From: John Beckett 

I did mention that Australia's handling of asylum seekers has been an
embarrassment, at least to me. However, on the basis that several people
here have been known to post "devil's advocate" messages, I will
mention that it is possible to argue that  the Tampa incident was handled
in a reasonable way. The Norwegian ship rescued the victims. Food and
medical aid were provided by Australia. There was no danger of anyone being
harmed. Some tight-arsed people argue that therefore Australia was under no
obligation to "rescue" anyone.

How does a country deal with asylum seekers? It's a tricky issue because
once they get a foot on dry land they can use legal manoeuvres to stay for
a few years while the authorities work out what to do. The typical case
involves a group of 100 people who have managed to travel half way around
the world to hire a boat and crew in Indonesia. They then try to reach
Australia. They often have zero documentation on arrival. Yet they managed
to travel half way around the world. The suggestion is that the whole thing
is a scam organised by gangs who promise desperate people paradise for
$10,000 (or whatever it is) per head. Once on the boat, they destroy all
their identity documents so they can claim to be refugees by the UN
definitions.

John

Adam Flinton  wrote in message
news::
> John Beckett wrote:
>
> > Adam Flinton  wrote in message
> > news::
> >
> >>What I find so ironic wrt recent Australian politics is the
"turn em
> >>back at the beaches" view wrt immigrants/asylum seekers.
I'll bet all
> >>the aborigines are going "damn 200 years too late"  >>
> >>I'm just waiting for an Aussie ship to go down & no other
ships to come
> >>to their aid "just in case" there are some illegals on board.
> >
> >
> > Well, yes - that's an embarassment too. For the record, our PM would point
> > out that there are no known cases where Australia has actually not rescued
> > people from a sinking ship.
> >
>
> Ohhh stretching the point beyond the bounds of the
> reasonable...Norwegian ship does it's "duty" & picks up
people from a
> sinking ship & what happened? So instead of the Oz navy it was a nice
> bunch of chunky jumper wearers &.......
>
> Moral: If sailing near Australia, ignore sinking ships. The sharks'll
> make it a fairly quick death anyway.
>
> > If "the end justifies the means", the turn-them-back
policy has been a
> > resounding success because it has reduced the number of boats setting off
> > in attempt to make illegal landings. It's an ugly problem. I sure would
> > try to get to a better country if I were in some of the situations of the
> > boat people.
> >
>
> You have a large empty country settled by illegal aliens (as the
> aborigines might argue). How did Howard/Howard's ancestors get to Oz?
>
>
>
> Adam
>

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