According to ABC News online, dozens are feared dead:
Dozens of asylum seekers are feared dead after their boat smashed into rocks and broke apart in rough conditions off Christmas Island this morning.
Customs crews and locals are frantically trying to save survivors of the wreck, near Flying Fish Cove.
The RWDB community is showing all the restraint it’s usually known for.
Bolt’s all class – a prince among kings.
This is really horrible. The history is going to be re-written that it’s all Gillard’s fault, whilst conveniently forgetting the SIEV-X.
Fine @ 3,
The current affairs story will be re-written by the RWDBs. Not the history. I would imagine the historians will try and get everytrhing in perspective when they finally get round to writing up the refugee saga from Gerry Hand to whenever our politicians get an injection of humanity. As for that closing date, I’m not holding my breath. We’re tapping into some deep archetypal Australian fears here that go right back to the time of Napoloeon and continue through embracing a whole series of countries – France, Russia, the Confederate South, China, Japan, Indonesia etc, etc. It really is just the continuation of a very old theme in European Australian history, and one I fear, will never go away.
You’re right PB. Wasn’t dissing the historians. I guess I meant that history will be re-written by the Bolts et al. And, yes it’s very much part of our history.
Didn’t think you were dissing the historians, Fine.
As for the RWDBs, except for the rare occasion when the passage of time has proved them to be right rather than shameful, I don’t think they’re going to come out any better in the current story than have the New Guard, the secret armies, the original Australia First or Menzies’ attempt to ban the CPA. All have ended up being part of the shame file. They annoy the shit out of me now, but ultimately I rest secure that they’ll go down in flames most of the time.
Horrible.
I suppose it was too much to expect that the sight of human beings drowning before our eyes would be enough to stop the cheap political points scoring even for a day.
Andrew Bolt et al should hang their heads in shame.
“Andrew Bolt et al should hang their heads in shame.” But they won’t no shame there at all. Sadly.
“…All night the storm had raged, nor ceased, nor paused,
When, as day broke, the Maid, through misty air,
Espies far off a Wreck, amid the surf,
Beating on one of those disastrous isles–
Half of a Vessel, half–no more; the rest
Had vanished, swallowed up with all that there
Had for the common safety striven in vain,
Or thither thronged for refuge…”
(William Wordsworth)
Let it not be forgotten that the RWDB community, and its fellow travellers, would, if they have had their way, been happy to have seen these people remain “in the queue” in Iraq and Iran, facing death or worse. Theirs are crocodile tears. Their pleading is the sound of the most malicious xenophobic putatively homicidal hypocrisy.
Nobody who does not unconditionally affirm the right of all with a well-founded fear of persecution to seek asylum has any business adducing the victims of this tragedy to the credit of any policy of theirs.
I’d like to ship Dolt and all his slack-jawed slaverers off to Afghanistan and tell them to get in the f’cken queue for a people smuggler if they ever make it out of the joint.
Then arrange for someone to hole the ship where I’d been burleying for a few weeks! It would almost be worth rescuing them just to see the sheer unadulterated terror on their faces!
Robert Merkel said:
Thats right Left-liberals, get stuck into RWDB’s for stating the bleeding obvious. Damage control and counter-spin is good displacement activity for those privately wondering if they have got it wrong yet again.
Liberals screamed for a decade or more for a more liberal asylum-seeker regime. Well the ALP gave it to them and the result is over two hundred people have drowned in these waters over the past few years.
The fact is that Howard’s Pacific Solution, for all its brutalities and venalities, saved lives. Here is a graph showing how Howard “stopped the boats” and therefore boat sinkings.
The people smuggling/drowning industry is something I have been banging on for most of the decade. I was right.
Its time for liberals to own up to the fact that they got asylum-seeker policy wrong, just as they got remote indigenous communities wrong, multiculturalism wrong…the list goes on.
How about once, just once, come out and say “we stuffed up”. Its easier than contriving fanciful explanations for blunders. And confession is good for the soul.
My mother was a teacher on Christmas Island in the mid-eighties; I visited the island twice – in 1995 and 1996. My parents lived in a (very comfortable) donga just around the corner from Flying Fish Cove. It is a beautiful, idyllic, but also dangerous place.
Anybody, but anybody who went into the water there during a heavy swell would be turned into mincemeat by the razor-sharp rocks. I don’t know of many more inhospitable places for a dip in the briny.
Poor, poor people.
Spare us your crocodile tears, Strocchi. They’d be dead in Afghanistan or Iraq, where you and Bolt wouldn’t get to make your ghoulish dancing-on-their-watery-graves-I-told-you-so sick-making remarks.
This move didn’t work last time but again I have to say ‘Well said Mercurius’
Jack, you haven’t changed.
People like JS never change. They just get more obnoxious and that last comment sets a new standard.
So Jack – what policy of the Howard government caused the historically unprecedented ’99-’01 spike in boat arrivals?
http://www.abc.net.au/thedrum/
Their ABC poll:
“Is the government to blame for the boat tragedy at Christmas Island?”
Let it not be forgotten that the RWDB community, and its fellow travellers, would, if they have had their way, been happy to have seen these people remain “in the queue” in Iraq and Iran, facing death or worse.
I don’t think that is even mostly true Fran. Speaking for myself, I simply feel frustration and anger that the Rudd and Gillard policies had led to this long predicted disaster. Hopefully, the only equivalence with the SIEV X is that both disasters lead to the governments of the day acting to stop the boats.
The RWDB community…
you had me there for a moment Robert; So Kevin Kaldwell, co pilot red rodent, what’shisname’s focus groups and the embassy poodle are off limits?…oh well…
Still governing from opposition; kids in detention; leadership, oops, the holiday is broken, the kraken awakes…etc.
Can’t wait for her to be ‘briefed’ and interrupt Ken’s very serious dicussion.
Sri Lankans, Afghanis and the Timor regional solution initiatives; leading or pandering Robert?
So the RWDB play politics?
Gosh. Just awful.
But we keep propping up these p*ssants we are led to believe are not RWDB’s.
Oh, it’s not about Bolt or Jack; it’s about us.
Sad.
PeterTB, this is a leg-pull, right. You can’t genuinely believe the utter tosh you have written @19, surely.
The Rudd/Gillard government’s policies have absolutely zero effect on desperate people fleeing death and persecution in their countries of origin.
Once again RWDBs like Dolt and you are trying to make political capital out of the deaths of unfortunate people in desperate circumstances.
They are willing to take the risk of taking to sea in unseaworthy vessels not because of a change in Australian law, but because the alternatives are too terrible to contemplate.
Peter TB said:
Unlesws you suffer from self-delusion, no you don’t. Spare those of us who care about the wellbeing of our fellows your more in sorrow than in anger schtick.
This was and always was an unimpressive defensive shibboleth, aimed at allowing your lot to signal your absolute desire to exploit the fear of “waves of boat people overrunning the country” amongst those suffering existential angst while projecting your underlying mispanthropy onto those of us who really do believe consistently in human rights.
oops: {Unles
ws; your underlying mispanthropy …}So does the RWDB believe that the old West German regime was responsible for the mass murder of many East Germans by actively encouraging them to risk their lives and cross the border?
So, oh high and mighty ones, tell us mere amoral RWDBs, when is it the ight time to point out that it is the policies of the government of the day that has caused these deaths and they were warned it was going to happen but ignored the advice?
No one I have read or spoken to thinks that people in fear of their lives in war zones and under persecution should stay where they are threatened. However, most do have an issue with them travelling tens of thousands of kilometres from an initial place of refuge through multiple countries where they are not at risk and probably have a better cultural fit and at great monetary cost to a destination of their choice in the developed world.
RWDB update here:
“…Lives were lost then and these fresh deaths raise the possibility that Canberra is once again pressuring its boats to delay rescue…
But where, the islanders wondered, were the hundreds of lifejackets Immigration kept down at the wharf?…
And all this was filmed. This was not an unseen catastrophe like when the boat known as Siev X went down. No excuse can be offered for failing to hold an unflinching investigation this time of what went wrong.’
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/how-did-this-boat-get-so-close-to-the-coast-20101215-18ya6.html
Leadership, Robert, that’s what we need; not Marr pissing in our pockets, right?
RWDB rules ok?
codger @ 26 – is that an attempt at humour? Marr a RWDB? Did I miss some irony or sarcasm?
I would like to see Australia and other OECD nations running the UN refugee camps that are located throughout the world. Australia should take a very high percentage of the total number of refugees for any given year, larger than our fair share -so the government can encourage other wealthy nations to do more. We could also run refugee camps here for when people arrive here, however, the people that are settled here should be drawn from all the camps from around the world in a queue like fashion. The people arriving here would then be joining the queue, not jumping it. There would therefore be no incentive to risk their lives more than necessary, but still incentive for people to pursue a better life.
Fran – spare us your moral superiority. This notion that only people on the left care about other people is old, worn and tiresome. People can be concerned about other people without sharing your opinion on what is the best public policy response to a situation.
“TRAGEDY USED”:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2010/12/15/tragedy-used/
Could Andrew Bolt possibly be any more of a lowlife scumbag?
Another tragedy and the RWDB’s on cue, lets blame Gillard and the government.If these refugees were white and from western European countries this just wouldn’t be an issue.
I mean they are like us, they can eat a cucumber sandwich properly, drink Earl Gray tea with their pinky at the right angle, and in the main have good table manners.. Not only that they’re hygienic, clean shaven they don’t smell funny, and the men don’t wear dresses.
This isn’t about refugees coming here in an orderly fashion, waiting their turn, RWDB red necks just don’t want them here period. I wish most of them would just come out and say it.Jack Strocchi above went close I see.The irony of all this is, most of the problem is of our own making.
Mitigating this problem is relatively straight forward. We should take all that wish to come so long as they pay the gate keeper.
At the moment the gate keeper is the people smugglers who charge something like $15k to get a refugee to an Australian detention centre via a slow leaky boat ride. For their money and trouble they get to accelerate the processing of their refugee claim relative to what they might experience in an off shore refugee processing fascility. They also risk death at sea and detention in Australia. This is an option open only to relatively wealthy refugees (ie welthy relative to most refugees).
The government could largely kill the trade by offering a paid migration visa for a fee of $15k – $25k with guaranteed permanent residency to buyers. A couple of restrictions may need to apply regarding criminal history and disease control but these are technical details. Why would you pay $15k to sit on a leaky boat for weeks, risk death at sea, face detention and possibly a failed refugee application when you could simply pay the Australian government $15 – $25k, buy a cheap air ticket and fly to Australia where you now have permanent residency? The answer is that you wouldn’t.
The government should provide a superior product for a competitive price and drive the people smugglers out of business through good old fashioned competition.
P.J. – Are you quite into gross generalisations about people?
“P.J. – Are you quite into gross generalisations about people? ”
No more than your average RWDB. If it walks like a duck.
P.J. – I’ll cut you some slack. There are some people that want the white Australia policy back and hate immigrants that are poor, speak something other than English or have skin that isn’t tanned a certain way. Let’s call them red neck RWDBs for the sake of the conversation. Then by definition you are right that red neck RWDBs “just don’t want them here period”. What you fail to establish is that people who regard the Labor policies as soft headed stupidity are also the red neck RWDBs that you speak of. Personally I doubt the correlation is statistically significant.
“P.J. – I’ll cut you some slack.”
How kind of you.Look TergeP I’ll concede a few non sequiturs and the odd metaphor is not a good basis for a debate.I will even concede a lot of the red necks that hate the thought of anything not looking like an Anglo Saxon coming into this fair land, are not all RWDB’s. Yes some of the most vicious racism can come from my side of politics.
However, there is nothing like 60 years of life’s experience to get a handle on who is who at the zoo.If you are telling me, that most right wingers are ambivalent to the current situation, then it is I, who will cut you some slack.
I have not yet met a conservative who wants these refugees, que jumpers, illegal boat people call them what you will, in our country.My own gut feeling is, for them to allow them to come here with out any reservation and concern at all, is tantamount to admitting the wars we have waged in the M.E. Afghanistan,from their perspective, have been a total failure.Of course admitting this is a bridge to far.
Whatever the politics, the thing is a very dark grim thing.
Inspired momoment, carrying the Wordsworth, Grace Pettigrew.
I’m almost considering not posting anything on this. ANd BOlt and co taking the moral high ground means that any leftist saying anything but ‘resign Julia’ can and will be accused of making political mileage.
I will say this. Julia will resign or be pushed out. And Abbott will be PM by March.
The media have been quite successful as making Rudd out to be a selfish power hungry little shit. They suceeded in hanging the deaths of roof workers on Peter Garrett despite the percentage of deaths in that industry going down.
This will be child’s play in comparison.
And with that I abandon the field of debate. There’s no way to argue the right wingers without appearing to be disrespectful. I do know at BBQs this weekend if someone wants to talk to me about ‘Julia the murderer’ (and there will be a few) my response is just going to be a sad nod and then I’ll walk away.
“Australia’s hardline asylum policy”…guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/15/asylum-australia-christmas-island
Well, since we on the Left apparently suffer from a surfeit of sympathy and compassion, let us take this opportunity to extend our sympathy and compassion at this terrible time to the real victims of this tragedy, the RWDB community…
@25 (emphasis added)
…Won’t somebody please think of the RWDBs? How awful it must be for them, having that ‘ishoo’ to keep them awake at night. Doesn’t any realise how long they have suffered, alone, bearing the terrible responsibility of waiting for a brace of drownings so they can pin all these corpses on the government? Only Cassandra suffered worse.
*plays tiny, tiny, violin*
There. Leftist sympathy and compassion duly dispensed, with a trowel.
From the SMH
Liberals were praying for something like this to happen. God obliged.
The Liberals have blood on their prie-dieu.
That’s right PJ. If we let them land on the soft sands of the beaches on the mainland, this wouldn’t have happened.
It’s a product of the legal fiction of excision and the policy obscenity of offshore processing.
Are we allowed to discuss the policy aspects of this tradgedy today?
Let’s do that Razor.
Here’s a bit from the SMH http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/us-slams-political-games-on-refugees-20101215-18y9s.html
Oh and in order to avoid accusations of left wing bias I’ll only quote the bits that the ABC will pick up on. All the other bits are kinda off topic.
[blockquote]SECRET United States embassy cables have sharply criticised the handling of asylum seekers by the former prime minister Kevin Rudd and accused … Labor … of playing partisan politics with the issue.
The cables reveal that a close adviser to Mr Rudd failed to persuade him to use the government’s powers ”to calmly and rationally put the issue in perspective” by acknowledging that only a small number of asylum seekers were arriving by boat compared with tens of thousands overstaying their visas each year.[/quote]
More at the link obviously. Some of it is interesting analysis of powerbroking within the ALP but the rest is som guff and gossip about the COalition wanting to make mileage on issues like this.
Gah and I’ve screwed up the tags on the quotes. I should not post before coffee!
Who knew Ian Rintoul was a RWDB?
Or, is it OK for him to criticize policy because his heart is in the “right” place?
Fran: Spare those of us who care about the wellbeing of our fellows
How can you suppose that you care about your fellows more than I?
your more in sorrow than in anger schtick.
…and assert that my views are only point scoring?
You don’t know me.
If we let them land on the soft sands of the beaches on the mainland, this wouldn’t have happened.
Because the mainland doesn’t have any rocky shores
does it?
I noticed last night that the acting-PM, Wayne Swan, was on-message with his stategic references to a “people-smuggler’s” boat. I was surprised though that he did not have the member for Lindsay, David Bradbury, by his side nodding in furious agreement.
Bradbury is usually present to signal to the electors of western Sydney that the government feels their pain whenever the issue of asylum seekers needs to be discussed. Remember his ride on the patrol boat with JG before the last election.
Yes, let’s, Razor.
This tragedy is a product of the policies of mandatory detention and offshore processing: discuss.
If we (1) close Christmas Island, (2) end mandatory detention and (3) grant free entry to people who are fleeing war-zones that our allies and the former government decided to invade — we can live in hope that such tragedies will not be repeated.
Cuppa@18 that poll at The Drum is disgusting.
Jonathan Green is the editor there and the author of the piece Robert appropriately links to that shows some of the uglier reaction to the tragedy.
Why would he then join the squalor by publishing this kind of low life, tabloid style, nonsense?
“If we (1) close Christmas Island, (2) end mandatory detention and (3) grant free entry to people who are fleeing war-zones that our allies and the former government decided to invade — we can live in hope that such tragedies will not be repeated.”
Those of those things applied during the exodus of Vietnamese Boat People, yet according to the UN about 250,000 died at sea. I don’t see why your proposed open borders policy would produce a less deadly result.
That should read “None of those things …”
Refugees will stop seeking refuge when conditions in their homelands become tolerable.
As far as can be ascertained, most of the deceased were Iraqis. It is patently obvious that for a range of non-Shiite Iraqis life in Iraq is intolerable.
Bush apologists perpetuate the lie that Bush brought democracy to Iraq. Rubbish. He bequeathed Iraq to Shiite chauvinists bent on genocide. These poor dead Iraqis were refugees from the effects of Bush’s imbecile mission. Australia was complicit in that act of military lunacy. We owe it to the world and to our own sense of decency to attempt to make restitution to these victims of Australia’s craven submission to US fanaticism.
Back in the late 1970s Malcolm Fraser made Australia face up to the same guilt in relation to the Vietnam War and its refugees. Those refugees made Australia a better, richer, more diverse place.
How did you rightists become so forgetful, selfish and scared?
That’d certainly make going to war seem less attractive for the strange people, who are so inclined. Australian politicians could also try and put more pressure on the US to accept more refugees or at least seriously plan for the refugee disasters which atm seem to be seen as only a kind of unfortunate by-product to military conflicts.
While these two groups are not identical, I’d be prepared to find that people who are very border/ security conscious are also more likely to want to solve political issues militarily.
“Integration” or multiculturalism is still a very difficult issue. The current policy kind of lets us think of ourselves as multicultural, while not having to deal with the problems that arise from large influxes of foreigners. It’s kind of a nice trick courtesy of li’l Johnny.
I saw somewhere an interesting statistic recently that personal happiness/ satisfaction levels are higher when people are
a) living in non-multicultural communities
b) religious
kind of depressing. “Beati pauperes spiritu” <- in one of the asterix books!
I hadn’t realised there were people seeking asylum coming to Australia by boat. I thought all these people were queue jumping illegal immigrants.
“If we (1) close Christmas Island, (2) end mandatory detention and (3) grant free entry to people who are fleeing war-zones that our allies and the former government decided to invade — we can live in hope that such tragedies will not be repeated.”
I have a lot of sympathy for this prescription, but I’d be interested to hear what you think the impact this would have on the number of people claiming asylum in Australia. IMHO the extra numbers would not be insignificant. Given the political fall-out from the in-reality tiny flow so far, and the zero chance of getting bipartisan support for such a policy, flows of the numbers you are talking about probably aren’t politically sustainable at the moment.
Given that, what do you think the most practicable way forward is? Just (1)? (1) and (2)?
The whole thing is just depressing. The only thing that makes me more ashamed of my country are the living conditions and life chances of indigenous people.
David Maher (SMH, today) wonders exactly how that boat managed to pass throught the Naval and Customs cordon to crash on the rocks. He wonders how it is that the refugees were not removed from their vessel at sea and transferred to naval or Customs vessels. He wonders. So do I.
maybe gillard’s east timor solution is a good idea to stop this?
I like that graph you link to Jack. Notice the historically low levels of boat arrivals under labour and right up to a year before Howard’s “solution.” It’s almost as if that spike in arrivals had nothing to do with Australian government policy, and was caused by something going on in other countries. I don’t know, maybe a war in Afghanistan?
The Australian government is implicated in the tragedy for its active participation in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and exacerbating the conditions that have led to the flood of refugees from that region.
@58 LO – the political solution to the political problem you pose (and a putative large influx of asylum seekers is only a political problem — it would bring enormous social and economic benefits to this country), is for politicians to show some leadership and have some guts to stand up for what is right. They even have a model for how to do it — cf. Fraser, Malcolm.
Surely that is not too much to ask (he added forlornly)?
You know Australia has become an odd place when Malcolm Fraser is seen as more left wing than the ALP let alone the Libs. Never thought I’sd see that in my lifetime.
Peter TB quoted me:
then continued, asking:
People who care about their fellows make it their business to apply intellectual rigour to public policy discussion, even if this prevents them from repeating the slogan du jour of their preferred political party.
You passed on this obligation, despite the fact that you were a party to several of the many discussion on this matter held here on this site.
Peter cited me again:
then continued, asking:
I do. It fits the format.
I know you through your commentary plenty well enough.
Terje tried:
However that may be, I didn’t assert that. The qualification was dfistance from mandatory detention policy and the uncondtional affirmation of asylum rights. As I understand it, Bruce Baird, Malcome Fraser, Petro Georgiou, Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and not a few other non-leftists qualify on this matter.
They can in general, but in this case they need at the very least to reject administrative detention as a policy tool aimed at mitgating so-called “pull factors”. That policy is obviously designed in the knowledge that at best, it can cause a backlog of desperate asylum seekers in camps just outside Australia’s official territory. There is no humanity or equity in such a policy and what it must do is to eventually push some to take just the kinds of risk every irregular entry vessel does, with the kind of horrible denouement we saw at Christmas Island yesterday in prospect.
“Surely that is not too much to ask (he added forlornly)?”
Of course it is, as you know. This issue has been so thoroughly politicised that there are very spaces where there can be a reasonable debate about it.
Look at Katz’s quote above from a Liberal source (and wouldn’t you love to see that person named). Of course, after a polite gap Abbott will come out with his three word mantra. Labor hasn’t got the guts to get a coherent policy together and the whole thing becomes a human rights and political disaster, once again.
It’s about the most depressing thing in Australian politics. The only way for the problem to be solved is for it to become a multi-partisan issue in which all political parties work out the solution and sell it to the public. But whilst it can be used to help win elections, this will never occur. I don’t think Labor can do it by themselves, because the Libs will never give them a moment’s rest about this.
I wrote a piece a bit over a year ago at SL site.
I summarised with this.
“This will shock many, but Ruddock did the most humane thing in the world.
He stopped the boats.
He stopped more SIEVXs.
He stopped the trafficking of people by criminal gangs.
He stopped people being thrown overboard mid-voyage (not kids, this was murders)
He stopped the criteria for refugee protection being who could pay a smuggler.
I sent a submission to the new immigration minister when it was called for last year, offering advice and answers to any questions he and his staff might have on immigration detention issues. I received back a terse reply along the lines of “your experiences are out of date and irrelevant and won’t be considered.”
I have great confidence the new minister has already signaled to smugglers that their business is back open. When this leads to deaths, it will be as a result of people who are acting with the best of intentions to prevent a number of smaller evils (mandatory detention) which are easily visible, while not being aware of the much greater evils they are helping facilitate.”
http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2009/03/31/guest-post-by-frollickingmole/
Or was I gloating in foresight? This was predictable, it doesnt matter if you visceraly hate the person doing the prediction.
Increasing the numbers using boats will result in more drownings, this happens just off the shore in Indonesia, out in the deep blue and on the Australian coast.
Less people on boats=less risk/drownings.
You must live in a very small world.
If Australia withdrew from the obviously flawed and ineffective UN Convention on Refugees then that would stop most of the people smuggling in its tracks.
Katz
Tell that to the dead.
Refugee policy is triage on a massive scale, with millions of “injured”, at the moment we allow people to pay money to bypass triage and recieve treatment.
Immoral.
Thefrollickingmole clearly believes that misery, death and suffering that happens over the horizon were s/he can’t see it, isn’t happening.
‘Mole’ is an apt nomenclature for one so short-sighted and inclined to bury one’s head.
No. I’ll tell it to all the people who are living and prospering in Australia because of Fraser’s enlightened conduct.
What sort of warped morality must you have Frollickingmole in saying that Ruddock did the “most humane thing in the world” when Malcolm Fraser still lives and breathes?
You have the moral stature of an organ harvester.
So would you care to say anything about the rest of the text, or has the word “Ruddock” unhinged you completely?
“I have great confidence the new minister has already signaled to smugglers that their business is back open. When this leads to deaths, it will be as a result of people who are acting with the best of intentions to prevent a number of smaller evils (mandatory detention) which are easily visible, while not being aware of the much greater evils they are helping facilitate.”
We can take people directly from UN camps, their asylum cases already proven, without the risk of maritime death.
Or we could encourage boat arrivals.
Nice morality YOU have as well.
Razor said:
There’s simply no reason for making that inference,unless accompanying it was the idea that Australia would entirely give up on the notion of taking refugees under any circumstances. This idea does however give the lie to the faux RWDB concern for supposedly “good” refugees who “wait in queues” in squalid refugee camps elsewhere. The aim is not to reward those following the rules. The aim is to abolish the rules and hope they simply disappear.
Of course if people smuggling really did cease then those fleeing the horrors of their own countries of birth could suffer and die out of our gaze, which would obviously be a big win for humanity as a whole.
Certainly, people here could feel more indifferent more easily and more often. Listening to the reports from Christmas Island, indifference became a good deal harder to maintain, which is tragic, obviously.
And just to head off the inevitable “you hate refugees” this will generate, heres my “solution” which I have mentioned before.
NO onshore refugee applicants at all.
Double Australias intake of those from recognised UN facilities.
Its not perfect, but it does achieve 2 outcomes.
Less “irregular” entry.
Greater protection in absolute numbers.
#59, akn, That’s what struck me also.
“Policy”?
And what has happened is of course not down to Rudd and Gillard alone, who inherited the mess, but the world system that creates the big flows of desperate people as by products of its own irrationality.
Once again, from “Sympathy for the Devil”, re complicity,
“After all, it was you and me”.
Not just Hansonists and /or do gooders, who think they are making a difference one way or the other, the whole system of humanity that accepts disasters like Xmass island, for others, as “collateral damage”, no matter how eagerly or reluctantly.
But what can we do, in a “wikileaks” world?
At least not celebrate the deaths, as some have. The comments on newspaper blogsites carry not sympathy nausea and shock, but a sort of manic glee and that’s a worry; it shows attitudes harden in the wake of deliberate innaction from the powers that be.
thefrollickingmole, that proposal is equivalent to exiting the refugee conventions we’re currently signatory to. I don’t think that will help. And what do we do when someone does turn up onshore begging for asylum? Send ‘em home? To die?
SG.
Its about achieving the maximum benefit for the greatest number of people. Id expect a withdrawl/modification to the existing regime, but with an unnoffical “ministers/department discression” for the case you outline.
Again not perfect, but it would take the heat out of the issue (politicaly on both sides), while at the same time meeting a HIGHER moral standard than our current regime.
Absolute numbers should override lesser considerations. We cant save the world, but we can take greater numbers as long as the Australian public believe it is being managed effectively.
Thats the key issue, people have to believe it is fair, and managed well.
thefrollickingmole, the Australian people don’t believe the program is being managed badly because of the facts, but because of the kind of strident bullshit we hear from the Chaos Bolters. If you look at that graph that Jack et al have kindly provided, you can see that our system was being managed very very well right up until we invaded Afghanistan.
Have a think about that.
Did the Howard government do anything like that?
Here is what Fraser did:
Note that a little more than 2000 actually arrived by boat.
The rest of the refugees — 56,000 of them! — were processed through various camps in Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, etc., and eventually arrived in Australia by plane.
How many immigration officials did Fraser’s effort take? How many immigration officials did Howard and Ruddock put on a similar job?
How many Iraqi refugee applications did the Howard government process in camps in Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, Kuwait?
The answer is far, far fewer.
Care to amend your ridiculous comment about “most humane”?
“Surely that is not too much to ask (he added forlornly)?”
It is unfortunately. These days the liberal wing of the Liberal Party has about as much influence over LP social policy as the socialist left has on the ALP’s economic policy. Just look at what the Lib’s were prepared to do while in government. Now in opposition they have even more incentive to exploit the problem.
Fraser’s policy was instrumental in the deaths of 250,000 Vietnamese boat people (UN figures). Nothing humane about that. Nothing at all.
sg.
I was working in detention before 9/11, I can assure you we had recieved the first groups of mainly Hazara asylum seekers fleeing the Taliban months before the Americans set foot in AFG.
The numbers increased at a steady rate after the first successful asylum claims, that gave the people smugglers a “product” to sell.
The introduction of TPV’s caused a spike in numbers of women/children as the family reunion became unavailable, then led to a sharp drop after that “surge”.
They must have been very happy to be greeted by such a wellspring of compassion.
Either you have to accept from the figures that the pre-Howard policy was working just fine, or you have to accept that our policies don’t affect refugee flows. That graph strocchi linked to provides us with 30 years of low numbers, then a sudden spike in 2000. Do you really think that is due to our policy? And if Ruddock’s policies can take credit for the drop, should he not also take the blame for the rise?
Katz
Without an upper cieling on numbers you comment is pure bumf, Ive done it, double the current, whats yours?
Bearing in mind mine is aimed at defusing this as an issue for all but the extremists on both sides of the issue. A responsible government of EITHER party could, possibly, get a compromise like mine through by emphasising doing the “most good” AND “securing the borders”. Both the “no refugees” and the “open borders” extremists would be effectively marginalised.
Im not going to answer for any failures of governments to not allocate the places available under the resettlement system. If they failed to do that then I consider it a moral and real failure. Again REGAURDLESS of which side of politics.
sg.
There were nearly no asylum seekers from the middle east when I started in detention.
That was in about 98-99.
Mostly Chinese were the seekers then, and quite low numbers, mostly visa overstayers who then lodged asylum claims when picked up.
Once the smugglers established that an Australian route, with a success rate far above UN standards was available for maritime arrivals the surge started. Again, first with Hazaras, but quickly followed by many regions including Sri Lanka, AFG, Syria, Palestinians/stateless, Iraqi, Iranian and a mixed bag of “others”.
Or are you claiming the conditions in ALL those countries only deteriorated under Howards government?
The smugglers need a product to sell, that product comes with a margin of risk attached.
Well that does look like a list of countries with problems. Have you noticed some recent events in Iraq and Sri Lanka, for example? Some bombings, occasionally people die, and there can be some ethnic and religious tension. You should check the news.
Other western countries have also been experiencing increased refugee flows from the middle east in the last 10 years. The UK has a lot of Sri Lankans. This might possibly count as evidence that the process is related to more than just Australian law.
sg.
And no problems in those, or other countries prior to that then….ok….
problems change in intensity, as do the means by which people escape them. The intifada in Palestine changed in 2000 with the collapse of the camp david accords and the visit to the temple mount. The Sri Lankan government was alternating between peace talks and war during the 2000s. Afghanistan was relatively stable until just before 2001, when the Taliban renewed its assault on the Northern Alliance (you may recall they blew up a key opponent a few months before 9/11, with the help of OBL).
Australian laws and the customs authority can intercept incoming criminal smuggling enterprises, but we can’t control the international organizations involved in these activities through local law. You’re suggesting that we completely bail on the UNHCR because we can’t handle problems overseas. People also die getting to the camps that you’re recommending we harvest our refugees from – you do recall the odd shipping-container tragedy of late, don’t you, or the things that happen on the route to Mexico?
All this talk about triage is just smokescreen for the real policy, which is to get them all to fuck off and die somewhere else.
Jack Strocchi at 12:
The pattern shown in the graph you linked to is in fact common to a large number of OECD countries (but not all) – see http://www.oecd.org/document/57/0,3343,en_2649_33931_45634233_1_1_1_1,00.html and follow the links to the excel files
If you exclude the countries that border former Societ bloc countries, every OECD country except Finland, Iceland, Japan and Korea saw substantial drops in asylum seekers between 2001/2002 and 2006.
Moreover, most OECD countries have seen increases in the number of asylum seekers between 2007 and 2009 – the proportional increase in Australia is above the OECD average, but comparable to the percentages in belgium, germany, France and Poland, and much less than the figures in Finland, the Netherlands and Norway. Many of the countries that have smaller proportional increases in the number of asylum seekers than australia have had much larger absolute increases. For example the number seeking asylum in Australia has gone from around 4,000 to 6,000, while in Canada they have gone from 28,000 to 33,000.
The countries that have seen the largest drops in the number of Asylum seekers since 2007 tend to be the ones that have done worst in the GFC.
sg. The bloke you refer to was Massoud, I have an intersting anecdote about that bloke.
One of Our Hazara blokes was chatting to me after he was killed and said “something big will happen now” as Massoud was considered one of the Talibans key opponents, shortly after there was 9/11. The Hazara bloke was adamant it wouldnt have gone ahead if Massoud had still been alive, as he would have been a natrual leader for any overthrow.
How much respect did Massoud have?
“He has killed many Hazara fighting against us, but Id follow him against the Talibs”…
How would sourcing UN facilities as our only LEGITIMATE source of asylum seekers weaken it?
Im advocating refusing asylum to those who can afford to pay a people smuggler, thats how “we CAN control the international organizations involved in these activities through local law.”
There is no other way than to remove the product they are selling.
It was done before.
So you claim a doubling of refugee places in our country = “which is to get them all to fuck off and die somewhere else.”
you a necromancer, mole?
See Peter Whiteford’s stats for the evidence you need to refute your assertions about the “effectiveness” of Howard’s policy. Migrant flows are not driven by AUstralian law.
O/T, A bit on Massoud, he was killed 2 days before the 9/11 attacks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Massoud
You think your a wit, well you are half right,
SG, theres no point in debating on this topic with you, as you believe something not borne out by facts.
Evans overturned Howards asylum system, boats started again. Its not complicated.
Pointing to a spike after the laws changed, then a tapering off to 2 boats in a year, isnt evidence of “it didnt work” quite the oppisite.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. It IS complicated.
facts, mole? The spike occurred before the law was changed – the law change came after the spike.
It has been pointed out to you twice that other countries with different laws experienced the same spike.
Do you get it now?
I give up, a small drop in other countries doesnt equal a near stopping in Australia.
So a government with an avowed policy of changing the border regime won the election and the boats re-started. Not a big difference.
Are you seriously claiming the current hundreds of boats in one year is NOT in any way linked to the changes in asylum policy?
If so I want what you are smoking.
You didn’t read Peter Whiteford’s comment at all do you?
You don’t understand the figures at all.
We have been and are still getting, asylum seekers from Iraq and Afghanistan as a direct consequence of the brown nosing, big-noting Rodent government’s decision to illegally invade Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Rudd/Gillard government inherited that can of worms and
for that mob of hypocrites and their cheerleaders like Dolt, to cry crocodile tears over the deaths of asylum seekers is beneath contempt, considering the sustained and disgraceful vilification campaign they have conducted against asylum seekers for years.
And then to try to get political mileage out of this tragedy is beyond contemptible!
IMO, this is proof positive that the LIEberals are completely unfit to run even a kindy chook raffle, let alone this country. Cleaning out septic tanks is the highest level any of them is fit to aspire to!
Why is there so much talk about Howard-era policies? There is only one government responsible for asylum seeker policy, and it is not lead by John Howard. That said, I can’t help myself: Peter Whiteford – is the data to which you link directly relevant to the point being discussed by FDB, thefrolickingmole and sg? As we all know, the vast majority of asylum seekers come by air and and not by sea. The precise issue is whether the Pacific Solution prevented relatively dangerous sea journeys from occurring. I think you’d agree that for these purposes you can’t really rely on overall OECD figures. You’d need to analyse the boat sub-set (both pre-2001 and also post-2007) in isolation.
Finally, the absurd back and forth about which side is the one exploiting this tragedy is… absurd. Teh Left has wasted absolutely no time at all in blaming features of Australian asylum seeker policy which they oppose. In that context, complaints about RWDBs and their reactions disclose a shocking lack of self-awareness.
BBB
the talk about howard era policies arises because a lot of people are saying this wouldn’t have happened if we had them. See e.g. the compassionate mole up above.
I hate to be the one to put this out there.
But I will.
How many of us if John Howard was still PM would have sheeted home blame for the deaths to him a la Seiv X?
Very fair point, sg. I withdraw my rhetorical question. The rest stands though.
BBB
BBB
The only point I would make is that a lot of countries other than Australia have seen just as significant increases in the number and rate of asylum seekers since 2007. I would interpret this as something going on in the world that has no connection to changes in Australian policy.
Changes in Australian policy may have had an effect specific to Australia, but it seems likely to me that if there is such an effect it is incremental – and one would need to do an in-depth study to identify this (but I would say this as I am a researcher)
tssk suggested:
Given the controversial frontiers between what many think of as “the left” and the non-left I will merely speak on my own behalf.
I blame anyone who doesn’t unconditionally support the right to asylum or who apologies for the policy of deterrence of assylum applications through mandatory detention.
Thus, I hold the Keating-Howard-Rudd-Gillard regime and their sundry apologists in this area of policy to responsible for this. That’s what I meant above when I spoke of the RWDB community and their fellow travellers.
oops: apologises for
Exactly Fran. Policy and nerve failures all ’round here.
Peter – it’s obviously right that Australian asylum seeker policy doesn’t have a material effect on the number of people seeking asylum. Clearly that is far more about the conditions from which refugees are trying to escape.
However, it’s my impression that the OECD data is not at all useful for analysing the pros and cons of the Pacific Solution or the Gillard Government’s approach post-2007 – it is nowhere near granular enough – and if anything has the potential to seriously mislead. Here’s a thought: take the fraction of asylum seekers arriving by boat for the 10 years pre-2001 and each year post-2007. Is that fraction significantly different from the fraction prevailing in the years of the full-blown Pacific Solution? My suspicion is that yes, it is significantly different, but I can’t find the data online. And if that’s right, then I’d say that is good evidence that the Pacific Solution “worked”, if “worked” means “preventing refugees from using boats to get to Australia”. Would you agree?
BBB
BBB asked:
I don’t have the figures but even allowing that this was right it might simply mean that conditions in countries where irregaular passage via maritime routes had made such a risky eventure less appealing.
In any event, unless one can say that a policy results in less misery all round and especially for those most at risk of misery then it doesn’t pass the first test of “having worked”. If a policy results in the misery being even worse (albeit out of our immediate sight) then it is a failure in human terms.
Really, the horror of the events of yesterday ought, in theory, to discourage nearly everyone from trying such a dangerous thing again. Being dashed onto rocks or drowning and watching your children drown before you go while being helpless is something nobody would wish onto anyone. It’s certainly doesn’t strike me as less unappealing than the “Pacific Solution” or what is done now by Australia. Yet people continue to take their chances which can only mean that they think this is a risk worth taking.
The conclusion is urged that many asylum seekers regard where they are at the time they choose to pay large sums of money to achieve irregular entry as rather worse than the risk of death in the sea and prolonged incarceration and possible rejection. If one ever wanted evidence of push factors, the choice of the boat people surely attests to it.
I can’t but wonder how those of us who have never seen what they have seen, much less made it part of our life expectations, can declare on what would deter irregular entrants, expect them to accept their lot or blame people smugglers for the problem. How is it that so many can hold that they know better than the asylum seekers themselves what is in their best interests?
IThe conclusion is urged that those who think they know best are either ignorant or don’t really believe this and are merely affecting concern so as to cover their putatively homicidal xenophobic angst.
“so as to cover their putatively homicidal xenophobic angst.”
I called for the doubling of UN chosen refugees as a dignified way of being able to prevent maratime arrivals.
I havent called for blue eyed blonde nordics, or aryan white supremacists, so Id suggest you take your poorly disguised bit of villification and stick it. I am heartily sick of anyone wanting to see people smuggling stopped immediately written off as a bigot. Its just primary school grade “your a poopy pants” type of arguement.
So Fran, how will YOU achieve the twin goals of increasing protection offered to refugees, and assuring the Australian public that the government actually controlls the borders.
Youve got 2 years before an election, what policy will you sell?
Peter/Fran/etc.
You can combine OECD and APH data to get the following (the OECD data doesn’t go further back than 1999):
1999 – 9495, of which 3721 by boat (39%)
2000 – 13064, of which 2939 by boat (22%)
2001 – 12366, of which 5516 by boat (44%)
—Pacific Solution introduced late 2001
2002 – 5859, of which 1 by boat (0.01%)
2003 – 4295, of which 53 by boat (1.2%)
2004 – 3201, of which 15 by boat (0.4%)
2005 – 3204, of which 11 by boat (0.3%)
2006 – 3515, of which 60 by boat (1.7%)
2007 – 3980, of which 148 by boat (3.7%)
—Pacific Solution abolished February 2008
2008 – 4771, of which 161 by boat (3.3%)
2009 – 6170, of which 2849 by boat (46%)
2010 to 20 Sep – not sure of the total, but 4822 by boat, so presumably something north of 50%?
I wouldn’t say that this exercise proves anything – it doesn’t – but it appears consistent with the idea that the Pacific Solution “stopped the boats”, and prevented deaths at sea. Of course, this is just a starting point; the numbers don’t necessarily say much about the overall morality of the policy at all, or the trade-off that takes outright prevention on the one hand and brutality and venality (which Strocchi and others have quite rightly acknowledged) on the other.
BBB
The solution is the Fraser one. Regional cooperation, a camp or camps on the Asian mainland (Malaysia or Thailand but not Singapore or Indonesia), and fly them over once processed and approved.
Only one person in Federal Parliament could even come close to making it happen. Malcolm Bligh Turnbull.
Fraser’s policy was instrumental in the deaths of 250,000 Vietnamese boat people (UN figures). Nothing humane about that. Nothing at all.
You’ve repeated this shameless canard twice now. It’s complete fucking bullshit: the vast majority of those deaths were in the South China Sea, by refugees headed to Malayasia or Thailand.
Are you going to hold Fraser responsible for the hundreds of thousands that were executed, or died in camps and forced labour in Vietnam, when they couldn’t feel too?
Just sickening.
After Howards “Pacific Solution” boat arrivals dropped to about 2 a year. Since Rudd changed the rules, at least 2 boats arrive each week.
Overall “asylum seekers” may have risen only in line with OECD averages but those arriving, very dangerously, by boat has multiplied something like 50 times in 3 years. (sg and others just dont seem to understand those OECD figures they keep quoting, no matter how many times they are told). But I guess thats the Left for you.
One of the direct results of the current government’s policies has been 150 to 200 fatalities in about 3 years.
Fran, you and I have not always agreed on the small detail, but re BBB et al, you do become disturbed by people peddling the notion that these people drowning is somehow an apt “end game” or ultimate triumph for civilisation.
Five million years of evolution, for no better than standing on a cliff gloating over the horrible deaths of fellow travellers?
I think the real triumph would be a system that benefits all, not just us.
How do we bring this about in WikiWorld, with the realisation of how little we can do or protest, without bringing Hansonism or totalitarianism down on us thru populist reaction manipulated by the bosses.
The reality is, Cronulla rules!
How much smarter we are going to have to be, as media is further dumbed down, too.
I hope Australians are shocked enough to revisit their own attitudes, but from what I’ve read, explicated in Blot’s columns, for some this is already a step too far.
Remember “Horst Wessel lied” and understand that Australians camped here behind the Laager need to be persuaded, any attempt at coercion rather than persuasion could lead to counter productive outcomes for asylum seekers and thinking Australians, alike.
Where progressives have failed, has been over the last decade in persuading our suburban brothers and sisters to let go of their fears. With enviro concerns in particular, badly.
In the face of our efforts, active shrewd reinforcement and wedge campaigns from the ruling elites have been deployed- they even have the left fighting like Kilkenny cats over the right way to go, as to change.
They are smart, nasty beggers and you know that as well as I.
Frollicking mole:
I am rather tired of those who see people smuggling in this particular setting as anything but a response to the felt need of those in intolerable circumstances. We have turned desperate people into the stuff of contraband.
And as it goes, those who squeal most insistently about the evils of people smauggling are either bigots themselves, or pandering to them — enabling them a soft option to express their misanthropy.
HC’s solution is a good one if we increase the intake and process the applicants expediently, neither of which this government seems capable of doing.
The idea that Malcom Fraser, for instance, can be held in some way morally responsible for the deaths of many thousands of refugees simply because it never occurred to him to they should be treated harshly upon arrival seems, well, curious to me. Do people really think that way?
I’m also having a hard time getting my head around the concept that policy somehow becomes more ‘humane’ because it happens to result in a smaller number of people *choosing* to risk their lives. That idea especially seems at odds with the “personal choice” sort of perspective typically in favour with that those on the side of the political fence that appear to making the argument for tougher asylum seeker policies.
I do have to say though it’s hard not to see merit in the idea that the best way to put people smugglers out of business is for our government to offer safe transit and an assured visa to anyone who wants it at a fair price.
So step 1 of your criteria is the agreement of every 1st world country and a number of others to sign up to an open ended agreement…good luck with that.
How about a policy thats domestic, do-able and could conceivably survive political attacks?
Your policy is fairy floss and good wishes.
Again you write me off as a bigot, isnt that a nice way of enabling you to remain moraly “pure” but impotent?
“..as anything but a response to the felt need of those in intolerable circumstances…”
Its a profit based industry, thats not a reflection on the motives of asylum seekers, but it is the driving force behind the smugglers.
“We would withdraw entirely from Afghanistan.”
Yes allowing the kinder and gentler Taliban to reinstate the persecution of whomever they like (Hazaras mainly before 9/11) in peace.
What was that about Right wingers “not minding as long as the bodies pile up elsewhere”?
“..both its intakes and processing in major centres where those seeking resettlement had gathered. Where the results of identity and security checks had not contra-indicated resettlement and a prima facie case for humanitarian resettlement was made out, Australia would ship the persons in question to Australia or other host countries…”
We need a catchy name for that, how about “Immigration processing detention centres” or similar?
It would be funny if you werent serious.
Possum has kindly provided a sense of perspective to the arguments made with respect to numbers of asylum seekers to Australia in a global context.
Funnily enough, he has also provided an analysis of the Push vs Pull argument which lies at the heart of the arguments being made as to culpability for this tragedy.
Perhaps those who so readily assert the “success” of Howard’s failed policies should sample some facts for a change ?
Variety is, after all the spice of life.
Pterosaur
Great article, unless you look at the likelyhood of success of airborne vs boat arrivals.
Arriving by boat with no documentation massively increases the chance of an asylum claim being granted.
So no Possums data is a bit off base. In addition NZ is also seen as a “back door” into Oz, after all theres little border regime between us.
So it makes it quite easy for NZ to appear generous while knowing many of their asylum seekers end up in Oz anyway.
There’s some very good stuff re the stats at Pterosaur’s link, e.g. the following, which really undermines the boat numbers cited by the APH:
“Let’s be clear – this is what the Pacific Solution did – it diddled the stats by redefinition. Boats still made the attempt to enter Australia – which is a point worth noting as many of the proponents of Pull Factors cite reducing the risk of death from reducing the number of people attempting the voyage by boat, as one of their key rationales. Yet we know that SIEV(s) 5,7,11 and 12 in 2002 attempted to make the journey and were returned to Indonesia while SIEV(s) 4,6 and 10 actually sank. That was in very late 2001 through late 2002. In 2003 we know that boats were still attempting to make the voyage such as SIEV 14, but were again towed back from whence they came.”
Possum also goes back past 1999 (unlike the OECD) and shows that the three years leading up to 2001 aren’t representative of long-term trends, although of course that too doesn’t say much about the actual effect of the Pacific Solution.
BBB
I wonder what the little girls’ names were?
I wonder if the mothers called out for their children?
Did the fathers drown before their eyes?
The water must have been cold, the rocks sharp.
Enough, enough.
Keep your arguments alive while your hearts and souls are even further blackened. Christmas cheer?
This from News Ltd of all places. Read it while it’s there I guess.
http://blogs.news.com.au/jackmarxlive/index.php/news/comments/showboat/
The rest is just as good. (Thanks to Pure Poison for pointing to this article.)
What ghoulish questions, the answers to which are obvious, and heartbreaking. Save the affected sanctimony for your friends. It’s wasted here.
BBB
FM said:
Not at all. We could get started with a handful of countries. In some cases, states would alrwady be taling close to quota. The difference is that some who were under could come on board and perhaps agree to pay into the pool to support resettlement elsewhere. Countries that were over could be compensated. This would help sort out some of the anomlaies in current people movement.
And the agreement would not be open-ended. It would have criteria matched to per capita GDP and population. Morevoever this would mean that almost all countries would have an interest in not doing anything that would augment humanitarian outflows.
If the shoe fits, as they say. One can choose not to be a bigot, or an enabler of them.
Sure this is a puerile catchcry, but does this even mean anything or refer to anyone? Not really. You surely are defensive.
So you think that irregular entrants are driven by the need of people smugglers to obtain a profit rather than that the possibility of trading as a people smuggler reflecting the demand for people smuggling services?
What a curious world you live in. If only other areas of the economy worked the same way. No business would ever go bankrupt as they all need to make a profit.
FM quotes me:
then continues
Firstly, and most obviously, they are doing that right now and ISAF is clearly not abating this, otherwise we would not be getting people, many of them Hazaras, trading everything they have to leave the country. There’s no prospect of this stopping or abating, in the opinion of those leaving.
Right now, ISAF is propping up at best, a corrupt and incompetent regime which is of no use to anyone.
Secondly, we would be enabling them to leave by far more orthodox routes, improving their chances of successful resettlement.
At no point have I suggested that there should be no such centres. It is inevitable that such places will form with or without government support. Technically, the name for these centres should be concentration camps but the connotation are rather ugly.
My objection attached to the explicit use of these centres to impose administrative punishment as a deterrent to application. I was proposing greatly accelerated movement through the system, precisely so those in the system would see little advantage in jumping onto unsafe vessels.
Your snark here isn’t the least bit clever. It simply attests to your defensiveness.
Fran.
You propose solutions are highly moral but will never see the light of day. Ever. Domestic or international.
That is the definition of “moraly pure but impotent”.
Would you like me to use smaller words?
Again “Oooh you must be a closet nazi, or an enabler of one to hold such a position”…purile.
Im off I doubt ill be missed in this real of the good intended but ultimately worthless.
The two issues are unrelated. The first is easy and important, the second is both impossible and pointless — it’s naked political pandering and a waste of time.
Increasing protection to refugees is easy. Australia has done it before, in truly vast numbers (both absolute and relative to the population). All we have to do is take more in, any old how, and settle them quickly. History attests to the myriad social and economic benefits they bring to the nation.
As for the goal of “assuring the Austrlaian public that the government actually controls the borders”, that goal falls into the category of ‘not even wrong‘.
1) There are plenty of Australians for whom no such assurance is possible, ever, because they have (let’s be gentle and just say) ‘ishoos’.
2) What tangible benefits devolve from ‘controlling the borders’? What does ‘controlling the borders’ even mean? That goods like coal, LNG, cars, washing machines, Playstations and live sheep have greater freedom of movement than people? I’m sorry, but any ‘assurance’ about a set of laws, policies or protocols that assigns fewer rights and freedoms to people than it does to things is an ‘assurance’ we don’t need.
3) All this hand-wringing over ‘controlling the borders’ is going to look pretty silly mid-century when we have a couple millions environmental refugees from South Asia on our doorstep. And they won’t be knocking politely before they come in. So pardon me if I consider the pearl-clutching about ‘control of borders’ to be so much pissant whinging. What we’re seeing now won’t even touch the sides by 2040-60.
4) People asking for ‘an assurance’ about the ‘control of borders’ are essentially asking their government to engage in a massive fraud – a consensual and wilful denial of reality. ‘Control’ of the kind for which they seek ‘assurance’ is neither necessary, possible, nor desirable; and seeking it is likely to be tragically counter-productive, in the ‘blood in the water’ sense we see today. The most effective single measure to restore ‘control’ of the situation would be to close Christmas Island detention centre, end mandatory detention, and allow immediate community settlement of asylum seekers. We’ve done it before, we can do it again. We just need to wake up to ourselves.
Well said Mercurius.
Fran – I have some sympathy with your response but if the “RWDB” label includes both sides of mainstream politics then I suspect a lot of people are using the “RWDB” term incorrectly.
In terms of manadatory detention I agree that it is abhorent. However given a choice between the Liberal party version, which substantially stopped boats making the crossing and substantially reduced the numbers in detention, and the Labor Party alternative which seems more people in detention than ever and more people dieing on the high seas, I find myself prefering the tougher variety. Perhaps it is a false choice and we should explore other options but at present this is what the two have on offer.
In terms of dealing with the flow of refugees across the water we either need a higher or harsher wall to stop them trying or else we need to open the borders so those same people can simply fly here. That is why I again proposed that we have a paid migration visa which provides a safe alternate option by which relatively wealthy refugees can jump the off shore queue. It is a pragmatic option. The same people end up coming here but they do so safely and orderly.
You people who are simply giving stick to frolickingmole might just try listening to what he has to say and attempt having a reasonable discussion with him. He’s at least worked in/with immigration. The solution is not as easy as simply opening the doors to everyone — that’s not management at all. That’s just chaos.
The immigration problem is too big for a country like Australia to fix alone. We need to stay in the UN, we absolutely need to work with other countries to minimize displaced people. Refugees are an international problem and require international solutions.
The people-smuggling argument is a good argument. Smuggling sounds like stolen goods but it is simply the unauthorised crossing of borders. There are financial incentives for people smugglers and it is an unethical way to make money — very similar in some respects to human trafficking. Much more pressure needs to be placed on the initiators of wars to make them responsible for the effects that their aggression has on the civilian population.
Everyone is upset about the deaths of 50+ refugees on christmas island. A terrible event. The Iraq war has caused the death of between 100,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians!
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/imm_for_pop_inf_pergdp-foreign-population-inflow-per-gdp
Mercurius said:
A real anarchist revolutionary!! R3spekt!
Honestly Mercurius, this is way too simple.
All we have to do is take more in, any old how, and settle them quickly
Care to put a number on that Mercurius?
Based on the above Australia would sharply increase both its intakes and processing in major centres where those seeking resettlement had gathered
Care to put a number on that Fran?
HC’s solution is a good one if we increase the intake and process the applicants expediently,
Care to put a number on that adrian?
PeterTB, I generally don’t agree with you, and “care to put a number on that X?” seems a bit of a cheap response to me? What’s your solution?
And as it goes, those who squeal most insistently about the evils of people smauggling are either bigots themselves, or pandering to them
That’s your version of intellectual rigour, is it Fran?
Evidence?
seems a bit of a cheap response to me?
There are several posters here who apparently subscribe to open ended acceptance of refugees. I want them to give an indication of the numbers they envisage, so that a proper debate on this issue can be had.
Oh, right, OK, a “proper” debate is one where we sit around kidding ourselves that we can circumscribe the movement of human beings fleeing persecution because we’re unable to cope with anything less certain than “we decide who comes here and the circumstances in which they come” and because we need to be “assured”, like children scared of the boogeyman, that the government “controls our borders”.
So, PeterTB, keep on asking for that number on how long is a piece of string and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, so you can have your “proper” debate.
Or we could try growing up.
Australia’s current annual humanitarian intake is 13500, isn’t it?
There is a commenter on another blog (I won’t mention their name as I haven’t asked her whether I can) who does use actual numbers.
This commenter has stated many times that she reckons the humanitarian intake should be raised to 50000, with the non-humanitarian immigration intake reduced to keep total numbers constant (she is concerned about Australia’s carrying capacity as well).
So, it’s not even my own opinion, but it is a starting point for PeterTB’s debate…
Well PeterTB, maybe they are just criticising the current restrictions per se of refugees, which is also a very closed-minded position.
This is a typical political problem in that a solution has to be acceptable both at a personal level and at the level of the nation and the nation’s responsibilities wrt the international community.
The personal level is essentially about the individual cost of increasing a refugee program. A vexed issue for both left and right, as can be seen by the attempt to get the big Australia argument up and running. (Let’s be frank, our economy is actually a basket case, like the other industrial countries of the world. Our saving grace is that we can send a whole lot of dirt to China.)
Overlaid upon this are issues of personal security and ownership. Personal security is concerned by such things as terrorism, racism, religious intolerance, cultural superiority, etc. Ownership is concerned with a deep consciousness of property rights and patriotism: This is our country. These are the areas which are in particular able to be leveraged by political rhetoric/ agenda setting, etc.
At the national level, the concerns are different again. What responsibility does Australia have, when it comes to refugees? Directly, this is about the role that Australia has played in displacing the people and the duty we have to finding homes for any people, who we have by our actions, made homeless. Equally, Australia has more abstract responsibilities wrt the international community — we need to try maintain stability in international relations which requires a continual dialog with neighbours and careful nurturing of good relationships with other nations. Also a difficult process, but one made much easier by institutions like the U.N. (and all the UNs institutions.)
I’m going to end this with a question: Should the U.S. president Geeorge Bush be tried as a war criminal for the torturing of prisoners of war? He has a case to answer and if he is not tried, what does that say about the U.N.?
Good questions, Joe. Another one I would like to see answered is why the economists and policy-makers consider it so godawfully important to ensure that a crate of computer parts or cigars should have greater freedom of movement than a human being.
“That’s right PJ. If we let them land on the soft sands of the beaches on the mainland, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“It’s a product of the legal fiction of excision and the policy obscenity of offshore processing.”
Indeed Mercurius. In a nutshell.
The problem is ours. Like previously in Vietnam, a country we near on bombed back to the stone age, we were responsible then for the refugees, we are responsible now.
Of course Vietnam was slightly different wasn’t it? We were saving them from the communists, the old “Reds under the beds” nothing was too much trouble for them. My God some of them (sarcasm alert) were only here a few weeks and they were eating meat pies, and driving Holden’s.
Unlike our Arab refugees, who wear funny clothes, ride camels,and their contribution to the culture of the human race as far as art, mathematics, philosophy etc is concerned, lost in the mists of time.
My God! The propaganda and blame game has been so successful, even the refugees from another time (Asians) have joined the RWDB’s chorus of contempt for these people.
We do live in strange times.
Bingo Bongo Bango, your numbers way up above prove my point: in the period before the pacific solution was implemented there were both periods of low and high boat arrivals. Why, if the policy was constant? Something must be operating outside of Australian policy.
I would like to propose an alternative explanation to the standard one, based on a basic understanding of international crime.
In 2000, a bunch of south east asian gangsters/dubious characters saw an opportunity to make a lot of money by people smuggling, formed a gang and got to work. In 2001 Howard decided to make an election issue of it and introduced the pacific solution. At the same time he also introduced new anti-smuggling measures including international cooperation (which was well-implemented in other areas, e.g. drug prohibition, at that time). In 2002 the smuggling stopped, either because the AFP broke the gang(s) involved in the trade, or the gang(s) ran out of people to smuggle.
Also everyone remember that the pacific solution was implemented late in 2001, by which time most of 2001′s arrivals had already happened. So the figures BBB points out represent 2 years of unprecedentedly high boat arrivals, and the change suggests a really really sudden drop in numbers – almost overnight – which is much more consistent with a successful law enforcement operation in the origin countries (or a sudden loss of paying customers) than it is with Australian policy suddenly, overnight, stopping all the boats.
Defenders of the “howard saved lives” argument need to explain:
- why the drop was so sudden
- why under the previous policy there were periods of both high and low arrivals
- how the numbers would be different if the ships forced back were included in the tally
@ 111
That would be nice HC, but, you see, he’s currently got his hands full with “demolishing” the NBN, and other such constructive and fruitful activities.
In fact I’d add – in 2000/2001 life was getting quite tough for SE Asian heroin smugglers. Could it be they switched crime patterns?
Didn’t Gillard propose a Fraseresque solution after her appointment, to much alarm here, in which the asylum seekers would be processed in East Timor “to reduce the need for them to undertake dangerous voyages in leaky boats”?
Some of the high/lows are related to cyclone season up north. The boat that sunk set out extremely late in the year. Last year was unusula in no cyclones and few storms. Otherwise there should have been a big dip then as well followed by a surge in march/april as conditions improve.
I hope a comment on sailing times/boat arrivals wont be dismissed as RWDB bullshit… It would be tiresome.
(emphases added)
@77
@129
Right, because the really urgent priority about the global and international scale of involuntary flight from war zones, persecution, oppression and attempted genocides is that, you know, it’s all being well-managed. At least we’ve got our priorities right. Won’t someone think of the managers?
Mercurius, what you don’t like the use of the word management? Management is exactly just about that, getting the priorities right.
There’s a proportion of immigrants in Sydney, who I have talked to, who are refugees from the middle east conflict. Now, I think it’s a very comfortable arrangement for the likes of Israel and the US to displace people and then for third party countries to have to create homes for them.
This is the national level of politics I’m referring to, not the management of individual rights and freedom, which you seem to consider not important at all.
In any case, that’s not fair and it’s not just (as in correct) that the government supports the Israelis and the US as they do. It is however, humanitarian. I’m also going to throw in the current re-settling of Gito inmates into the mix as well. American prisoners and torture victims need resettling in third party countries!! (I’m not going to even comment on the state of civil US correctional services.) Now, moving across different conflicts there are vast differences, normative and positivist between say Rwanda (Poor Hilary said: most unfortunate circumstance. Terrible.) and Yugoslawia. The only mechanism we have to manage this is the U.N.
In the meantime, you keep trying to manage people’s right to entitlements by telling them: “not important. F*ck off!” You’re bullshitting, Mercurius.
This debate gets silly at times. It is pretty obvious that when analysing the underlying reasons for boat arrivals you have to look at both push and pull factors – that is, the factors that lead people to apply for asylum in the first place and the factors that influence their destinations. It seems pretty clear to me that a reasonable proportion of the annual fluctuations are due to push factors that will tend to increase asylum applications (including boat arrivals) in all countries. At the same time, it is also reasonable to think that countries’ policies toward asylum seekers (or boat arrivals) will influence asylum seekers’ destination.
To properly answer the question of what the relative contribution of these push and pull factors is requires building a detailed cross-country panel dataset and then building a model that allows you to control for the various factors. For example, if the Howard Pacific solution had an impact on boat arrivals, you should see some relative variation in Australian arrivals after you control for all the other factors that influence them. I have no idea whether that is the case or not, but it seems to me that nobody else really does either.
Too much of this debate is polluted by the fallacy of confusing correlation with causation.
Of course, even if one found a marginal contribution from the Howard era policies on arrivals, that wouldn’t make it the right policy, given the broader human rights issues involved.
To add to that, Labor Outsider, you’d also need some understanding of what happens to asylum seekers when/if they are dissuaded from attempting to get into a given country. What do those people in camps and living illegally in Indonesia do if they can’t get to Australia? Do they commence a long and dangerous journey to Europe instead, dying in similar numbers in over-stuffed crates on the overland trek? Do they become criminals in Indonesia and end up spending long periods in detention there? We don’t know, and I don’t hear any of the “turn back the boats” crowd demanding to find out.
Also of interest: if the supporters of the pacific solution thinks it works so great to prevent death at sea, why are they so lukewarm about Gillard’s East Timor suggestion?
Because they know it’s bullshit – it will never happen. It was only ever a bone to throw at border security for re-election purposes. It’s already been forgotten by Gillard, and to this government illegal immigration is not a problem, it’s a solution.
Labor Outsider,
I think the solution is to try and solve the solution within the framework of the UN and with strong cooperation with our regional neighbors. Finding and prosecuting the people traffickers can’t be that hard with the support of the countries, where they are based.
We shouldn’t shirk processing the refugees on the mainland, or anywhere else as is agreed in the UN. People should hang their heads in shame at the unilateral type actions of the Pacific solution.
Australia needs to complain about the refugee side-effect of military action and demand that the people who cause people to become refugees do a lot more to fix the issue. The UN is the body for doing this. The main thing, in our case here, would be to withdraw from the Afghan war altogether. Beyond that, the government should complain loudly to all the governments who are responsible for causing the displacement of people. If the Sunnis can’t live in Iraq, the Iraqi government should be asked to get their act together publicly.
Seeking political asylum is not illegal. Individual arrivees are acting illegally only if they have travelled through a nation that has ratified the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. For clarity, I recommend that you peruse this map. It should be clear even to a foaming RWDB that persons fleeing all the trouble spots in the world — Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. — do not encounter a country that has ratified the Convention until they fetch up on Australian shores.
There is no doubt that both push and pull factors influence the number and origin of undocumented arrivals.
Howard’s Pacific Solution made it less attractive for persons to attempt to seek political asylum in Australia.
But the cost of that “success” was a perversion of Australian sovereignty and jurisprudence by means of cynical and undignified stunts such as “excision” and an erosion of the independence of the judiciary.
The precedents that Howard established are both dangerous and appalling in that the scope of Australian sovereignty and the competency of the Australian judiciary were viewed simply as a matter of convenience rather than a matter of either responsibility or right.
And Wikileaks has revealed that the US government is viewing contemptuously Australia’s negations of sovereignty and rule of law. I congratulate US diplomats for understanding the meaning of national responsibility and national dignity.
Why should Australia expect the US to honour the ANZUS Treaty when Australia refuses to honour treaties that it has signed?
PeterTB asked:
An answer expressed as an integer isn’t possible because IMO, the number must reflect human need.
I am both an egalitarian and a believer in equity. For me this entails the view that every human being has in principle, an equal claim on public goods as strong as mine, and vice versa. If there is scarcity and therefore misery, this should be borne equally or if not, then upon the shoulders of those most fit to bear it, so far as this is possible to engineer.
If there are people in need of humanitarian resettlement, then this is a problem for the entire human community, who are bound, in my view, to act as urgently as they can to abate the presenting harm, alleviate the disproportionate misery by taking some part of it onto themselves.
Australia, which is amongst the wealthier countries in the world, ought to bear an appropriate share of the responsibility all human beings have to care for each other. That will necessarily be much larger than at present because even now, Australia is one of a number of wealthy countries failing to meet their own MDG commitments in terms of aid, and failing also to meet commitments on climate change. Historically, we have also contributed to misery in Iraq and Afghanistan. We dare not squib or force others to bear a burden that rightly falls upon us.
It seems to me then that some sort of quota-based system is apt. Whatever the burden of supporting the needy is, humanity is bound to bear it. Ideally we would act in an orderly, equitable, efficient, timely and effective way to foreclose the circumstances which produce humanitarian displacement. If we do that, we will perforce, alleviate poverty, and accordingly the burden is likely to be a lot lighter for everyone. In those circumstances the true significance of border security and its apparent significance will not be much different and a good deal less.
Regret to advise those of you who are fearful of the brown-skinned hordes from the north descending upon our fair land if we have an equitable open door policy for refugees as Fran suggests, it ain’t gonna happen. It ain’t gonna happen because it hasn’t happened in 200 hundred years of European history here, or in the 30-50000 years of Aboriginal history. All we got, apart from the Aborigines themselves, was a very small seasonal visitation of Macassars fishing for beche-de-mer, and, over fifty odd years a thousand or so Chinese gold miners. Even the Japanese gave up on the idea of invading Australia during WW2. I know its silly of me to believe there are patterns in history and that we might be able to learn from those past patterns, but if history is any indication the number of refugees, as opposed to your normal variety of migrant is not exactly going to over populate us any further. Let the hordes come. They won’t turn up.
The SMH is now reporting the suspected role of a notorious people smuggler. Perhaps the resurgence of numbers since 2007 is not evidence that asylum seekers peruse australian refugee law before they flee Iran, but has something to do with this notorious people smuggler finding an opportunity in a new wave of Iranian refugees, fleeing recent troubles there?
I don’t want to trivialise this tragedy, but something that has been jarring on me is the (almost exclusive) use of the phrase “boat crash”. Yes, I know that it crashed into the cliffs (and bloody awful cliffs they are too), but whatever happened to “boat wreck” and “shipwreck”?
Paul,
Also to the point is the fact, underlined by this tragedy, that if a “horde”, brown, white or brindle, was to descend on Australia it would descend (literally)in a series of commercial aircraft not in leaky boats. This being the method of choice for anyone who prefers the horrors of airline food to the horrors of the sea. It is, of course, the way in which most refugees arrive at the moment. But “we will turn back the commercial airlines” doesn’t have quite the same ring as a campaign slogan.
The ultimate argument regarding refugees, I think, has always been the example that inspired the UN Treaty, the concept of “asylum seeker” and the definition of “refugee” based on danger to life – the refusal of countries to accept Jewish refugees in the 1930s. Right up to the outbreak of war (and in fact for a bit after it) the Nazis hoped to obtain their goal of a racially pure Reich by expelling Jews rather than exterminating them – the penultimate solution. The Nazis encouraged Jewish emigration, but in the economic climate of the 1930s there was not a general willingness to accept refugees.
Australia today is by every measure better able to accept refugees than it was in the 1930s. So anyone who wants to deny refugees, who by definition are fleeing to save their lives, asylum, has to admit that they would have sent refugee Jews in 1938 back to Germany.
Thats right LO. There’s no ‘product to sell’ either unless people actually turn up in Indonesia, fleeing persecution in the middle east. So of course there ALWAYS a major push factor component.
I for one am getting mighty sick by the coalition’s slavering impatience to see more boats for political reasons. I see one Wikleak copped them admitting it to the Yanks too.
When is the ALP going to wise up and start taking a large chunk of our offshore quota from the UNHCR non-queue (its currently a heap, with no hope) in Indonesia itself.
There’s a product-killer right there. If you are a genuine refugee, wait in Indonesia, and you will get your turn.
The AB saga is almost enough to spin out on it’s own thread now. John Birmingham has been delivered a smackdown for his twitter comments and AB has also responded to Bob Brown saying he should resign by stating that Bob Brown is also directly complicit in these deaths and he should resign, especially as he is “the Gillard Government’s navigator and the holder of the balance of power.”
So…Abbott government post Christmas?
“So…Abbott government post Christmas?”
Mmm, didn’t realise Abbott was holding the balance of power in the House of Reps.
Well, if it was a shipwreck, Fiona, teh media might have a harder job blaming the Labor Government. Associations of accidental tragedy etc, nobody’s fault except the elements and the captains etc. We can’t have that, can we?
Also, leaving aside my conspiratorial mind for a moment, we now travel everywhere by road or by air. We have car crashes and air crashes. No longer being a maritime nation, we no longer think as if we are surrounded by the sea.
@Fine. When Gillard and Brown resign Abbot will hold the balance.
LOL @ Tssk. Bolta’s unhinged ranting is relevant to the federal balance of power … how?
Actually, I meant to write that I didn’t realise that Bolt held the balance of power in the House of Reps.
Anyhoo, I don’t think we’ll be seeing any resignations. And Brown is in the Senate, so he has nothing to do with holding the BOP.
@152 “demand that the people who cause people to become refugees do a lot more to fix the issue.” – what exactly do you expect the islamist extremist to do about it then? Or aren’t they responsible for anything?
Razor, I thought we were fixing them by bombing them back to the stone age? Or have you forgotten that we’re in Afghanistan to secure human rights and defeat islamic extremism?
Razor, when the Islamist extremists were running Afghanistan and when the brutal dictator was running Iraq, Australia had far fewer asylum seekers from those countries.
There are some Australian folks who thought it was a very good idea to upset those arrangements. And who is to say that their hearts weren’t in the right place despite the fact that their brains had been infested with Bushisms?
But those sincere, though mentally impaired, folks who were in favour of removing the Taliban and eradicating Saddam Hussein, should perceive that there were consequences of these actions — to wit a torrent of refugees.
Given that the Australian government was at the time, and still to an extent, also infested with Bushite lunatic notions, and acted on them by joining both invasions, perhaps it is kharma that the consequences of these decisions are floating toward Australia on the tide.
Actions have consequences, Razor. A grown-up person does not try to evade them.
However, mental impairment can sometimes serve as an exculpation from blame and responsibility.
So what is it to be, accept consequences or plead mental impairment?
sg and Katz
Very good points. It is more than a little sickening to see the very same people that most strongly supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan effectively wash their hands of the consequences.
Fran says:
“I blame anyone who doesn’t unconditionally support the right to asylum or who apologies for the policy of deterrence of asylum applications through mandatory detention.”
I would prefer to get Australia onto an environmentally sustainable footing, which would involve decreasing our population from the current 22 million to about 15 million. That means not accepting asylum seekers any time under any circumstances. We can’t solve the world’s problems but we can solve our own.
That is all Gaia demands of us.
you must be getting your info from a different gaia sheep weather, because she ain’t tellin’ me no such thing. In fact, I can hear her whispering that we can be compassionate and environmentally friendly at the same time. I think your gaia might be primarily worshipped by a small population of stunted and warty concern trolls.
Sheepweather said:
And there we have the parochial xenophobe beggar my neighbour position perfectly exressed without spin in its true form. Points for that.
On the same basis we do nothing at all about climate change either. We can’t solve that on our own either.
Yet why stop there? Why should any city or suburb accept those from outside coming in and loitering? We can’t solve the problems of other suburbs surely?
Why not be completely indifferent to other people who aren’t of obvious use to you right now and are probably in that 7 million you fancy we’d be better off without?
Shouldn’t everyone live as a hermit? Would not Gaia be happier?
I’m wondering why 15 million though. Wouldn’t 1500 be better?
Fran, Got any homeless people living in your garage? If words were food, you could feed the world.
re: Bolt holding the balance of power. It shouldn’t be. But let’s face it. With Rudd the ALP blinked and knifed him in the back.
If you had told me last year that opinion columnists could shape the country last year I would have laughed.
After what’s happened this year…I would not be surprised to see Julia take the fall for this ship wreck.
Colmac said:
Of course not. It would be a breach of council ordinances for a start. It fails the criteria for a dwelling. There’s no running water or toilet facility. Also, subletting is contrary to my lease. Last time I looked Australia was able to provide these things, though for some reason, it throws in malice as an extra for free.
Seriously? This is what you run with?
Pathetic.
I agree Fran, that was a completely pathetic comment.
Here is what these poor Iraqi refugees were running away from.
Warning. This is a grisly read.
A previous WikiLeaks revealed thousands and thousands of these US military reports. US military personnel were either implicated in these atrocities or did nothing when they discovered that the Shiite theocratic government of Iraq were perpetrating these atrocities.
These are war crimes. Australia abetted these war crimes. The Iraqi regime is still perpetrating these war crimes.
Bolt wants to deny these war crimes. Bolt is a disgrace. He deserves to be sacked.
And these documents prove the worth of WikiLeaks. Unless WikiLeaks existed, Bolt could get away with his lies. Now he can’t.
colmac @ 174,
Has nobody ever told you the pen is mightier than the sword. It is sometimes, you know. Sometimes words are all we have and more power to Fran for using them the way she does, even when I don’t agree with her. But I do agree with her this time round.
Terje said @129:
In that case that would be a further example of them using common terms incorrectly. People persistently use terms such as f#scist, soci#list, Green, lefty, liberal etc incorrectly or at least loosely. I doubt that there is unanimity even amongst self-avowing lefties about the term’s parameters.
Some might include you in the RWDB category. I wouldn’t.
But that is just it. The Liberal party version, didn’t substantially stop boats making the crossing or substantially reduce the numbers in detention. This is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Sequence does not entail causation. People willing to part with huge sums of money for them and risk their own death and that of their families getting into a boat not properly equipped for a journey from Indonesia are not going to be deterred by the prospect of a prison camp n Nauru or Manus Island, especially when, as we saw, most of them finished up getting asylum. It is also most unlikely that those involved in making money out of irregular passage would accurately characterise nuances in government policy in this area. It’s really complex and even with goodwill well-informed people would struggle to keep up. When you have a contrary interest, it’s even less likely. Thus, variance in arrivals must have been driven by other factors.
And from a humanitarian point of view, do we really think people locked up in indefinite detention in Indonesia is a policy success relative to them being locked up in indefinite detention in Nauru or Manus or Darwin or Christmas Island? I’d call that a policy failure.
We absolutely need to ensure that people are not put into the position where indefinite life in a concentration camp in Indonesia or a hazardous boat crossing to Australia are the two main options.
I think we need to accept that some countries and cultures are evil, failed and wrong. It is up to their people to do something about it, not us or anyone else. I think we also need to accept that some cultures and countries are superior to aforementioned failed, evil and wrong ones, and are better places to live. The United Nations publishes a Human Developement Index. It does not take a genius to work out the commonalities between the best countries, and the common denominator in the worst countries. High immigration rates just means that once people had to travel on airplanes to witness failed cultures. Now we can see them from our verandah.
Funny how so many of the “failed cultures” were once run by the “better” ones.
Too late, City Slicker.
You should have explained that to Ratty when he decided to help the Imbecile to invade and dismantle Iraq way back in 2003.
@Helen, can you please provide an example of a ‘failed country’ having been run by a ‘successful’ one?
Here, for the record is the UNHDI evidence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
The failed countries, I count at the bottom of the index. The successful ones with a higher UNHDI are at the top.
Please explain?
@Katz – Going to war with a country is usually based on their threat to other countries, not on their UNHDI. I don’t get the connection between the war in Iraq and my comments on failed cultures. I say let them fail – helping them via well-meaning UN will only keep them weak and dependent on their ‘saviours’. Only my view.
You may not see the connection, but Ratty and the Imbecile thought that they did. The Imbecile has spent trillions of dollars failing to achieve an Iraq whose core values are consonant with those proclaimed by the US. As a result of this failure thousands of Iraqis are fetching up on your verandah.
BTW, your very strange reply to Helen implies that you have never heard of imperialism. If not, I have shocking news for you. Most of the world, including virtually all of the places at the bottom end of the HDI, were for more than a century governed by European powers. Indeed, the very boundaries of those countries were drawn by European powers. The history of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth century was a story of tens of millions of Europeans fleeing the states and empires that failed them to start up new lives in the New World.
Before the Imbecile invaded Iraq (with Ratty’s help) very few Iraqis fled their country with the intent of sailing to Australia to seek sanctuary. Now there are thousands of them. Like nineteenth-century Europeans, they want to start up new lives in a new world.
If you don’t like 21st century Iraqis behaving like 19th century Europeans, blame Bush and Howard.
@Katz. Oh. I am a mathematician, not historian, but now I see your point. So you must be referrinng to British colonialism when all those countries on the globe were coloured pink.
To that I say that governing from afar does not and cannot change a failed culture, made up of the people in that country. What I am saying is that some cultures are failed, no matter what the efforts of the UN, Europe or Britain. The people there simply cannot govern themselves, nor can they be properly governed.
@Katz, who are Ratty and Imbecile?
Katz: “your very strange reply to Helen implies that you have never heard of imperialism. If not, I have shocking news for you. Most of the world, including virtually all of the places at the bottom end of the HDI, were for more than a century governed by European powers.”
Katz, stop being a dishonest ninny. You know perfectly well that Iraq was ruled for about four centuries by the Ottoman Turks (Sunni Moslems, for those not keeping score).
With the collapse of the Ottomans after WW1, the Brits ruled Mesopotamia for, what? a few decades. For another few Cold War decades the Iraqis had nominal independence but were used as pawns on the Cold War chessboard. More than one player there, in case you try to evade the obvious. Hmm, what would the balance of political culture look like in such a situation? If only we had a model!
And your account of the Iraq invasion is, as usual, childishly incomplete. Not that I endorse the war at all, but I certainly want to rain on your parade.
City Slicker,
Imperialism/Colonialism was not solely British. The following countries were also imperialist or colonialist: Australia, France, Portugal, Turkey, Germany, Spain, USSR, Belgium, Denmark, United States.
Being a mathematician is no excuse for ignorance. Some of the brightest and most well-read and well informed people about world history and current affairs are mathematicians.
Also, what Katz said.
Japerz, stop being an ignorant dickhead. There was no such political entity as Iraq until it became a British mandate after WWI.
city Slicker,
Ratty is John Winston Howard. Imbecile (actually his full title is The American Imbecile) is G. W. Bush. If you don’t believe me watch Oliver Stone’s ‘W’ which is actually a very sympathetic portrayal of poor George.
PS. I don’t know if I’ve listed all the colonialist/imperialist countries – those were the ones that came to mind. Our own colonial record in Nauru and PNG isn’t that flash, btw. In this regard we should be the last ones calling the kettle black.
And j-p-z has made a useful corrective re the Middle East.
I’m backing out of this one. Its a case of both Katz and j-p-z being right in part, and I really don’t know enough about early 20th century middle east politics to argue. Though I’m pretty good on the Ottomans.
Paul you missed out on the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Manchuria, Persia and Mongolia, to name a few.
“There was no such political entity as Iraq until it became a British mandate after WWI.”
Katz folds, using the cheezy old “Webster’s Dictionary defines…” escape route.
Well, I expected nothing better, since there is nothing better to be used.
btw ole chum, from ninny to dickhead is a bit of an escalation. Mind who you get into an arms-race with. Just sayin’.
Japerz said:
How delicately you choose your phrases when defending the American empire.
From about 1958 onwards it was the US that was driving developments in Iraq. They were the driving force behind the ascent of the Ba’ath Party in Iraq and Saddam’s victory. Post-1978 they were the driving force behind the extended Iran-Iraq War. Their acts authored the invasion of Kuwait. They supplied Iraq with the means to deliver chemical weapons against their enemies.
When the Shia rose post 1991, it was because they believed US assurance of support. And when the Iraqi Shia fled to Iran this too was the consequence of US policy. When the US allowed Turkey to bomb Kurds in Iraq while they were applying a no-fly zone, they were complict in the murder of Kurds.
When they escalated the war in 2003 for what seemed clearly domestic purposes, they added perhaps another surplus million Iraqis to the body count and triggered massive refugee outflows to Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
The Iraqi and Afghan regime changes not only increased misery in both these places, but they strengthened the Iranian regime as well and so to the extent that the US has enabled Iran it bears responsibility for brutality committed there as well.
In short, US Imperialist policy in the region has been a roiling disaster for the entire period I have breathed the air on this planet. I shudder to think how one might fairly account that toll.
Justified escalation, old sport.
As the subject is political culture, the appropriate unit of discussion is a polity.
Of course modern Iraq didn’t suddenly emerge from the sea. Its peoples have a long and troubled history, but never a national history until the British gave them one — three major ethno-religious groups trussed together like animals in a sack.
Fran Barolow @ #196 said:
Of course, the US is to blame for the sorry state of affairs in the Middle East. Absent the US’s post-war intervention the whole place would resemble nothing less than a sunny version of Scandinavia.
Who can forget how the US that gave Saddam all his T-72 tanks and Scud missiles, cunning Yanks trying to frame the Reds! And it was the US that encouraged the growth of Islamic religious fundamentalism. And OPEC.
Really Fran, who are you trying to kid rehashing these stale ideological cliches that were already cringe-worthy when cranked out by the likes of Farrago c 1979.
You are on solid ground castigating Bush/Cheney and the current REP party, who have cut a swathe of destruction through SW Asia. But they are not the sum total of “the US”, you might have noticed how Bush snr scolded his son for invading Iraq. If Palin gets to be President in 2012 and continues in this fashion then I will gladly concede “I was wrong”.
Greg M @ 194,
Silly of me to miss out on the Dutch though.
Well, I didn’t think I had them all.
The chap from Strocchiverse said:
Indeed. It was remiss of me to leave this out.
Credit where it is due and all that.
And OPEC too!
Nixon’s devaluation of the US$ caused oil exporters to recognise that their foreign reserves were being eroded to the extent that they were virtually giving their oil away.
Strocchers is correct TWICE in the same post. Has this ever happened before?
I’ve read all comments on this thread and the most disturbing, most bigoted line I’ve read is this:
Agreed, Craig. Isn’t it astonishing just how “ungovernable” a nation/culture can be when it’s in the financial interests of external players that their society remain unstable and thus easily exploitable?
And of course Katz, not the least benefit of OPEC was the impact of this cartel on the value of assets held by the “Seven Sisters”. Oh happy day!
Fran Barlow @ #200 said:
Its obviously not safe to plant even the most innocuous shaft of irony in the ground with such deadly earnest commenters plodding about for a lead.
FTR the more politicised forms of Islamic fundamentalism (IF) grew throughout the sixties and seventies in the ME after the obvious failure of more secular Arab nationalism, particularly Nasser. Thats why the Muslim Brotherhood was initially its most potent font.
To jog your addled memory IF’s most spectacular political triumph was in Iran, under the auspices Ayatollah Khomeni’s Shiite revolution who supplanted the Shah, a US ally. Now you aren’t going to tell me that the Ayatollah was a CIA plant and the whole hostage thing an elaborate charade? (Although its never safe to assume even the bleeding obvious when in the presence of paranoid ideologues.)
No doubt later on the US assisted IF in Saudi Arabia, to curb the Iranians and in Afghanistan, to curb the Soviets. But by that time the genie was well out of the bottle, for better and for worse. Ends justify the means etc.
You know, simply regurgitating the Leftist tripe that you lapped up as a gullible undergraduate does not make it so. If you can’t even get the basics right then there is not much hope for you.
I’m trying to figure why City Slicker made that comment (both here and elsewhere) on threads about asylum seekers and the tragic shipwreck and drownings on Wednesday.
What could he mean by that comment?
Was it to imply that those lives were of less value than others?
@205,
It’s called White Man’s Burden.
City Slicker has, errr, ishoos (he said politely).
Katz @ #201 said:
Oh God, Fran Barlow and Katz now perform a slapstick duet, a bit like Laurel and Hardy, minus the jokes.
FTR, OPEC was “in the pipeline” irrespective of the value of the USD. It was formed in the sixties prior to Nixon’s abandonment of the gold standard.
There is a relationship between the USD and the price of oil, naturally because oil is denominated in USD. But it is not rock solid. The greenback has plummeted recently but oil prices have been fairly stable. No doubt the Arabs were grateful to capitalise on the improved terms of trade, but this was a consequence, not cause, of OPEC’s strategic disposition.
If any non-Arab organization is to blame for OPEC militancy it is the IDF. The Arab members of OPEC ramped up their economic militancy after their successive defeats by Israel in the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War.
The crucial role of politics in conditioning OPEC policy was proved during OPEC 2, when the Iranians curbed oil supply in the aftermath of the Shiite revolution. Nothing to do with the value of USD. Or was this again part of some cunning US plot?
Of course oil prices can still spike based on fundamentals but, in the absence of militant Arab nationalism, its unlikely that OPEC will be placing any effective oil embargoes anytime soon.
My general point in lampooning Fran was that, in typical paranoid ideologue fashion, she attributes the major regional turn of events to the most powerful global player, which in this case is the US. Of course Katz follows suit like a dutiful dolt.
This is wrong on two counts, first because being the most powerful does not mean being all-powerful. And second, more importantly, it denies agency to the regional players, Arab nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists.
Now please, try not to put your foot in it before opening your mouth. Seriously, if you were a stopped clock I don’t think you’d get the daily time right even once.
Ah, yes. Must be ishoos of the “they’ll become dole bludgers” rather than the “they’ll steal our jobs” strain.
Fran: From about 1958 onwards it was the US that was driving developments in Iraq. They were the driving force behind the ascent of the Ba’ath Party in Iraq and Saddam’s victory. Post-1978 they were the driving force behind the extended Iran-Iraq War.
You forgot to mention that the US severed ties with Iraq in 1967, and only re-established relations around the time of (after?) the Iranaian attack on the US embassy. Under Jimmy Carter I believe.
It was during the intervening period that the Soviets seem to have filled the vacuum, the the Ba’aths gained power, and only in 1979 that Saddam gained power. The US subsequently gave Saddam some support to stick it to the Iranians, incidentally echoing the really major support that they gave to the Soviets in WWII to help defeat Hitler.
This is why, when Iran and Iraq fought, the latter did so largely with Russian weapons – because they couldn’t buy them from the US. Iran fought mainly with American weapons from the days of the Shah.
To blame US foreign policy over that of the Soviets seems a bit unfair. There was a cold war on, doncha know?
No. 205 Craig Rowley: How is an observation that some countries cannot be governed, nor can they govern themselves “bigoted”?
I will provide an example. Papua New Guinea is a tribal nation. Some 800 languages are spoken there. Their HDI Index is very low: 137 of 169 countries ranked by the UN.
Why wasn’t Australia able to properly govern PNG?
Why do they appear to have difficulty governing themselves?
Why is their HDI so low?
Thanks.
Of far more concern re this debate about boat people, rather than the rehash of the old fashioned concept that humanity’s rise to civilisation can be traced by the trajectory of hunter-gather society/agricultural society/city-dwelling society, (a somewhat uncritical view of the notion of progress, I might say – is the horrendous fact that:
1. Abbott is spruiking his inhumane refugee policy of stop the boats again,with which Wikileaks has revealed, the Libs think they’re on a winner;and
2. Wilkie has revealed Abbott as an obnoxious hypocrite on refugee policy. (Which should come as no surprise, considering Abbott’s hypocrisy in every other area of his life.)
On 2. It’s worth this link, Paul.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/20/3097262.htm?section=justin
And on 1. the pressure should be on Fairfax to reveal who the Liberal strategist was that was mentioned in Wikileaks. They seem to be protecting someone.
joe2 @ 211,
I suppose the only consolation in this affair is that Abbott has been exposed as being just as big a liar as John Howard. Not that I suppose the majority of the electorate will take any notice. Not for a long while yet.
City Slicker,
Do you understand the difference between a culture and a polity?
If so, briefly explain your understanding of the difference.
@Katz: Culture is the people. Polity is the government, or the ruling class.
@Paul Burns. I agree. The questions of the UNHDI and the ability of some countries/cultures to self govern could easily take up another thread.
PeterTB Said:
That’s the official position but the position is more complex than that. 1967 has a special significance, as you would know, and the fact that Iraq, predictably, lined up with its fellow Arabs against Israel gave the US a new reason for wanting to overthrow the regime. So when a new coup finally did for the Nasserite Qasem, and put in place what Archibald Roosevelt’s fully paid up employees (amongst them Saddam Hussein) in power the US was pleased. By 1974 it was clear that in the behind the scenes manoeuvering, that Hussein was in effective charge of affairs and was the driving force in a treaty with Iran, that allowed the Kurds to be smashed.
By the time Saddam seized power in 1979 and brutally suppressed his actual and potential rivals, the Shah of Iran, (the US’s other local asset) was done for and Saddam was all they had left aside from Israel.
It was clear though that at least from 1958, both the Ba’ath Party and Saddam in particular, were the beneficiaries of US support against Nasserites and Stalinists. In 1958, the year of my birth, they attempted to liquidate Qasem, but failed and their boy Saddam was forced to flee the country with US help. In 1963, the US facilitated Ba’athist liquidations of members of these milieux.
And by 1968 of course, Qasem was not only an enemy of Israel, but a supporter of Chavez-style encroachment on the profits of oil companies. That was enough to get him killed all on its own.
The post-1979 support of Saddam by the US requires no significant recapitulation by me here. In broad terms, US support was designed to produce a costly stalemate in which two regimes the US didn’t like (but one of which was the lesser evil) would be weakened. Accordingly, US policy tilted towards Iraq with Saddam being described as an honest local broker. The initial phases of the war went to Iran, which, while it bothered the US, nevertheless inclined the bulk of the Arab regimes in the direction of the US as protector against Iranian islamism.
This is misleading. In 1980, when the Iran-Iraq war broke out the Soviets had friendly relations with both parties and sought to restrain a conflict. Up until 1982, the Soviets took a backseat in the matter and actually offered to sell the Iranians arms. Interestingly, Soviet allies, Libya and Syria did supply arms to Iran while some Warsaw pact countries sold to the Iraqis. What the Soviets feared most of all was growing US regional influence, following Camp David.
In the period 1982-86, the rebuff of Soviet entreaties by the Iranians and the deteriorating military position of Iraq, with its implication for more US engagement in the region (the US resumed relations with Iraq in 1984), the desire not to see an ally toppled (since this became Iran’s policy) pushed the Soviets more towards supporting Iraq. This improved the standing of the USSR with the local Arab regimes.
Post-1986 the Soviets greatly increased military support of Iraq to prevent an Iranian takeover. The USSR though a significant supporter was shoulder to shoulder with the west and the conservative Arab regimes who largely bankrolled this arms transfer. Even so, the USSR continued to press for a ceasefire. The US was happy enough for the war to continue since it was the principal diplomatic beneficiary of the conflict. Doors to the US in the region were open everywhere. It supplied AWAC support to the Iraqis, instructed them in the use of chemical weapons and supplied them with helicopters. This US support was critical when Saddam, prompted by April Glaspie’s remarks, invaded Kuwait.
The fact is that US support of Saddam lasted for at least the period between 1958 & 1991 and in a more tepid sense, until 2003.
No, I don’t accept that. The Cold War was a contrivance designed within the US for domestic political purposes. The USSR was never a serious threat to imperialist interests, though it was fabulously useful to US reactionaries as a weapon for corralling the US electorate. Post-Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, even the wet behind the ears ought to have seen that. By the early-1980s it was clear that the USSR/Comecon/Warsaw Pact would not see the new millennium.
City Slicker, remember that @137 you wrote:
What should we call stereotyping of a people as “ungovernable” purely on the basis of the ethnic culture of those people?
I call it bigotry. I reckon most others would as well.
Perhaps, City Slicker, you could now explain why it is that you brought into a debate on the politicisation of the shipwreck and drowning of asylum seekers your bigoted notion that people from some cultures and countries are “ungovernable”?
Cityslicker:
Do your own homework.
Don’t derail threads.
Thanks
PS — If you can’t comply with this request, your behaviour invites the inference that you are a person who “cannot be governed, nor can they govern themselves”.
No, I don’t accept that. The Cold War was a contrivance designed within the US for domestic political purposes. The USSR was never a serious threat to imperialist interests, though it was fabulously useful to US reactionaries as a weapon for corralling the US electorate.
Good post Fran – but you lost me at the end. We have seen discussion here about US Imperialism in the past – and I’m certainly of the view that the US doesn’t in reality have an empire beyond maybe Panama and a couple of other minor players. The USSR, on the other hand, had a real empire made up of subjugated “iron curtain” countries over which it had effective control – think Hungary and Czechoslovakia, for instance. I think your “contrivance” and “never a serious threat” comments can’t therefore be sustained.
Also, while I appreciate your well argued contribution, can I suggest that you go to SIPRI, and set parameters to pull up all arms deals to Iraq between 1958 and 2009. Interesting.
Post-script to Jack Strocchi @ #205 and #208, it just occurred to me that Islamic fundamentalism and OPEC were, respectively, Middle Eastern people’s bottom-up and top-down methods of dealing with their various nation state inadequacies. Both movements emerged to prominence at roughly the same time, the late-sixties, after the spectacular collapse of pan-Arabist Baathism in the aftermath of Six Day War and Yom Kippur War.
Its little wonder that the Arab states are called a collection of “tribes with flags”. They have not mastered the art of nation state formation. So their peoples must resort to politics by other means to fulfill their frustrated national aspirations. This makes their resort to terrorism a little easier to understand, if not excuse.
@Craig Rowley. I mentioned the UNHDI as only a factor in the asylum traffic. My opinion, based on the low UNHDI, which would take into account measurable factors such as life span, education index, income index, etc. My opinion is not based on race, but on the United Nations own homework. I don’t think I am a bigot. Moderators may wish to take this to another thread. Here is how the index is calculated. Cheers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index#New_methodology
Strocchi gets two things right. Then he goes and spoils it all:
It is clear that Strocchi has no idea what Islamic Fundamentalism is. There is no doubt that the Iranian Revolution was Islamist. But by no stretch of the imagination can it be called fundamentalist. To put it in terms that even Strocchi may understand, there is no doubt that the Vatican City is run by a theocracy. But that Catholic theocracy is by no means fundamentalist.
Until Strocchi takes steps to prevent failing at the basic level of language, then his contributions will continue to be risible.
FTR, Strocchi has demonstrated his ignorance about the historical origins of modern Islamism. The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt long pre-dated Egypt’s military disasters in the 1967 and 1973. These ideas rose in reaction to modernism for which the US can hardly be held solely responsible.
However, as a mass political movement, using terrorism and violence as its methodology, Islamism was turbo-charged during the resistance to Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The Muhajideen were encouraged and bankrolled by the US.
And to this day, as revealed by WikiLeaks, Saudi Arabia, the most important ally of the US in the Middle East, continues to fund al Qaeda. When confronted with this latter unpleasant fact by their own assiduous State Department employees, the Obama administration decided that it was preferable for US citizens to have the oil than to have the truth.
Next, yes OPEC had been around a long time before the oil shocks of the 1970s. As an organization, OPEC had remained inert until stirred into life by US financial profligacy.
Finally:
Please Strocchers, enough of this reductionism. Pay attention.
1. FB’s argument does not rely on representing the US as “all powerful”. All that is required is that the US swings enough influence to cause others to change their behaviour.
2. Of course, regional players have agency. Having been stirred into action by US stimulation and provocation, their activities took on a life of their own inimical to the desires of the US.
3. The US played no role at all in the foundation of modern Islamism or in the foundation of OPEC. The mistake of the US was to fail to recognise the potential of these movements to become threats to US interests. This argument isn’t about the power of the US. On the contrary, it is about the foolishness of successive US administrations.
City Slicker,I wonder what you mean when you say that people from certain cultures are ungovernable or can’t be governed? By whom, I’d like to know.
You have conveniently overlooked the fact that these ungovernable wretches had been living and being governed in their societies for millenia until Europeans invaded their countries and tried to forcibly impose a foreign culture on them.
Perhaps they just don’t want the foreign invaders and their equally foreign culture in their society?
City Slicker @224, you may not want to be a bigot (that’s good), but you did make this statement (and it’s not good):
Why would you write off a whole people as “ungovernable”?
More importantly, why would you (City Slicker) write off those people as “ungovernable” in a debate about the death of asylum seekers on “Australian” shores?
@ Craig Rowley – Stating an opinion that you don’t agree with does not endow anyone with a character defect. It simply means that they have a different opinion. The UNHDI [in my view] relates to the push factors of asylum seekers. Countries with low UNHDI are ‘in my opinion’ ungovernable. If you want to go and do your own research and come up with the ‘whys’ of the state of these people and these nations, you are welcome to do so, rather than think up new adjectives to describe what you think of me. Pick one country from which these people died: Iran, Iraq or Kurdish people. Why did they bypass countries with a higher UNHDI on the way here?
Seeing as these asylum seekers who died [RIP] were from Iran and Iraq:
Q: Asylum seekers from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan – how do they get here?
A: Normally, they go over to Pakistan, then fly to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia from where large networks for smuggling operate.
Indonesia has thousands of islands, and is virtually impossible to patrol, so boats can sail off the southern coast of Java, and take 2 -3 days to get to Christmas Island.
Right. What is wrong with this picture?
Pakistan: UNHDI is 125/169 = not bad
Malaysia: UNHDI is 57/169 = pretty good
Indonesia: UNHDI is 108/169 = better than Pakistan
In all cases, Malaysia is a better choice than Iran (70/169) or Iraq (126/169).
Why don’t these asylum seekers stay in Pakistan, Malaysia or Indonesia?
If they are Muslims, these countries can be better places to live than Australia which is predominately Christian.
The simple facts are available online. Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan are all successful and predominately Muslim countries, who should welcome those Muslims fleeing Iran and Iraq, and would be a more comfortable ‘fit’ for Muslims.
@230. Apart from your
anti-Muslim bigotrypersonal preferencetouching and heartfelt concern for the ability of Muslims to ‘fit in’ somewhere else, (for their own good of course, it’s their welfare you have closest at heart, I understand, I geddit) –– what is your problem with their coming here?
And it is, your, problem, BTW.
@231 Ha ha. Here is some more
bigotryfearIslamophobiaresearch for you.http://europenews.dk/en/node/21789
The fact is, many Muslims don’t integrate. They don’t wish to. And they are doing exactly as their Quran says, so at least they are honest.
Is there such a thing as
willfull blindnesspolitical correctnessIslamophilia?Why, here is some more enlightenment from that very same source, City Slicker:
What a charming fellow this Nicolai Sennels must be.
City Slicker, you
a) Treat ‘Muslims’ as a monolithic culture, denying the diversity that exists. That’s bigoted.
b) Make claims from the particular to the general about an entire series of cultures and civilisations. That’s bigoted.
c) Think that ‘Muslims’ will ‘fit in’ anywhere there are other ‘Muslims’. It’s the equivalent of claiming that The Right Reverand Gene Robinson would be a good ‘fit’ for the Westboro Baptist Church. If Muslims are all gonna get along so swell, how do you account for the fact that the greatest bloodshed in the countries that people are fleeing is between Muslims? That’s ignorant and bigoted.
d) Espouse that Australia is a ‘predominantly Christian’ nation and yet you don’t apply the teachings of Jesus to the act of welcoming the stranger. That’s hypocritical and bigoted.
e) Universalise the experience of your world-view of what constitutes civilisation to be the ideal standard against which others should be judged. That’s imperialist and bigoted.
f) Expect that ‘integration’ is a one-way street, with the onus being on the Other to conform to your standards and beliefs. That’s supremacist and bigoted.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
Clearly you don’t expect Australia to actually carry out the obligations of the international treaty to which we are a signatory. Are you aware that actions like that are the reason for the saying ‘white man speaks with forked tongue’? Because, so often, bigoted, ignorant, hypocritical, imperialist, supremacists say they will do one thing and then do the opposite? Why are ‘our people’ so ‘ungovernable and unable to govern ourselves’, that we don’t care to fulfill the obligations to which our nation has committed itself?
@ Mercurius
A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own or intolerant of people of politial views, different ethnicity, race, class, religion, sexual orientation or gender.
You seem bigoted by what seems to be extreme intolerance of my opinion.
I have clearly stated my claims are based on the United Nations own Human Development Index. If you want to critique the index, be my guest.
Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan have few problems of the sort you describe between Muslims. I particularly chose safe and moderate Muslim countries as a ‘good fit’ for Muslims.
I am not a Christian, so therefore am no hypocrite. And as for welcoming strangers, the Bible also says not to cast one’s pearls before swine.
You obviously don’t agree with using the UN HDI to assess countries. Perhaps you can critique the index, rather than attacking me [or what you mistakenly think of me].
Integration is different than assimilation. Integration and tolerance are a two way street. I think you are assuming I mean others should integrate.
If you think that other countries are just as good as our country, perhaps you should go and live amongst them for awhile.
I have no problem claiming that some countries are better places to live than others.
And stop the ad hom.
Moderator!!!!
Jesus, the devil’s quoting scripture ‘ere!
Sorry, meant “I think you are assuming others should assimilate” my bad.
@ jikajika – yikes – I never considered that consanguinity could have anything to do with ME culture, but maybe it does.
The link you posted cites research.
Are you an expert in this field? I am not, but will have a look at what he has written.
I don’t make any judgements about Sennels charm when reading the material. I simply check references and the research presented and judge as best I can.
It IS food for thought.
@Paul Burns Ha Ha. My family would have a good laugh if they could see this thread. When called upon to cite the 10 commandments, I could only think of 6, and that took me awhile….
Did you see the smiley?
Don’t be coy, City Slicker. You have an answer to your own question.
Why don’t you tell the folks what your answer is?
Having revealed his hand as one who’d attempt to re-cast asylum seeking as something else (i.e. “queue jumping” migration for economic advancement), @230 City Slicker asks:
A. Those countries are not signatories to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
You have clearly stated that, but in fact your claims are based on bigoted, ignorant, hypocritical, imperialist, supremacist beliefs, and you are just using the UNHDI as a convenient stalking-horse for your views.
I have no issue with the UNHDI, but I do take issue with your abuse of it to fit your own bigoted, ignorant, hypocritical, imperialist, supremacist agenda.
You have stated upthread that as a ‘predominantly Christian’ nation (itself a highly contestable claim) we should encourage Muslims to go elsewhere, which is absolutely the antithesis of what a ‘predominantly Christian’ nation ought to do. You seem want to have your predominantlyChristian cake, but not to eat it — and that is what makes your argument hypocritical.
You don’t know what ‘Ad Hom’ is. I am not making Ad Hominen claims. Ad Hominem would be suggesting there is something wrong with your argument because of some personally deficient qualities you possess. What I am saying is that there is something wrong with your arguments because your arguments are bigoted, ignorant, hypocritical, imperialist and supremacist.
Been there, done that. All were better, in some ways. All were worse, in some ways. On the whole, I didn’t feel it necessary to make comparisons, just made a go of it wherever I found myself. So what?
Stop weaseling around. You are making truth-claims, not stating opinions. You are making truth-claims about Muslim cultures and civilisations that are both untrue and offensive. Truth-claims can be wrong, and deserve to be called out when they are wrong. You don’t get to play the “it’s just my opinion” card when you purport to make truth-claims by pointing to external sources and saying “see…my opinion is true!”
This is the typical tactic of the postmodern troll — go to every length to substantiate ridiculous and disgusting claims, and then retreat, all hurty, with the “it’s just my opinion” card. Ain’t gonna wash around here, matey.
By the way, you are aware, I take it, that your position is based on religious discrimination. You are stating we should discriminate on who we let into the country based on their religion, despite all the treaties and Australian and international statutes which specifically outlaw religious discrimination. Your “opinion” is that we should deliberately ignore our own laws, and international laws, and engage in religious discrimination. How do you plead?
Of course, I doubt that would have been the answer City Slicker had in mind.
Mmmm … reviewing City Slickers’ comments on this thread, I now see two lines of argument he’s putting:
1. Asylum seekers aren’t really seeking asylum.
2. Muslims would be better to migrate elsewhere as they don’t integrate.
The first is rooted in a prejudiced view of people seeking asylum; the second rooted in a prejudiced view of Muslims.
BTW, City Slicker? your call upthread for a moderator to pay attention to how mean people are allegedly being to you?
Note how Mercurius has a different colour background to his comments, and a thick purple border around his avatar? Mercurius is a moderator here, you unobservant person. As you might have just noticed, although past evidence makes me wonder at your capability in observations, my own posts have the same background and avatar border, because gee whiz, I’m a moderator here too.
Every single criticism he makes of your post-modern weaselling of terms such as ‘bigot’ and ‘ad hom’ is spot on. You are the one skating on very thin ice with regards to the comments policy here.
This claim that you should go and live there if you don’t like it here is an age old rightwing canard in this country. You have totally given yourself away, City Slicker. Its what RWDBS (before they were called RWDBs) used to say to lefties, especially socialists and communists in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. While its not quite as disgusting as “I grew here, you flew here”, you’re getting there, mate. No Smileys on this one, city slicker; you have lost the benefit of the doubt. My fault for assuming you were just normally pig-ignorant and didn’t really understand the argument you were putting.
I donty blame Australians for the sorry state of this debate. I blame our leaders. Pure and Simple.
Fraser and Hawke showed how its done. It requires leadership, and a narrative.
So, the Cold War moved on to the Clash of Civilsations: what clearer sign could ther be that the latter is fundamentally racist in orientation than the fact that we now stigmatise those fleeing our enemies in war, rather than protect them.
Also completely self-defeating. I mean, if City Slicker doesn’t like the fact that we’re signed up to a range of international treaties and have our own national laws that forbid religious discrimination maybe s/he should go live somewhere else where religious discrimination is actively supported by the powers that be — I can think of a few countries where City Slicker would be a good ‘fit’ on that basis?!
Well said Lefty E.