refuges and people smuggling

They are not looking for a safe outcome, they are pushing to cheat the system for the BEST outcome. At our and others expense, its not that hard to understand.

Yea, desperation because they've spent so much money getting that far and put their families under so much risk and harsh conditions hiding from authorities in various countries and working with criminals, how stupid they must feel and desperate to pull it off because they have created their circumstances. Why should Australia be held as responsible for people who manipulate the systems, support criminals and risk their lives purely to get the best outcome.

How much smarter they would have been if they'd claimed asylum in the first place they reached, or if they had so much money to pay for all this criminal smuggling half way around the world why not settle and start their new life at their first place of safety!? The answer I've already provided.

The desperation line is BS, unless they arrive at Australia directly from the place of oppression. That should be added to the refugee test.... where you claim to be from and how did you get here, if unable to answer then send them on an airplane to the closest UN refugee camp to where they claim to come from for assessment... they'll have better resources there anyway.

 

Your post is nonsense and is no way a reply to my question.

 

This post like so many similar ones shows a total lack of knowledge about the situation save that learnt from talk back or other such scare mongering sources.

 

Sadly this forum appears to consist of a lot of political do-gooders that can not see the wood for the trees. Can’t acknowledge the many truths that have been presented in these threads. Sadly our politicians are very similar they are too concerned about saving face with the rest of the world and the UN and playing politics instead of making a stand and doing the right thing for Australia. and if our politicians continue in this manner similar to the nit picking, indecisive subjective, irrational and emotive opinions of the political do-gooders of this site, the country is going to end up in an absolute mess, we may well become the Islamic home land in the pacific is that what all you people want to see?

 

^so your argument is to stop the boats because most of the asylum seekers are Muslims?

 

1. That's very unlikely considering the small number of Muslims coming to Australia (we're not being "swamped").

2. What do you have against Muslims?

 

Anyone who can afford to first of all get on a plane to Indonesia, and then $5-10k for the boat trip to Australia is in the privileged minority of these countries.

Whether most of them are fleeing persecution and war is seriously debatable. Of course there are people in special circumstances, political activists and such. But seriously, in all honesty, most of these comparatively wealthy people are taking an opportunistic journey to improve their standard of living and not because they are being persecuted or are embroiled in war.

When I hear refugees on boats that have sunk saying "it's just not worth it to come to Australia", because someone died, that rings very true in my ears. Most likely if they had stayed in their own country, none of them would have died through war or persecution. Going to Australia is more of an insurance policy against possible future instability, or just because Australia is run about 1 million times better and the standards of living here, the infrastructure, etc, are infinitely better than in their own countries. But cities like Tehran are not as backwards or dangerous as most people seem to think they are.

That show, "Go back to where you came from" annoyed me quite a lot because it completely misrepresented where most refugees actually come from. I could take you to Aboriginal townships in outback Australia and say "GET ME THE F$#% OUT OF AUSTRALIA!", but that's not exactly true or honest is it?

It might suck to live in these places, but it sucks a lot more to be dead. And -seriously- most of these guys who skip the UNHCR process are not as "desperate" as you would think. This is something that they save up for and plan for many years in advance. For many people it's a life long ambition. To me that is a complete perversion of the concept of refugee.

I have seen people living in utterly appalling conditions who know full well that they will never be able to afford to come to Australia or any Western country and so get on with trying to make their homes a better place for their children.

And then I've seen other people whose ambition in life is simply to leave their home. The best and the brightest kids all just want to leave and as soon as they're of working age many of them attempt it. These are people going to Europe from Africa mind you, making a much more perilous but much cheaper journey. Many of them die, and the ones that make it tend to live on welfare or get menial jobs because they cannot afford an education. But of course they live better than they would have in their homes.

I think this is a really big problem for Africa in particular. It seems like the ones who aren't relying on western aid are just waiting around to leave their country for "greener pastures" elsewhere. Then it's just a small minority who are actually getting on with trying to improve their countries. Then there are the rest who are just living, who know they will never have enough money to leave their countries and who have no hope of things ever improving.

And yes I have spent significant amounts of time in both rural Africa and the ME. I have little faith in western intervention or charity. I have little faith in the UN's effectiveness and if you had met many of the guys who work on the ground you probably would have to. There are some people doing amazing work but they are in the minority and imo do not even balance out the damage that others are doing, let alone achieve a net positive. This doesn't include peacekeeping and emergency responses though which I think is generally amazing work. What I'm talking about here is UN programs and charities that are ongoing.

I think any significant improvement for any country must come from within and not through charity or government aid. All that does imo is fuel corruption either and or dependency. And of course we give with one hand and take away with the other which creates the delusion that we are helping them when in reality we are exploiting them.

Now I don't think people should be punished for getting on a boat, but I don't think that this practice is desirable and I think it makes a mockery of the UNHCR.

Losing their passports is part of a tactic to gain refugee status. You qualify for refugee status if you are "country-less". And without a passport or any other form of identification it is next to impossible to prove that they do in fact belong to a country.

What we have now is a refugee system effectively run by organized criminal gangs and corrupt Indonesians soldiers and officials.

Why anyone would think that this is desirable is utterly beyond me.

The main problem with the whole thing really is the fact that they destroy their passports. That this is an effective way of ensuring that you will get refugee status. It seriously screws up the processing and it's a plain abuse of the system. I don't exactly know how you deal with this problem though. Because they know that although the processing will take much longer, they are far more likely to get refugee status if they've destroyed all of their ID. Once people are in Aussie waters you can't just deport them if you can't prove they are citizens of another country, that is unethical.

So yeah... not sure how you "fix" it. It would be nice if Indonesia could fix things at their end. Perhaps we can simply bribe them to stop the corruption in their government and actually crack down on these criminals with "education aid" or something.

Anyway something needs to be done but I don't think that any of our political parties are heading even vaguely in the right direction policy wise.

That's enough of a rant for now.

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

it all starts at some point, look at the problems they have in other countries, uk , usa, france, we should learn from the mistakes other countries have made we dont need to make the same mistakes. i dont have particular problems with muslims but its important to have a balance and not a one sided situation we have at present.

 

Seems like it is the bigots that are the problem. Not the Muslims.

 

The only "problem" is abuse of the system.

The individuals on these boats are doing what most people would do in their situation. But the refugee system is not for people to have a "better life", it is for people who are genuinely fleeing persecution from their governments or are in other dire circumstances. It's not a life long goal for people to save for and work towards. It's not for criminals and corrupt officials to plan and organise, exploiting the hopes and dreams of people from third world countries.

I have been to Damascus, Tehran, Cairo, Aleppo, Pretoria, Joburg, Nairobi, Dubai, etc, and there is no doubt that western countries offer a far superior way of life for most people. Although I have also seen the quite ridiculous mansions and wealth of whites in African countries. Complete with their own security employees and enormous properties.

The world is a screwed up place and I can't blame people who would want to live in our western countries far more than they want to live in third world middle east and Africa, even through risking their lives. But to be honest most of them do not think they are risking their lives because the criminals do not market it that way.

Most of these people make fantastic citizens and are completely deserving of Australian citizenship but not because they are persecuted against, not because they are in fear of their lives. But because they are hard working, intelligent and opportunistic. If they were born Australian no doubt they would be very successful and wealthy individuals.

At the same time, I don't think this is what the UNHRC is aimed at. To me it's not good enough that refugees are looking for "a better life" in Austraila, or America or Europe. They must have done something extraordinary, be in real immeadiate danger of persecution from their government or some similar circumanstance to warrant refugee status. And I'm sorry but that just isn't the case with most asylum seekers who have spent in the range of $10k+ US to get to Australia.

I am left wing myself. I have been to the depths of the third world and seen the disgusting poverty and experienced the corruption of governments, charities and other international agencies. I had first hand experience with the corruption of the Turkish police force and judicial system (got mugged in Istanbul -.-). And Turkey is one of the most progressive countries in the region.

It's not a popular view, but the best of intentions of the west are warped and perverted to the point where they are damaging to the most impoverished and most in need in the third world. It is awful to see genuine people trying to do good, and their work being undone and indeed doing harm in the "bigger picture".

A simple example is people giving money to disabled beggars. This then creates an industry around begging and healthy children are deliberately disabled so as to make more money begging. Or when I was in Ethiopia, my friend cracked his sunglasses so he gave them to this kid who was hanging around us. And then a minute later all the children were fighting over them and becoming quite violent towards each other, over broken sunglasses worth no more than a couple of dollars brand new.

Quite honestly, the more I have traveled the more I have realised that the world is a completely screwed up place. One of the most amazing countries I have ever been to was Uganda. So recently that country went through the most brutal and murderous events, and yet has come out of it renewed and prosperous.

There's no easy answers, but I feel as though the abuse of the refugee system is seriously underestimated in the real damage it does. Not to our country, because frankly the people who are coming here are quite amazing and courageous in their own way. But to the countries they are leaving.

I am firmly against most charity to the third world, particularly "government aid" and I am equally against abuses of the UNHCR system. I think that the intentions of people in favour of these things are good, and in general the people who are against them are against them for the wrong reasons. But the reality is that when you look at the bigger picture, and you must, it is having a serious detrimental affect on the prosperity of the third world.

I will never give money to any charity that I have not had FIRST HAND experience with and I suggest everyone takes the same attitude. Unless you have seen what they do on the ground, unless you know the person who runs the charity personally and trust them to make the right decisions, just do not give your money away willy nilly.

Do not assume that you are doing good by giving money to a charity. KNOW that you are doing good by witnessing the charities operation first hand. Charity is a very difficult thing to get right. It's a fine balance between doing genuine good, and encouraging dependency and taking responsibility away from governments (which is an extremely dangerous thing to do). Just because someone thinks they are doing good does not mean that they are actually doing good.

I have the greatest respect for people who stay in their countries and work to make them better. Those who fight in the revolutions, those who protest inspite of persecution or fear of death. I would like to think that in similar circumstances that I would do the same for Australia. That I would fight against the oppressors to my last breath. That I would not leave my country to ruin, that I would fight until the end in the hope that my country would be the better for it.

Those are the people that are amazing. The Libyans, the Syrians and the Egyptians who have protested and fought against their tyrants. None more so than those who have died in the struggle.

I do not think the UNHCR was supposed to function in this way. I do not think that it ought to allow criminals and corrupt officials become rich from exploiting people who are seeking a better life for themselves and their families. I think that the "boat people" trade makes a mockery of the UNHCR program and what it was originally set out to accomplish.

I think that Chris Bowen is an idiot and the post of Immigration Minister deserves better. I think that the policy should concentrate on breaking the criminal gangs and corruption instead of punishing people who are trying to make a better life for their families.

I don't think that immigration should be a humanitarian policy. There are too many people in the world living in appalling circumstances for immigration to have any meaning for the impoverished other than as a lottery draw.

I think it's disgusting the amount of wealth that is transferred from the third world to the west and to criminal organisations in immigration programs.

I could probably write a frickin book on this subject and how screwed up this all is, but that would be far too depressing.

I feel as though I have seen both the best and worst (other than in war) of human nature in the third world. And I can tell you right now, there are plenty of people from the third world who deserve nothing more than life imprisonment. I think that anyone who suggests that anyone who gets on a boat to come to Australia is "deserving" of refugee status is extremely naive. I don't think that is a good attitude to have, I think it is frankly quite stupid.

I agree with John Howard when he said "We will decide who comes to our country and the circumstances in which they come". But probably not for the same reasons.

That is all.

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

Here here! Absolutely agree!

 

The so-called 'bigots' are not the problem.
Howard govt stopped the people-smuggling trade and the associated boats.

It was the Rudd/Gillard Labor govts that cried 'racist and too harsh' and changed the system...cancelled The Pacific Solution of the Howard govt, which included Temporary Protection Visas only.

The boats stopped arriving, 'funny' about that.

Now Gillard-Labor govt is running around like a headless chook trying to stop the boats and the people-smugglers.
No idea, not the first clue.


Another people-smuggling boat sank the other day, more dead asylum-seekers.
On whose hands is their blood?