Michael Gordon, political editor of
The Age sums things up rather well when
he tells us that our Prime Minister could have
(instead of saying "Nope, Nope, Nope") signalled
Australia's willingness to explore ALL of the issues,
from the immediate challenge of rescuing
those who face death at sea to addressing
the reasons WHY people fled their homelands.
Instead his only message was for the domestic political
audience.

Rather than encourage other countries to ape Australia's
punitive approach - it is time to talk seriously about a
regional framework that reconciles treating people humanely
with putting smugglers and traffickers out of business.

Angus Houston and his panel presented a report to the
government making a list of recommendations. It's a pity
that these recommendations were not heeded. However, it's not
too late.

Divergence
“No one here is saying that those Bangladeshis and Rohingyas should just be left to drown. It is what should happen after they are saved.”

This is just my point they were left to drift around the ocean for up to three months. The neighbouring countries all took on the Australia policy and simply pushed them back out to sea.

Our immigration policies and how many refuges we are prepared to take is a separate issue, and I have no problem with the flow being planned and controlled. The reality is the population of Australia is now highly diverse. I spent the last week in hospital (Pleurisy) the staff of the hospital made the united nations look like a monoculture. The doctor who performed the draining of the lungs was a Muslim originating from the middle east. The overnight doctor was a Tamil and the nursing staff was from every country you can imagine. If any thinks that we can can go back to the way things were 30 or 40 years ago they have lost the plot

Hi there ROBERT lePAGE...

If what has been reported is true, surely the respective Navies from either Malaysia or Indonesia, whoever is closest to these poor buggers, surely they could board them, and land them in the closest Muslim Country, as a demonstration of Islamic humanity ?

After all, Australia is a considerable distance from the Andaman Sea, and both Nations have adjacent coastlines in the Southern Andaman ? Relating to subsistence for these people, Australia has already indicated they will provide material Aid ?

Comments attributed to some Indonesian politician of no account, claiming we (Oz) should do much more to resettle these people, well he'd not really have a clue ? Moreover, Indonesia doesn't hold Australia in a high regard anyway, other than when we're inclined to open-up our treasury, in order to provide a manifestly corrupt Indonesia government, with more Aid ?

Nevertheless ROBERT lePAGE, I agree with you, if these poor folk are starving and dying at sea, it's indeed a human calamity of dire proportions !

Smugglers and traffickers are not the problem. They are only the facilitators who make it possible to flee. Pollies who seek to target the unfortunate refugees but don't want to disclose their motives use "destroying the smugglers' business model" as code for a war against the weak, not against the smugglers. The pressure to flee Crapsville is the problem. This problem has little to do with Malthusian claptrap about overpopulating and nothing at all to do with race. The problem is tribal "cultures" and resurgent Islam which together make the crap countries so crappy and deadly as to be unlivable. So they flee in their millions.

Along with this colossal exodus travel chancers with motives separate from the wish to get away. They want the material benefits of civilised countries unlike their own, have contributed nothing culturally or materially to them, and in some cases seek to drag the civilised countries down to the same sort of life that prevails in the countries they are fleeing from.

So we in the West have several goals. One is to lend a hand to people who are desperate. One is to filter out the chancers who are all take and no give. One is to regulate the intake numbers so not to throw an impossible weight on our own resources. Framing the situation so that only one of these three objectives counts leads only to pee-ing contests. We have to walk and chew gum and steer around obstructions at the same time.

Warmair, 30 or 40 years ago you still would have encountered Asian doctors and nurses, I lived in a small country town 30 years ago and we had one Indian doctor, a Jewish doctor from England and one from Hong Kong.
What we didn't have 30 years ago were dozens of Asian brothels in every suburb or Asian slums like Docklands and Point Cook.
We also didn't have to worry about Chinese international students dealing methamphetamine at our children's schools to cover their gambling debts the way we do now.
Your opinions of Asians are more overtly "racist" than mine, bordering on White supremacist because you strip them and their governments of all human agency when you accuse them of copying Australian border protection policies.

Dear Jay,

<<Chinese international students dealing methamphetamine at our children's schools to cover their gambling debts>>

Why would "white" children purchase those methamphetamines?

Have they not been taught by their parents to reject such offers?
Or have they been disrespecting their parents and the 5th commandment: "Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee"?

It's only when the body is corrupt that maggots come and eat it.