"Rob, that’s an excellent article by Paul Sheehan."

Yes, he usually nails his target pretty decisively. Maybe he gets some of his ideas from OLO?

As a general statement, the most important thing in this debate is to replace the hysteria with facts that properly round out the issue. The main political question to my mind is: why are asylum seekers inherently more dangerous to Australia than economic migrants?

I doubt that they are.

"...I forgot to say about the migration program is that it does its checks on asylum seekers, so that it can do what exactly? Use a fact like their country of birth or religion so as to make a sweeping generalisation about what sort of Australians they will become?"

That is a broad assumption you are making Robp. Do you really believe that this is the reason these checks are done - in a secular society like Australia I find that hard to believe given the broad range of migrants here (my father being one of them).

Are you advocating that there should be no checks at all? I would worry about someone that was not willing to indicate their true identity or refuse a health screening or a standard criminal records check etc. I have to do those things just to get a job these days.

Most asylum seekers are probably bonafide refugees but if so there should not be any problem in providing a true identity.

Why do goverments continue to push for population growth either via (immigration or baby bonuses) in a country where water supply and degradation of systems like the Murray Darling continue and where city infrastructures are struggling to cope with burgeoning numbers

Something that gives me the irrits in this debate is the unexamined assumption that without mandatory detention, the Department of Immigration will just let everyone in who asks, and give them a box of dynamite and an Al-Qaeda handbook as they get off the boat.

DIFAT takes immigration very seriously indeed. I reckon they should run tours of the incredible high-tech lab they use to analyse refugee documents, and have seminars explaining the great lengths they go to to establish the identities of refugees in their country of origin.

Sancho, I don't think that is the assumption.

The point is that it won't be Immigration making those decisions if all potential immigrants opt for the faster asylum seeker route. There was a documentary some time ago about rich and middle class families paying for passage on these leaky boats leaving Indonesia. Not humanitarian refugees at all.

I understand the desire for refugees to flee from intolerable conditions and there is much room for Australia to help with these situations both through a humanitarian refugee program and direct help within the countries where famine or oppressive rule exists.

The problem of what to do with asylum seekers has been a problem way before the obsession with Al'Quaida. As I stated previously, not an easy problem and there are probably no win-win solutions.

Changing the shameful mandatory detention for refugees is long overdue.

Pelican, do you know what rich and middle class illegal aliens are called? Visa overstayers. They don't do the rickety boats by the way, they fly in on planes.

The department for Immigration estimates there to be some 50,000 'visa overstayers'- http://www.apo.org.au/linkboard/results.chtml?filename_num=44973- in Australia. That's 50,000 illegal aliens.

Considering our fabric of life has not been destroyed by such a large number of illegals lurking in our midst, I doubt that the pitiful few thrown behind barbed wire in the middle of nowhere would have made one jot of difference to any of our lives if they had been housed in our communities at a fraction of the cost.

Risk your life and come in by rickety boat: despicable queue jumping illegal alien; arrive in comfort by plane by the jumbo load: visa overstayer; leave your poor country taking your much needed skills required to pull your country out of poverty: skilled migrant.

Australia is a country made up of migrants. Many arrived here seeking their fortune 'jumping ship' throughout history and after WWII paperwork was neglible. Conflict areas just don't do council chambers real well where a person can pick up 'papers'. That was the case in the decade after WWII and still true today. Birth and Registrations are the stuff of orderly societies.

It is only in the last 12 years or so that there is a noisy paranoid section in Australia re new comers and an obsession with 'papers'. Some of you sound like frustrated public servants.

If we need migrants, we should only take the most needy, 'the huddled masses'. We should train our own people in skills and leave skilled people in their own countries to build their own nations.

What we are doing with our 'skilled migrant' intake is akin to rape of some of the poor countries and is at times used to keep the wages down of Australians in certain industries.

Yvonne.
I agree with some of you post but not all.

We should train all our own skilled workers. It is a blight on industry, all Governments both Liberal and Labor that this situation came about. It is wrong and immoral to poach these workers from other countries that need their skills more than we do.

Nothing much has changed in relation to assylum seekers, despite the rethoric. They will still be in detention while their bona fides are checked and health checks. Those bona fides that do not check out are refused and appeals made giving more information which has to be checked. And so on it goes. It has been the giving of false information to our officials that keep people in detention for long periods, coupled with appeals. The new minister announced 4 months ago that 24 would be deported but today 15 are still here. Presumably because they have appealed his decission. To make the process quicker is not easy and the ministers efforts will be of interest.

My opinion is that our immigration is far too high and if we take in some to balance those that leave (zero net), they should be refugees.

Of the 50,000 overstayers, some would be genuine and leave of their own accord, to be replaced by a similar number each year. Others are procured labor, forced to work off their fares in sweat shops, brothels, farms and building sites, etc. Media reports raids from time to time on premises and these illegals are usually deported, unless of mitigating circumstances. The balance are illegal immigrants who are deported when they get caught. Unless they commit fraud they do not get social security benefits.

Some are deported even though they have been here many years and others are allowed to stay because they are a parent to children born here. Its an ongoing problem. More investigation staff would be needed to reduce the number of overstayers.