It's quite absurd isn't it? We are now spending over $140,000 per year per person to jail them, it will turn out to be about $1 million people per year on Nauru and Manus while we whinge about giving refugees minimal allowances to starve here.

They have no brains and John, do go away.

Attorney General,
You are breaking this treaty and trying to force other countries to criminalise refugees and their means of transport.

That is not thing more and nothing less than a contribution to genocide of refugees.

UNHCR Summary Position on the Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime
1. UNHCR has followed with interest the recent adoption of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, including the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air ("Protocol against Smuggling") and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children ("Protocol against Trafficking"). The Office is pleased to be present at the High-Level Political Signing Conference held in Palermo, Sicily, from 12 to 15 December 2000.
2. UNHCR shares the concerns raised by many States that criminal and organized smuggling of migrants, on a large scale, may lead to the misuse of national asylum or immigration procedures. However, given an increasing number of obstacles to access safety, asylum-seekers are often compelled to resort to smugglers. UNHCR is also aware of cases of trafficked persons, particularly women and children, who may, under exceptional circumstances, be in need of international protection. The Office therefore participated in the preparatory work of the Ad Hoc Committee in Vienna, supporting its efforts to elaborate international instruments which would enable governments to combat smuggling and trafficking of persons, whilst upholding their international protection responsibilities towards refugees.
3. The Protocol against Smuggling, for instance, contains a number of provisions which may impact on smuggled asylum-seekers. The authorization to intercept vessels on the high seas, the obligation to strengthen border controls and to adopt sanctions for commercial carriers, or the commitment to accept the return of smuggled migrants may indeed affect those who seek international protection. A number of comparable provisions of the Protocol against Trafficking may have a similar effect.
4. During the sessions of the Ad-Hoc Committee, UNHCR therefore emphasized the need to reconcile measures to combat the smuggling of migrants and the trafficking of persons with existing obligations under international refugee law. The Office welcomes the adoption of a saving clause in both Protocols, designed to safeguard the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, in particular in relation to the principle of non-refoulement.
5. In addition, UNHCR appreciates the adoption of provisions for the protection of smuggled migrants, such as the obligation of States Parties to take appropriate measures to afford smuggled migrants protection against violence and to take into account the special needs of women and children. The Protocol against Smuggling is also clear in that it does not aim at punishing persons for the mere fact of having been smuggled or at penalizing organizations which assist such persons for purely humanitarian reasons. Indonesian fishermen do not deserve to be charged or jailed.
6. In conclusion, UNHCR hopes that States Parties will respect the international legal framework set out by both Protocols through the adoption of similar safeguards in all bilateral or regional agreements or operational arrangements implementing or enhancing the provisions of these Protocols.
11 December 2000

Yeah - pretty dumb, isn't it?

The concept raised in other places of requiring refugees to go to regional towns and cities and work there while their application for asylum is being processed might be fair enough (if you can find ways to do it in practice without creating an underaid workforce that just ends up cutting wages for other Australians as many in the union movement fear). I don't see anything intrinsically or inevitably inhumane about trying to find ways of counter-balancing the cost of accepting refugees by ensuring that they contribute - I'd be pretty confident that the vast majority of refugees would be very willing to do so and the experience of living and working in the community would intrinsically help people adapt to a new language and culture - given that, as even Tony Abbott notes, the great majority will end up having their refugee staus accepted and be granted citizenship, as is their legal right, this would be a useful period of orientation - also quite a good chance for the locals to get to know them.

I think there is some evidence that Australians are prone to be racist in the abstract (think: 'I don't like the Vietnamese...') but generally far more reasonable when they actually meet and get to know people (think: '...but the Ng family down the road are very nice.')

Community exposure to refugees, combined with clear evidence that they are doing their best to contribute to the local economy and society, are potentially excellent ways to bring out our better angels, as well as actually providing a practical solution to an issue we can't just avoid or wash our hands of.

Totally agree Ellie Price. Extreme poverty, along with a sense of hopelessness, fear, and resentment, will IMO lead many to criminal acts, that they would not be led to otherwise, simply to be able to survive. This will have a profound effect on the community, and further alienate refugees, and have them branded as criminals because of the government policies that have forced them to become criminals.

The criminalisation of poverty will just be another way that the governments and the bigoted in our society can justify their views and cruel and inhumane treatment of refugees.

Not allowing refugees to work, and paying them less welfare than is required to actually live in the community, is stupid policy, and a sure way to build resentment among refugees, (who are not criminals, or illegal), and among the community as a whole. It beggars belief that any government would go down this very divisive and repulsive path.

Yes but the refugees want to work, we are the ones who will be stopping them so people like you can keep whining.

Our media are not help, they simply lazily accept any nonsense they are sent as if it is a fact.

And how many people is Marilyn sponsoring?

David, what has sponsorship got to do with anything?

What is wrong with you racist dingbats? We are squandering billions inventing new lies and ways to punish innocent people based only on the fact that they saved us hundreds of millions by paying their own way here, just like everyone else has to.

Marilyn. On another thread it appeared that "David Clerke" was in fact John Coochey posting under another identity. I challenged him on it but he refused to confirm or deny.

John. I doubt anyone could find your intelligence let alone insult it.

Are you aware of the advice "Do not drink and drive". Well that advice should apply to your posting here. I find it hard to believe that you are actually sober when you draft your incoherent rants.

http://www.chilout.org/

Here's how no advantage works, be a disabled little girl and starve to death. In Australian prison.

Well Marylin, or is it Mike? We have been told about a child starving to death while in detention in Australia, can we have a reference on that please? And the bleeding hearts have been challenged on what they personally have done for refugees or immigrants with no reply. I have taught ESL as a volunteer and some of these people are still some of my closest friends twenty years later. Now I have no idea of "Marylin's" (if she actually exists) personal circumstances and essentially it is none of my business but her position would have much more credibility if she were putting her own time and money were her mouth was.

What does taking 20,000 of the most desperate mean do you think?

What is means is we want to illegally swap an obligation to those who arrive here because they have never been safe for a voluntary program of resettlement for people who are already safe.

It's like giving a second home to people who have a home while leaving those who don't have a home without one.

AS for drowning, 20,000 or so kids die every day of starvation, a few people drowning is not the point really and they only drowned because we refused to rescue them.

But by law the borders have to stay open for refugees, the reason they have to stay open for refugees is because refugees tend to be slaughtered when borders are closed.

What is so hard about that for you to get?

I agree that this is the case at present.

But I again point out that there is absolutely no reason to assume that this will always be the case if we relax our determination to stop illegal arrivals.

There is the real potential, in the coming decades, for illegal arrivals to hugely exceed those immigrants arriving on planes.

I don't normally agree with Tony Abbott on anything. But he is absolutely right to point out that illegal arrivals could potentially become a defacto invasion of our country in a very short time span.

And this is not acceptible.

Why, you really are just a brutal bully aren't you. What will you think when we hear that the Sri Lankan government is now deciding to kill many of the Sinhala catholics we have sent back without the right to make a claim, something that is completely illegal.

Greg will you therefore have Australia pull out of the United Nations and deny the Declaration of Human Rights?
The Universal Declaration recognises there is no protection of human rights without the rule of law.

Let me show you some of the articles that relate to the rule of law:

Article 4.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 8: Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 11: Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 14.

(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Would you be prepared to give these rights up?

Why? You never say why we have to brutalise people who have managed to escape from wars.

Currently there are 7 billion people on the planet and 15 million refugees - the world could absorb them tomorrow without even noticing but simply can't be bothered.

Yeah well John Zigar you equally disgust me with your refugee zeal, the ease with which you hurl around racist and nazi slurs without bothering to exert some intellectual effort in trying to understand our concerns and, as indicated by Marilyn's callous comment about a few refugees drowing at sea being beside the point, the obvious fact that you hypocirits are in this to win a ideological political fight more than you are to help refugees!

And for your information, my personal attitudes would be unchanged if we were facing a flood of refugees from Britain or from the USA. I don't care about skin colour, only numbers!

Greg, there are two options here: one, you are a very deluded, bitter and twisted person, or, two: you actually believe your paranoid drivel. You decide.

I believe the majority will agree with me on this one.

Bye bye

Blah, blah blah blah John Ward.

If I really was a nazi then surely I would be calling for the expulsion from Australia of all non-whites in the same way as the nazis expelled all the Jews.

I challenge you to find any of my posts in any Conversation topics where I have advocated such action.

Vis a vis your comparison of my attitude to nazism is a a straw man slur.

Surely, as a supposed nazi, I would also refuse to carry out landscape works for any non-whites.

Also demonstably false!

Perhaps Victoria should start diverting all of our immigrant stream down to Tasmania (including refugees and skilled immigrants) and see how your little state government copes with the influx regarding infratsurcture etc.

Then we will see if you immigration zeal holds!

Perhaps you need to get out of Tasmania for a while John Ward and spend several years living in the western suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney.

Because your current view of what immigration levels Australia can sustain is grossly naive!

At a May 9, 1984 press conference, Simon Wiesenthal said, "Nazi criminals were the principal beneficiaries of the Cold War." The cold war mentality, hyped by Reinhard Gehlen and other Nazis, became the shelter for tens of thousands of Nazi criminals. Helping the far right in this country to promote cold war hysteria became the Nazi war criminals "reason for being." As Christopher Simpson says, the cold war became those criminals' means "to avoid responsibility for the murders they had committed."

Journalist Seymour Hersh says Christopher Simpson's “Blowback” is "the ultimate book about the worst kind of cold war thinking, in which some of our most respected statesmen made shameful decisions that they mistakenly believed to be justified." To this day, says Simpson, the U. S. intelligence agencies hide the scope of their post-World War II collaboration with Nazi criminals.