However by the afternoon it had drifted 130 kilometeres of Christmas Island.
Lexi,
I'm no seasoned mariner but I do have a boat in which I do some extended cruising. I have never heard of any vessel drifting that much into the prevailing wind.

Remember who it was that decided break convention in 2001 and to play this particular (race inspired) card for immediate electoral advantage in the first place?

It was really only about votes back then and still is.

I said way back then that this particular genie will never be put back into its bottle and will open us up to some real ugliness in our society.

The real tragedy is the fact that we've been having these discussions for 10 years.

Welcome to 21st century Australia.

discussions for 10 years.
Wobbles,
And who was it who ran down Pauline Hanson ? All of the major parties. If only she'd team up with Bob Katter we might still get one more chance but I the stupidity of the educated will present a huge hurdle.

Lexi,

You should be ashamed, crying crocodile tears over the dead women and children when Labor has had years to recognise that their open doors policy isn't working, and the same time to put back the policies that worked.

Under the Pacific solution the detention centre was managed solely by Australia meeting all the conditions of the detention camps that thousands inhabit in Australia today. As the high court recognised, this was far preferable to sending children unaccompanied to fend for themselves in Malaysia and be beaten and raped by the roaming militias is an abomination.

To try and equate the two situations is disgusting. The Malaysian solution is worse than anything the pacific solution had to offer, and for a so called bleeding heart to be even considering it shows how hollow your morals are. The Labor party has lost any claim to be the compassionate party.

Shame, Lexi, shame on you!

If you rightly assume there are no children or genuine asylum-seekers on-board the unsafe boat you're forcing back to compassionate, caring, non-signatory Indonesia, it's the far more humane thing to do.

Carrying on as if the Malaysian swap involves sending children to mandatory beating and rape is shrill hyperbole. I believe that the UN may well bless the arrangement given the right safe-guards as occurred with non-signatory Nauru in the past, especially if Australia greatly raises its refuge intake within an expanded total immigration limit.

LF,

The guarantees are worthless, the vast majority of asylum seekers are processed and released into the community with no financial support or physical protection to fend for themselves.

Seriously what protection have they got against the Xenophobic militia?