I like your idea spindoc.

Many of the people who spend the longest in detention centres are those where it is difficult to ascertain identity or where entry has been refused and lawyers are still fighting it out in the courts.

If I guage the responses right most people are all for helping legitimate asylum seekers it is those who thwart the system that create the negative stigma.

Perhaps we should add the rule "no identity papers = no entry" to ensure speedier processing.

While I can see a rare case or two where gathering up papers may prove difficult under restrictive circumstances, in most cases if time and money can be found to locate and pay people smugglers, surely some forward planning in ensuring you have your identity papers should be relatively easy by comparison.

Foxy,
I am cynical of both political parties and I can tell you to my mind Tony Abbott is not the sharpest knife in the draw. The only thing I will give him credit for is stopping the ETS. Turnbull was a bigger idiot for supporting it.

You say the money spent on the Pacific solution was wasted. On the contrary, that and later Christmas Island together with Temporary visas stopped the boats from coming. The ones that were eventually given Permanent residence were those already in the system. The boats stopped coming because the illegals could no longer get what they wanted.

I think what your and Spindoc's ideas are certainly worth looking at.Seems to me though that there is a need for temporary visas to get such schemes going.

Belly,
Comon mate, they are strawmen you are putting up. Overstayers have nothing to do with this issue as most are simply tourists that overstay short term. You would have to get long term overstay figures up. There will always be some people who go underground and unless they can obtain false tax file numbers and Medicare cards, etc. they are very vulnerable to unscrupulous employers and landlords. The only way to stop that is to make ours a police state.

The boat people are after ligit residence so they are part of our system. In essence they are conning their way here by rorting and lying.

<< Tony Abbott is not the sharpest knife in the draw>>
and Banjo is not the sharpest speller in the fourem

Proxy,
Yep, right on both counts.

To be completely honest about it, Boatpeople dont impress me all that much. If they came by hot air balloon, elaborate solar glider, reclining tandem pedal boat, or biodiesel powered carbon fibre jet ski... Well that would sure be something to see. As it is they come by rickety old boats, probably full of tributyltin and lead paint, to become mudcrab habitat while the case drags on.

Benq asks:

"Crackcup, are you afraid that boat people will do to us what our ancestors did to the Aboriginal people?"

GOOD POINT BENQ.

Take a look at the lot of Aborigines. Do you want to be a member of a conquered people?

Will the boat people be our conquerors?

Very unlikely. Probably impossible in fact.

--But was the European invasion the last invasion that Australia will suffer?

--What form could future invasions take?

--Would we recognise a future invasion for what it is?

In the interests of transparency I am an immigrant.

--Am I an invader?

--Are "immigrant" and "invader" mutually exclusive descriptors?