I would be interested in people’s opinions whether the government should process refugee cases onshore or offshore?

The legal and policy background is this. Australia has signed the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees. This means the government says it won’t send back a refugee to his home state against his will. It defines a refugee as someone who has “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons or race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion”.

The effect of the Convention is to confer an advantage on people who apply inside Australia – “onshore” - for several reasons.

The definition of refugee is so wide, and the state of this world so bad, that every year there are more people in the world who want to get into Australia, and who satisfy the definition of refugee, than the population of Australia. So Australia limits the numbers of offshore applicants by imposing a quota for each different world region.

So if you apply OFFSHORE, you have to satisfy the definition of refugee, AND then it’s a lottery to get in.

But if you apply ONSHORE, you only have to satisfy the definition of refugee. If you do, it’s unlawful for the government to reject your application for a protection visa (provided you pass the health and character requirements). And the courts will stop the executive from disobeying this law, as part of our constitutional principles that no-one is above the law including, and especially, the executive arm of government.

This is the underlying reason for so many asylum-seekers coming by boat.

An argument for onshore processing is that these people are doing no more than taking the government at their word.

An argument for offshore processing is that it denies asylum-seekers the unequal advantage of applying onshore.

The other option is to withdraw from the Convention altogether. This would remove the obligation to accept onshore applicants, but leave full power to decide however many of whatever kind of asylum-seekers on whatever terms the gumment decided.

What do you think?

And assuming withdrawing from the Convention wasn't an option?

When you have a bad law it is time to change it. Even Gillard might become popular, if she withdrew from this Convention.

None of these dreadful people should ever be allowed to set foot on Australian soil.

The source of the problem is not the convention, but is Canberra's kow-towing to Jakarta especially ever since Paul Keating and the creation of the "Indonesia Institute". The boat arrivals are part of a penalty we pay for being dishonest at the United Nations about our neighbour.

If we were honest we would have helped compel Indonesia towards enough respect for human rights within its borders so that the refugees would seek its protection and would not have legal grounds for claiming that Australia was their first safe port of call.

Instead of being honest, in 1949-1950 our silence allowed Sukarno to crush the United States of Indonesia and expand his Republic to occupy the other fifteen states of the USI, in 1962 we supported a US gold grab as we supported a UN Trusteeship agreement that was kept secret from the public so the Americans and Indonesia could share the spoils of West Papua, in 1965 we remained silent as General Suharto slaughtered half a million or more potential Sukarno supporters, in 1969 we remained silent as the UN exercised a cover-up of the 1962 trusteeship agreement, in 1975 we remained impassive as Indonesia invaded East Timor so Conoco-Phillips could grab the Portugal Oil project, then in the 1980s and early 1990s we alleged Indonesia had sovereignty of East Timor, and last year Bob Carr declared Indonesia has sovereignty of West Papua.

Throughout the sixty year history Churches have been burnt down and Christian populations have had to live in fear or flee for their lives from the Indonesian majority, and anybody who speaks against state policies has been arrested or found dead on a flight to Amsterdam.

If you want to impede the refugee flow, I suggest Canberra help the UN improve conditions in other territories by being honest at the General Assembly and Security Council.

It will be interesting to see where we go once the money has run out.

Not if, but when!

funny world isn't it. I and others were sent to Indonesia to assassinate Sukarno. We got there into position and orders came not to do so...than Suharto had taken over and he was a "good guy"
It's all in the definition.

How about Mars?