I had a very interesting conversation with an acedemic collegue last night on the issue, and one of the things we discussed was what could be done in the best interest of the country if politics were put aside.

The Tamils are generally better educated, have knowledge of English, and industrious, (I personally have been involved in sponsoring a Tamil engineer and his family to work for me and was wildly pleased with the results), on top of which they obviously have funds and the wherewithal to provide for themselves.

Compared to the Sudanese who are illiterate with no knowledge of english and require vast assistance to get on their feet.

Therefore to save the country vast amounts of money and diplomatic ignomany, simply fill the 13 000 quota with Tamils from Sirilanka, charge them the $15 000 "processing fee" that they were paying the smugglers.

In one fell swoop, we would meet our "humanitarian" obligations, save millions on border protection, and provide the economy with cheap educated labour.

There is one small snag, and that is that asylum is meant to be granted to those that really need it, and the whole point was to assess the applicants on a needs basis rather than who can afford the boat fee.

At this point after seeing how labor is getting creamed at the polls, I can say I told you so. And with 11 dead boat people as a result of the relaxed regulations, things are only going to get worse.

Yabby: "Err not so Rstuart, for this stuff eventually turns up in the news once again. CJ accused me of all sorts of things over the I-pod story."

That must have been a different thread, Yabby - one I have not been following. There has been no mention of iPods in this one. Now that you have brought it up though, it sounds like another blast on the dog whistle. There seems to be no argument about giving them the $50 per week, and from my point of view they are far better off spending it on iPods that what the article said it was actually intended for - lollies and cigarettes.

I was actually referring to your statement "Shut the whole boat trade down, for once and for all." suzeonline makes the same throw away appeal: "No matter how dire their situation is, shouldn't we be doing all we can to dissuade these people from arriving here [by boat]?"

We have spent, what, 5 or so years trying to do just that. So far no one from either side of politics has managed to pull it off. We don't let them onto the mainland, we lock them up for years, we split up the families and send them insane, we have paid literally billions to other countries to take them, we force them back at gun point, we appeal to other countries to not let the leave, their boats sink and they drown - yet still they come. What, additional steps do you think we should take? Blow the boats out of the water, perhaps?

As far as I can tell, there is little difference between Labor and the old Liberal policy. We still round them up and process them offshore. I hope we do that more humanely than in the past, but it is difficult to tell. About the only real change I see is we now do it on our own territory rather than paying a billion for it to be done by others. It is a small step, but it does appeal to my Scottish heritage.

Shadow Minister: "as a result of the relaxed regulations"

You have said this in several different ways in this thread. It would be helpful (well to me anyway) if you explained the ways the regulations have been relaxed - and in particular the changes that have caused the increased numbers of boat people to arrive. Citations would be handy. Since these are changes to the law and you are a lawyer, they shouldn't be hard for you to dig up.

Bronwyn.
You must have missed the media reports that the 78 Sri Lankans sabotaged their boat. As i recall, it was mentioned a number of times.I am somewhat amused because they did not wait until they were closer to Christmas Island before they undertook the sabotage. H.ad they sailed a bit more they now would be in our loving caare, which is what they were after.

It will be interesting to see if the latest deaths deter more Sri Lankans from coming by boat directly from Sri Lanka. Our government should advertise the dangers now widely in Sri Lanka.

It now appears the silly change of policy by the present government has unfortunately lead to about 20 more deaths adding to the 42 that they are already responsible for.

TZ,
After listening to a replay of the interview of Malcolm Turnbull by Alan Jones yesterday, I would agree with you that the Coalition does NOT have any policy at present. Turnbull did not have any answers for some hard questions and is an absolute disgrace. They could have, at least, had a broad policy to stop the boats coming, on humanatarian grounds. Like not opposing the ETS, another opportunity squandered by Turnbull. It was his stupidity that makes everyone now change from incandesent light bulbs, to save the world!

The only way to stop the boats coming is to make it not worth the cost or risk to the illegals by denying them access to the mainland, assesment strictly in line with UNHCR and no permanent residency.

By the way, illegal boat arrivals for 2001 were 5516. After the introduction of the 'Pacific solution', in 2002 the illegal arrivals dropped to just 1. You could be right about the number of protection applications by legal arrivals, but you did not include how many were successful. I do not recall exactly but I doubt it was more than 50%, but you can find that out if you are interested.

rstuart,

Unless you are being particularily dense, completely ignorant of what is happenning in the world, or deliberately obtuse, the policy ard regulation changes are as follows:

Last year, the Government scrapped temporary protection visas and ended the "Pacific Solution" of sending asylum seekers to Nauru and Papua New Guniea.

On top of that it scrapped the requirement for manditory detention or deportation of asylum seekers or visa overstayers already in Australia.

The warnings were issued early this year that this was being used as s sales pitch by the people smugglers, evidently to great effect.

Have a look at this and tell us how nothing has changed, and that the co incidental massive increase in boats is a "surprise".

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24099363-5013871,00.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/19/2546801.htm
http://www.asrc.org.au/act_now/changes-to-mandatory-detention.html
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1119637/Government-s-asylum-policy--a-shambles-

Sorry,

I thought I had changed "Scrapped mandatory detention" to "modified ..." but it slipped through.

Additional commentry:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/labor-punished-in-polls-for-fumbling-on-asylum-seekers-20091103-hu0w.html

This has important consequences for the government as it goes into negotiations with the coalition on ETS.

It was holding the big stick of double dissolution over the coalition's head, but that threat is beginning to look a little toothless now.

Rudd desperately needs resolution, as this is looking like their version of "work choices".