To people spinning "illegal immigrants"

These people are refugees or asylum seekers. To be an illegal you have to actually be living in Australia.

Entertaining.

A few hundred asylum seekers arrive by boat each year and it's "Jaysus, dey'll kill us all!". Meanwhile up to five thousand - thousand - foreigners fly in safely each year with a visa and passport, then claim asylum, and it's not even a blip on the racist radar. Those numbers were unchanged even during Howard's government.

I can't help but feel smug when the media so easily leads conservative Australia like a credulous child, taking it by the hand and telling it what to be outraged by and when. We'll add this to the long list of lopsided, uninformed conservative paranoia-fests, which in recent history include:

Thousands of Bosnian, Serbian and Israeli Australians go overseas to serve in foreign militaries and engage in bloody conflicts. The Right's reaction: indifference.
A single Australian hooks up with the Taliban and gets caught hiding under a tank, without firing a shot. The Right's reaction: a media-led frenzy of nationalism and sanctimonious condemnation.

A group of fanatical Saudis, trained and funded with Saudi money, and led by a Saudi, Osama Bin Laden, fly planes into the World Trade Center. The Right's reaction: invade Afghanistan.
It comes to light that Al Qaeda is based in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and plans to continue terrorist attacks. The Right's reaction: increase trade with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and invade a country which actively opposes Al Qaeda.

North Korea builds a nuclear arsenal and conducts multiple test firings. Meanwhile, Pakistan has an established nuclear capacity and edges ever closer to a theocratic government. The Right's reaction: be nice to them.
Iran builds a nuclear reactor for electricity production. The Right's reaction: media-induced frenzy of agression, because the Apocalypse is surely just around the corner.

Given the Right's unblemished history of swallowing whatever hysterical propaganda it's fed, you'll have to forgive the rest of us if our reaction to this latest non-event is a polite chuckle.

Dear Sancho,

Bravo!

Well Said!

*Setting fire to their boat when they become a
liability wouldn't count as a "good" thing
would it?*

Foxy, there is no evidence as yet, if it was an evil people
smuggler or a poor asylum seeker, who set fire to a boat.

My point is that either clever Kev is confused or is just
playing politics on this one.

Medicine makes money on the back of poor suffering people.

So my point is this. If clever Kev welcomes asylum seekers
to Australia, then rather then condem people smugglers and
tell them to rot in hell, he should welcome those who
do is safely and with safe boats, so as not to endanger the
lives of those poor people. Like doctors, they are helping
those who are suffering, for money.

Sancho

Ditto to Foxy

"To be illegal you have to be actually living in Australia".

Some of the garbage expounded here must come from fortune cookies. Any person who is in Australia has to outstay his or her visa before illegality occurs. All of the ‘thousands’ (according to the same fortune cookie eaters) of people who fly into Australia must have a visa and a passport when they arrive or they would be sent out on the next plane home.

At least these people come here legally, and it is up to the government and immigration department to deal with them if they overstay. Action is taken, and we rarely hear about visa over-stayers in detention before they are sent back from whence they came.

Unlike visa over-stayers, the real illegals try to sneak in without any documentation at all. Perhaps the idiots who come up with stupid theories should try getting into a foreign country on a boat without proper documentation, and see how they get on. Malaysia would be worth a try!

As for the nitwits who think that rocking up in a boat makes you a ‘refugee’, and those who are continually lecturing others who call them illegals, take it up with the media and the people who break the news that more ILLEGALS have arrived. Even the PC, Left-wing whackos at the ABC refer to them as illegals. Illegals, boat people, criminals, sneaks – it’s all the same.

It is ILLEGAL to enter any country at any place other than a designated port with the appropriate documentation. The bleeding hearts have lost all contact with reality if they don’t know this.

All people entering Australian waters should be turned back, and only those who have been processed by the UN should be resettled in Australia or in any other country. We don’t want people who have already broken the law before they get here.