Foxy, Suse, Pericles, WmTrevor,

You might be interested in this article:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/08/lampedusa-refugees-italy-australia

(The rest of you can shuffle off and continue your miserable hard-hearted muttering under your breath about cosmetic Asylum:)

"On Friday, as Italy declared a day of mourning for the souls lost at sea and local fishermen threw wreaths into the waters, it struck me how much Australia’s heart seems to have hardened to the plight of those less fortunate. The event reminded me with clarity of the Italian crewmen’s compassion: one sat and sang songs in the baking heat of the front deck, amidst the stench and the sadness, to try and keep the men’s spirits up on the long, slow limp back to port. Another told me that his work gave his life meaning, adding proudly that his vessel alone had saved the lives of 2,000 people over the past three years.

I remember too my mortification when I described the Lampedusa arrivals facility as a detention centre –the director corrected me with palpable annoyance: “These poor desperate people come to us, to Europe to find a new life and to find succor. This is a centro d’accoglimento (a welcome centre)”. Concrete, armed guards and locked gates seemed less than welcoming but when we visited a few days later: the arrivals were rested, in clean clothes, smiling through their anxiety. More importantly, the Italian government and its agencies allowed us in, to report and photograph with openness and transparency."

Insightful article on Italy's experience - worth a read.

Foxy,

I re-read your link as you directed and as I expected, the copy and paste I did to quote was exactly correct. Here it is again,

<Rudd's idealism has cost Australia very dearly according to Foxy's link:

"The financial cost of maintaining the extensive naval and air operations and a national and international detention system is more than $8 billion a year - more than that of the national disability insurance scheme and the national broadband network combined.">

You should also be aware that your sidekicks Poirot and Suseonline hotly dispute that doctors such as the two whose opinions you favour have any credibility at all on matters outside the confines of their medical specialty.

So you really need to take your complaint to your worst critics who are Poirot and Suseonline. They say your sources are *bleep*.

Suseonline, "May I politely suggest that you guys are even less qualified than the doctor to decide these issues either"

May I politely suggest in return that you are even less qualified and less informed than ex-Foreign Minister Bob Carr and the seasoned ex-Minister for Immigration quoted earlier. Your arguments in return to them? None, Nil, Nada, you just disagreed that is all.

http://tinyurl.com/asylum-hardball
Posted by onthebeach, Tuesday, 8 October 2013 6:05:42 AM

Suseonline HAS spoken is enough, apparently.

No more than you have spoken enough, dear Onthebeach.

I did not suggest I knew more than the ministers you mentioned, but I think the Immigration officers would be more practiced at working out who is or isn't lying about refugees than those politicians, wouldn't you agree?

In any case, my opinion is my opinion, whether you like it or not.
Thus IS an opinion forum after all...

Immigration policy is subject to the ideology and idealism of the government of the day.

That and the political convenience of the previous Labor/Greens government of having none or very few rejected, to 'prove' the government's policy was correct. Of course the hugely growing burden of the cost of economic migrants and their violence both in and out of detention centres blew the lid off it all.

You know that. I know that. The whole of Australia know that. It is one of the main reasons why the exasperated public put the rubbish out in Canberra last election.

Now the pivotal role of supporters inside Australia has come under attention and rightly so because the industry has cost $8 billion annually (according to Foxy's sources), which is the cost of the national disability scheme and the NBN. There are many urgers and professional advocates who have pocketed large sums of the $8billion annually it cost the taxpayers, and for what return?

This clever video had it right all along,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0MHRSFz6FM

GOTYA!

Here's a real gotya moment.

For much of the thread Poirot has been feigning objectivity:
-[the doctor is] “ employed as a medical professional, not as an assessor”
- and about 100 other lines of yada yada yada

But, as soon as she spies a comment that might be spuikable she grabs it without regard--see here:
<<the director corrected me with palpable annoyance: “These poor desperate people come to us, to Europe to find a new life and to find succor. This is a centro d’accoglimento (a welcome centre)”>>

Woo-up a minute!

Apart from the scurrilousness of trying to equate what happened 400+ KMS from OZ, with what happen just off the Italian coast –consider this:

1) Is this "director" a qualified psychologist? how could he have properly assessed the motives and emotions of the asylum “seekers”?
2) How does he proport to speak for the whole of Italy –or even the Italian govt?

Does Poirot challenge his competence? –does she care? –NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST !

WHAT HYPOCRISY - but, in view of the frequency with which she employs it perhaps we should spell it HY-PROIROT-SY.