Horus

<< The department says in the five years to June this year there were 13,739 people liable for detention and expulsion hiding in the community… >>

This discussion is about asylum seekers who've arrived by boat. The majority of the people you've referred to here would be visa oversteers who've arrived by plane. Nearly all asylum seekers arriving by boat are genuine refugees, and their claims for asylum as such are not as likely to be rejected and to result in abscondment.

<< “In Britain, France and the United States, 90 per cent of those who are rejected for asylum status go underground. Britain alone has "lost" more than 200,000 people who were rejected for asylum status.” >>

Our numbers are a miniscule fraction of those being dealt with in the UK, France and the US. We have a few hundred or at most a few thousand asylum seekers arriving by boat each year, whereas the countries mentioned here have at least ten times our numbers.

Last year 4,750 applications for asylum were made in Australia (of which 179 were boat arrivals), 49,000 were made in the United States, 36,900 in Canada, 35,200 in France, 31,200 in Italy, and 30,500 in the United Kingdom.

Besides, this article you’ve quoted is seven years old so not necessarily relevant to anything happening today.

*I can't see why the 'hellhole' description would have any sane person rolling on the floor laughing. That's exactly what it was. The conditions were appalling. The isolation, the unbearable heat*

Hang on whoah, unbearable for a spoiled rotten Aussie female such as yourself perhaps!

Life is relative. If I had been persecuted, in fear of my life,
no food, in a refugee camp in Pakistan maybe, life in Nauru
would have been a breeze! You'll see plenty of outback Aussies
in mining camps live in very similar conditions.

Yes its hot on a tropical island, its hot in Singapore, Darwin,
Kununnurra, tens of millions live in the tropics, even voluntarily
on Nauru there are 9000 people. When the place was first discovered
by a Westerner, it was in fact called Pleasant Island. Bananas,
pineapples, coconuts, all grow well there.

The camp had sporting facilities, phone, email. Food and medical
services. Given my background of fearing for my life, I would
think this was wonderful!

The only people really pissed off being on Nauru, would have been
those people who thought they had bought a boat ticket to a cushy
Western lifestyle and now found that things did not go their way.

People genuinely in fear of their lives, no longer had to fear,
they would have been relieved.

"Experience elsewhere indicates little or no risk of absconding."

No it doesn't Bronwyn! Not at all.

"If treated fairly and decently and provided with support, why would they abscond and have to fend completely for themselves?"

Um, because they know or very strongly suspect that their claims won't be approved. Or they've had their claims rejected. They wouldn't have to fend completely for themselves. There are plenty of people out there who would be willing to assist them, to the point of breaking the law and obfuscating efforts by the authorities to find them.

"And as pointed out over and over on these threads, the overwhelming majority of asylum-seekers are genuine."

Yes but a small portion aren't. How big does the bad fraction have to be? How big does the number of absconders have to be before it adds significantly to the problem, the costs, the public's opinion of asylum seekers and ultimately a hardening of policy against all asylum seekers, not just the bad fraction?

There is a history of abscondment in Australia. In fact this is exactly why we have detention centres - because people walked out of the original open centres, and it is why we have high walls and rajor wire - because people escaped from the first detention centres.

Horus is right. The link he posted is very telling: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200212/s747159.htm.

Yes this article refers to all asylum seekers in Australia. So why should the small portion that is made up of onshore asylum seekers be any different from the rest? The possible smaller portion of bad apples amongst them is not a good enough reason.

But the very notion of allowing free movement of asylum seekers in mainstream society is simply untenable because it does not take into account the all-important deterrence factor, which seems to be something that you just completely don't appreciate Bronwyn.

Now, could you please tell me why you think our offshore system of refugee determination and acceptance is "inefficient and inhumane" and apparently much worse than people coming here haphazardly on leaky boats at great expense rendered to people-smugglers.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Bronwyn,
If such a large proportion of the arrivals are genuine asylum seekers
why did they not apply for asylum in Indonesia, Malaysia, Dubai, Cairo
or Islambad, some of which they will have passed through.

Could it be that they were not so desperate afterall ?

Your assumption that all or most of the Indosnesian boats were
unseaworthy is demonstratably incorrect.
The crew would not have taken them out if they thought there was an
unreasonable risk.

How do you answer that ?

No one is going to commit suicide just to try to get someone else
to Australia. The crew is probably unaware that they might spend a
few years in prison.

No, your reasoning is flawed.

Re the Tampa, unless I am greatly mistaken the Tampa was heading for
Sundra Strait, it would have been well out of their way to go to
Christmas Island. Have a look on a chart and see where Christmas
Island is located.

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/60refugee.htm

The figures here are quite interesting. It shows that with less
boat people, the Govt is taking refugees from various parts of the
world, including Burma/Laos, who don't have the money to pay
bribes, as Afghans and Iraqis do