Oh that’s right, they’re white and middle class….. what about them Mr Taxpayer?

This Pollytics post is also a great read. It shows that the number of asylum-seekers arriving in Australia is dominated by the “push” factors of conflict around the world, not the “pull” factors domestic policy.

Malta currently keeps those seeking asylum in detention for 18 months. UN guidelines state clearly that asylum seekers should not be detained except in very specific circumstances, and children should not be detained at all.

Although conditions in Australian detention centres may be better than in Malta or Malaysia, the policy of using detention centres at all should really be re-examined.

When people compare the numbers of asylum seekers taken by a country…they look at numbers…80 000 in the U.S but 0.01 of the population. Australia takes in a rate of 0.04 of the population/similar to Germany in ratio…but for Germany that is 35 000 yearly. Yes..in Australia…per head…we do more than the U.S. But 10 000 compared to 80 000 looks soooo small. And there are millions waiting in camps and centres.

25% of our population has a migrant parent. 13% of the UK has a migrant parent. 12% in the U.S . We’re open a lot more in terms of migration. It’s a hot political issue here…because of politics. The opposition, whichever party, says we’re not doing enough or they’re doing it wrong. It gets them votes. Lots of empathy around. But it gives us a skewed media picture of Australia as hostile to asylum seekers and migrants. If we compare internationally…not true.

We’re also softer in terms of living conditions provided than France that takes in the majority of them. Ours on Christmas Island get a small amount less than the $480 Newstart Allowance…compare that to $1 a day UK…Google Malta assylum seekers to find out why the numbers are up in qualifiers over the last 6 months. The problem is immense…the numbers are huge. Riots…ghetto camps…google the international problem.

Not as many women and children on the boats as there are men…….surely there are many more women and children who are desperate and need asylum. The most disempowered and disenfranchised are affected by people smuggling and queue jumping.

$15 000 to travel to Australia…montly wage of the teacher on the boat…$108-$135US… Who/what organisation may have helped them pay? What do they owe them as a result? What will that money fund that they send back home from here? Perhaps not…but it does happen. Skills with explosives and preparation…they threatened to blow up their ship …from a country where massacres, suicide hits, child soldiers and such are the landscape of war. Should we ask a few questions first? Most asylum seekers are genuine and do get approved for refugee status…but not all of them…and some may have complex circumstances.

Mate they are not getting off that boat, cause they know the drill…10 years in a detention center. They can’t work or get an education in the Malaysian detention centers.There is no medical care. They had the opportunity to get into one on their way here and start the UN process. Life in Sri Lanka is bad…but why live in a detention camp….if they can have better than that elsewhere? Malaysia happens to be a pipeline country for people smuggling, they took that route. They risked the odds. The smugglers win either way.

As bad as detention centers and the wait are and the horrific experiences people have had which forced them to seek asylum…the UN process exists for a reason. If we increase our numbers of asylum seekers there are plenty of UN qualifiers. We could take 60 000 of them and more in the space it would take to blink. The boat people are only a small selection of people of millions who are desperate for help. No doubt we will continue to increase the numbers of asylum seekers that we take and we should aim to take people through a fair process and asylum seekers should get that.

If anything the ordeal these people go through and the hurdles they have to overcome are a much tougher pre-selection than anything imposed by our skilled migrants program. The psychological trauma can’t be good, especially for children, but locking them up is hardly going to help there.

The whole idea that most refugees are “economic” is frankly wrong. Java has a hundred million people and poverty on a massive scale, but how many Javanese hop onto boats and try to cross the Timor Sea? Almost none, and that’s because the cultural and social barriers to relocation are so high (contrast with Kiwis crossing the Tasman) and Java hasn’t experienced the kind of civil wars that break up communities and create refugees. (Yes, I know about the massacres of 1965/66, but they didn’t last long and a centralised state soon imposed order.)

In a recent piece in the SMH, Adele Horin made a solid case against the re-introduction of Temporary Protection Visas, a policy of the previous government which was designed to appeal the misguided views of people like “taxpayer” here and in the process extended the torture of refugees by preventing them from getting on with rebuilding their lives. It’s worth a read and I hope that the Rudd government never decides to succumb to tactics like TPVs.