Jumping the queue
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| Which illegal immigrant policy is the least worst? |
| Abbott's |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Howard's |
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16% |
[ 3 ] |
| Gillard's |
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38% |
[ 7 ] |
| Rudd's |
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11% |
[ 2 ] |
| Brown's |
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33% |
[ 6 ] |
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| Total Votes : 18 |
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Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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| Post subject: Jumping the queue |  |
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| In another thread, Pied Piper wrote: | The Labor party just sold itself out, again, with its decision to use East Timor as a dumping ground to process refugees. Sorry, but that's the Pacific Solution relocated.
I was prepared to give Julia a chance, but it's back to the Greens for me. They were voted into office at least in part to undo Howard's humanitarian evils, not perpetuate them.
I want a political party that will argue the case for its beliefs to the community, not retreat from them in the face of race-baiting from the opposition. |
Me, I'm a card-carrying greenie/pinkie/hippy/lefty who always votes in favour of individual freedom and human rights for all.
That's why I fundamentally and irrevocably disagree with the Greens' immigration control policy (as also articulated by the left of the Labor party and the wet side of the Liberals - if there is such a thing anymore, which seems doubtful). I simply fail to understand what it is that these bleeding heart pro-illegal-immigrant people want.
Do they want us to take more immigrants? Certainly not! At least not if we pay atention to their published statements.
So they must just want us to take more boat people. Fair enough. Given that we have a set immigration quota (as we are entitled to have, and indeed as we absolutely positively must have if we are to continue to exist at all), the bleeding-heart crowd must therefore believe that the right thing for us to do in order for us to have more room in our immigration quota for boat people is refuse to take some of the people that followed the normal rules to get here - i.e., people who did the right thing and waited their turn in an orderly way. It is quite beyond my ability to explain this extraordinary inability of otherwise well-intentioned and intelligent people. Why would we reward the criminals, the queue-jumpers, the ones wealthy enough to pay the people smugglers, and this punish those who apply in the normal way? Why are we punishing the poor ones and the honest ones? It just beggars belief.
Howard's rhetoric was appalling. His narrow-minded appeal to the xenophobic voter and the racist voter was a disgrace - his babies overboard scandal was simply the cherry on top of a rancid, steaming, xenophobia pie. His practical policy, however, was at least reaonably effective. Not well thought-out, not well-run, not by any stretch of the imagination a good policy, but at least it worked. More or less.
Rudd's policy ..... was there a policy? Rudd, apparently, just thought that if he dismantled the worst bits of the Liberals' policy and threw them away, and then forgot about the problem it would go away as long as he didn't talk about it. Wrong. Really wrong. As we have seen for ourselves these last few months.
Abbott's policy is exactly what you would expect from Abbott: take all the worst features of the Howard years, and then double them. The man is a disaster waiting to happen; he is a much bigger and louder Mark Latham experiment with an even more spectacular finish on the cards.
The Greens policy is to take all the worst features of the Rudd years, and then triple them. Where is the sense in that?
Gillard is the only one out of the whole damn lot of them who is making any sense. And she has had the grace to speak about the issue with patience and respect and humanity - which three things, I must admit, no longer figure highly in my own mutterings on the subject after all these years of bad policy and frustration.
I'm not going to change my vote over this issue. It is, in the scheme of things, a relatively small issue in any case - though one which strikes powerful blows at our nation from several angles. But if I [i]was[i] going to change my vote, unlike the Piper, I'd be swapping away from the Greens and across to Labor. Gillard has gone as close to getting it right as anyone can reasonably hope for. |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| Quote: | | Why would we reward the criminals, the queue-jumpers, the ones wealthy enough to pay the people smugglers, and this punish those who apply in the normal way? Why are we punishing the poor ones and the honest ones? It just beggars belief. |
This is where I'm with you, i was with Howard and I am with jools.
Every country has the right to determine who comes in and how. We happen to be surrounded by water which makes it a fraction easier - walking from another country isn't an option.
The people who come here on the boats have paid a not insignificant amount of money to do that. I have a problem with letting people in as refugees, not skilled migrants, based on their ability to pay someone to bring them here illegally. There's several things wrong with that equation.
By all means be humanitarian, welcome and assist genuine refugees and skilled migrants, but lets stop the boats and retake control of our borders from those who profit from smuggling desperate people.
BTW, Member, is Jools gonna be in the boat with me?
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Pied Piper 
Joined: 20 May 2003
Location: Pig City
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| Post subject: Re: Jumping the queue | |
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| Tannin wrote: | | In another thread, Pied Piper wrote: | The Labor party just sold itself out, again, with its decision to use East Timor as a dumping ground to process refugees. Sorry, but that's the Pacific Solution relocated.
I was prepared to give Julia a chance, but it's back to the Greens for me. They were voted into office at least in part to undo Howard's humanitarian evils, not perpetuate them.
I want a political party that will argue the case for its beliefs to the community, not retreat from them in the face of race-baiting from the opposition. |
Me, I'm a card-carrying greenie/pinkie/hippy/lefty who always votes in favour of individual freedom and human rights for all.
That's why I fundamentally and irrevocably disagree with the Greens' immigration control policy (as also articulated by the left of the Labor party and the wet side of the Liberals - if there is such a thing anymore, which seems doubtful). I simply fail to understand what it is that these bleeding heart pro-illegal-immigrant people want.
Do they want us to take more immigrants? Certainly not! At least not if we pay atention to their published statements.
So they must just want us to take more boat people. Fair enough. Given that we have a set immigration quota (as we are entitled to have, and indeed as we absolutely positively must have if we are to continue to exist at all), the bleeding-heart crowd must therefore believe that the right thing for us to do in order for us to have more room in our immigration quota for boat people is refuse to take some of the people that followed the normal rules to get here - i.e., people who did the right thing and waited their turn in an orderly way. It is quite beyond my ability to explain this extraordinary inability of otherwise well-intentioned and intelligent people. Why would we reward the criminals, the queue-jumpers, the ones wealthy enough to pay the people smugglers, and this punish those who apply in the normal way? Why are we punishing the poor ones and the honest ones? It just beggars belief. |
That's an appalling oversimplification and misrepresentation of my opinion, Tannin. Granted, I didn't write a detailed statement to give you much to go on, but there's nothing I wrote to suggest you should have inferred my beliefs as spelt out above.
First learn the difference between "refugee" and "illegal immigrant" then it might be possible to have a sensible discussion about a difficult issue.
_________________
"The greatest thing that could happen to the nation is when we get rid of all the media. Then we could live in peace and tranquillity, and no one would know anything." - Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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| Post subject: Re: Jumping the queue | |
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Errr ... exactly where did I present that "appalling oversimplification and misrepresentation" of your opinion, PP? In the quoted text, I presume - for nowhere in my own text did I mention you, or your views. I simply summarised the views of the main political players. The quoted text is all your own work, PP, nothing to do with me. If you are not happy with your own statement of your own views, I can't help you.
PP: llearn the difference between "refugee" and "illegal immigrant"
Legal immigrant: applies for a via FIRST, then, if the visa is granted, and ONLY then, arrives here in Australia.
Illegal immigrant: turns up in a boat, applies for a visa later.
Actually, the majority of illegal immigrants are overstayers who originally arrived on a legitimate visa, such as a tourist visa, but the basic difference remains crystal clear. One sort plays by the rules and asks permission, the other sort doesn't.
A refugee may fall into either category. Lawyers for the illegal immigrants work very hard to find ways to pretend that they are not illegals, and have more-or-less brainwashed the media into calling them "asylum seekers" instead, but I see no reason not to call it what it is: a deliberate attempt to jump the queue and avoid the normal and legitimate methods of applying for entry.
_________________
�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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PS: hang-on a mo - I think perhaps your "appalling oversimplification" complaint relates to my words directed at "these bleeding heart pro-illegal-immigrant people". Those words were, as the context makes quite clear, not directed at you, but at the Greens, and also their fellow travellers. If you wish to disassociate yourself from them, I wouldn't blame you for a moment. If on the other hand you share their views, well, you can all be tarred with the same brush.
No-one, repeat no-one, had yet explained how it is that letting the queue-jumpers go straight to the front of the bus at the expense of the poor, the honest, and most needy is a fair thing.
The only way it is possible to justify that is if we accept the queue-jumpers as well as the legitimate arrivals - i.e., increase the total refugee intake. But if we do that, then the exact same criticism still applies - there will always be thousands upon thousands of needy and deserving genuine refugees over and above the number we take - so no matter which way you slice it, the queue-jumpers are exactly that.
I am more than happy to consider an increase in our refugee quota. Indeed, if it was up to me, I would quadruple it (meanwhile reducing the number of non-needy "skilled" apprentice hairdressers and the like), and instruct the Department to do its very best to select the most needy and the most deserving. (An impossible job without the wisdom of Solomon, but they can at least try their best.)
But note well: people who attempt to game the system by jumping the queue need not apply. If you arrive on a boat (or overstay your tourist visa), you don't get in. No ifs, no buts, no maybes, no appeal. If you want to come to Australia, ask in the proper way. If you try to cheat - out you go.
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^Out of curiosity, what percentage are seeking asylum, and what percentage are queue jumping? Do we have data on this?
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Pied Piper
Joined: 20 May 2003
Location: Pig City
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OK Tannin, we normally get along perfectly well but on this I'm going to have to take issue with you. Fortunately in the case of yourself and Stui, although we may disagree vehemently you are at least intelligent and receptive listeners prepared to engage with rational argument and capable of persuasion if presented with some facts.
First, while you may think you were summarising views, and you were right about me being something of a bleeding-heart liberal (and I'd rather be that than a stone-hearted Liberal any day of the week), it is not my belief that people who arrive by boat should somehow receive preference over anyone who arrives here in a so-called "orderly" fashion. I believe in taking each application for asylum on its individual merits regardless. That is somewhat more complex than the reductio ad adsurdum you have put forward.
Your definitions of refugee vs illegal immigrant is incorrect. A refugee is, as defined by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees:
| The UNHCR wrote: | a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…
The term has slipped into common usage to cover a range of people, including those displaced by natural disaster or environmental change. Refugees are often confused with other migrants.
In international law, the term 'refugee' has a specific meaning and is NOT to be confused with 'economic refugee'." |
Whereas:
| The UNHCR wrote: | Illegal immigrants are people who enter a country without meeting legal requirements for entry, or residence. On the other hand, refugees often arrive with ‘barest necessities’ and without personal documents. Often governments refuse to issue passports to known political dissidents or imprison them if they apply. Refugees may not be able to obtain the necessary documents when trying to escape and may have no choice but to resort to illegal means of escape. Therefore although the only means of escape for some may be illegal entry and/or the use of false documentation, if the person has a well-founded fear of persecution they should be viewed as a refugee and not labeled an 'illegal immigrant'.
The Refugee Convention says that states should not impose penalties on individuals coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom is threatened on account of their illegal entry. (Article 31) Furthermore, under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to seek and enjoy asylum. |
Australia is a signatory to the Refugee Convention of 1951 and under this law, a person is able to seek asylum in Australia by boat or plane, with or without documents. So therefore someone seeking asylum in this country is not breaking any law at all.
Here is another interesting fact. Only 30 percent of asylum seekers in Australia come by boat - the rest come by plane. From 1976 to April 2010, a grand total of 23,024 people have come to Australia by boat. (I am happy to provide citations for this information if you like.) At that rate (677 people per year) it would - as Julia Gillard has rightly pointed out - take 147 years just to fill the MCG.
So to link boat arrivals to concerns about population growth and scarce resources is a myth. I'm not in favour of a "big Australia" either, but Australia's intake of refugees relative to other countries in response to a humanitarian problem is pitifully small - not even in the top 20 of industrialised countries.
Next question.
_________________
"The greatest thing that could happen to the nation is when we get rid of all the media. Then we could live in peace and tranquillity, and no one would know anything." - Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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| pietillidie wrote: | | ^Out of curiosity, what percentage are seeking asylum, and what percentage are queue jumping? Do we have data on this? |
^ 100% to both.
There are camps all over the world full of people seeking asylum through the proper methods. But no, the bleeding-heart left-wing loonies in Australia would rather take the ones who are rich enough to get out of the camps and find a people smuggler to bring them here.
Of the ones who arrive by boat, obviously, some are lying about their need for asylum and do not actually face persecution, others are telling the truth. I'm not going to speculate about how many belong in each category. There is no point in speculating, because they are all queue-jumpers, and in any fair assessment, should all rank behind people with equally valid claims to refugee status who have done the right thing.
_________________
�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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Very, very devious argument here:
| Pied Piper wrote: | | So to link boat arrivals to concerns about population growth and scarce resources is a myth. |
Where did I say that? I challenge you to justify what you wrote there. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Not really that much. When is devious argument here
[quotePied Piper]So to link boat arrivals to concerns about population growth and scarce resources not a myth? |
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Pied Piper
Joined: 20 May 2003
Location: Pig City
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| Tannin wrote: | | I'm not going to speculate about how many belong in each category. There is no point in speculating, because they are all queue-jumpers, and in any fair assessment, should all rank behind people with equally valid claims to refugee status who have done the right thing. |
Incorrect. This is simply another way to demonise/dehumanise those who legitimately seek asylum.
| Tom Hyland wrote: | IF AFGHAN asylum seekers trying to get into Australia by boat are "queue jumpers", as talkback callers insist, where's the queue?
There isn't one. Instead, there's a bureaucratic maze that prompts some to use the dubious services of people smugglers.
There are only two Australian diplomats in the Afghan capital, Kabul, staffing an embassy that exists in name only, and they can't process visa applications.
So Afghans must apply at the Australian high commission in Islamabad, Pakistan, which is home to 2.1 million Afghan refugees.
But if they have a close relative in Australia who could sponsor them to come here, their application must be lodged in Melbourne — and then processed in Dubai. This is because the Islamabad high commission doesn't process partner and family migration applications from Afghans. This includes people seeking refugee and humanitarian visas.
"In brief, there is no queue," says Maria Psihogios-Billington, a lawyer with the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne. She says a proper embassy in a country where we have 1100 troops might be a start. The embassy used to operate from a Kabul hotel, but it closed in January last year after a deadly Taliban attack. Months before the attack, it had ceased effective operations due to security concerns.
Despite recent Federal Government promises to increase the number of civilian officials in Afghanistan, the Government refuses to give any indication when the Kabul embassy will be in operation.
In 2007 the Howard government signed an agreement to "co-locate" a new Australian embassy in the Dutch diplomatic compound. That plan has now been abandoned. Last December Kevin Rudd said the Government hoped to sign a deal on a new Kabul property for the embassy early this year. In response to questions from The Sunday Age, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade would only say the Government "was considering a range of options" for the new embassy.
For security reasons, it won't say what those options are, or how many staff the embassy will have.
"If the Government thinks things are too insecure to have a proper functioning embassy in Kabul, well that just says it all," says Ms Psihogios-Billington.
It also helps explain why some Afghans feel compelled to engage the services of people smugglers, people the Prime Minister says are the "scum of the earth". |
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"The greatest thing that could happen to the nation is when we get rid of all the media. Then we could live in peace and tranquillity, and no one would know anything." - Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen |
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Pied Piper
Joined: 20 May 2003
Location: Pig City
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| Tannin wrote: | Very, very devious argument here:
| Pied Piper wrote: | | So to link boat arrivals to concerns about population growth and scarce resources is a myth. |
Where did I say that? I challenge you to justify what you wrote there. |
You didn't, actually, so I probably shouldn't have brought it up. However, it is a commonly expressed argument. It's about as devious as some of your earlier misapprehensions of my point of view: that is, it was unintended. It's also not the most important point I was making, which was about what constitutes a refugee versus what is an illegal immigrant. However, it is a useful additional fact that I think helps put a difficult problem into perspective, something the shock-jock brigade (and I would never, let me reassure you, lump you in with them) sorely lacks on this issue.
_________________
"The greatest thing that could happen to the nation is when we get rid of all the media. Then we could live in peace and tranquillity, and no one would know anything." - Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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| Pied Piper citing the UNHCR wrote: | | The Refugee Convention says that states should not impose penalties on individuals coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom is threatened on account of their illegal entry. |
None of the boat people arriving here are "coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom is threatened". They get to a country such as Indonesia, and sign on with the people smugglers there. In other words, all that UNHCR stuff you quote does not apply in the majority of cases. But the witless bleeding hearts pretend it does. And in doing so, they create a new reduction in our ability to help people in genuine need.
By arriving illegally, they impose huge costs on this country (border protection forces, patrols, processing centres, guards, a bloody fortune in lawyers' bills and court expenses. Compared to all this, it would be cheaper to fly a legitimate, honest refugee from Rwanda to Sydney on a first class ticket. Hell, you could probably charter the whole 747.
By arriving illegally, they create massive public resentment, and ensure that future refugee quotas are smaller rather than larger. We would be taking more refugees NOW if it wasn't for the boat people jumping the queue and spoiling the chances of their poorer and more honest brothers and sisters in the camps.
| Pied Piper citing the UNHCR wrote: | | under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to seek and enjoy asylum. |
So why does Australia discriminate against the poor and the honest people who do not hire a people smuggler and arrive illegally, in favour of the rich and devious? Why do we deny asylum to people who did not arrive here illegally in favour of those who do? |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Tannin wrote: | | pietillidie wrote: | | ^Out of curiosity, what percentage are seeking asylum, and what percentage are queue jumping? Do we have data on this? |
^ 100% to both.
Of the ones who arrive by boat, obviously, some are lying about their need for asylum and do not actually face persecution, others are telling the truth. I'm not going to speculate about how many belong in each category. There is no point in speculating, because they are all queue-jumpers, and in any fair assessment, should all rank behind people with equally valid claims to refugee status who have done the right thing. |
So, just to clarify, you believe there are three categories of contentious arrivals under discussion:
1. queue jumpers
2. asylum seekers who didn't fill out the paper work
3. asylum seekers who did fill out the paper work
Is this correct?
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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Reading the Age, I see that Gillard has expressed things better than I have.
A boat ride to Australia ‘‘would just be a ticket back to the regional processing centre. ..... It would be to ensure that arriving by boat does not give anybody an advantage in the likelihood that they would end up settling in Australia or other countries in the region’’
That's a fair solution.
Oh, one more thing before I go to bed. We certainly do need to consider the matter of overall population intake, it is the single most vital issue Australia faces, but I am sure that you would agree with me that this is entirely the wrong context in which to consider it. I have forgotten the refugee intake number as a proportion of other migration and as a proportion of natural increase, but it is very small. The population question and the refugee question really don't have much to do with one another (at least they don't provided that there is some sort of basic border protection in place - open slather would be a different matter), and lumping them together only makes it difficult to see eitheer one clearly.
PS: nice to be disagreeing with you for a change, PP! A good robust debate!
_________________
�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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