Shadow Minister You are so wrong, what you say is a joke.
1) the refugees are released to the care of the charities, approx 1 year ago the Government was going to release a lot of them the charities said to the Government to help them we will need "A LOT OF MONEY" that is taxpayer money.
2) By having the charities look after them the real cost can be HIDDEN from the people and they can be given more than people on Government welfare or the dole and we will not know.
3) Because the money is given to the charities Government can say we are not giving it to them.
4) I would love to see the real cost when you consider navy air force customs AF Police all the bureaucrats all the freebees etc it will be many BILLIONS of dollars more than we are told.
Misc note in around 2003 the head of the American Red Cross had a salary of over 3 million dollars, what are the bosses of our so called charities getting, subsidized by the taxpayers.

Dear Shadow Minister,

If we want to stop the boats once and for all
this is the way to do it:

http://newmatilda.com/2012/07/05/stop-boats-once-and-all

@Lexi,

I’ve been wondering when Lexi would get around to throwing in another New Matilda link …I mean, it must be at least two days since the last one.

So let’s digest its deep wisdom.

The first thing you’ll notice is this statement:
<<How blissful it must be right now to live in Europe or America or China, free from the pressure of waves of boat people>>

Now of course Ben is being satirical – he after-all listed as NM’s “resident satirist”!

But Ben is doing something else as well, he is exhibiting his ignorance of world affairs.


1) “America” includes Mexico and places like Honduras, Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador& Nicaragua And these places are not big attractors of illegal immigrants –in fact few want to go to the aforementioned at all, UNLESS, they are seeking to use such localities as staging points to sneak into the good old US of A.
2) And “China” has no illegals –boat people or otherwise. Let me correct myself there, they had a small issue during/after the Indochinese war when they did receive numbers of ethnic Chinese. But that seems to have dried up . Maybe because they said “ Yes we will grant you asylum BUT you must go and live in the boondocks.There’ll be no living it up in Guangzhou City” –strangely enough, a short time thereafter the flow on asylum seekers to China dried up!

So unbeknown to Ben, he has actually proved the oppositions point . If you are a affluent nation with generous welfare and a namby-pamby immigration policies you will attract hordes of opportunist masquerading as “asylum seekers”. But if you are a poor country or one that strongly defends its border you will attract few permanent interlopers … they ‘ll be just passing through on their way to *greener* climes .

Phillip S,
This is something I've long had an interest in but have never been able to come up with anything more than anecdotal evidence in support of my suspicions.
I've heard stories of this sort of thing going on in the U.K, the "refugees" are asked to pay a monthly fee to their landlord as "rent", in return the landlord provides a furnished home with internet access and all mod cons essentially at a loss then he submits a bill to their "handlers", adds a margin on top, the tab is picked up by "NGO's" who in turn mark up the account and have their expenses reimbursed by the state.
Other issues aside this "refugee" business involves hideous amounts of money and great secrecy which are the basic building blocks of corruption.
Nobody acts out of altruism when there's government money involved, especially the NGO sector, we've seen it so many times before, scam after scam, scandal after scandal.

Ahhhh, now I know why Lexi is so keen to knock Tony Abbott as PM !
It is left handed reasoning, as we will all then vote for Tony.
She thinks he will wreck the place and they will all leave.

Now there's an idea !

Dear SPQR,

I'm surprised that you've taken my previous post
so seriously.

Imagine if you would have thought
that I was merely being facetious.
Or that the author
was not trying to prove any point at all.
That
he was (with his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek)
being equally offensive to all parties by
pointing out the vanity and hypocrisy of
all our leaders, bureaucrats, journalists, and
party hacks on this issue.

No use imagining. Your reaction is always - what's
the word I'm looking for? Ah yes - strident -
and of course - predictable!