Mikk, you cannot compare drug traffickers to people smugglers. It is like comparing going through a red light with mass murder.

People smugglers are nothing compared to people traffickers.

It might surprise you to know that the Australian government engages in drug dealing on a state and federal level.

It might also surprise you to know that the Australian government also engages in people trafficking (not smuggling), eg, a highly trained person from the government on 100k a year, is leased to a foreign government, who pays our government 1million per year for that person.

Sancho,
I suspect less is heard about illegal arrivals at airports, not because opponents of illegal immigration are less concerned, but rather because refugee advocates are less able to exploit such happenings: there’s simply less publicity mileage in it.

Look at it this way, pictures of persons, however jet lagged, disembarking a 747 after having partook of complimentary alcohol , meals & movies , just hasn’t got the bleeding heart appeal, no matter how hard you spin it, as pictures of individuals disembarking a small, leaky boat .

It’s all about manipulation of emotions – heart ruling the head.

Same old dog whistle, same old bulldust. I think Sancho nailed it.

For anybody interested in the reality rather than the hype:

http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090417-A-Crikey-index-Refugees-the-real-story.html

Yabby, I'm surprised at you - I thought you only whistled at kelpies :)

Kevvie Kevvie Kevvie, what aaare you doing??

The difference between your rhetoric and your policy is staggering. You’ve condemned people smugglers to rot in jail or hell… or both. But mate…you’ve set up the environment for them….an environment that was very effectively eliminated by little Johnnie!!

Johnnie never mouthed off with the sort of language that you’ve been letting fly lately. I never thought I’d feel this way – but I’m certainly beginning to think that John-Winston was a tad more level-headed than you, old mate!

I mean, what sort of a completely dopey policy was it to water down the tight and highly effective deterrent to onshore asylum-seekers and concomitant people smugglers, at a time when by the admission of yourself, your assistant treasurer Chris Bowen and others in your government, that the situation is worsening in Afghanistan and other places, potentially leading to an escalation in asylum seeking?

The maintenance of a strong policy was, and is, OBVIOUSLY of great importance!

Why on earth would you want to change mandatory detention to short-term detention and then placement in the community, when there was hardly anyone left in detention and probably none on the way? Surely you should have left the mandatory detention policy right alone. What difference would it have made if there is no one to apply it to?

Of course now that you’ve weakened it, there will be a large number of people that it applies to.

Oh dear Kevin. Your action on this saga to date is just so woeful that all I can really do is shake my head in dismay.

Very true Yabby.What is Kevvy going to do when 20 boats at a time turn up on our shores?Sink them?

We have the most diverse culture due to imigration on the planet.There comes a time when our culture will be over whelmed by immigrants and serious tensions will lead to internal strife.When there is no time for evolution,revolution happens.

The best intentions of the bleeding heart left are not often reflected in the reality.

If I were PM,I'd get some nuclear weapons pronto and tell the yanks to go fight their own wars.They have created this rod for their own backs via their flawed foreign policy since WW2.

Show some gratitude! Now you can exercise all your pent up frustrations again! Feel the fresh superior air of the moral high ground;kick the hits out of these disgusting vermin/terrorists;say 'I told you so' about our PM who has to be seen to be a 'Labor' PM, but will at least TRY to show some toughness with them there fightin' words.

(Pity the poor sod, he has to hop both sides of the fence,-while that little cutie-pie Howard could be a nasty conservative pasty. He did it so well too.. The Right don't hide their nationalistic/'race sensitive' views;-BUT when one has to purport to be Labor (and Right),-one is in a bit of a bind....isn't one?) Ach!The puir wee scamp is doing his best.

Enjoy!! This is your time. You can focus on a clear target. Me? I am battening down the hatches, and shall be checking under the bed from now on.

I bought two fuchsia's today.I will be out first thing to put a padlock on them.