Australian churches, Victoria, Qld, ACT, New Zealand offer sanctuary to asylum seekers

The current affair Nauru piece was about as in depth as a foot bath.
So much shit going down over there that is hidden by both govts.
I can tell you this for a fact

Oh please take your tin foil hats off.

Do you really think the government and companies that run detention centres, really want to treat people badly or torture them or any other silly suggestions.

Why?

It makes no sense whatsoever, why give refugee advocates the amo they want???

As for suggestions from you and Sheepdog about the ACA , what are you guys suggesting the footage is fake?...it was filmed in a studio and even the refugees are actors?

Anyway despite what you guys probably think, I'm happy with the news Manus will be shut, people shouldn't be in detention for the simple fact they shouldn't be accepted and Australia shouldn't house them and waste tax payers money on them for a start, the government should do exactly what they are doing now and turn boats back..is going to interesting what they will do with those refugees from Manus though, but i think its safe to say they won't end up in OZ.

Indo, I don't think it's a case of wanting to treat people badly or wanting to torture them, it's the fact that they're safe and fed for the moment but have no hope in the forseeable future. In their eyes they came so close to their goal and not only have they been sold a lemon, they're left with no retreat, no out, no real options.

To most, having no hope and no future would amount to torture.

I understand that as do most people, but that is is no different to any refugee or asylum seeker stuck anywhere in the world, its a situation of limbo.

There is however a lot of people that take a different view and believe these people are being mistreated and even tortured.

Realistically if these people are to stay at Nauru, what else can you provide them with?...

There standard of living is already most certainly higher than the locals and much higher than hundreds of millions live around the world including some of my Indonesian family and many of my Indonesia friends.

I guess the government could provide a inground pool and sauna, but I'm sure there would be allegations guards tried to drown them or lock them in the sauna until they sweated to death.

BTW. They do have an out they do have other options, they can leave at anytime to live in a refugee camp if they believe that is a better option or be resettled in PNG or Cambodia, I'm sure the government would be jumping with joy if this option was taken as it would solve the issue.

That's true Indo. I noticed in the ACA piece the kids only had a PS2 instead of a PS3 or Wii.

Oh the humanity!

(It's no laughing matter and I'm not totally heartless but I agree that by unlocking the back door it presents way more problems than we're faced with now.)

Also, one thing stuck with me in that ACA thing (apart from fuck you Australia), was that a bloke was talking about leaving his wife and kids behind? If it was my situation, I'd send my wife and kids first if we were in real danger and if I had the means.

sheepdog I don't think there's any massive wave of enlightenment.

when the whole baby ashia debacle was unfolding david marr wrote his usual overly dramatic babble about how the mood was turning and this was the end for the whole system, when really it was just the usual suspects indulging in the same old same old. what's happened to that particular case is a bit of a mystery that both sides are suspiciously quiet about it. from memory the parents were still to be asessed as to being refugees or not, and being from that hippy mecca, nepal, I'd really love to know the outcome.

I don't see Australians as this nasty bunch of child eatng monsters that some of you do, I think the balance for support of these centres is probably 60/40. and the support is only in favour due to labor fucking up big time. not only did they fuck up, they lived in denial for about 2 years with a commensurate media campaign to suit. this fed some pretty healthy cynicism about the constant misinformation around this issue that started with howard.

instead of taking the moral high ground which they like to think they inhabit, advocates joined this race to the bottom in an ongoing display of one upmanship. pretty silly really because as I've said elswhere, in recent times where everyone has a camera, you can only control narratives so much, for so long.

yep ACA is a load of trash thet delved about as deep as dust puddle but the pictures pretty much cancelled all that talk of hell hole concentration camp conditions, the open gate was particularly pertinent. the guardian is still on their hyperbole campaign but seriously when one of their 'incident reports' is about a cockroach infestation they're pretty much kicking own goals, and this tells more about the guardian's world than the asylum seeker's world.

I don't sense any massive shift in sentiment. manus is closing because PNG suddenly found some scruples more than any other reason, credit to them. looking at narau's history and inzider's posts I reckon narau is in for the long haul unless something changes.

something has got to give eventually. the whole thing is a disgrace and a joke, and if even barnett is on board maybe the mood is changing. but I suspect he's probably always been on board because not everyone on the right are evil

we can't keep people there forever, but both sides have been pig headed in their demands, and both sides have played a brutal dog of a game, time to put differences aside. but I really cannit see a path forward at this point in time. too many iron clad promises and too many unrealistic expectations

http://www.theage.com.au/world/choices-of-syrian-children-cartoon-khalid...

Intellectualise about that then ......

I don't think there's too many people begrudge the Syrian refugees floyd, in fact if you go back a few pages I said our efforts for them are lame at 12 000 and proposed more like 25 000 being a reasonable number for Australia. the problem is people from every other country jumping on the bandwagon. in fact it's pathetic how much milage liberals got out of that 12 000 number while 1 year on we have resettled very few.

the problem is the mileage refugee groups got out of that unfortunate boy on the beach who wasn't even Syrian! and his family had been moving around various countries looking for a bettet deal.

but advocates don't seem interested in such details. it's just a free for all and open borders or you're a redneck,

doesn't help the cause in my view

I don't think anyone here has said we shouldn't have a refugee intake or that people should stay put and fight (like comments i have read from people on social media), the issue for me is about the system we use in accepting or rejecting refuges.

Some of us understand why we can't just accept people who arrive in an uncontrolled manner in uncontrolled numbers and others ignore all the issues and problems associated with doing so and take a more idealistic view.

I do think it sucks that we have said we are going to take 12,000 refugees then not processed them and done it quickly, if they are not going to do it, don't say you will.

turn boats back indo? cmon mate, thats about un-humanitarian as one could be. it is australia's responsibility to find a home for asylum seekers that seek refugee here. you cannot send someone back to their buggery same situation.

....thatbeingsaid im STILL not convinced that nauru or PNG are not a viable solution. none of the comments here have convinced me of anything. maybe the enquiry into the nauru files will reveal the truth. but how any enquiry is going to wade through the pointless crap in the file (and yeah there is lots of crap, its full of it) to focus on important injustices, i dont know.

clearly more lawyers is what we need. they always have something to say.

Im sure i would have said this before.

Okay Happy you accept boats, which then means you either need to put people in detention which id assume you don't want (and i don't want) or you process people here in OZ which i assume you want and id assume you would like to do it fast.

Meaning you have just sent out the message and a very clear and loud one to others to come because they now know they wont waste their money and they won't have to wait long to be processed and better still its done in OZ.(opposite of a deterrent, basically encourage)

Anyway you have basically legalised people smuggling, encouraging more Indo fisherman etc to also get in on the people smuggling game, despite the rising numbers this creates competition which causes prices to drop, which makes it even more accessible to even more asylum seekers & refugees.

Now you have boats going all over the place and it becomes a full cat and mouse game because you need to intercept them before they reach the mainland otherwise they land on Aussie soil which if you allow comes with all kinds of quarantine risk, human disease, or disease or pest that could affect our native flora and flora or whole industries that rely on a clean disease or pest free, plus you obviously just can't let people slip into society unchecked, also the security risk aspect becomes real (that currently isn't a realistic risk)

Then what happens when three months into the year, you have hit your refugee intake???

With your view you can't turn boats back and you can't lock people up.

Off course you will say there won't be that many people or we will raise the intake.

Regarding intake numbers, its easy to throw figures around but I'm sure there is a lot more to it than we think, don't forget you need housing you need benefits to get them by until they can get a job (no i do not think they all try to get to Oz because we have SS benefits) and you often need english courses, especially when you dip into the less educated demographic which you have opened up when people smuggling prices drop.

Regarding numbers, nobody knows how many people could arrive in time, there is so many factors involved.

1. The message the government sends out on how they deal with the situation .
2. Price set by people smugglers, affordability.
3.World wide situations that create refugees.
4. And where refugees come from, obviously the closer the country the higher the likelihood.

Lets also remember there is about 50 million people displaced in this world and fair to say about the same number of people who are possible asylum seekers, but choose to tough it out because of lack of current options however if they knew they have realistic options or a sure thing in OZ much more people would be willing to jump ship so to speak.(no pun intended)

Regarding economic refugees, those who are not fleeing war or persecution but just want a better life in a developing country.
With a policy like we have currently we see a low number because basically its either wasted money on return boat trip to nowhere, or they have to wait years for a flip of a coin chance, or maybe never as it currently seems, but in the scenario of accepting boats fast processing and lower cost to pay people smugglers, many many more would try basically because they have little to lose in time and money and a lot to gain.

Also to note the less control you have over our borders and the less boats you intercept and more that slip through, the higher the chance of criminals using the avenue, be it drug smuggling, people smuggling for sex trade, illegal animal smuggling, arms smuggling, money laundering etc.

l

I generally agree indo d, but I think we're at a point now where the liberal cunts have done their cuntish work so well we have an opportunity to reassess options. yep got to keep the detterant happening, but there must be some other way to deal with these issues.

I've read the swapping idea being thrown aeound a bit of late ie. swapping one of our impatient refugees for 3 or 4 patient ones who've been waiting in the supposedly non existant queue. apparently this is similar to the 'Malaysia solution'. I don't know I didn't hear much about the details at the time, but I did read in the guardian the other day apparently even abbott regrets fighting that idea ao vehemently. teamed with the greens no less, what the fuck were the greens thinking? fucking idealistic pig headed morons. I recall greens playing idealistic hardball before with the ETS, and what a fuck up that turned out to be. need to realise all Australia's don't share their utopian dream and learn to compromise for a better case scenario

regarding numbers, I think we could take more if we didn't do eeverything for them. yep english lessons, help with work erc. but despite what some people say, I think we probably blow too much money mollycoddling them. it's just how we do things in oz, everything over the top. clearly those guys stubbornly waiting in france for a shot at englands system aren't getting all the benefits they would get here. yet france is more open to refugees, a bit simplistic to say we don't do enough when we do stuff way different to other places. ten grand furniture allowance? maybe they could furnish their house from the op shop like everyone else has to when starting out...oh yeah, that's right, not everyone has to do that do they?

could be part of the resentment towards refugees

I agree the obvious solution to closing down Nauru would be a scheme similar to the Malaysian solution where we do a swap deal with a country with an overflowing refugee camp.

If for example we have one thousand refugees at Nauru we could swap for ten or twenty thousand direct from the refugee camp and process them fast.

With the option again given to those at Nauru to be resettled in PNG or Cambodia , before it happened.

We then continue with the boat turn back scheme and just use Xmas centre as a back up if needed.

Anyway doubt it will happen, going to be interesting what they do with those refugees from Manus and hard to see them coming up with a solution of what to do with the refugees at Nauru long term, as we know Australia is not an option, government has turned down NZ and Canada as options and if places like Cambodia or PNG or other similar countries are only given as voluntarily resettlement options then they will never happen.

IMO if the Liberals were smart they would get Nauru closed down before the next election and they could claim they have the boat situation under control and have closed down offshore detention centres.

Otherwise when Labor gets back in id expect they will just close it down and claim it, and then just continue with the boat turn back scheme, most likely renamed and tinkered with.

yep yep yep

but sadly.....

Yes, I think the solution is as you suggest. The aim is clear. Payout the current detainees and close the centre. It's not only costing but politically a difficult problem. The numbers are coming down (see https://www.asrc.org.au/resources/statistics/detention-and-refugee-stati...).
They will most likely do a swap as per the Malaysian solution for the last numbers. Possibly before the next election.

I seem to remember some of you vocal supporters of the current regime were nowhere to be seen when the Malaysian solution was first offered up by Labor and so very cynically shot down by Abbott and Morrison (and the Greens) ... trading on people's misery all for dirty political advantage.

Well, well, people here often infer I'm from the pinko left of the political spectrum but I seem to remember supporting Labor's Malaysian solution at the time as a way of humanely helping these desperate people and it seems some of you are now (thankfully/rightfully) onboard and thinking the long term solution here is a regional solution where our regional neighbours are respectfully engaged in helping solve this issue.

As an aside its laughable that Abbott and Morrison are now squabbling over whose idea it was to oppose Labor's Malaysian solution. We all know it was a shadow cabinet decision, like so many other decisions made back then to disrupt as much as possible the then Labor government ... and now faced with the same one member majority the Liberals are calling for maturity .... knuckleheads.

Remember these guys? This is an interesting read, its always interesting to read stories of Indonesia dealing with refugees, its a side of the coin we rarely see the Australia media cover.

"Only 99 Rohingya refugee seekers remain in East Aceh’s refugee camp out of the 409 that arrived on shore last year, an official has confirmed.

"We have received reports that the immigrants flee by deceiving the guards on ground. There are some who leave at night by crossing the river behind the refugee camp," Aceh legislative councilor Iskandar Usman Al-Farlaky said on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com

Iskandar visited the refugee camp in Bayeun, in the district of Rantau Selamat. He suspected that the refugee seekers had run away to Malaysia. He expressed his worry they may fall victim to human trafficking.

Iskandar called on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and International Organization Migration (IOM) to decide the final destination country for the Rohingya refugee seekers.

"There needs to be certainty," he said, adding that he did not meet any representatives of the UNHCR or IOM during his visit to the camp. He stressed the urgency to ensure a third country for the refugee seekers.

Indonesia has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention. But the country has voluntary resettled and repatriated boat people from Myanmar and other countries. Indonesia is considered a transit country for refugees en route to destination countries such as Australia. (liz/bbn)

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/09/07/only-99-refugee-seekers-re...

Intersting read "The Problem with the 1951 Refugee Convention"

http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliam...