Lexi again I welcome you, your arrival to OLO and hope earnestly you stay.
It is my view you put your point well, but it is only a small part of this many sided issue.
You and I must not ignore this fact, in using these folk as part of our total in take we discriminate against those who wait.
Emotive, yes but true, we selectively give those who can afford to come priority over those who can not.
Are we to blind ourselves in the name of political correctness to the fact this is not just Australia's problem.
How many, surely millions, want to find a better life in the western world.
And my side issue, what damage is being done by this in Europe, the Nordic nations victimize them selves by being welcoming.
What if we took the warm and cuddly greens and such open door policy.
How many more would come, what of the true poor waiting in those camps for a call that can never come.
The rather weak idea , such are the thoughts of the true left, that governments should not have the right to be gate keeper ,but the courts is impressive in its disregard for us all.

While I wanted the thread,still do, to be about boat people and the law it is about other things too.
Refugees world wide you can not isolate that fact.
And if we except it will get worse before it gets better we can make start on fixing it.
Worse? what if Afghanistan gets worse how many, Pakistan, what if North Korea's population bred to be slaves sickens of starvation?
Burma, call it what you like but we can and will see it fall apart.
Zimbabwe it too will fall refugees are not going away.
The that blind useless UN that sat on its hand and saw murders in Africa and south America the Balkans and name it they did little, can be re crafted.
Humanity needs to care find homes and answer why not start by making by any means the homes these people run from livable.
Good hearted concerns for these folk is ok, but please understand, note it , real concerns held by real people will change governments on this issue.
My concern about single race enclaves is held and will grow if we fail to understand it is based not on racism not on xenophobia but on a devision set by the very people who I'm concerned about.

The judges of the courts are only human - or we hope they are human, I wonder how many of the people on these posts have witnessed the damage or benefit that has arisen from those boat people that have been accepted, or are they already unnecessarly biased. I am not aware that I have ever seen one, let alone seen how they live, and have no intention of condemning any, I also will not be singing praises about someone I have never seen irrespective of their country of origin. Of those people who have seen and got to know any of them, what did you find or are you all making a blind stab, after all most of our earlier boat people were brought out in prison ships, how did your ancesters get here?

Things that the convention on refugees does not require of Australia:

1- To allow in economic refugees (those fleeing poverty only)
2- to allow in people with criminal records
3- to grant refugees permanent residence
4- To accept any outside organisation's assessment of refugee status.

Lexi says:

//According to the International Covention on Refugees and its implicable law all countries adherent to that Convention are under obligation to receive and process refugees to the best of their ability.//

Ya know wot lexi ? it ALSO says that people who have committed offenses or criminal acts are NOT covered any longer by such provisions.

-RIOTS or RACIST ASSAULTS in detention camps=Criminal behavior.
-TAKING OVER SHIPS= criminal behavior.
-CREWING BOATS containing country shoppers is CRIMINAL behavior.

So..in short, we don't need half backed biased prejudiced selective quotations of the UN conventions, we need BALANCE and ACCURACY and fairness to Australia also

Indeed Lexi, so far I'm impressed that we, and most others in the topic are getting into specifics about the case and avoiding generalizations or irrelevant semantics of other policies to somehow weigh for or against one policy or another.

Be interesting to see your further contributions.