“But I don't want to read in the news headlines every day about a few desperate people coming on a boat as if it is a national crisis”, writes Susan Metcalfe.

This is probably because the pro-illegal entry pieces she writes are shot to pieces and disagreed with by most Australians.

As for her comment on illegal boats (not) being a national crisis, it might well become one unless Australian governments start turning them away as they are perfectly entitled to.

Leigh: "unless Australian governments start turning them away as they are perfectly entitled to."

Leigh, you have your opinion on whether we should accept refugees and to state the obvious you are entitled to it. But I do disagree with the statement above. The reality is it will never be as simple as you make out.

Firstly, right now we are signatories to the UNHCR, which means we undertake to be a safety house any and all genuine refugees that end up our shores. As I understand it, it also means we will give provide all a safe haven while we investigate their claims. I hope you aren't arguing we should break with the UNHCR while we choose to remain a signatory.

Secondly, regardless of the UNHCR, the high seas operate under fairly strict humanitarian conventions. One is expected to provide all possible assistance to any vessel in difficulty. Again, I hope you aren't saying we should break with that convention. Yes, the convention does make it near impossible to turn people away who are determined not to be turned away. But that's life.

Even though we can't turn them away, if we were not signatories to the UNHCR we could just take them on board and forcibly ship them back home. But we are signatories, so we end up in the current situation.

Speaking of the UNHCR, I personally could not condone dropping support for the UNHCR while we choose to grow our population at record rates. I also think growing our population like this is insane of course, but while we accept 100's of 1000's of immigrants a year a few 1000 genuine refugees arriving on boats isn't a huge problem - or even a small one.

To put it another way - I would have much more sympathy for the people making all this noise over the boat people issue if they made even more noise over the population issue. You do of course but most don't and to me, at gut level, that just reeks.

RStuart says : “ right now we are signatories to the UNHCR, which means we undertake to be a safety house any and all genuine refugees that end up our shores As I understand it, it also means we will give provide all a safe haven while we investigate their claims. ”

The analogy of a safe house is highly is inappropriate. A better analogy would be, we’re the only house in a bad neighbourhood , with no window bars & security doors.And our “friends” Bronwyn, RStuart & Andrew Bartlett have been out handing out fliers which on one side have a map to our door, and on the other a list of house contents & the hours we’re away.

Wow. I just read this very well-written article about people with serious disabilities among us and I click on the Comments link and am confronted by the same oblivious heartlessness that Susan Metcalfe is writing about. From my perspective, I feel much the same about refugees as I do about people with disabilities - they are people who are far less fortunate than me and for whom our society can do much better.

<< I spent most of last year inside a brain injury ward helping a refugee who had been detained in Nauru under the Pacific Solution. This man had suffered enormously over many years, before and during his time in Nauru. When he finally found peace in Australia in late 2007 he was hit by a car crossing the road. He survived against the odds but he has severe brain injuries and he will never be the same. >>

That's a tragedy that is worthy of a Dostoyevsky, but Ms Metcalfe does an excellent job in the space available to convey succinctly the elaboration of that tragedy, and further to locate it in the bigger tragedy that is enacted in our culture's treatment of disabled people. Most of this tragedy occurs on the quotidian basis that she describes, but we generally successfully hide that below consciousness and rant on about a few thousand other poor bastards.

Thank you Susan Metcalfe.

An interesting title to ths article. Why do people harp on about asylums seekers? Probably because people like Susan harp on trying to force her views down our throats. In the last 2 years she has written 7 articles on OLO. ALL of these, yes ALL deal with Asylum seekers. She is the worst offender. According to her there are tiny numbers of these vulerable people. Well how vulnerable is Alex the spokesperson for the 260 boat people. According to news reports today he has previoulsy been deported from Canada for being involved in gang violence resulting in deaths. But yes he is very vulnerable. Interesting that we did not hear this story a few weeks ago. Lets make a deal Susan. You stop writting about them and then I will. If you continue to spew out your propaganda, others including myself will continue to critize you.
Also it would be very interesting to see the stats on how many hundreds of thousands of dollars your friend in hospital cost the Australian taxpayer. Sure I feel sorry for him having that injury, but did the car come off the road, or was it his fault walking infront of it? I suspect the latter.

Refugees are topical because it sells newspapers and promotes fear in the community.

Fear of "the other" is what binds us together.

It's just another form of unwanted immigration.

Historically since the 1900's we've fought and complained against the arrival of the Chinese, the Irish, the Greeks, the Italians, the Vietnamese, the Lebanese, the Japanese, the Serbs, the Croats, the Iraqis, the Sudanese and now the Sri Lankans.

We've even had a period of severe Catholic vs Protestant animosity which divided families but stopped short of the Irish reaction.

Each time a new target is decided, the previous ones fall into line with the rest and thereby gain community acceptance.

It's also a perfect distraction from Turnbull's leadership problems.

He's done absolutely nothing to contribute to the debate except grandstanding and gainsaying yet gets some sort of credit for it.