Both parties are all at sea on asylum seekers

AliceC says:

08:04am | 28/02/11

@Erick

“These asylum-shoppers are unwanted by the Australian public, because they are not genuine refugees”

What are you talking about? What are you basing this on? It has been proved most asylum seekers that arrive via boat are geniune refugees. Those that are not, are sent home. Those who want to threaten our country use measures that prevent detection and don’t arouse suspicion. For example the 9/11 terrorist bought plane tickets, and were legally living in the USA.

Unfortinately, you cannot prevent tradgedies like the Chirstmas Island shipwreck, until all countries treat all their citizens with compassion and humanity.

acotrel says:

08:27am | 28/02/11

AliceC - some people never let the truth get in the way of a good story.  You need to always question their major objective!  It’s about getting to a utopia, where most people are white, and christian and easily controlled, -  90% slaves, the rest sitting on the top of the dung heap!

Gregg says:

09:15am | 28/02/11

@AliceC
And just how would you go about proving they were refugees Alice?
Do you reckon sonme bureaucrats asking questions of them either on Christmas Island or in Australia will discover the full truth?
And what about the millions of refugees under care of the UNHCR and other agencies Alice?
This is not about protecting Australia from would be terrorists but about stopping the demolition of a good system that has been in place for decades and that is Australia’s humanitarian program which has always operated in conjunction with the UNHCR.

marley says:

10:41am | 28/02/11

@Gregg -the system we have now - the onshore system for air and boat arrivals, the offshore resettlement system for people in camps,  is pretty much the same system we’ve always had.  It’s nothing new and different.

Tony of Poorakistan says:

10:57am | 28/02/11

Alice

have a look at the composition of the Tribunal. Most of them have or have had a vested interest in the ‘refugee’ industry. And that’s what it is, an industry. 
 
Advocates being paid out of the public purse, fatcat scumbag lawyers ripping off the taxpayer ...

Gregg says:

11:22am | 28/02/11

@marley
And yes, it has been a good system marley but with the revoking of TPVs and the way the situation is now being managed, that good system is being torn apart.
And it is not to say that a good system can be re-inforced and made stronger either but whatever you have when you have poor policy direction shit happens.

Erick says:

11:54am | 28/02/11

AliceC, others have answered your points, and substantially countered them.

As for preventing future tragic boat accidents, there is an easy, proven solution. Simply stop accepting asylum seekers who arrive by boat, and they will stop coming. Problem solved.

marley says:

01:28pm | 28/02/11

@Gregg - re your comment about determining whether someone is a refugee or not.  It’s not an exact science, no matter whether the person arrives by air or boat (or, as in Europe or North America), simply walks across a border). 

The asylum seeker tells a story, the interviewer decides whether the story makes sense in the context of what’s going on in the country, and also whether the applicant himself is credible.  And we can never know, 100%, whether the interviewer’s judgement is right or not.  Because, we can never know, 100%, who we’re dealing with.  And the ability to verify facts back in the home country is extremely limited, especially in a place like Afghanistan.  So all decisions, whether they involve people with documents or not, involve a fair degree of guessing.  And by the way, the same thing is true of security assessments.

The same thing is true, by the way, of people in the camps.  Making a refugee assessment is always a judgement call, pure and simple.

And if you think possession of a passport is proof of identity, think again.

fred says:

04:54pm | 28/02/11

ho hum Erick, you insult the Australian public servants who check and assess their claims of persecution against international criteria and determine the majority of boat arriving asylum seekers to be refugees. Same as those UNHCR refugees in camps from which we select 6000 a year and smugly call ourselves generous.

acotrel says:

05:17pm | 28/02/11

@Erick
‘As for preventing future tragic boat accidents, there is an easy, proven solution. Simply stop accepting asylum seekers who arrive by boat, and they will stop coming.’

Why even prentend you actually care about the fate of coloured muslim asylum seekers?

Gregg says:

09:35am | 28/02/11

You get angry acca but it is you who have lost the plot.
It does not matter whether it is people smuggling, being in Afghanistan, foreign aid or foreign trade, there are always going to be systems and regulations and when people seek to undermine those, it could well be the Davey Jones locker for them.
Don’t forget the BP pills!

acotrel says:

05:22pm | 28/02/11

@Gregg, I don’t relate to my fellow human beings that way.  When our politicians get into the poisonous shite, I’m ashamed to be Australian! Come to think of it, from reading your other posts, you’re not that flash yourself! -  When did you last go to church?

marley says:

07:58am | 28/02/11

We get maybe 5000 boat people a year.  We take in 180,000 migrants a year, the bulk of them from various parts of Asia.  Do you seriously believe that there are more amongst the 5000 who do not share our cultural and belief systems, than amongst the 180,000 - many of whom are from the same region?

AliceC says:

08:12am | 28/02/11

For some people there is no front door, why can’t people understand that?

And what ‘Way of life’ are refugees supposedly not fitting into? Getting drunk and bashing each other on the weekends? Teenagers getting pregnant? What about ignoring the mentally ill and letting them wander the streets?

Gregg says:

10:16am | 28/02/11

@marley,
It is not so much the 5000 boat people a year for just the last couple but what if it increases? and what of the refugees in refugee centres that they are just shitting on?
What of the systems that we have in place with the UNHCR that they just want to shit on?
They’re not just saying FU to refugees and ASustralians, we’re coming whether you like it or not but thanks for making things so cosy for us in motels and hotels and thnks for the fact that we can then bring over families, all of whom will be in that about 150, 000 a year
http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/02key.htm

And yes, we may be getting a lot of people from some countries where there may even be people with a different culturual background but it is likely that their religious beliefs do not drive their lives as it may for many boat people as you refer to them as.

Tim the Toolman says:

03:43pm | 28/02/11

@Alice
“For some people there is no front door, why can’t people understand that?”

Wish I had some of their teleporter technology that allows them to magically skip all the countries along the way that they could stop at and who would process them….

acotrel says:

05:29pm | 28/02/11

@Marley.  Asylum seekers are ILLEGALS, queue jumpers, and muslim criminals , doncha know.  Not real nice right thinking people like the rest of us.  They are the sorts of people Adolph called ‘untermenschen’ ! At least our God is the real one!

marley says:

05:42pm | 28/02/11

@TimToolman - an Iraqi or an Afghan who decides to head east, will arrive in Australia without having set foot in a country which can “process” him for asylum.  That’s a simple fact.

marley says:

07:39pm | 28/02/11

@Acotrel - I ‘m not sure whether you’re trolling on that last comment, or whether you misunderstood what I was saying.  Why the paranoia about a comparative handful of asylum seekers?  That’s my point.  Every argument I’ve heard (they’re Muslims, they’re different, they don’t have a western background, they don’t understand democratic values) applies equally to our migrant movement, and most people don’t see them as threats.  Why do we react so differently to people in desperate straits?

Mouse says:

08:09pm | 28/02/11

“And what ‘Way of life’ are refugees supposedly not fitting into? Getting drunk and bashing each other on the weekends? Teenagers getting pregnant? What about ignoring the mentally ill and letting them wander the streets?”
Geez AliceC, you shouldn’t tar them all with the same brush, not all refugees are like that!

Marilyn Shepherd says:

09:47pm | 01/03/11

This is utter crap for those who come by the sea.  Now the Chinese could go to Russia or Japan I guess but 25% of all asylum seekers in the last 30 years have been Chinese.

It makes not one jot of difference how many countries people pass over, no matter how many times we try and make it relevant the high court finds it to be illegal so get the fuck over it.

Tony of Poorakistan says:

09:08am | 28/02/11

John

I don’t think anyone would dispute that Howard’s way worked better for processing these alleged refugees, but that isn’t the point. What IS the point is that the current Government is doing precisely NOTHING to stop them turning up. 
 
How about a scheme that somehow makes it more palatable for them to seek asylum with their own kind? They pass a half-dozen Muslim countries on their way here and many of them are actually flying to a Muslim country (Malaysia) before throwing away their papers, getting on these ‘leaky boats’ and travelling to our waters.

Adam Diver says:

08:44am | 28/02/11

But They have Macca, because there are no pull factors you see. We don’t need the figures we just use logic from unsupported hypothesis (sound familiar). There are no pull factors, therfore the increase must be due to push factors, therefore it must be the same around the world.

Real-world data is irrelevant, the logic is flawless.

The solution however is very simple. Anyone who comes here is sent to the relevant refugee centre and 2 properly processed refugees are taken in return. No one would bother coming here (no boat tragedys) and the same number of people (as well as people most likely more desperate i.e no funds to pay people smugglers) are helped.

There should be a bi-partisan push for that policy. Who is with me pers, nossy, rob, badger, christian, chong, anyone?

acotrel says:

08:06pm | 28/02/11

@Tony of Poopastan.  The way John Howard treated asylum seekers was a national disgrace.  He deprived them of their basic human rights of access to the courts through a writ of habeas corpus.  You’ll note that the High Court of Australia recently declated his actions to have been ILLEGAL !!! Asylum seekers now have access to the courts to seek just cause for their imprisonment !

fml says:

11:33am | 28/02/11

Charles,

“How does a supposedly repressed minority from an impoverished country manage to stump up the large sums of money to get here via boat?”

Why do refugees necessarily have to be poor? They are escaping war and persecution, they will sell their house, belongings and everything to get here. So, the choice is, sell everything and leave, in the hope they dont die, or wait for years and continue to be persecuted, or at worst die.

“How is it they all lose their identification papers and passports AFTER they fly into Malaysia and Indonesia?” Citation needed for the outlandish claim of “All”, or maybe you meant the other meaning of all which doesnt mean all of them?

Why do so many have relatives in Australia already, and why have they failed to get here by the legal process? Once again citation needed. Stereotypes, prejudices and fallacies are not viable foundations for arguments.

Hamish says:

09:52am | 28/02/11

For those numbers to be accurate, there would have had to be almost zero arrivals anywhere in the OECD. I’ve got a feeling she’s not talking about just unsolicited arrivals, but all refugee applications, which is obviously just a deliberately misleading use of statistics.

That would hardly be surprising in this deabte…

AdamC says:

10:48am | 28/02/11

“I’ve got a feeling she’s not talking about just unsolicited arrivals, but all refugee applications, which is obviously just a deliberately misleading use of statistics.”

Indeed, which means the author is being dishonest or, at best, is mistaken. I get that the Punch is a blog, but there should be some kind of fact-checking.

Unless we are all wrong and the refugee lobby (excluding Kate) have been sitting on this information, which seems rather unlikely.

marley says:

11:26am | 28/02/11

I too have doubts about this particular statement, mainly because it refers to countries which haven’t made any policy changes, which, to my knowledge, would be none.  Pretty much all the OECD countries have modified their refugee policies over the years to meet varying challenges. 

It’s quite true, though, that there was a major decline in asylum claims throughout the “industrialized countries” from 2002 through to about 2006, when the numbers started going up again.  Australia had a much bigger drop than the rest of the west in 2002, then followed the trend from 2003 on, and then had a higher than average increase in 2009.  (Though not nearly as high as Finland, for example). The numbers are still well below the peak in 2000 and 2001.

I’m not quite sure what Hamish’s reference to “unsolicited arrivals” is.  Asylum seekers are pretty much all “unsolicited.”  Europe certainly doesn’t invite asylum seekers; neither do Canada or the US.  So the figures would be comparable.

kerry says:

01:07pm | 28/02/11

Bring on the dancing girls, AdamC - this is probably the only time I’ll agree with you. The author of this article should have included a link if the claims she makes are to be taken seriously.

I can’t find anything re OECD averages etc. But you may find this interesting (if you haven’t already read it, that is): http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/bn/sp/boatarrivals.htm#_Toc285178607

Specifically, the global context.
Cheers

iansand says:

01:57pm | 28/02/11

This may, or may not, be the report http://www.unhcr.org/4c11f0be9.pdf

kerry says:

02:19pm | 28/02/11

iansand - you beat me to it. I was just about to post that link
pages 9 and 10 seem pertinent, but just sad, sad, sobering reading.
To think that the poorest countries accept the most (80% without going back to check) refugees is, quite frankly, appalling.
The figures, though, give an insight into the reason why the people, who can move onto other countries, do so instead of being staying in refugee camps in neighbouring countries - they’re full, simple as that.
We are just so bloody lucky here. And pretty damn mean too.

marley says:

02:45pm | 28/02/11

@Ian Sand and Kerry - your link gives the very big picture of refugee movements and populations.  And yes, the poorest nations host the most refugees (with funding from donor nations and the UN of course). 

If you want to have a look at asylum seeker trends, which is not quite the same thing, this link is enlightening:

http://www.unhcr.org/4ba7341a9.html

If you go back and look at earlier years (say, 2005) you can see longer term trends as well. 

It puts things into context - especially the comparatively small number of refugees Australia gets, per capita, relative to other countries.

kerry says:

03:19pm | 28/02/11

Thanks marley

AdamC says:

03:31pm | 28/02/11

Marley, your link seems to decisively contradict the claims of the author. Figure 1 of the report is especially damning, as it shows a much sharper decrease and subsequent increase in asylum claims over the period in Australia than in other end-destination countries.

Such an elementary error (or misrepresentation) by the author surely ruins her credibility.

(Further, I note the report likely understates the extent of the volatility in Australian boat arrivals as it does not separate out boat arrivals from other asylum claimants, such as those who initially arrived on other visas then claimed asylum.)

iansand says:

04:44pm | 28/02/11

AdamC - The two charts show the same trend.  That is all those charts show - the steepness or otherwise of the trend can be misleading.  The Australian Y axis is from 0 to 8,000.  The UN Y axis is from 0 to 100,000.  That can introduce significant distortions.  As any advertiser will tell you, you can tell a lot of lies with graphs.

Tator says:

07:23pm | 28/02/11

Kerry,
“To think that the poorest countries accept the most (80% without going back to check) refugees is, quite frankly, appalling.”
You will find that these poor countries just happen to border most of the worlds troublespots from where the vast majority of refugees are fleeing and it is not that they are accepting refugees who are transiting multiple countries but are generally the first point of safety for these refugees as they have little in the way of resources to pick and choose their destination as approximately 70% of refugees come from Africa and the Middle East which generally are the poorer areas of the globe.

AdamC says:

09:18pm | 28/02/11

Ian Sand, the rates of change are very different. The trends in a binary sense is the same (that is, first down then up) but their magnitude is quite different.

Fred says:

09:27pm | 28/02/11

Gregg, could you please give me a list of secure UNHCR camps ( no raids,no rapes,  no corruption) where Iraqis, Kurds,Tamils, Iranians and Afghans etc escaping opersecution can register, get processed and queued for resettlement in a safe country.

Failing that could you go to sleep please?

marley says:

08:04am | 01/03/11

Agree with everything you say except the bit about Tamil freedom fighters. Most countries regard the Tigers as a terrorist outfit.  Mostly because that’s exactly what they are.  I’ve got no problems with Tamils in general, but ex-LTTE cadres to my mind should be inadmissible.

Fred says:

05:46pm | 01/03/11

Marley, bear in mind that the current military/intelligence/police network which “won” the tragic civil war in Sri Lanka assists our people to decide who was and was not an active and voluntary member of the LTTE. Given that freedom fighters vanquished in other civil wars who were nevertheless selected for Australia’s humanitarian program, the possibility is that the few Tamils found to be a security risk face death if returned and really do yearn for peace and a future for their families. But ASIO had to come up with a few, didn’t it, to justify their expansion and growing budget and keep the myth alive. Asylum seekers remain a non threat to national security. The money could usefully be spent elsewhere.

marley says:

07:05pm | 01/03/11

@Fred - the LTTE were probably the most vicious of all “freedom fighters” - and quite a few countries labelled the organization as a terrorist one.  They raised funds by extorting the Tamil diaspora abroad.  They were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, from assassinations to ethnic cleansing of the Jaffna peninsula, to drug and arms running, to forcible recruitment of child solders. In the final days of the war, they used Tamil civilians as shields, and shot at those trying to flee.  And that’s not Sinhalese propaganda I’m quoting, it’s UN reports from the field at the time, when the UN was begging both sides to back off. 

It is possibly true that the cadres face imprisonment if they return.  But they are not, to my mind, refugees fleeing persecution; they’re criminals fleeing prosecution.  And as such, they do not fall under the Convention.

Ordinary Tamils, fine, I’ve got no problem. Cadres - no way.

Sorry, but these are not people who should be allowed into this country.  The Convention specifically excludes those who have committed war crimes, and the LTTE have done so right to the hilt.  They went beyond the line of being freedom fighters years ago. If the refugee program is to have any meaning, it must exclude those responsible for or associated with crimes against humanity.

Tomthumb says:

01:08pm | 01/03/11

Cat P, I just don’t think that you can make such a direct link between Aus government policy and boat arrivals. Putting the stats above to one side, even if we consider the practicalities. I live in a small city on the central cast of Vietnam and know that most of the locals here have absolutely no idea what life in Australia is like, let alone what political persuasion the government is, let alone what their current boarder protection policy is. I can’t imagine there is any more awareness among todays push countries. People just simply would not be aware of Australian policy. Most educated folks here have only a dim idea that Australia is a democracy, but then who knows what that means to them, because they also think vietnam is a democracy. Desperate people will just believe what ever people smugglers tell them, and no doubt smugglers probably have very little idea of australian policy anyway. Presuming that people fleeing desperate situations are popping onto the internet and doing a comparative analysis of prospective destination countries’ refugee policy is fanciful.