SPUD, No, my post was what I intended to convey. You may have a different view, with your continued reference to "illegals". I simply put forward an observation. The mass movement of people across the planet will continue, and is most likely going to accelerate. I agree with Obama in calling these events a humanitarian crisis, something Australia, and the world in general is going to have to deal with. We cannot isolate ourselves from this growing problem, no matter how we may desire to do so. For many and varied reasons Australia is an attractive, and most desirable destination for displaced persons. That is a fact of life and how we deal with that problem now and into the future is something we as a nation are going to have to come to terms with. The "stop the boats" mantra, the "solutions" so far, are an aberration and until the problem is delt with in a constructive way, its not going to go away, now or ever.

What Paul should have written is:

Australia is the only developed country no longer with an illegal immigrant problem.

Note that the US turns boats back from Cuba and Haiti.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Denouncing Malaysia's far from perfect human rights
standards is something the Coalition was
good at. And of course, our own - Curtin and Villawood
were paradises of sublime liberty. At least Malaysia
was a substantial and genuinely sovereign member of
the world community, in good standing - as was argued
at the time. This meant it was subject to international
pressure to "lift its game" and align itself more closely
with international standards in this area - which is more
than might have been said about that empty shell of
national sovereighty, Nauru.

Much was made by the Coalition about Malaysia not being a
signatory to the Refugee Convention, yet this same
scruple did not stop the Howard government sending people
to Nauru following the Tampa confrontation and it didn't
stop using methods personally overseen by our Defence Minister -
Peter Reith - methods glimpsed on TV despite the restraints he
imposed that fell far short of these same humanitarian
requirements.

BTW - our current PM, Tony Abbott did apologise to Malaysia
for being against the Malaysian Solution - on his first
visit there as PM.

Selective memory is something you seem to excel in Sir!

Dear Shadow Minister,

For your information Sir -

We never had an "illegal Immigrant problem."
We are signatories to the Refugee Convention
and thus far 9 out of 10 asylum seekers have been
found to be genuine refugees.

As to what currently happening to our asylum seekers -
the PM and Mr Morrison prefer not to talk about that
subject - so we really don't know what's happening.
If you happen to be privy to information that the
rest of us are not - do tell!

Foxy,
Did it slip your mind?

Every non citizen arriving in Australia must have a valid visa.

Those arriving without a valid visa can be classed as 'illegal entrants'. We can, and do, place such persons an detention.

Love to get a dollar for every time I have had to inform some posters of this fact.

But thanks to Scott Morrison, we have not had any illegal entrants for six months.

Foxy,

At least I see that you don't dispute that the Malaysian solution was unworkable.

As for Malaysian's human rights record, Malaysia had a bad reputation for xenophobia, with roaming militia's routinely robbing and beating non citizens. As the illegals were to be released to fend for themselves amongst the general population, they would have little to no protection.

Labor promised not to send illegals to non signatory countries, not the coalition. The total Australian control of the detention centre obviated the need for the host country's involvement.