For those with too short an attention span, here is the solution to the boat people problem, in 170 words.
We cede one of our eight hundred islands to the north of Australia to East Timor.
Pay the East Timorese to build a detention centre and administrate it.
Pay some UN people to process the boat people there.
Fly all the people who have reached Indonesia and Malaysia to that island. Process them quickly. Admit all Tamils and Hazaras automatically, since their fear of persecution is justified.
If there are fifty thousand of them, take fifty thousand less Japanese waiters this year. This will end the queue. If there are a hundred thousand of them, take a hundred thousand less Japanese waiters. They are, by definition, less worthy of our urgent help. Let them wait a year. This will keep the annual migrant intake exactly what it is.
And it will end the queue, and the notion of ‘queue jumpers’. And save many, many lives.
And put the ‘people smugglers’ out of business.
Lift the number of refugees we take thereafter to twenty thousand a year. Process them in order, quickly.
All clear now?
Discuss.
Name:
Or revert to what used to be the ALP platform as decided by the actual members and process any Asylum seekers (because that is what they are) on shore.
By all means pick them up from Malaysia and Indonesia to avoid the unpleasantness and squirm from watching some of them drown in dodgy Indonesian vessels.
Actually that in itself would be more ‘cost effective’ if that’s some peoples argument.
Maybe if we did something like this our word as a signatory to things like the convention that covers this could be trusted.
Doug Cameron for PM!
From Scott Morrisson’s website – “I have been active in church life from a young age and today my family and I are members of ShireLive Church at Sutherland. My Christian faith remains the driving force for my family, beliefs and values.”
I wonder if Scott has discussed his approach to this policy with his pastor? Yea, he turneth the boats around, and verily they sink.
No way – they need a three word slogan -
“Afghans R Us”
“Stop the waiters”
“No Budgie Smuggling”
(how’d that get in there?)
“Suffer little children”
“Pigs might fly”
(don’t ask me, it’s Macabre’s macabre suggestion)
In plain English, pay the East Timorese to administer a prison.
Out of which after three months they go as free men and women and children to Australia.
I may have missed this earlier.
In my view Bob should be banned for life for mentioning Scott Morrison. A more odious carbuncle on the backside of humanity I could not imagine!
Well said.
I’ve not seen any analysis Bob of Julian Burnsid’e proposal to process claims in Indonesia and in this way create a safe pathway, which seems the most worthy suggestion I have heard all week. What you propose is just another off-shore processing arrangement. If a genuine processing arrangement is set up in Indonesia and Malaysia as key transitional countries then this will reduce the incentive for people to take the risk of travelling on boats to Australia. The consistent argument from advocates who are familiar with this area has been that the absence of a safe pathway in which people can have confidence is the incentive for people to take the risk of crossing to Australia on boats. If this be true, then Burnside’s proposal must be pursued. I trust Burnside’s insights on this issue as a long time advocate for asylum seekers who is familiar with the situation on the ground..
It seems to me that the only argument the Green’s and others now have for continiuing to insist on on-shore processing is the “out of sight out of mind” argument – which you also seem to support. This is nothing but moral-highgrounding and a failure to grapple with the practicalities of this debate. It is a purely political argument and if anything I believe is further entrenching the divisions on this issue making progress even less likely. Anyone who thinks that the human rights argument or the “this is a relative non-issue compared to other countries” is persuasive kidding themselves, and for as long as we keep thinking we can just persuade the other side and arrive at a political solution. Senator Chris Evans captured it perfectly when he noted that for all the emotion and empathy expressed in Parliament last week, none of it christalised the issue or progressed it in a meaningful way.
I think it’s time we all recognised that what we have here are two entirely incompatable frames for understanding boat arrivals. One of them is driven by something that is fundamental to the national psyce of an island nation that has a long history of framing its immigration policy in terms of our imperilled borders. Our increasing diversity and our modern embrac of multiculturalism hasn’t extinguished that. Boat arrivals trigger this emotional response in a way that no other aspect of immigration does.
Something along the lines of suggestions on this blog spoken by a Mr Clive Palmer this afternoon:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/let-asylum-seekers-fly-in-says-palmer-20120630-2193f.html
Complies with our obligations for processing, and provided that the ‘spooks’ cooperate the genuine ones get to stay.
Puts the smugglers out of business and complies with Tone’s ‘Stop the Boats’ slogan.
P.S. Onshore processing isn’t moral high-grounding at all.
And the mob in our house in Canberra have been stricken with some sort of brain fade paralysis; it’s stopped them viewing anything outside their little chamber.
P.P.S.
Doug Cameron for PM!
Paul Howes for Ambassador to Uzbekistan.
I wouldn’t pay any attention to anything Clive Palmer had to say on the matter, but Julian Burnside is someone who has significant credibility in this area.
Abbott wants to stop the boats beause he wants to play the dog whistle politics. I don’t doubt that for a minute. Most others want to stop the boats because it is an inherently risky expedition and that alone is reason enough to find a more sustainable solution. In this context, it is moral highgrounding because they’re sticking with it on principle alone.. Hanson-Young this week pretty much responded when asked whether the Green’s assume any responsibility for creating incentives that “accidents happen”. That’s simply not good enough.
I agree it’s not good enough, that’s why Clive’s words make sense.
It doesn’t fit some peoples rigid view of course, but a lot have lost sight of the actual goal; too busy milling about among themselves, the clueless bunch. And by the way, Clive has spoken before in a surprising to some very humanitarian way on this issue.
He’s as credible as any other.