kampmark overlooks the fact that everyone but the wet-Left in this country, while accepting orderly refugee intakes, simply does not want people coming here in boats now matter who they are. And, they are coming here illegally. Even those who have been found to be genuine refugees are not entitled to choose the country they want to go to.