Banjo, I'm in agreement with you re our migrant intake.

The vast majority should be refugees.

Visa overstayers are actually people who are the real queue jumpers. Cannot migrate here legally and have no chance at refugee status so come here 'on holidays' and stay.

It is strange that this group is looked upon so benignly.

Yvonne,
I feel sorry for the illegals that have been forced to work here. They are lured here then have to work their fares off one way or another. The other overstayers are a different story and I suppose they do not have the same impact media wise as a boat laden with 200-300 people. They go underground and pay no tax on what income they get and usually discovered when they break the law or accident,etc.

Some years ago an illegal English couple were deported after being here some 30,or so, years. They ran a small retail business and were highly thought of in their suburb. Another Pacific Islander family were to be deported only a year or so ago and the last I heard the kids school and pupils were making representations to the Minister for them to stay. I don't know the outcome. Another Middle Eastern bloke was to be deported after being caught selling drugs. He won the right to stay because he had fathered a child here and the court found it may be not in the childs best interest. So the situation varies a lot, and some come to light occasionally.

All illegals are very vunerable to exploitation from unscrupulous employers and others.

Employ more investigators seems the only way to reduce the overstayers. But the boat people are different as they know they will be aprehended so they destroy their documents and are coached in what to tell our officials. Not all those that came via Indonesia were poor. There were some who engaged light aircraft to bush airstrips up north and had friends pick them up and then into hiding. Not hard with modern navigation gear and mobile phones.

It will be difficult for the new minister can speed the assylum seekers process up unless he curtails the appeals or rules that any false informatin given to our officials will void any application.

“Changing the shameful mandatory detention for refugees is long overdue.”

Yvonne, I don’t think that it was ever a shameful policy.

Mandatory detention evolved from an open centre in Port Hedland where asylum seekers could move around freely. Some tried to abscond and disappear. Hence the implementation of detention centres. Some still tried to abscond. Hence the implementation of high walls with razor wire.

The experience in other countries with no detention for asylum seekers is one of abscondment and a lot of effort and taxpayers’ money going into recovering them, sometimes unsuccessfully.

The deterrence factor was also very important. If prospective asylum seekers thought that they could quickly get to live in mainstream society, then the numbers coming here could have been much greater.

My main concern now is that new arrivals could appear due directly to the new policy of no detention if documentation and security checks are in order.

But then, very little has actually changed in that regard. Asylum seekers whose identity and status could be quickly determined were dealt with reasonably quickly. It was only the difficult cases, which were numerous due to the deliberate destruction of documentation, that resulted in some pretty long stints in detention.

In my view, detention had to be mandatory. We certainly didn’t want desperate people, who weren’t familiar with Australian society moving freely, especially when many of them had a strong desire to go underground.

There was a necessity to deal decisively with the onshore asylum seeker issue in 2001, as the rate of arrivals was increasing and by all indications was just about to blow right out. I remember Philip Ruddock in the media numerous times in the months leading up to the Tampa incident talking about the build-up of people-smuggling operations that was happening in Indonesia, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Yvonne;
There is article in todays Aus that may interest you.
Opinion column; Paul Kelly

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24114136-12250,00.html

Apparently there are 357 people in detention now and most are overstayers. The Minister has ordered a review of these.

I think there is a need for caution here as if they are allowed into the community and the review goes against them, they may go underground again. If the conditions are relaxed and many are allowed to stay, it may well lead to an increase in visa overstayers.

I'm with you. We need to be really tough on the overstayers that are deliberately trying it on , to bypass the immigration system.

Yvonne,

From a humanitarian point of view, I agree with what you say. It's hard to say what proportion of migrants should be asylum seekers and what should be economic migrants. I'll play it safe and say that, overall, it should average out at 50:50. But when it comes to economic migrants, I see a silver lining.

"What we are doing with our 'skilled migrant' intake is akin to rape of some of the poor countries ..."

It depends on how you look at it. Why would a migrant come to this country in the first place if he/she didn't think it was in his/her interest? What's the point of them staying at home if their economies are not big and mature enough to do much with them? I reckon it's good that migrants of all stripes come here, so long as there is enough rotation, so that they eventually go back to their home countries after a number of years. That is, they effectively use Australia as an extended work experience program. By the time they go back, their countries will be more likely to have the economic capacity to usefully harness their new-found skills.

"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."

The people most likely to face persecution overseas should be given permanent resident status here, with an option to go back home at a later time if they are happy to do so or the heart beckons. I suspect many economic migrants to Australia, particularly Asians, will likely go back home voluntarily anyway when the Asian tiger starts roaring.

yvonne

I agree with you about overstayers and they are also a large part of the problem.

Boat people pay for their place no matter how leaky or unsafe the boat; sometimes anywhere from $7,000-$40,000 a place - not much room for those who are poor and unable to pay their way. There is a vast number of unscrupulous people in the people smuggling trade who exploit those who wish to emigrate to Australia who might be otherwise refused through normal channels perhaps because of a criminal history or other reasons.

The difference between flying in and overstaying as opposed to arriving by boat is that identification papers like passports are not required