I have no doubt this topic has been done to death here, just like the "a" one! But I'm new here....

Asylum seekers are a minor molehill turned into a mountain. The number of asylum seekers is tiny. A bit more than NZ, for sure, but no-one wants to go there any more.......

Q1: So why are Australians so het up about this?

About three times as many seekers travel to Australia by plane than by sea. Yet Aussies don't seem to care about the plane people.

Q2: Why?

Q3 Who are the criminals here, the people smugglers or the boatpeople?

The vast percentage of our boat people are legal asylum seekers doing exactly what you or I would do to protect our families. Over and over again they are incorrectly labeled as illegal immigrants. They are certainly not the criminals.

When its pointed out that 4000 asylum seekers per year came to this country while Howard was stopping the boats we realise that refugees will come here no matter what political solutions the govt comes up with.
Look at the refugees flooding across the Syrian, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan borders as well of the borders of countries in Africa and Asia and we also realise we carry very little of the burden.

Peter Freedman wrote on Mar 19^th, 2012 at 6:56am:



Because the people who turn up on the boats are urchins who can't afford any better.
They are the low level pond life who I am happy to contribute to making their lives better where they are in the 3rd world but I would rather not have to share my country with them thank you.

Don't we have enough deadbeats without importing other people's trash?

adelcrow wrote on Mar 19^th, 2012 at 8:35am:


The leftists are filthy Liars

We have mandatory detention for asylum seekers so where did the leftist get this number of 4000 per year did they pluck it from their ass?

Immigration detention statistics contradict the lies told by the leftists.
http://www.immi.gov.au/managing-australias-borders/detention/_pdf/immigration-de...

The leftists ignore the facts to make up propaganda.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Mar 19^th, 2012 at 7:53am:


Are you the opposite of a xenophobe pansi?

Would the exact opposite of a xenophobe be someone who promiscuosly embraces foreign cultures while snobbishly rejecting their own home grown culture?

Yes the asylum seekers make a wonderful contribution with 83.5% of them still on welfare up to 5 years after arriving.

FriYAY wrote on Mar 19^th, 2012 at 9:35am:


Yes, but she was led into it by Tony Abbott and the shockjocks.

After the ETS, it was the one policy area that was polling badly when Gillard took over from Rudd.

Rudd's policy on boat people was to say nothing and just hope it would all go away.

Gillard, following the ministrations of the factional Right (Mark Arbib, etc), was forced to address the issue.

Her first mistake was to announce the East Timor solution without talkling to the right people in East Timor.

Her second mistake was Malaysia.

Her third mistake wasn't a mistake at all, but a High Court ruling that banned offshore processing.

Labor's proposed legislation to work around the ruling was vetoed by Abbott for purely political purposes - what to do?

Comunity processing was the only thing left on the table, and the logical policy choice. It also solved the problem of children in detention.

Malaysia WAS a dud policy, as everybody knew. You didn't have to look too deeply to work out that it was all smoke and mirrors.

However, this issue is smoke and mirrors from all sides. All the Libs have is a mantra: stop the boats.

They won't be able to change the offshore processing decision and restablish Nairu without a majority in the Senate. They won't be able to turn boats back with the Navy's OH&S policies.

They will have their hands as tied as Labor now does. They will not stop any boats.

Karnal wrote on Mar 19^th, 2012 at 9:52am:

Yes, but she was led into it by Tony Abbott and the shockjocks      Thats funny i thought the dumb bytch was PM