Pericles I will tell you exactly how much is a sensible amount.

Look after our elderly, fix our health system, properly fund education, and there are more, then, distribute what's left, evenly to the non local needy causes.

The whole point is, even the likes of you must wonder why these people get allocated $100,000+, per person, in assistance, while our own needy get two fiths of bugger all.

I ask you, is there any other country in the world who knowingly neglects the needs of their own, in favor of illegals?

*So, any thoughts on how much is a sensible amount?*

Yes Pericles. What it costs to evaluate 20'000 asylum seekers a year
in refugee camps and bring them to Australia. For at least we know
that they are genuine and its not only mainly young men who we
are assisting, but women and children too, who don't have 2c.

*I believe that Australians are a generous, hospitable people who value the concept of "a fair go*

If you are for a fair go, why make it a boat race limited to those
who can afford it as the selection criteria?

The only reason it costs so much is because those the operate the system dont want to change it.

Today with precision GPS technology crooks should be have to wear an immobilisation pin. When they fail to show up or deviate from an approved location or path the get an auto injection. The cops go and pick then up in their sleepy state as we know where they are anyway.

it is a serious waste of time locking most of there people up when we have virtual prison technology available.

How do I explain this, rehctub? Perhaps if I speak a little more slowly for you...

>>The whole point is, even the likes of you must wonder why these people get allocated $100,000+, per person, in assistance, while our own needy get two fiths of bugger all.<<

"These people" are not being "allocated $100,000+, per person".

This is the total amount that is spent, by the government, on the refugee programme, divided by the number of refugees.

So it includes the salaries of all the public servants who sit on their bums pushing bits of paper, as well as the army of people involved in other activities - for all we know, it could include the cost of the sailors on the coastal patrols who find the boats in the first place.

As Philip S pointed out, it is a programme that is open to all kinds of abuse - the government is even paying lawyers fees. Come to think of it, that could account for at least half the $100,000, right there.

Please feel free to offer to change places with any of them, rehctub, so that you can bask in the government's largesse. I suspect you'd find the food is worse than your mother's.

Thought experiments can be fun… and economic ones even more so.

For example, rehctub: if you had the meat supply contract for all the detention centres would you still say, "…enough is enough, STOP WASTING MY TAXES!"?

What is the standing cost for the Australian Navy – whether they're operating a 'taxi service' or not?

On the question of saving money it just occurred to me that the annual health-care budget in Australia is in the region of $50 billion. Apparently about 75% of this is spent on people in the last six months of their life.

So why don't we try to save $37.5 billion each year by having people die six months earlier?

D'oh…

(Homophonic joke in the previous line for those who missed it)

*I suspect you'd find the food is worse than your mother's.*

Hardly a valid comparison Pericles, but you would know that.

These are people seemingly fearing for their lives, then burning
down buildings, funded by the taxpayer. Now if I had been fearing
for my life and was now safely housed and fed, very similarly to
what they give the army or even many mining camps, I would be
rather happy to be alive and appreciate what I had. OTOH, if I
had expected that paying a people smuggler, would buy me the cushy
Aussie lifestyle with all its largesse and was then held in a camp,
that might be frustrating as I did not get my way.