The issue of asylum seekers is hotly debated around the world, especially in Australia. Recently, the Australian labor party has outlined their views on asylum seekers at their annual, national conference. They propose to increase the intake of refugees by 2000 through their humanitarian program, though this may include offshore processing. Some members of ALP believe that they should only increase the amount of asylum seekers if the Malaysia deal stays part of Labor policy, as documented on the official ALP website. However, the high court has ruled against offshore processing in Malaysia, as the Malaysia deal violates the immigration policy and the immigrations minister’s duty of care to asylum seekers that are minors. Offshore processing is also more expensive then onshore processing, with the processing at Christmas Island and other offshore processing plants costing over one billion dollars. Policy seems to be a short-term fix, only focused on trying to gain the political up hand against their opponents. The Australian labor party conference has added nothing to the debate of what to do with these asylum seekers. The government needs to develop a policy that is both legal and more economical.

sources: http://www.oxfam.org.au/resources/filestore/originals/OAus-PriceTooHighAsylumSeekers-0807.pdf
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ma1958118/s198a.html
http://www.chrisbowen.net/media-centre/speeches.do?newsId=5333

"The government needs to develop a policy that is both legal and more economical."

Ok, that's a given.

Do you have any opinion on how this might be done?

Welcome student R very well put bonmot.
Have you been at one of these National conferences SR?
Are you aware of just how much work is put in to any out come being past.
Well I have not either.
But ten or more state conferences /country Labor conferences yes I was there.
What is your plan.
Lets consider a few important things.
Labor is currently getting 29% of the vote.
Stymied by those in Canberra who truly think they can perform a Miracle.
One much harder than water in to Wine.
Turning Gillard in to a popular figure!
Like turning NSW blue mountains in to cheese.
Labors ability's are limited by the intentions of Abbott's negativity and Browns single minded inability to count.
In any issue, driving a stake in to your own heart, picking issues that turn more away than not, is a slow death for politics.
Thought?
Not enough want to think, about separatism in our country, future ghettos and riots.
About why the boats come, not clutching the refugee straw for every one.
Yes about the costs.
First Student R look to Tony Abbott, he cares not about Australia.
Watch your thread become home to Labors past mistakes story's.
But watch too, Conservatives roll in the issue in joy like a horse in a sand box.
That Joy is at this country expense.

Good morning Belly, a lot of truth to what you say.

Perhaps everyone should have a closer look at SR's links.

I have to point out SR, that Oxfam paper is somewhat dated, don't you think? In fact, prior to Labor taking control and certainly prior to the escalation in boat arrivals.

Furthermore, the Migration Act has had some amendments since then, do you agree and if so, do you think they went far enough?

Your link to Minister Bowen's speech to the ALP National Conference is apt, in more ways than one. It provides anyone who reads it (and they should) an opportunity to send the Minister a message - he certainly needs some feedback.

However, let me put this to you, as I have to other commenters here on OLO;

Do you not think "stopping the boats" and saving lives is worth the cost of of processing assylum seekers in Malaysia?

In answering that question, bear in mind that processing assylum seekers on Australia's mainland does not discourage boats, but encourages them - as we have most dramatically seen these last few weeks, and particularly since the determination of the High Court and the government's perceived 'failure' to get the support of the so called "Noalition".

Similarly, processing assylum seekers on Nauru will not stop the boats from attempting the journey to Christmas Island, nor Ashmore Reef - despite the howls to the contrary and especially since the aforsaid amendments to the Act.

Put simply and by extension of Minister Bowen's address, what price do you put on human life? What is your opinion?

The roots of the problem go much deeper than where illegals are processed (in fact, many who write on this forum see no "problem"-- the more the merrier!)

When you have outcomes like this --and we seem to get similar almost every week:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/refugee-cleared-to-sponsor-mother/2393749.aspx

"Mr Shahi arrived on Christmas Island as an unaccompanied child in May 2009 and was granted a protection visa later that year.

In December 2009 he applied for a ''global special humanitarian'' visa for his mother and several other family members to join him in Australia."

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/high-court-rules-for-afghan-refugee/story-e6freooo-1226222067060

The High Court was told that Mr Shahi did not know his exact date of birth and it had been agreed that he turned 18 some time after the December 2009 reunion application

How on earth can you expect to stop the flow of illegals!

Anyone know how many "illegals" overstay their tourist/visitor visa when they catch a plane to Australia?

Aaah! bonmot, always behind the times.You obviously missed these recent pieces from Yabby & Shadow Minister which answered your little query.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4860#129591

and, the two billion other times on OLO where the same little query was *posed* and answered to death--do try and keep up to date!

SPQR excusez le mot!

(translation: your poke has negative undertones in a time of grief) - but what would you know?

Thanks for the link anyway.

Btw, I don't get to read all OLO comments or threads, for what I assume were obviuos reasons, but there you go.

R I P Truth
It is my opinion, on some subjects truth has been, bashed, mugged, finally killed.
As a result of the NEGATIVITY and only brief relationship Tony Abbott and his followers have with truth we have lost a Friend.
May I [getting close to new year] Predict,should Labor in opposition , act as Doctor NO does, and have the power he has, by supporting greens.
My verbal combatants will gain a better understanding of my concerns.
Right now I say go to the Malaysian solution.

The Malaysian solution was the most inhumane policy yet devised, and is now dead.

Juliar should now swallow her pride and accept the better off shore processing options the coalition has offered.

Irrespective of the remarks they have made and passed at the conference, the party has placed our wage earners further back out of the reach of being able to live a decent life; unable to buy a home, almost impossible to rent one and making it an extremely difficult decision to date to get married and raise a family.
Despite their contention that they have improved the economy, it certainly has not improved for the wage earners and small business at all. You explain why – when in 1977, a home cost approximately $31,000, little more than twice the average annual wage of $15,000, and yet today the average home costs approximately $430,000 seven times as much as the average annual wage of $63,000.
Menzies did a similar thing to us back in 1957 after the media harassed him over one of his ministers retrieving articles from the war sites for his own use while a minister of the crown. In that instant, I believe that he gave a 40% increase, and Barristers and others whose salaries were not controlled, also increased their salaries with the rightful claim that they were more entitled to an increase than the parliamentarians who had little or no quality training to make and change laws, the same as today.
I suspect that the change of the tribunal and even the original choosing of a tribunal in the first place may be outside of the powers of the Parliament, and should be a subject for a referendum, It leaves too much power on a body outside of the parliament and in very deep contempt of the reasonable rights of the population, it is really contemptible.
Some people say when you feed them peanuts, you get monkeys, and I’ll admit we do have monkeys, but they certainly have not been fed peanuts. Will there be any improvement? They still reach their paws into the honey jar to pilfer whatever they can get, they have not changed, and will not.
The conference was only a ploy to convince that the politicans can think, but have no integrity.

Merv! mate! so Polly's look like they can think?
To make it look like they have integrity.
How am I to judge your views.
Elections are held about every three years.
From my birth till now almost every worker says they vote Labor.
But they lie.
29 in a hundred intend to on polling this week.
IF we take a radical path, while at our lowest, we disappear.
Market forces drive prices/ wages/ economy's.
I am quite willing to give Labor a bashing but your comment, like the one above it is unrealistic, untrue, and that is that.
Student R may care to return and see the latest thread from SM, Conservatives want only to continue to throw dust in this country's eyes while betraying us.

It is truly obscene and absurd at the same time SM, that you should purport that the Coalition has offered anything but dissent in relation to the welfare of asylum seekers arriving by boat too our shores. Often desperate people, often victims of circumstance, often with children and families, and few in number.

And yet you ignore the bulk of wealthy types, arriving on planes and over staying their visa, buying property and establishing businesses and employing their country folk and those refugees arriving on boats for $7 an hour illegally. Bringing the third world too our country via the back door. The LNP have also done the least about this problem during their otherwise disruptive (to the very fabric of this country) tenures in Gov't.

As for the Malaysian solution, it was clearly the most effective policy available, (you would have thought) palatable too the LNP, and therefore achievable in a bi-partisan way. But "No", being the operative word SM, illustrates how interested the Coalition actually are in solving their pet problem, (a disgrace of their own creation since Howard and children overboard), "boat people".

No use bleating now SM, the Coalition are "equally culpable", as the Gov't is, for following the LNP down this path.

Attitudes towards asylum seekers is now a rampant, un-tethered political beast of the Coalitions own creation. Now residing in the Australian psyche, resulting (sadly for Australia) the best executed example of the successful pressing of the xenophobic button for political gain in Australia's political history.

"How low can you go ?. An historical snapshot of the LNP in Gov't and Opposition", may be the subject of my next post SM.

While a little further right, I think than you thinker 2 that was good stuff.
No use looking for a debate that has open honest out comes in mind from SM.
But your post is descriptive, and at some future date a review of these days will make it look brilliant.
Once we got a hung Parliament, once conservatives who had left their party's long ago siding with Labor.
Once media became infected with the story not the Truth.
We became unbalanced.
It is no longer politics no longer a wish to improve.
We began a school yard bully fight, truth no longer mattered.
In the Nature of Joe the flying peanut,mounting numbers of others,
People who say the most outrageous things,things few understand, including them selves, we are lost in a time of divide not resolve.

T2,

The Labor "compassionate" policy has engineered more misery and death in a few short months than the coalition did in years. To try and compare this to the 4 people in detention in 2007 is obscene and absurd.

Initially Labor could have claimed that they were trying to do the right thing, and the surge in boats was unexpected. Now they have no excuse for inaction.

Is it rationalisation, or merely spin?

What ever it is T2 is about the best at it that we have had on OLO in a long time.

Yes T2, I surrender, I give up, I now admit that white is black. How could I ever have not believed, with someone like you telling me otherwise?

Tell me, do you write all Julia's speeches, or does she have other spin doctors, just as good as you, with a slight of hand, [or word]?