Quote:
Originally Posted by Latindancer
This is how stupid the situation has become when illegal immigrants demand to be sent onto Australia.
They work the situation being fed inside information by the do gooders.
Pathetic at best.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Latindancer
This is how stupid the situation has become when illegal immigrants demand to be sent onto Australia.
They work the situation being fed inside information by the do gooders.
Pathetic at best.
So let me get this right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mid
The parents bang there kids on a leaky boat to Australia then the kids learn how to speak and write English at the tax payers expense then the kid writes a " cry me a river " letter then wankers like " Kermit " recon its kosha.
Foking hell EH. :confused:
lets put in on the record Terry
are you OK with the Australian government keeping a 10 year old in immigration detention for 12 months and counting without charge ?
I am not .
Give them a few video games.
The illegal boat crews that keep returning
Patrick Lion
May 19, 2012
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2012/05/2063.jpg
They keep on coming ... a boat of asylum seekers
Pic: Colin Murty. Source: The Australian
PEOPLE smugglers and foreign illegal fishermen busted in Australian waters more than a decade ago are returning to our shores as asylum seeker boat crew members.
Immigration reports reveal at least four cases of repeat offenders, including an Indonesian man, 32, in detention who was intercepted as a crew member on vessel in December 2010 - his seventh illegal arrival since 1997.
He was caught in August, 1997 as an illegal foreign fisher (IFF) and departed the country but returned to be busted fishing in January 1998, June 1998, November 1999 and November 2008.
Another Indonesian man, 58, in detention and charged with people smuggling, was caught in September 2006 and August 2008 illegally fishing in Australian waters.
In June 2001, he was also convicted of people smuggling.
Another Indonesian, 37, in detention after being busted as a crewmember on a boat intercepted at Ashmore Reef, had a long history of illegal fishing dating back to 2000.
The Daily Telegraph revealed yesterday that at least 11 asylum seekers rejected after arriving by boat a decade ago have attempted to come back to Australia.
The new details show the problem goes beyond boat people and extends to those who organise people smuggling boats.
Meanwhile, the latest asylum seeker boat carrying 68 people was intercepted northwest of Christmas Island overnight on Thursday.
It was the 39th boat since January 1, taking the total number of arrivals this year to 3010.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott yesterday said the "double dipper" asylum seekers proved the government did not have a solution to the problem.
"The former government found a problem and created a solution," he said.
"The current government found a solution and turned it into a problem again."
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen admitted the ongoing arrivals meant more lives were being put at risk but blamed the opposition for not supporting the Malaysia deal.
dailytelegraph.com.au
He was 13 years old when Australia locked him in an adult prison for people smuggling
May 20, 2012
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2012/05/2064.jpg
System failure ... Ali Jasmin's mother Aniza with his sister and her baby.
After three years of tireless campaigning from advocates and the media, Ali Jasmin has been released, but his story is not unique. As an inquiry into his case - and 23 others like it - begins, Natalie O'Brien examines the case that became a catalyst.
It was obvious to everyone who met him that Ali Jasmin was just a boy.
Fresh-faced, he spoke like a child and a doctor who examined him confirmed he was prepubescent.
Even the Department of Immigration official who interviewed him not long after he was arrested on people-smuggling charges judged him to be about 14 years old.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2012/05/2065.jpg
System failure ... Ali Jasmin.
Photo: The Project, Channel Ten
Despite that, the Australian Federal Police refused to believe these assessments. Relying on a widely discredited wrist X-ray test, the police said he was 19 years old and charged him as an adult for crewing an asylum-seeker boat into Australian waters. Jasmin was kept on remand with sex offenders and paedophiles in the protected section of Perth's Hakea Prison, advocates say.
Then, when he was convicted, he was sent to serve his five-year sentence in Western Australia's maximum-security prison in Albany, a five-hour drive south-east of Perth.
''Out of sight, out of mind,'' one of the boy's supporters claims.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2012/05/2066.jpg
The island of Flores, where Ali Jasmin lived.
But now, after almost three years in some of that state's toughest jails, the frightened child, once so scared he hid from the other prisoners, has blossomed into a confident, caring adolescent who looks after the other Indonesian prisoners jailed with him, particularly the elderly.
''They have done everything to me now; there is nothing left to be scared of,'' Jasmin told one of his advocates about his life in jail.
Documents that have surfaced verifying his birth date show he was arrested at the age of 13, jailed at 14 and now released at 16. Jasmin's life will never be the same.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2012/05/2067.jpg
Documents verifying the 1996 birthdate of Ali Jasmin.
The innocent boy who left school to earn a living fishing to support his mother and sisters after the death of his father is now fluent in English and the ways of the Western world. Friends say his maturity and language skills are a result of exceptional prison staff who tried to take care of him.
From clinging to a fence, pale and petrified, as one jail insider first saw him, Jasmin has grown up physically and mentally. He sat on the prison committee at Albany jail representing the other Indonesian prisoners - interpreting for them if they couldn't speak English - and he worked in the jail's reception centre, helping new prisoners settle in.
The jail on Western Australia's south coast is a world away from his beginnings in Indonesia.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2012/05/2068.jpg
A boat similar to the one on which Ali Jasmin was a crew member.
Photo: Sharon Tisdale
According to unearthed documents - a birth certificate, a family register, a school record and a letter from the chief of the village - that have been sent to Australia, Jasmin was born in 1996 in the seaside village of Balaurang, in a picturesque corner of the island of Flores.
He lived with his family in a humble cottage and went to school until he was about 12 years old.
His story, as related by his family and advocates, is that he was lured to join a fishing boat by the ''uncle'' of a neighbour. He jumped at the chance to earn some more money to support the family and joined the boat. He didn't know the true reason for the journey.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2012/05/2069.jpg
Ali Jasmin today.
Photo: The Project, Channel Ten
It was December 2009 and he found himself on a boat with 55 Afghan people. According to sentencing documents from the West Australian District Court, six or seven Indonesian crew members were initially on the boat, later named SIEV 86, but they jumped ship on the Indonesian island of Rote, leaving Jasmin and the others to be picked up by the Royal Australian Navy.
The boat was lucky to have been found when it was. The court was told the vessel's propulsion, generators and pumping systems were not working.
''There was floodwater up to a metre high and there were obvious leaks in the hull,'' transcripts of court proceedings show. ''On the last night at sea, the engine broke down and the crew could not fix it. The passengers feared they would sink … The water was covering all of the lower deck areas and the passengers were up to their knees in water whilst baling it out.''
Jasmin was one of four crew who were arrested and taken to Perth. In an age-determination hearing in the District Court, he was deemed to be at least 19 years old.
The federal government has stated it has a policy of not prosecuting Indonesian boat crew found to be children. If there is any doubt about their age, they are to be sent home.
But only recently, during an Australian Human Rights Commission inquiry into the treatment of children suspected of people-smuggling offences, has it emerged that the federal police had received a letter from the Indonesian National Police in 2010, confirming that a birth certificate and other documents showing Jasmin was under age were authentic and they were received before the court age-determination hearing. The AFP did not believe their Indonesian counterparts.
A federal police spokeswoman confirmed officers received a letter in October 2010 from the Indonesian National Police, which included a ''legalised copy'' of a birth certificate in the name of Ali Jasmin.
''However, the AFP was unable to determine its veracity,'' the spokeswoman said in a statement.
The documents were also given to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions but were never given to the District Court judge, Richard Keen, who determined that Jasmin was older than 18. The Australian government also didn't believe officials from the Indonesian Consulate in Perth when they stepped in to provide a birth certificate for Jasmin.
Then the office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions wrote to Jasmin's lawyer, saying they did not believe the Indonesian government officials about the birth certificate: ''In respect of the birth certificate we have received from DIAC, which purports to relate to your client, whilst it is admitted that the birth certificate was provided by the Indonesian Consulate, it is denied that the document was created prior to the offence being committed. The prosecution also disputes that the birth certificate is admissible in its present form without calling proper … evidence establishing what it is in the circumstances as to how it came into being. I request that you please advise whether you will be adducing any evidence at the age-determination hearing other than the birth certificate.''
Given that no documents were given to the court, Jasmin had to speak for himself and he told the court in December 2010 that he was 14. But later the same day he told the court he was born in 1990, then he clarified it to 1996. He later said the federal police had told him he was born in 1990.
So Judge Keen sentenced Jasmin to the minimum five-year mandatory jail term for people smuggling - with a minimum three-year non-parole period - saying that even though he had determined he was over 18, ''I accept whatever your age may be, you are still very young''.
But subsequent investigations by the Australian media, not Australian officials, have uncovered evidence that supports the claim that Jasmin was 13 when he was arrested.
A Channel Ten television crew travelled to his home in Balaurang and met his family and the village chiefs, who told them they were the first people to come asking about his age since he left.
Jasmin's mother, Aniza, told them she had heard from him frequently via phone and mail but said she had not received - until recently - any communication from any authority or lawyer asking her his age.
Ali Jasmin's case, and 23 others like his, will now be the subject of a parliamentary inquiry into whether Indonesian children have been wrongly held in adult jails throughout the country.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young received parliamentary backing for the inquiry, which began on May 10 and will examine how the authorities came to incarcerate Indonesian children in adult prisons.
A spokeswoman for Legal Aid in Western Australia says it has made representations to the federal Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, who on Thursday said three Indonesians convicted of people-smuggling, and who claim they were minors at the time of their interception, will be released from prison and returned to Indonesia following a review of their case.
''Further information has raised sufficient doubt that these three individuals may have been minors at the time of the offence, which warrants granting them early release on licence,'' Roxon said.
''This is not a pardon. These three individuals crewed people-smuggling vessels that came to Australia, all three pleaded guilty to that, and they were convicted of that offence.
''This is a decision to give these three individuals the benefit of the doubt about their age when intercepted, based on further information now available.''
The chairman of the Indonesia Institute in Western Australia, Ross Taylor, who has campaigned tirelessly to get Jasmin and other boys like him released from jail, says the government has been ''battered'' into taking action.
''We have no doubt that without the support of the media, and pressure from Indonesian government officials in Australia, these boys would still be facing extended terms of imprisonment here in Australia,'' Taylor says.
A few days ago, Aniza received a message asking her to attend the local government offices - a six-hour journey from her home - to sign documents so Jasmin could be released. But Aniza is so poor that she didn't have the money to travel there. Friends had to give her the fare.
She says Jasmin had told her in a phone call that he was no longer in jail and things were better but he could not tell her exactly where he was.
The Indonesian Consul, Syahri Sakidin, told The Sun-Herald last week they were grateful to the media for helping Jasmin's case and he hoped the boy would be released soon.
''We just want to get Ali Jasmin home to his family as soon as possible,'' he said.
brisbanetimes.com.au
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mid
I reckon the pathetic Australian government should grow a pair and just fuk all the Illegals back off home by plane.
Save a shit load of money at the end of the day.
Wankers are still rocking up on boats as they know the Government is weak as piss and supported by do gooders like you Mid.
Suppose you have heard that the Australian government has come up with the Stirling idea of paying the public $300 a week to house an Asylum seeker as we are running out of room to house them.
I'll bet your not going to be putting your hand up are you mate yet you always bang the drum in support for them..
Makes me spew big time.
not enough to answer the question I note .Quote:
Originally Posted by terry57
Yes or No ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mid
Jesus, here we go again.........
Of course its not OK to put a ten year old in jail but what about his parents that put the poor little fuker on that boat ???
They did not give a flying fuk that he could of died on the way over so I would not be getting too excited about it.
Best outcome is put the kids on a plane and fuck them off to where they come and at the same time make the message clear that we wont accept Illegal Immigration.
Anyway Gillard is hanging onto to power by the skin of her Labia and the Labor government will surely fall.
With a bit of luck the new Liberal Government will put an end to this rubbish like Little Johhny Howard managed to do when he had the power.
Harden the fuk up Mid.
so the parents putting the child on the boat absolves the Australian government and thus Australian citizens of responsibility so lock the child up ?Quote:
Originally Posted by terry57
They should keep all asylum seekers / illegal immigrants locked up and
put them to work, men women and children [ light duties ].
And keep them locked up and working, until they decide to return to their homeland or die of old age .
If thier country is as dangerous as they claim, they will very be happy with this arrangement.
We in western countries cannot sort out the problems of the worlds 5 ,000, 000, 000 poor people no matter how much we would like to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mid
Mid, there's something very bent and twisted with the way you approach these bleeding heart subjects.
Once again you shift all the responsibility onto the Government and us Tax payers, you never address the real issue.
That being...... Fuk them all off as there Illegal.
Anyway Mid, how many will you have at your Gaff ? :)
the one avoiding the issue is you Terry and that is plain for all to see .
the children are in Australia and are being held in ADULT jails
thus we as Australian citizens are responsible .
^
No there not, A few mistakes where made and now the Government has addressed the Issue.
No one wants to see Children banged up.
Actually they are actively trying to have Aussy families accommodate the children so contrary to you pushing the issue that the children are being abused they are being treated much better than when there crap parents banged them on the boat.
Whatever spin you place on it Mid the refugees are well catered for and looked after much better than the shit holes they come from thanks to all us Tax paying Australians.
You should be reporting all the positive things being done for the refugees rather than this continuous tripe about them being hard done by.
Quote:
Originally Posted by terry57
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mid
...............................
https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by terry57
vigillo.com
I see my prophecy way back on page 1 was spot on, and for the reasons stated in the judgement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mid
Sometimes, I'm just soooo good.
The way forward is clear Terence.
Either Oz withdraws formally from the 1951 Convention or it does not. Frankly, it is no longer applicable to the age we live in and was drafted to deal with the fallout from the war and the world battling to deal with the tyranny of communism. Oz is sufficiently independent of other factors preventing, say, the UK from doing so and could develop a unique policy of its own to process genuine asylum seekers. Most, if not all, applications for asylum made by people who arrive clandestinely are entirely bogus and without foundation. They are, quite simply, economic migrants who would not qualify for admission otherwise.
Rather than imprison them on any island they should be sent back to their port of origin by sea. The trade in funnelling these people to Oz, for that is what it is, would dry up pretty quickly when the punters know that their 10,000$ US in fees paid to the traffickers will be wasted.
If Oz remains in the Convention then you just have to bite the bullet but beef up the enforcement action against the traffickers by tracking them down and killing them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mid
The little fucker would of been given 3 good meals a day, access to health care, education and a raft full of privileges not even dreamed off in the shit pit he came from.
He was protected by the authorities because he was a juvenile but he was behind bars.
Because of that he now is a walk up start to enter Australia and will jump the queue with many other genuine refugees in the Que behind him.
You make it sound like he was locked up in a concentration camp being run by the Nazi's.
The truth being the refugees are being treated much better than they deserve considering they enter our country illegally and are not genuine refugees.
The tossers pay $10000 a head to the smugglers and you reckon thats a fair basis for being considered for genuine refugee status in Australia.
You suck the big one Mid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thegent
Well mate, some punters reckon your an absolute wanker by the way you post but I can always understand where your coming from simply because I'm an intellectual genius in disguise.
You did fuk up supporting that cock sucker with the balloons trying to get on the BTS but I'll let that one slide. :rolleyes:
You make far more sense than Mid when he bangs on about his cry baby shit, red the foker for me will Ya. :spam2:
Free children in detention
Sev Ozdowski
May 25, 2012
YET again mandatory detention is under challenge in the High Court. David Manne, a human rights lawyer, acts on behalf of an unnamed Sri Lankan man who has been in detention for more than three years after receiving a negative security assessment.
Mandatory detention also affects children. Recently, also because of a negative ASIO assessment, a Sri Lankan refugee, Ranjini, and her two young sons were indefinitely detained in Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre. Mandatory detention "is like being sentenced to life imprisonment without even having been charged, tried and convicted," says Manne.
This year we celebrate two anniversaries. Twenty years ago, in May 1992, the Keating Labor government introduced the Migration Reform Bill that created Australia's mandatory detention system. Gerry Hand, the then minister of immigration, argued it was needed to stop an influx of Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees. The actual number of people who arrived by boat was 158 in 1990-91 and 78 in 1992, and the legislation removed access to judicial review and mandated a detention period for boatpeople of up to 273 days. Two years later the 273-day limit was removed, allowing for indefinite detention.
Eight years ago, in April 2004 the Human Rights Commission transmitted to then attorney-general Philip Ruddock a report of my inquiry into mandatory detention of children who arrived on boats over the period 1999-2002. On budget day in 2004 Tony Abbott, then leader of the house, tabled the "A Last Resort?" report in parliament. The inquiry found that between July 1, 1999 and June 30, 2003, 2184 children were detained after arriving by boat to seek asylum in Australia. Approximately 14 per cent of those children came to Australia with no parents, and most of them came from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
The inquiry found that many children spent a very long time in immigration detention without proper schooling and health care - up to five years, five months and twenty days. The inquiry also documented that children detained for long periods of time were at a high risk of acquiring mental illness. Meetings with severely traumatised and mentally unwell children and their parents was the most traumatising experience of my work as human rights commissioner.
The report concluded that Australia was in breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified in 1990, which mandated that detention of children should be "a measure of last resort" and "for the shortest appropriate period of time"; and that any detention of children must be a proportionate response to achieving a legitimate aim. In my view, Australia's mandatory detention policy, which allowed the long-term imprisonment of children in harsh outback prison camps, was one of the worst human rights violations in Australia's post-World War II history.
The inquiry also found that the vast majority of children were recognised as refugees and subsequently released into the Australian community with their parents. For example, almost 98 per cent of the Iraqi and well over 95 per cent of Afghani and Iranian children were recognised as refugees. We have since discovered that children damaged by their time served in detention require mental health support for years, and that some of them have won large government compensation payouts. The key recommendations of the inquiry were that children with their parents be released immediately into the community and that detention laws should be amended to comply with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The initial response was a press release by the then minister for immigration Amanda Vanstone, who stated the report was backward-looking and unfair to the Department of Immigration. But on June 11, 2004 the then prime minister John Howard publicly declared that: "It is the government's intention to dwindle the number of children in immigration detention to zero", and in fact soon after this the government released the vast majority of children. On August 24, 2004, an announcement was made by the prime minister that "there are only two children in immigration detention centres". And here I wish to acknowledge the positive role in influencing government decision played by Petro Georgiou and his "Gang of Four", and by the then prime minister's chief of staff and now senator Arthur Sinodinos.
In response to my report, the former Coalition government also introduced a range of changes to the Migration Act 1958. The most significant change was the inclusion into the act of a principle that "a minor shall only be detained as a measure of last resort". Howard's border protection policy ensured that boats stopped arriving. In 2003-04, only 53 people arrived in Australia by boat without a visa. Consequently in 2005, we all held hope that the mandatory, long-term detention of children in Australia was a thing of the past. In fact, for the three years after those changes, children were not being detained in anything other than exceptional circumstances and for very short periods of time.
The Labor government has dismantled the border protection measures inherited from the Coalition government. As a result we are again witnessing a growing number of children as immigration prisoners in Australia. The assurances given by the Prime Minister that no children will be held in detention centres have proved to be hollow. More than 420 children are in detention despite the fact that there are community-based alternatives, as demonstrated by some 690 children at present living in community facilities.
The government proposes to spend more than $1 billion in 2012-13 on asylum-seekers increasing to $3.5 billion by 2015-16. In this financial year we can expect more than 7000 people arriving by boat so the number of children in detention will continue to grow.
We need the Prime Minister to show leadership and intervene decisively to release all the children held in detention with their families, like Howard did in 2004. If she does not do it, the High Court will soon order her to do it.
Sev Ozdowski is the former Australian Human Rights commissioner.
theaustralian.com.au
Latest update: 28/06/2012
- Australia - Malaysia - Political asylum - refugees
Australia’s controversial boat people bill struck down
https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif
Australia’s Senate on Thursday struck down an amended bill to reinstate offshore processing for asylum seekers, with political ideology trumping humanitarian concern.
When Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Thursday urged Australia’s upper house to pass the Labor-backed ‘Malaysia Solution’ bill to process refugee claims offshore, the timing was grimly pertinent.
On the eve of the debate, a second boatload of refugees in a week had capsized off the remote Australian territory of Christmas Island, adding four more deaths to the 90 people drowned days earlier.
The Senate debate around the bill was highly charged, the deaths having underlined the government’s inability to find a way to stem the tide of so-called “ boat people”, illegal migrants who pay smugglers to take them on the perilous journey from Afghanistan, Indonesia and elsewhere to Australia.
Gillard urged politicians, including from the opposition and the Greens, to “look into their conscience” to find a solution. Independent Senator Nick Xenophon was less delicate. He chastised his fellow senators for “behaving like petty pissants” for failing to give ground on their respective views to broker a deal. “The stink of compromise is better than the stench of death,” he added.
Yet there was no deal to be had. By the end of the day the bill was sunk, foundering on the lack of support from the Green Party and the conservative Coalition.
A flawed solution
The so-called Malaysia solution was a first of its kind. It provisioned for 800 asylum seekers to be sent to Malaysia to have their claim processed there. In return, Australia was to accept 4,000 registered refugees in Malaysia over the next four years.
Close to 6,000 asylum seekers who arrive by boat each year are currently processed in mainland Australia or at a centre on the island of Naura, which was opened under a previous deal struck by the conservative government of former prime minister John Howard.
Gillard’s Labor government had argued that offshore processing would act as a deterrent for smugglers in Indonesia and elsewhere to accept payment from refugees to make the perilous boat journey to Australia.
According to Dr Khalid Koser, academic dean and head of the New Issues in Security Programme at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, the solution would have been the first of its kind in the world. And for good reason.
“There is little empirical evidence that such measures would work as a deterrent to people smuggling,” he told FRANCE 24.
Refugees might still consider as low the odds that they might be among the 800 sent to Malaysia. And even that outcome might be better than the risk of continued persecution in their home countries.
Furthermore, women and children, who were excluded from the bill, would still have been targeted by the smugglers.
Politics over humanitarian concern
The debate has long been more about politics than humanitarian concern. Despite accounting for just 2.7% of the total migrant intake into Australia, boat people are cause for concern for 72% of Australians, according to opinion polls.
These “illegal boat arrivals”, as the conservative Liberal Coalition opposition refers to them, are processed onshore and considered to be “jumping the queue” of other refugees who have applied for asylum through legitimate channels and must await approval before arriving.
But reality tells a different story. In 2010-11, 11,491 people arrived in Australia seeking asylum, 5,175 of which came by boat. About 90% of them were granted visas. These arrivals are a drop in the ocean compared to the 13 million foreigners who entered the country during the same period. The vast majority of illegal immigrants in Australia are visa over-stayers who arrived by plane.
The conservative opposition has successfully used the refugee issue to hammer Julia Gillard. Languishing in the polls, she faces an uphill battle for reelection. Finding a solution to the problem would have demonstrated her capacity to take action.
After the Malaysia Solution bill was struck down in the senate by 39 votes to 29, parliament took recess for six weeks. Hours earlier, another boat carrying 100 asylum seekers was intercepted off the Australian coast.
Australia’s controversial boat people bill struck down
28/06/2012
https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif
Australia’s Senate on Thursday struck down an amended bill to reinstate offshore processing for asylum seekers, with political ideology trumping humanitarian concern.
When Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Thursday urged Australia’s upper house to pass the Labor-backed ‘Malaysia Solution’ bill to process refugee claims offshore, the timing was grimly pertinent.
On the eve of the debate, a second boatload of refugees in a week had capsized off the remote Australian territory of Christmas Island, adding four more deaths to the 90 people drowned days earlier.
The Senate debate around the bill was highly charged, the deaths having underlined the government’s inability to find a way to stem the tide of so-called “ boat people”, illegal migrants who pay smugglers to take them on the perilous journey from Afghanistan, Indonesia and elsewhere to Australia.
Gillard urged politicians, including from the opposition and the Greens, to “look into their conscience” to find a solution. Independent Senator Nick Xenophon was less delicate. He chastised his fellow senators for “behaving like petty pissants” for failing to give ground on their respective views to broker a deal. “The stink of compromise is better than the stench of death,” he added.
Yet there was no deal to be had. By the end of the day the bill was sunk, foundering on the lack of support from the Green Party and the conservative Coalition.
A flawed solution
The so-called Malaysia solution was a first of its kind. It provisioned for 800 asylum seekers to be sent to Malaysia to have their claim processed there. In return, Australia was to accept 4,000 registered refugees in Malaysia over the next four years.
Close to 6,000 asylum seekers who arrive by boat each year are currently processed in mainland Australia or at a centre on the island of Naura, which was opened under a previous deal struck by the conservative government of former prime minister John Howard.
Gillard’s Labor government had argued that offshore processing would act as a deterrent for smugglers in Indonesia and elsewhere to accept payment from refugees to make the perilous boat journey to Australia.
According to Dr Khalid Koser, academic dean and head of the New Issues in Security Programme at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, the solution would have been the first of its kind in the world. And for good reason.
“There is little empirical evidence that such measures would work as a deterrent to people smuggling,” he told FRANCE 24.
Refugees might still consider as low the odds that they might be among the 800 sent to Malaysia. And even that outcome might be better than the risk of continued persecution in their home countries.
Furthermore, women and children, who were excluded from the bill, would still have been targeted by the smugglers.
Politics over humanitarian concern
The debate has long been more about politics than humanitarian concern. Despite accounting for just 2.7% of the total migrant intake into Australia, boat people are cause for concern for 72% of Australians, according to opinion polls.
These “illegal boat arrivals”, as the conservative Liberal Coalition opposition refers to them, are processed onshore and considered to be “jumping the queue” of other refugees who have applied for asylum through legitimate channels and must await approval before arriving.
But reality tells a different story. In 2010-11, 11,491 people arrived in Australia seeking asylum, 5,175 of which came by boat. About 90% of them were granted visas. These arrivals are a drop in the ocean compared to the 13 million foreigners who entered the country during the same period. The vast majority of illegal immigrants in Australia are visa over-stayers who arrived by plane.
The conservative opposition has successfully used the refugee issue to hammer Julia Gillard. Languishing in the polls, she faces an uphill battle for reelection. Finding a solution to the problem would have demonstrated her capacity to take action.
After the Malaysia Solution bill was struck down in the senate by 39 votes to 29, parliament took recess for six weeks. Hours earlier, another boat carrying 100 asylum seekers was intercepted off the Australian coast.
france24.com
Let asylum seekers fly in: Palmer
Sat Jun 30 2012
The Australian government should allow asylum seekers to fly into Australia at one tenth of the cost of coming on people smugglers' boats, says billionaire Clive Palmer.
Mr Palmer says the federal government's position on not issuing visas to asylum seekers fleeing Indonesia fuelled the people smuggling trade.
The mining tycoon said the government should allow asylum seekers to pay their own plane fare into Australia.
"We can say `you can buy a ticket if you believe you're a refugee and you can come to Australia in normal transport at one tenth the cost'," he told journalists at the Federal Liberal party conference in Melbourne on Saturday.
"The ones that get here, allow them to be processed; the ones that are not legitimate, send them back on the next flight."
Mr Palmer said Australians collectively bore the responsibility of asylum seekers drowning at sea.
"We can eliminate the people smugglers. We can eliminate the problem. We can eliminate the drownings. We can treat people as human beings."
Mr Palmer said he did not approve of the offshore processing supported by both major parties.
"What sort of a nation are we if we don't follow our international responsibilities and allow people to come here safely?" he said.
The council delegates unanimously passed a motion that condemned the federal government's policy of onshore processing of asylum seekers, and called on it to strengthen border protection policy.
news.ninemsn.com.au
Definitely a very tough situation. People rich or poor wanting to leave their countries for a better life in another. Sounds like they should join an expats forum?
Times have changed My Grand dad got free passage to Aus. I was offered free everything to NZ.
The problems that England and many european countries are facing with large populations of immigrants who do not see themselves as French, German of Brits give Aus good reason to be scared. Fiji had a fix for their problem with the asian Fijians, this has resulted in a decrease in the Asian population.
World has changed, western countries no longer want untold masses of new immigrants. The wealth that they generated once does not exist today. A major problem is that the basic manufacturing industries have been moved to Thailand China and soon to Burma. Cheap labour produces lower priced goods for us but fewer jobs in our home countries. MAssize profits for Apple and Toyota. We buy their stuff with never a thought about the effects on our own economies. Most of us all of us are using little boxes that where made in a third world country. Almost all mass produced clothing is now made in Asia.
Political get tough policies will not solve this global problem. We wine bitch and complain about LOS and other asian countries that make our immigration plans hard.
MAybe give anyone who makes it to Aus or Britain a substantial payout to go home?
Before you laugh the Irish did this to the "NEW" eastern members of the EU. All they had to do was sign a pledge not to come back. Net result was that Poland seemed a better bet than pulling Irish aid.
MAssive problem that is not going to go away. We are a willing selfish world run by the Bernie Maydofs of this world. What the hell we are stuck with it, it is our world!
Asylum seeker numbers rising fast
Ben Doherty
July 2, 2012
A SURGE in the number of Sri Lankan asylum seekers reaching Australia by boat over the past three weeks – treble the number that arrived over all of last year – has seen arrival numbers surpass 2009, when the country was gripped by brutal civil war.
Already, over the first half of this year, 1346 asylum seekers claiming to have come from Sri Lanka have arrived in Australian territory, more than six times the 211 irregular maritime arrivals in all of last year.
And nearly half of all this year’s arrivals have come in the last three weeks. Department of Immigration figures provided to the Herald on June 12 said the number of Sri Lankan asylum seekers for the calendar year was 708.
Previously, the number of Sri Lankans seeking asylum in Australia by boat peaked at 736 in 2009, the year government forces ended the country’s 27-year civil war in a ferocious crackdown.
In 2010, 536 Sri Lankans arrived by boat claiming asylum.
Most of the Sri Lankan arrivals are Tamils, an ethnic minority concentrated in the north of the country.
The majority leave directly from Sri Lanka, but an increasing number are coming via southern India, where tens of thousands of Tamils live in refugee camps, and an established network of people smugglers operates.
In recent weeks, too, Pakistani and Afghan asylum seekers have been caught in Sri Lanka, using it as a transit country to come to Australia.
And the rush of asylum seekers attempting the dangerous eastward crossing of the Indian Ocean shows no sign of dimming.
Three more groups of Sri Lankan asylum seekers have been arrested over the past four days trying to flee the country for Australia.
Before dawn on Monday morning, six people were arrested in Kalkudah, on Sri Lanka’s west coast. They were waiting to board a boat bound for Australia.
Police allege the suspects, aged between 18 and 34, were from the nearby Valachchenai area. They were expected to appear in court overnight Australia time.
On Sunday, five men, mostly from the Tamil-dominated north of Sri Lanka, were arrested by police in Kataragama, in the island’s far south-east.
Police were tipped off that the group was staying at a local hostel while they waited on a promised boat. They told police they were waiting for their “travel agent” who would take them to Australia.
Meanwhile, on Friday, the Sri Lankan Navy reported that its ships stopped a multiday fishing trawler bound for Australia off the south-western coast of the island, near Negombo.
Only nine people were on board at the time, but, the Navy said, the boat was planning to pick up more passengers from other places.
The trawler was loaded with food, drinking water, gas bottles and personal items of those on board.
The nine arrested, and their trawler, were handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department.
Communications Director for Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Ministry, Sarath Dissanayake said the Sri Lankan and Australian governments were in regular communication over the increasing number of Sri Lankan asylum seekers.
“The Sri Lankan High Commission in Australia has been informed of this issue by its government. We are in constant touch with our officials there,” he told local media.
smh.com.au
Australian Navy Rescues 162 Asylum Seekers
KRISTEN GELINEAU
Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.
July 5, 2012
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2012/07/700.jpg
An Indonesian officer negotiates with asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran to leave the Australian vessel Hermia docked in Merak in April 2012.
(Photo: Reuters)
SYDNEY—Two Australian navy patrol boats rescued 162 people from an asylum seeker boat in trouble in Indonesian waters and were taking them Thursday to an immigration detention center on a remote Australian island territory.
Three people required medical attention, including a man who suffered a heart attack and was resuscitated by military personnel, Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Jo Meehan said. There were no fatalities, unlike recent incidents in which would-be migrants have capsized on their way to Australia.
On Tuesday, Australia and Indonesia agreed to strengthen communication during sea disasters and look into an exchange program of search and rescue specialists to combat people smuggling. Many asylum seekers travel to Indonesia first before aiming for Australian territory in rickety, crowded fishing boats.
The rescued wooden asylum seeker boat issued a distress call by satellite phone to Australian authorities Wednesday morning and said it was taking on water, the maritime authority said. Its initial location was 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Panaitan, a small island off the western end of the main Java island. By afternoon, it had drifted within 180 miles (290 kilometers) of Christmas Island, Indonesian officials said.
The 162, believed to include Indonesian crew as well as asylum seekers, were transferred to the patrol boats late Wednesday “due to concerns about the seaworthiness of the vessel,” the maritime authority said. The authority had initially said 164 were aboard.
The precise problem with the boat was unclear, but Australian Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said that the weather had been “terrible.”
Australian naval officers were transporting the rescued to Christmas Island, where migrants are held in a detention center while their asylum claims are heard. The territory is nearer to Indonesia than to the Australian mainland and is a popular destination for asylum seekers.
People smugglers often sabotage their own boats so that Australian authorities have to rescue them and shorten their risky journeys. They call Australian authorities because they don’t want to be rescued by Indonesia.
“We know that people smugglers tell the people on the boat to ring Australian search and rescue. Sometimes it’s a false alarm, sometimes it’s the real thing,” Clare said. “We treat every one of those calls seriously because our top priority is saving lives at sea.”
The opposition has pledged to turn boats back to Indonesia if it wins elections next year. But the government warns that that strategy would jeopardize lives.
Three Afghan asylum seekers set fire to their boat in 2009 through fear of being turned back by the Australian navy, causing an explosion that killed five people.
Australia’s debate over how to cope with the increasing flow of asylum seekers has intensified since two boats carrying Australia-bound migrants capsized in the last two weeks. More than 90 people are believed to have died when the boats sank in the Indian Ocean.
Australia is a common destination for boats carrying asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and other poor or war-ravaged countries.
irrawaddy.org