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

Clearly there is no surf on the Island today or maybe its just easier to not paddle out these days.

Seem to remember had a lot to say in the Adam Goodes forum none of which made sense either ....

indo-dreaming wrote:

happyasS wrote:

tim foilat wrote:

"no one is jailing children mindlessly", happy can you please provide a reasoned argument for indefinite incarceration of children.

there is no reasoned argument. but if the children/babies are arriving with parents then those processing the claims are stuck between a rock and a hard place. the parents claims still need to be assessed. the soln of course is process them quicker and i support this.

if its children arriving unaccompanied, then yes i say process them as a matter of utmost priority.

my point now is as they come into the community then we naturally accept them as australians, its as simple as that. so they need to be supported be they children, teenagers, or adults. throwing people into the community with no support network doesnt work for our society. they are better off in a clean stable camp environment...btw i am definetely not saying that our offshore detention centres meet these requirements, a lot can and should be improved. some of the stories about what happens there are atrocious.

You have to treat children exactly the same as adults.

It would obviously be crazy to separate parents from their children, I'm sure we agree on this.

Or you can give parents with children some type of priority? process them faster or in a better environment such a the community etc

Thats fine at the moment if we could guarantee we were not going to accept anyone who arrives by boat, however if we went back to a similar policy we had under labour with people arriving then its extremely dangerous thing to do.

I will tell you why….in some cases children would become pawns to be used to gain processing advantages or special treatment.

Families who could not afford the journey for all the family could send their child alone with the idea if they can not have a new life at least their child will, or even hope that once their child is their they will be allowed entry.

Families who could not afford the journey could be tempted to give or sell their child to someone that can afford the journey even good people could rationalising the decision that they are doing what is best for their ' future.

Some people who don't have children would use children to gain advantage and be willing to pay, they may be good people or they be very bad people.

Almost forgot the obvious some people will obviously have a child/baby while in detention to gain advantage.( i guess you can look at that how you like, maybe its not a negative, i guess it depends if they really want a child)

Im sure some people will roll their eyes and say no they wouldn't happen, the reality is in some countries parents do sell their children and only do it for money, some even sell their children knowing they will be abused mentally physically and sold for sex.

I could see any of these possibilities happen, very slim chance but can't argue that things like this do and will happen. Is this crime of 'gaining advantage' fairly punishable by detaining anyone who could potentially do so? I don't know where my threshold is for forcefully taking someone's freedom but it's way above someone jumping the queue.

indo-dreaming wrote:

happyasS wrote:

tim foilat wrote:

"no one is jailing children mindlessly", happy can you please provide a reasoned argument for indefinite incarceration of children.

there is no reasoned argument. but if the children/babies are arriving with parents then those processing the claims are stuck between a rock and a hard place. the parents claims still need to be assessed. the soln of course is process them quicker and i support this.

if its children arriving unaccompanied, then yes i say process them as a matter of utmost priority.

my point now is as they come into the community then we naturally accept them as australians, its as simple as that. so they need to be supported be they children, teenagers, or adults. throwing people into the community with no support network doesnt work for our society. they are better off in a clean stable camp environment...btw i am definetely not saying that our offshore detention centres meet these requirements, a lot can and should be improved. some of the stories about what happens there are atrocious.

You have to treat children exactly the same as adults.

It would obviously be crazy to separate parents from their children, I'm sure we agree on this.

Or you can give parents with children some type of priority? process them faster or in a better environment such a the community etc

Thats fine at the moment if we could guarantee we were not going to accept anyone who arrives by boat, however if we went back to a similar policy we had under labour with people arriving then its extremely dangerous thing to do.

I will tell you why….in some cases children would become pawns to be used to gain processing advantages or special treatment.

Families who could not afford the journey for all the family could send their child alone with the idea if they can not have a new life at least their child will, or even hope that once their child is their they will be allowed entry.

Families who could not afford the journey could be tempted to give or sell their child to someone that can afford the journey even good people could rationalising the decision that they are doing what is best for their ' future.

Some people who don't have children would use children to gain advantage and be willing to pay, they may be good people or they be very bad people.

Almost forgot the obvious some people will obviously have a child/baby while in detention to gain advantage.( i guess you can look at that how you like, maybe its not a negative, i guess it depends if they really want a child)

Im sure some people will roll their eyes and say no they wouldn't happen, the reality is in some countries parents do sell their children and only do it for money, some even sell their children knowing they will be abused mentally physically and sold for sex.

I could see any of these possibilities happen, very slim chance but can't argue that things like this do and will happen. Is this crime of 'gaining advantage' fairly punishable by detaining anyone who could potentially do so? I don't know where my threshold is for forcefully taking someone's freedom but it's way above someone jumping the queue.

Double post

Because it's not easy Sheepdog it is complicated.

It's made up of three issues

1. Border control.

2. Refugees.

3. War

They are often related but not always, and they are all complex, even when they seem simple…take for example something just like children in detention, its simple to just say let them out or process them, but as I've pointed out above its not that simple for every action there is a reaction and something simple like giving priority to children or families could actually put future refuge children in danger or become separated from their families.

Sure you can do what you say for syria refugees, but that's a separate issue you are still going to have the border control issues if you don't deal with them, and you still have refugee issues, and you still have the war issues.

Sure Syria is related to the whole discussion, but currently we don't have a problem with thousands of Syrian refugees trying to illegally enter Australia because we have been smart enough to control our borders with what is a successful border control policy.

And in regard to refugees in detention centres there is only nine Syrian refugees in offshore processing centres. (i know because they wanted to be included in our 12,000 intake of Syrian refugees)

Hmmm lots and lots of western bubble mentality in this topic, guess what the worlds a lot different than what your lecture at uni taught you.

"Australian churches offer sanctuary to asylum seekers"
Well maybe the tax free organizations that are churches could help fund their existence rather then show them how to access welfare .

indo-dreaming wrote:

Hmmm lots and lots of western bubble mentality in this topic.

YES AGREED its worked well in Europe indodreaming. Indonesia would be a great place for refugees same religion in some parts . why dont they settle there??? ah welfare
Indonesia wont take em why not they could have a good life there ????
na easy free money in oz
We have enough freeloading scumbags born here than add more

rule303 wrote:

"Australian churches offer sanctuary to asylum seekers"
Well maybe the tax free organizations that are churches could help fund their existence rather then show them how to access welfare .

Let me get this straight....the churches should fund the lives of people seeking refuge with the Australian state or or they should stay in prison and these people should have no access to welfare.

Sheepdog wrote:

And the wheels on the bus go fucking round and round...........

.... granting sanctuary only (till the war is over) ...... its that fucking simple

SD, 2 questions......do you accept that sanctuary can be provided in camps?. and if australia provides sanctuary within the community then do you support Australia force-fully (for want of a better term) returning the people to their home country when conflict has ceased?

Only after American contractors have rebuilt their razed cities at grossly inflated prices.

as a young man who grew up completely surrounded by church I could not think of a worsr place for anyones santuary. i sufferred abuse from elders, 2 immediate family members suiceded and our family was torn apart by incest and child abuse. As any religion critisized openly to dnial for thier failings to stand up and pretend they are the shining light of help in despair is purely disgustingly miss appropriated propaganda. Believe nothing any religion says! The purest guilt lays in any religion. Stay the hell away. From some one who knows.

Sorry to hear that cambilly. Generally, I'm thankful I've had no religion brought into my life.

floyd wrote:

Clearly there is no surf on the Island today or maybe its just easier to not paddle out these days.

Seem to remember had a lot to say in the Adam Goodes forum none of which made sense either ....

Come on Flyod you can do much better than that, insults are easy and they are normally a sign the person knows they are wrong or lost the debate. (but thank you for not lowering yourself to attacking my terrible sentence construction and grammar, god even i read back my post and think man how the hell wasn't i diagnosed with dyslexia at school)

Maybe explain why we can have a system where people are allowed to turn up wherever they may be able to land in an uncontrolled numbers, go back and dissect my first post and points and prove me wrong.

Prove me wrong on all my points, that you have never considered, because your far left info sources(Greens etc) have never mentioned them because they will never have to deal with them, the crazy thing is many of these issues of border control are related to the environment, and controlling numbers also protect the environment, but like i said they will never have to deal with the issues, so its very easy to use the emotional aspects that people can relate too, especially when they only have their western life and high living standard etc to relate too and don't understand the true reality of the world.

I kind of expect more from surfers as we travel we see the world is very different to the west and understand not every refugee has money or speaks english, but i guess the whole western owned and run surf resort and charter boat thing is even changing this and even surfers are now traveling surrounded in a western bubble.

At least give me some far left idealistic la la la spin, tell me we can process people in the community, tell me we are never under threat of boat numbers being large and that 95% of people are true refugees, ignore all the reasons why in the past this has been the case.

To be honest i don't actually care too much what happens i know both Liberal and Labour will alway ensure they do whats needed on this issue, and if for some crazy reason we ever had a very soft approach i would also be happy because i would really love to bring some good Indonesian friends here even if after a few months or year they had to go home they would go home cashed up and in a sense id love to see a true economic refugee problem like USA/Mexico has IMO our neighbouring nationalities like Indonesia and PNG are far far to under represented in our community which is crazy seeing they are our neighbours.

I know I'm ranting but im just sick of only hearing the bullshit from the far left acting all compassionate which they can because they don't and won't ever have to deal with all the other realities of the issue.

Then we have the extreme right who fear anyone different to them and think Islam is going to take over and we are all going to e living under sharia law and other racist xenophobic crap and cling onto the we are saving people from drowning line.

For fuck sake, lets be honest our government doesn't give a shit about the actual life's we kill more civilians in wars we are involved in, the drowning at sea thing is pure politics to make the other party look bad, we don't stop boats because we are trying to save people drowning at sea, we stop boats because the implications of not stopping boats is much to big (See my first post)

And we use offshore processing centres and we have long processing times because it a deterrent, just like onshore processing especially in the community and fast processing times would be the complete opposite and encourage people.

Its really not the hard to understand that for every action on this issue there is a reaction.

A for Adam Goodes..id love to post and explain what was going on there a psychologist friend explained it to me and god it made total sense, but i don't know if it's a good idea to dig that topic up.

Oh you also forgot those two idiots in Bali who got death, I had a bit to say on that and I'm sure you would not have shared my view.

SD...what the Anglican archbishop said to the royal commission recently should put your head down in shame. Yes, the church may do some good but geez, it looks after its own. Sorry but I have time for thought like that - inexcusable.

you're doing a great job indo d, at bringing the lofty lefties back to earth, your post above answers all their arguments....but nobody is listening, we all have our (almost) unchangeable views as several runs of this debate on swellnet have shown.

stunet is right, rudds tough talk did already have a significant effect reducing boat numbers, consolidated by liberals policies following, it doesn't really matter though, the point is labor created a mess prior to getting tough. doesn't matter who implemented it, but it was liberals hard ass policy that got stuff under control, and some control is the best way to keep people out of detention centres, yeh these centres are fucked up, but using language like 'concentration camps' is a gross overstatement that doesn't win anyone over, it just makes me think you are as delusional and unworldly as hanson young. talk to someone who's spent 8 years in an African camp with minimal food and care, 3 years before he was given corrugated iron to make a humpy,...talk to them and then tell me who's doing it tough. yep definitely kids shouldn't be there, but indo d has shown its not that simple.

with respect, people on here advocating for refugees and similar seem totally delusional about the practicalities and economics of numbers. its like you guys waltz in make the case for refugees and open borders, decide we won that debate, then waltz out leaving the bean counters to work out how to deal with it,...I think that's called an 'arts student'

from dandandan, who is clearly intelligent and I love and respect his posts, we got the 1 million figure, which was put into perspective by showing our 1 billion dollar detention centre bill would equate to $1000 each hmmm. . what about Floyd and sheepdog, care to give us a figure? with some numbers and dollars to back it up. in detention or in the community I think the cost would be closer to $100 000 than $1000. I've said it before its great ri have compassion and ideals but what about the practicalities?

that drone footage is truly distressing (can't you do something about that freeride?) but seriously it's been a long road to here, a road with no plan, a stumbling from unrest to unrest, all fuelled by dodgy self interests influencing policy. I see even that corbyn dude, the potential next pm of england, has said it's all about the mega rich looking after self interests. big people are starting to talk, because the internet is showing up americas hypocrisy. the cosy deals with the saudi's have to be addressed, the we'll pick a fight here but overlook attrocities here ain't gonna cut it anymore, it's blatantly obvious whats going on and until we look at the real issues this refugee situation will be the new ongoing reality.

and this is where refugee advocates aren't winning anyone over, because there is no big overarching plan rto deal with it. just like vietnam, all the experts said, the problem was no clear goal, no clear agenda, now we have had 15 years in the middle east with no clear outcome in mind, no big plan, refugee crisis, again no plan, no big pucture thinking, so people just see a never ending stream of people excaping a mess, you can't blame em .. you can't take them all either.

geez even the guardian has recently ran articles saying saying the UN refugee convention is out of date.

Wars create refugees

Participation in wars is expensive

Australia involved itself in armed invasion and occupation of sovereign nations at enormous expense based on....?

One of the outcomes has been movement of refugees from these areas to Australia, Australia is a signatory to the un refugee convention guaranteeing asylum for people seeking refuge in such circumstances.

Instead of settling people, successive Australian governments have instead adopted a policy of indefinite detention and flogged the issue for any political mileage.

But the REAL issues are the slim chances of someone possibly using a child to jump the queue OR in the face of the enormous costs Australia contributed to creating this problem you feel that the cost of our responsibility in dealing with it are too high. Seriously?

Concentration camp def :
a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc., ...if you don't like the language try something else but the definition is quite clear.

all sorts of wise words being written over at the guardian of late

"If liberals want to defend refugees in these dark times, they are going to have to ditch prejudices that have become a self-defeating menace. The first is the waffle you hear everywhere that there’s no difference between refugees and economic migrants. In theory, there’s truth in the argument that a man who is about to starve to death is in no better or worse predicament than a woman who knows Assad’s forces or Islamic State will execute her. In practice, a starving man has neither the strength nor the money to flee, while some victims of political persecution can escape, if they can find a country to take them."

"Liberals also need to stop treating their fellow citizens as if they were closet Nazis. It is no good screaming that they are “racists”, like some no-platforming student dogmatist."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/06/liberals-harsh-trut...

I actually don't agree with the detention centres at all, and agree, the security risks are totally overstated.

I'm not even afraid of muslims coming to australia, but to compare well supported camps to nazi concentration camps is totally sensationalist and doesn't help your cause. do you want to win people over? or just win a moral argument in your own head? up to you....

actually the problem with these camps is what sheepdog said, having private firms doing the governments dirty work when their main goal is returns to shareholders.

the other problem is, essentially using thrid world staff who are used to modest lifestyles providing first world conditions. . a recipe for disaster

sypkan wrote:

I actually don't agree with the detention centres at all, and agree, the security risks are totally overstated.

I'm not even afraid of muslims coming to australia, but to compare well supported camps to nazi concentration camps is totally sensationalist and doesn't help your cause. do you want to win people over? or just win a moral argument in your own head? up to you....

actually the problem with these camps is what sheepdog said, having private firms doing the governments dirty work when their main goal is returns to shareholders.

the other problem is, essentially using thrid world staff who are used to modest lifestyles providing first world conditions. . a recipe for disaster

'Nazi' concentration camps ?

there's literally millions of refugees already in the system that you have washed your hands with. new cause, new pictures, new emotion, now it's all about syria, what about the others. its an emotive responnse, not less worthy, probably not more worthy of our ettention, just more timely therefore more emotive.

the numbers sheepdog, the numbers

fwiw, I didn't support the war, I actually attended the rally against the iraq war, 100 000 people walking through ltlle old adelaide, that's a big turnout!! you can fool some of the people.....

this is the new norm, are we just going to keep accepting an infinite number?

need to be finding solutions, not transporting problems

Have you noticed a slump in Australia's economy since refugees have been coming here sypo? You keep refferring to the huge cost, where are your numbers?

Did you notice the slump in the economy when we went to war? It was a huge cost here's a start http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/iraq-deployment-to...

This costly war policy.... Did your pay change at the end of the week, were people losing their jobs? probably not but the people in Iraq noticed, their lives changed.

Will your life change if refugees are processed appropriately? Will you notice the costs? Will it affect your pay at the end of the week? Probably not but it will affect the lives of these people.

the camps are crap and we gotta do better....

i am also concerned to try and home 1,000,000 refugees too or even 100,000 per year without proper checks and balances and the needed community support to help them fit in in society. to just dump that figure of people into australian society in a short space of time is a problem. sure we say that they will go home once the war is over, but will they really? the war might be over but 'true peace' compared to what we have here will take way longer than that. 20 years? 50 years. its just one conflict or dictatorship after another. whos gonna want to leave. and what then? i doubt its easy to forcefully send 1,000,000 people that we have accepted as refugees back to a place they have no wish to go back to. sure we can be pricks and cut off their social security and the like but all that does is encourage crime and so notwithsstanding that its completely inhuman, its not a soln still. i got nothing against people of muslim faith at all, nor any other people, but i expect that if people are living here in society that they can fit in and [edit: not] be outcast and end up living segregated lives....heres what concerns me

a. they can speak a english
b. we can offer them meaningful jobs
c. we as a nation are mature enough to be a true melting pot of culture without going apeshit on the streets.
d. we have enough funds to support them until they find they're own feet.

in my mind the first 3 are critical, the last (money) i dont care about much as we are a rich nation and we have to suck that up. i believe that refugees are best served in proper run camps. if that means that the camps have to be fixed up to meet SD criteria then so be it, i support that.

merkel is now saying that the refugees must return home once the war is over....by 'must' she actually means 'please return'. lots of german people are pissed off at how merkel as simply opened the flood gates, and now she's wondering how to deal with it.

the whole people migration problem is a fucking disaster, and its getting worse. its wont be long before people think that solving climate change is a doddle in comparison.

There hasn't been a war in my lifetime that Australia sent troops to that was justified - from Vietnam onwards.

There is a better way, spending money on humanitarian aid in war torn countries rather than participation in the carnage or send troops but only as part of a UN peace keeping force.

Women and children suffer most in wars.

The communist threat in Vietnam, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, ISIS are coming to get you .... all lies to sucker Australians into thinking its right/moral to send Australian troops into war.

As I said earlier there are a lots of reasons that can be put forward to defend the status quo when it comes to refugees but there has to be a better way.

There are no queues, waiting lists or even regional processing centres where refugee claims can be orderly and safely assessed yet some here think what is happening in those tropical hellholes is acceptable coz to do otherwise would only encourage the little blighters.

If you are defending the indefensible you are part of the problem and there is no point engaging you in any sort of meaningful debate.

It is worth remembering before Howard's dog whistle refugee policy in Australia was not a political race to the bottom that it is today.

I'm well aware of the costs of war, if you cannot rebuild iraq, or make any country with the amount of money that's gone into iraq you're clearly doing something wrong.

I'm all for appropriate processing, the wait times are beyond ridiculous.

the oz economy is already fucked, some in the know think we're on the edge of needing a new system, we've accommodated refugees easily before but this is a different time. and despite what advocates say about floundering refugees they are actually very well looked after with accommodation and services. and to be honest, I see this as a problem for Australia. our standards and expectations are so high it's not cheap to take them in, much more than the price of the dole and services to look after some aussie doley bum

the greens need to concentrate on making Australia's current population more sustainable rather than encouraging more people to come here and adopt the most unsustainable lifestyle on the planet

so how many do you propose we take tim foilat?

.....what are the fucking numbers!....its a pointless conversation and we cannot explore how it is or isnt gonna work unless we have some fucking numbers! there are 50 million displaced people in the world according to the UNHCR. so someone work the fuck out how many we should take...then the conversation starts.

yes happyas . yes indeed!

Thank god to see some common sense here, thank you Sypkan.

And yes Sheep dog its not complicated at all, when Australia even the USA stop getting involved in wars (which i also wish they would) everything will be perfect we won't have any wars in the world anymore and we won't have refugees and the problems will be fixed…yeah simple ..done.

happyasS wrote:

.....what are the fucking numbers!....its a pointless conversation and we cannot explore how it is or isnt gonna work unless we have some fucking numbers! there are 50 million displaced people in the world according to the UNHCR. so someone work the fuck out how many we should take...then the conversation starts.

And 50 million is probably a conservative figure, just like a bushfire most people will generally try to tough things out and only leave when they really need too if you start giving people options others toughing it out will also go hey wait a minute I'm in too.

The figure is also not one thats going to get lower take a look at how much our population has jumped in the last 100 years and basically with more people comes more conflict http://blog.dssresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/world_population_...

If you think conflict around the world is going to end even if the USA stop sticking their noses in everyones business (as we all agree they should) then people are delusional, people have been fighting around the world forever especially in the middle east and will continue too do so, war is also not just the cause of people becoming refugees and all those issues are not going to suddenly be solved either especially global warming (rising sea levels) yes it would be great if we could reduce carbon emissions etc, but again population growth is the other side of the coin, and its also an issue people don't want to look at or even acknowledge, even the greens?.

The guardian (seems to be meaningful to you guys) says Australia will settle 12,000 from Syria. What's say we throw in a few thousand stranded indefinetly in camps, so let's stop with the millions and hundreds of thousands and get some realistic perspective.

Doesn't seem to be many more boats coming in, should we continue to use military force in Syria or should we support diplomacy? Should we support continuing involvement in an illegal war forcing more Syrian refugees this way?

Sypo an you missed my point on the economy, let me put it another way. Everything you guys have argued was said during the Vietnam immigration period, the Australian economy was shot, none of those arguments came to fruition.

Take a read plenty of links, just read one or two - https://www.google.com.au/search?q=cost+benefit+analysis+of+refugee+immi...

Economic migrants = people who want to work. I thought they were the preference over refugees for a lot of people? But when it comes to refugee immigration they don't want economic migrants? Confusing.

SD - I don't always agree with you but on this topic - 200%. Thanks for your posts on this.

Gents, trying to solve the Syrian crisis, well, many are trying. To ignore whats happening to refugees in Turkey then to Europe also seems to show a lack of understanding. Sure, we are miles away from the problem and miles away from any solution. As you seem to ignore, Aus did manage refugee migration well in the post war eras. Its essential it is planned.
Some seem to dismiss the role of some church leaders in the child abuse process (re Royal Commission). Sorry gents, but I am not going to support an Archbishop who told a child to go and share a bed with a priest. Is this related to this children in detention ? Well, its certainly related to children who are vulnerable.
Lets stick to the real issue and help when we can, where we can. Taking on a large number of refugees, may not be the answer. Do not forget what Sweden is doing with its refugees - sending half of them back, whether by wish or force. Truthfully, Sweden is not alone.

sheepdog, I like your solution, all for it, same with floyd's, it's makes perfect sense, in fact the opposite, what we are doing, is absolute madness, but these are wish lists, the border idea seems perfectly workable though. .

tim foilat, I use the guardian because it's often labelled left wing feminist clap trap. I like left wing feminist clap trap, even with the convenient ommisions, but they seem willing to talk about all sorts of taboos lately so using them as a moderate example.

I think 12 000 is a lame number if things are as bad as stated, Australia can do much more, with caution, but I think we need to talk about how we do stuff as Europe does seem to be paying the price for rushing in. when those nice smarty pants (way left) Scandinavian countries are sending people back, well it shows there may just be such a thing as an unscrupulous refugee.

from sheepdog

... or we can all continue to fiddle, we can continue to have waves of migrants across Europe,

unfortunately I think we both know this is somewhat inevitable, which is why we need to talk about this as an ongoing problem for decades to come. the numbers will become massive.

from a drum article on tim foilats page

We're currently spending $1 billion a year detaining asylum seekers offshore. That's more than five times the United Nations refugee agency's entire budget for all of South-East Asia.

yep thats utterly crazy,

but that shows how ridiculously expensive an australuan life has become as much as anything else,

sheepdog, I like your solution, all for it, same with floyd's, it's makes perfect sense, in fact the opposite, what we are doing, is absolute madness, but these are wish lists, the border idea seems perfectly workable though. .

tim foilat, I use the guardian because it's often labelled left wing feminist clap trap. I like left wing feminist clap trap, even with the convenient ommisions, but they seem willing to talk about all sorts of taboos lately so using them as a moderate example.

I think 12 000 is a lame number if things are as bad as stated, Australia can do much more, with caution, but I think we need to talk about how we do stuff as Europe does seem to be paying the price for rushing in. when those nice smarty pants (way left) Scandinavian countries are sending people back, well it shows there may just be such a thing as an unscrupulous refugee.

from sheepdog

... or we can all continue to fiddle, we can continue to have waves of migrants across Europe,

unfortunately I think we both know this is somewhat inevitable, which is why we need to talk about this as an ongoing problem for decades to come. the numbers will become massive.

from a drum article on tim foilats page

We're currently spending $1 billion a year detaining asylum seekers offshore. That's more than five times the United Nations refugee agency's entire budget for all of South-East Asia.

yep thats utterly crazy,

but that shows how ridiculously expensive an australuan life has become as much as anything else,

"from a drum article on tim foilats page

We're currently spending $1 billion a year detaining asylum seekers offshore. That's more than five times the United Nations refugee agency's entire budget for all of South-East Asia."

FARKKKK!!!! Politicise the issue, chase the votes, fck the impact on real people in need and fk the cost.

sypkan wrote:

sheepdog, I like your solution, all for it, same with floyd's, it's makes perfect sense, in fact the opposite, what we are doing, is absolute madness, but these are wish lists, the border idea seems perfectly workable though. .

tim foilat, I use the guardian because it's often labelled left wing feminist clap trap. I like left wing feminist clap trap, even with the convenient ommisions, but they seem willing to talk about all sorts of taboos lately so using them as a moderate example.

I think 12 000 is a lame number if things are as bad as stated, Australia can do much more, with caution, but I think we need to talk about how we do stuff as Europe does seem to be paying the price for rushing in. when those nice smarty pants (way left) Scandinavian countries are sending people back, well it shows there may just be such a thing as an unscrupulous refugee.

from sheepdog

... or we can all continue to fiddle, we can continue to have waves of migrants across Europe,

unfortunately I think we both know this is somewhat inevitable, which is why we need to talk about this as an ongoing problem for decades to come. the numbers will become massive.

from a drum article on tim foilats page

We're currently spending $1 billion a year detaining asylum seekers offshore. That's more than five times the United Nations refugee agency's entire budget for all of South-East Asia.

yep thats utterly crazy,

but that shows how ridiculously expensive an australuan life has become as much as anything else,

You draw some odd assumptions in this post, you guys certainly have colourful imaginations if nothing else. Youre all over the shop now though. TB and yourself now saying we're not doing enough and should take more or help out the refugee crisis in Europe, get a grip guys.

You've been given the numbers 12000 from Syria and less than a couple of thousand in offshore detention, let your imaginations go wild with all the possibilities the future may hold but these are 'the numbers' in contention currently.

1 billion dollars a year to jail 1600 refugees, money well spent ey? $625,000 per refugee per year, hehe that is such a perverse outcome.

mk1 wrote:

"from a drum article on tim foilats page

We're currently spending $1 billion a year detaining asylum seekers offshore. That's more than five times the United Nations refugee agency's entire budget for all of South-East Asia."

FARKKKK!!!! Politicise the issue, chase the votes, fck the impact on real people in need and fk the cost.

The cost does suck, i know no one here has said it, but i hate it when people say onshore processing is cheaper, because well it has been true…but the crazy thing is it shouldn't be, offshore processing if done in the right place like in an easily accessible area of SE Asia should be a fraction of the cost compared to on shore processing.

Why?….because all the aspects needed to run a processing centre are at least half the price as in Australia in many cases ten times cheaper, land, building cost, rates, electricity, wages, fuel, food, disposal cost etc not to mention less red tape.

So why is it so expensive, basically because places like Christmas island, Manus, Naru are remote islands far from anywhere where basically everything needs to be shipped or flown in and id assume that all places run on electricity fuelled by big generators.
I remember seeing the expenses somewhere and charter flights was the big cost.

To give you an idea http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-16/expensive-christmas-island-cos-let...

I do agree the fact they are privately run is a big problem as obviously business need to run at a profit, it sucks it everywhere these days even most local tips etc are run under contract by private business.

I know others won't agree but IMO the cost of not dealing with the issue especially the cost of not controlling our borders is one that can't even be measured in dollar terms.

I never understood why the government closed the Baxter Detention Centre in mid 2007? This place ticked all the boxes for xenophobic Australia; it was a hellhole in the middle of nowhere and escape was virtually impossible. There was nowhere for any refugee escapee's to run out there?
But at least we could keep an eye on what was going on and provide a minimum standard of living and medical care to the residents at a reasonable cost?

Running an onshore detention centre would of cost a fraction of that of an offshore facility with all the greasing of palms that would of gone on to get these small nations to agree to accept our unwanted human garbage. Keeping that billion dollars a year in an economically struggling state like S.A would of made more sense?

Was there some legal reason that allowing the refugee claims to be processed on Australian shores might have given them more rights under the UN refugee convention we signed back in the 1950's? If so why not just tear the bloody thing up? Is being bound by that convention causing the misery of offshore detention? It's not worth the paper it's written on judging by what we are doing to these poor desperate people these days?

And I thought the temporary protection visas that Howard introduced were a good idea. If refugees in camps like Baxter were found to be legitimate they could be released to work and reside in Australia till such time as conditions improved in their home countries?
I also thought when Rudd changed refugee policy after he won the election it was a bad idea. I know he was copping pressure from the left of the Labor Party to reform immigration laws. I think he should of diverted any criticism of the existing laws to the previous government.

When refugee numbers increased due to external factors(new war in Sri Lanka and the ongoing Iraq/ Middle East conflicts) he would not of had the boat people thing hung around his neck like what happened?
Rudd made what he thought was a humane decision to bring in a more compassionate policy and the Labor Party paid dearly for it.

.

ID - that link only half opened for me but you'd still have charter flights to most places - you aren't going to put refugees on air asia I'd imagine? Plus the cost of paying off the foreign government won't go down. Perhaps morally a lot of asian countries aren't interested or desperate enough as the remote island nations too? I think we can protect our borders without offshore processing, which is really designed to avoid our moral and legal duties to refugees under international law while keeping it all "out of sight out of mind" if I remember correctly? Well I think at $625k per person per year we can probably afford to meet our moral and legal responsibilities to refugees onshore and have journalists actually able to monitor and report on the process.

"I know others won't agree but IMO the cost of not dealing with the issue especially the cost of not controlling our borders is one that can't even be measured in dollar terms." There's controlling your borders and then there's being inhumane and trying to hide it. We managed quite well without offshore processing prior to Howard.

yorkessurfer wrote:

I never understood why the government closed the Baxter Detention Centre in mid 2007? This place ticked all the boxes for xenophobic Australia; it was a hellhole in the middle of nowhere and escape was virtually impossible. There was nowhere for any refugee escapee's to run out there?
But at least we could keep an eye on what was going on and provide a minimum standard of living and medical care to the residents at a reasonable cost?

Running an onshore detention centre would of cost a fraction of that of an offshore facility with all the greasing of palms that would of gone on to get these small nations to agree to accept our unwanted human garbage. Keeping that billion dollars a year in an economically struggling state like S.A would of made more sense?

Was there some legal reason that allowing the refugee claims to be processed on Australian shores might have given them more rights under the UN refugee convention we signed back in the 1950's? If so why not just tear the bloody thing up? Is being bound by that convention causing the misery of offshore detention? It's not worth the paper it's written on judging by what we are doing to these poor desperate people these days?
And I thought the temporary protection visas that Howard introduced were a good idea. If refugees in camps like Baxter were found to be legitimate they could be released to work and reside in Australia till such time as conditions improved in their home countries?
I also thought when Rudd changed refugee policy after he won the election it was a bad idea. I know he was copping pressure from the left of the Labor Party to reform immigration laws. I think he should of diverted any criticism of the existing laws to the previous government.

When refugee numbers increased due to external factors(new war in Sri Lanka and the ongoing Iraq/ Middle East conflicts) he would not of had the boat people thing hung around his neck like what happened?
Rudd made what he thought was a humane decision to bring in a more compassionate policy and the Labor Party paid dearly for it.

[offshore detention]....i think it has something to do with asylum seekers rights to be afforded protection from the country that has determined them to be valid refugees......so by doing it overseas the govt can theoretically choose to not invite them into australia. the asylum seekers then have an element of doubt which slows numbers, not to mention taking forever to process them as a deterent. off the top of my head, could be wrong.

tpv's where in principle good...reassess after 3 years and redetermine refugee status.....but some of the constraints that went along with TPV's were not good. i would support them coming back in a more humane form. clearly the assylum seekers didnt like it but i cant work out if it was because they thought it was wrong to be guaranteed only a 3 year protection or because the constraints were unfair...presumably the later....although one of the main arguments against them was that it created too much "uncertainty for the refugees". i never bought that.

mk 1 a bit all over the shop but been talking about different things, 12,000 for a one off is a lame number in my book from Australia, considering the magnitude of the situation. 1 000 000 for a one off? maybe not. it's has to be a balance of need and capacity, so need has to be examined.

I don't think anyone here is begrudging the 12 000 number or defending the evilness of the current offshore processing, onshore processing is good, I don't think we need baxter though yorksurfer. I'd rather that nice Adelaide hills hamlet centre the locals didn't want until they got it. totally agree with temporary protection visas, though they seem to be portrayed as evil too

refugee convention is way out of date, not least for the reasons yorksurfer pointed out

i got no problem with 12,000.....i got no problem with 25, 50 or 100,000. but then im not the one bashing the government over it.

but i got a problem when we chose to avoid discussing the issues that i posted earlier. a to d. that the government is actually trying to manage

happyasS wrote:

yorkessurfer wrote:

I never understood why the government closed the Baxter Detention Centre in mid 2007? This place ticked all the boxes for xenophobic Australia; it was a hellhole in the middle of nowhere and escape was virtually impossible. There was nowhere for any refugee escapee's to run out there?
But at least we could keep an eye on what was going on and provide a minimum standard of living and medical care to the residents at a reasonable cost?

Running an onshore detention centre would of cost a fraction of that of an offshore facility with all the greasing of palms that would of gone on to get these small nations to agree to accept our unwanted human garbage. Keeping that billion dollars a year in an economically struggling state like S.A would of made more sense?

Was there some legal reason that allowing the refugee claims to be processed on Australian shores might have given them more rights under the UN refugee convention we signed back in the 1950's? If so why not just tear the bloody thing up? Is being bound by that convention causing the misery of offshore detention? It's not worth the paper it's written on judging by what we are doing to these poor desperate people these days?
And I thought the temporary protection visas that Howard introduced were a good idea. If refugees in camps like Baxter were found to be legitimate they could be released to work and reside in Australia till such time as conditions improved in their home countries?
I also thought when Rudd changed refugee policy after he won the election it was a bad idea. I know he was copping pressure from the left of the Labor Party to reform immigration laws. I think he should of diverted any criticism of the existing laws to the previous government.

When refugee numbers increased due to external factors(new war in Sri Lanka and the ongoing Iraq/ Middle East conflicts) he would not of had the boat people thing hung around his neck like what happened?
Rudd made what he thought was a humane decision to bring in a more compassionate policy and the Labor Party paid dearly for it.

[offshore detention]....i think it has something to do with asylum seekers rights to be afforded protection from the country that has determined them to be valid refugees......so by doing it overseas the govt can theoretically choose to not invite them into australia. the asylum seekers then have an element of doubt which slows numbers, not to mention taking forever to process them as a deterent. off the top of my head, could be wrong.

tpv's where in principle good...reassess after 3 years and redetermine refugee status.....but some of the constraints that went along with TPV's were not good. i would support them coming back in a more humane form. clearly the assylum seekers didnt like it but i cant work out if it was because they thought it was wrong to be guaranteed only a 3 year protection or because the constraints were unfair...presumably the later....although one of the main arguments against them was that it created too much "uncertainty for the refugees". i never bought that.

Good read both