Bazz,
The retired teachers and social workers and their political allies will be wanting to let in many more African, Arabic and Asian Christians fleeing the Jihad in those areas so we will also see Falangist type groups forming among migrant Christian populations.
Gee I'd hate to be a lefty, I'm really glad I took the right hand path when I came to that fork in the road.

Dear o sung wu,

Thank you for a reflective and measured post.

You write;

“My problem, without being too facile, and sounding like a broken record is:- Why is it when most of them arrive, they are completely devoid of all documentation, that will unequivocally establish exactly who they are, and from where they've come from ?”

I always find it useful to put myself in other's shoes.

If I was fleeing the persecution, torture and extra-judical killings in Sri Lanka I would make my way to the area around Negombo. It is a predominately Catholic region and it is from here that many of the boats destined for places like Australia leave. I would have had little chance of getting a passport form the authorities as the repression and reprisals against the Tamils in the Christian north is rife. I would climb aboard a very dilapidated craft and try against the odds to get to Australia. The reason for choosing this as a destination is that I know a lot about the country. It is part of the Commonwealth, deemed to be Christian, a cricketing nation, I will have relatives there and I speak quite good English.

If my god wills it I will make landfall there, but not before destroying my few pieces of documentation. I will know that ultimately, with Australia tightening its entry rules, about a half of those on my boat will be recognised as refugees. But I also know that without documentation the authorities will have a far harder time of returning me to Sri Lanka. I know I will be extensively interviewed as part of my processing. The fact that my people are being systematically abused, raped, tortured, imprisoned and murdered will not be in dispute but it only those from Sri Lanka that Australia deem necessary to conduct “enhanced screening”.

Amnesty International says so.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA37/003/2013/en/338f9b04-097e-4381-8903-1829fd24aabf/asa370032013en.pdf

The Crisis Group say so;

http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka/243-sri-lankas-authoritarian-turn-the-need-for-international-action.pdf

And so does Human Rights Watch;

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/11/25/enhanced-screening-means-enhanced-trauma-asylum-seekers

So yes mate if I were in their shoes I would most certainly be ripping up my papers. Wouldn't you?

The Sri Lankens come direct by boat.
The others come by plane to Malaysia or Indonesia as you cannot travel
without a passport. Then they dump their passports, although some post
it to friends in Australia so they can go back to whence they came to
visit relatives.

And they wonder why we are cynical ?

Dear Bazz,

You ask;

“Both Malaysia and Indonesia have enough of their own problems so I
don't understand why they don't crackdown at their own airports.”

There are quite a number of countries whose citizens do not require a visa to visit either of these two nations.

The rules for Indonesia are here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_Indonesia

Some are visa-free while other like Australia are visa-on-arrival nations.

In Malaysia the rules are even more open.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_Malaysia

Those from the US, Australia, Europe as well as much of the Middle East do not require any visas if staying less than 3 months.

I hope this clarifies things a little.

Dear individual,

Your shipwreaked sailor should share stories with Cornelia Rau. Wander off dazed and mentally distressed from a hospital in Australia and you run the risk of spending not a few weeks but 10 bloody months in a detention centre. I know which one I would prefer.

@ the bod trying to pull the (steel) wool over our eyes.

<<Cornelia Rau...10 bloody months in a detention>>

What a load of shite!

Based on my reading of Robert Manne (hardly an unsympathetic source!). The authorities many times sought the lady's help in identifying herself and she acted in a way that could only cloud the issue.

Is it funny how these things get enhanced and repeated and till they become part of lefty folklore!