ninaf: "all individuals should take full responsibility"

Sounds like our positions aren't that far apart.

I don't know to what extent "rapes" are due to miss-communications. Before reading Fractelle's comments I thought it likely it was a small proportion, but Fractelle experiance gave me pause. To the extent miss-communication is the problem, you can attack it by instructing both genders to correct the miss-understandings and behaviours that caused it. Tell the girls to not assume the boy can read their mood or feelings. If they don't make it obvious via a "no" or a shove, a disaster can result. Equally tell the boys not to assume the girls will be explicit about what they want. If they are unsure ask, or again disaster may result. In other words move both parties towards the middle, and hopefully they will meet.

The reason I am posting here isn't because I want my definition of rape to prevail. It is because I think in try force our imperfect justice system to bring about a better result, you re-define the how path to sex works in order to make prosecution easier. Its perfectly understandable give what happened to you. Obviously it doesn't work - society at large doesn't accept your version, but to the extent you manage to get anyone to believe it, you are doing harm.

You are trying to fix a miss-communication that originates in how men and women think the other behaves. You don't fix the problem by teaching another model of behaviour that is just plain wrong. That just introduces yet more confusion. So saying the expected behaviour is the boy always asks and won't proceed unless the girl says yes isn't helping things. Boys will simply ignore it - because most males don't work like that, and probably never will do so no matter how much Pynchme rails or lobbies to get laws passed to say we must. If the girls assume we will behave like that, you are creating an environment where more there will be more miss-understandings, not less.

Sancho.
Here is some information related to the issue, which you no doubt will say is 'right wing'

http://72.14.235.132/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Awww.immi.gov.au%2Fmedia%2Ffact-sheets%2F73smuggling.htm&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/compliance/managing-the-border/

Note you can go from here into all sorts of other information.

Please note also that the 'illegals' arriving by air is about 1500 per year and about 98% are sent packing within 72 hours of arrival.

I think the figure was 47800 for over stayers, but this figure remains fairly static, within a few hundred for each year, as most leave of their own volition within a very short time.

One thing I did note from the latest mishap, is that the illegals were all males. Am told the reason for this is that now, with the current provisions, after acouple of months at Christmas Island, they are given permanent residency here and they are then entitled to bring there families here, under the families reunion provissions. So the families can then come here by 747. Who says the boat people are unaware of the new rules.

Sancho & others,
I hate to spoil a nice fantasy narrative ,but –at least in the case of the recent arrivals via Indonesia – the reality is that both the people smugglers and, the people they smuggle are profiteers : both are seeking an economic return .

If past experience is anything to go by, our most recent boat people are likely to have flown to Indonesia by commercial jetliner, to have stayed in Indonesia for a lengthy period of time in paid accommodation and, to have undertaken only the last leg of the journey via ‘leaky boat’.

They are likely to have ‘lost’ all inconvenient identifying paperwork and, will exhaust every taxpayer funded avenue of representation and, over 90% of them (boat borne illegals) are likely to be granted ‘refugee’ status & a good measure of tax payer funded support.

And within as very short period of time after securing their status in Aust, many of these same running-for-their-lives ‘refugees’ will return to their old countries to visit friends and relatives or, trade with or, even work for the very regimes they professed to be so afraid of.—political/religious/ethnic refugees – Nah! more like social climbers

Foxy,

Your own words explain:

"Currently - asylum seekers are held on Christmas
Island - but their claims are expeditated within
6 MONTHS - which is now Government Policy."

That is as good as a green light to all and sundry from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, etc, to take the risk of the SHORT TRIP on the high seas in leaky boats from INDONESIA to Australian waters. Six months on Christmas Island (at Australian taxpayers expense) is but part of the price for permanent residency in Australia. A price gladly paid. Its not the relative safety enjoyed on the journey to the embarkation point, its the DESTINATION, that matters for the SECONDARY MOVEMENT 'asylum' seeker.

Ludwig's post really says it all:

"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."

Utterly irresponsible madness.

Whatever else other nations, or the UN, choose to do, or fail to do, with respect to secondary movement asylum seeking, Australia needs to adopt a policy whereby all persons intercepted, whether 'asylum seeker' or enablers thereof, will know for sure that wherever they may end up as a consequence of taking the people smuggling route, it will NEVER be Australia.

Perhaps a bilateral agreement could be negotiated with Kenya, whereby Australia assists Kenya defray the costs of running the Kakuma refugee camp, and Kakuma becomes the automatic destination for all persons intercepted entering Australian waters illegally, Indonesian fishermen included, after biometrication for the record.

'Asylum seeker' policy could become the real issue at any double dissolution that might be being sought.

The following website may be of interest:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/facts-behind-a-rising-asylum-seeker-tide-20090417-aa9w.html

Facts behind a rising asylum seeker tide.
The Age, April 18, 2009.
Brendan Nicholson and Michelle Grattan.

Of the small minority of those who seek asylum in Australia who come here in leaky boats, one has to wonder why they don't just fly here. Given that most of them are eventually found to be legitimate refugees who are entitled to Australia's protection under longstanding treaty obligations, why on earth would they undertake such a dangerous and uncomfortable journey?

I guess they must be desperate, displaced people who've been forced from their homes and are willing to take extraordinary risks in order to rebuild their lives.

We're talking about a few hundred 'boat people' here. No need to get hysterical - we can easily accommodate the majority of them who are genuine refugees who have perfectly legally claimed asylum in Australia. The problem with our Immigration policy is not our acceptance of a relatively small number of legitimate refugees - rather, it's mostly the idiotic open slather for so-called 'skilled' workers who until recently have been positively recruited to come here.

What's the big deal about a few hundred 'boat people'? Anybody'd think there's some underlying xenophobic agenda here.