Asylum immigrants - Green Light

[noco]

Around four thousand illegal boat people were flooding to our waters every month under Rudd/Gillard, causing hundreds of lives to be lost at sea, and costing thousands of millions of dollars to the Australian economy.
That figure of fifty thousand per year would certainly have blown out much further if the LNP hadn't come along and dealt with the problem so effectively that we now have no illegal boat people reaching us.

If we’d stuck with Rudd/Gillard, or if we went back to the dark old days of their policies, we could well find ourselves trying to cope with illegal boat people arrivals of 100 thousand a year or perhaps much higher over the next couple of years.
How on earth could the Australian economy cope with that level of expense? Perhaps that question can be answered by the dills who criticize the Abbot government for fixing the problem?

Simple.....under Labor they would just keep borrowing more money and have us in higher debt to the Chows.

 

[IFocus]

Australia can always simply withdraw from participation in the UNHCR. It's voluntary, not mandatory.

I hear this all the time from people living in fish bowls, try travelling on a passport oversees from a country who isn't a member of western / UN sponsored treaties and and wont comply to its obligations.

Exactly. None of them care about people drowning. Even when the government waffles on about that, it's completely insincere. They just think it sounds caring and nice.
For the government it's all about fulfilling an election promise and good on them for that because the successful policy means we can increase the number of genuine refugees via the humanitarian program, something people like IF and banco never refer to because it doesn't suit their political agenda.

Wrong.........I am not against Abbott stopping the boats I am absolutely against government by secrecy, lies and the massive hypocrisy / rubbish Abbott continues to spiel out every day.

I notice you and others here have failed repeatedly to comment on returning people to Sri Lanka, do you support this?

And for the opposition they don't care about the asylum seekers either. Their own policy mirrors that of the government except they lacked the initiative to actually turn people back in order to provide a real deterrent.
So much hypocrisy.

I think there are politicians from all sides of politics that actually care about peoples fate arriving by boat but party politics isn't about that its about obtaining raw power.

 

[IFocus]

David Marr writes a good piece on the current situation


Asylum secrecy on the high seas is designed to foil the enemy within – the law

The harder it is to know what’s happening, the tougher it is for lawyers to get traction. This government isn't a pioneer

The secrecy that shrouds Operation Sovereign Borders is designed to foil the law more than frustrate people smugglers. This goes way back. Ever since Australia began its battle to stop the boats nearly 40 years ago, Canberra has tried to place the campaign beyond the reach of lawyers and the courts.

The law is the enemy within. That lawyers have won big victories along the way makes governments try even more ruthlessly to sideline them. The deep instinct of both Labor and the Coalition has been to battle the boats with as little interference as possible from wigs, gowns and the courts.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...eas-designed-to-foil-the-enemy-within-the-law

 

[Calliope]

I notice you and others here have failed repeatedly to comment on returning people to Sri Lanka, do you support this?

I support sending illegals home along with their crew of smugglers. Unfortunately it appears we are stuck with them.

On another note, I notice that the child Senator Hanson-Young is waxing hysterical and says we are obliged to respond to the blackmail of 12 women on Christmas Island who are threatening to commit suicide unless we send their children to Australia instead of to Manus with them. That would solve their parental responsibilities and they would become Islamic martyrs too boot. Actually suicide is forbidden for Muslims, but martyrdom is OK, but the women aren't entitled to the delights of Paradise.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...says-tony-abbott/story-fn9hm1gu-1226982499029

 

[drsmith]

I am not against Abbott stopping the boats I am absolutely against government by secrecy, lies and the massive hypocrisy / rubbish Abbott continues to spiel out every day.

I notice you and others here have failed repeatedly to comment on returning people to Sri Lanka, do you support this?

I do and Labor also did in office. Most, as Bob Carr said are economic refugees.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/09/asylum-seeker-claims-mythology-bob-carr

It's not a fault that this government is more effective at border security than the one before. If you're not against the boats being stopped, perhaps you could offer some credit instead of the constant criticism for what has been a hugely successful policy area after the mess left by Labor.

The deep instinct of both Labor and the Coalition has been to battle the boats with as little interference as possible from wigs, gowns and the courts.

Kevin Rudd stopped the boats according to David Marr.

Labor in government didn't battle the boats. It encouraged them and still does so from opposition.

 

[Calliope]

The truth emerges.

LABOR’S last foreign minister, Bob Carr, has ridiculed refugee advocates’ “urban mythology” about endemic persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka, saying the previous government “couldn’t find a single case” of returned asylum-seekers being abused by authorities.

Mr Carr, who retired from politics last October, accepted Sri Lanka’s recovery after 35 years of civil war was not “a perfect exercise”, but rejected former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser’s likening of the Abbott government’s policy to returning Jews to Nazi Germany.

Mr Carr’s comments come as the Abbott government determines the fate of 153 Sri Lankan nationals being held aboard an Australian Customs vessel after their interception at sea.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...th-says-bob-carr/story-fn9hm1gu-1226982849322

 

[Calliope]

Something you will not hear from Milne and Hanson-Young, or on the ABC nor in the Fairfax Press.

Vested interests push asylum propaganda to profit from a lucrative trade


BANDULA JAYASEKARA THE AUSTRALIAN JULY 09, 2014 12:00AM

I COULDN’T help reading over and over The Australian’s editorial of July 7 that said: “Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser doesn’t help his standing by likening the return of Tamils to Sri Lanka to handing over Jewish refugees to Nazi Germany. Such intemperance can only damage Mr Fraser’s cause.” It certainly has, as has the hysterical language in the “lopsided” asylum debate in Australia in the past few days.

A misconception has been created among some Australians regarding asylum-seekers arriving from Sri Lanka because of a huge and very well-funded misinformation campaign carried out by parties with vested interests. Their claims are unfounded and unbelievable. Even Ripley would have said “You cannot believe it” instead of “Believe it or not!”

As the representative of Sri Lanka I can say with complete authority that those Sri Lankans (and I emphasise Sri Lankans ”” be they Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Malays or Burghers) who return to Sri Lanka do not face death or torture, as the prophets of doom claim in their vicious around-the-clock campaign here in Australia. Failed or returned asylum-seekers are arrested and appear before a magistrate as people who have *violated the immigration laws of Sri Lanka, as any country would do. The Criminal Investigation Department of Sri Lanka, under the Sri Lankan police, questions them to see if they have a criminal record and obtains a statement from them, and they are subsequently released without delay. To those who incite fear for petty political or financial gain I say that Sri Lanka does not have the facilities to keep them in detention centres.

With the help of failed asylum-seekers, Sri Lankan authorities try to find the operators and agents who dupe them to pursue legal action against them, as any country should to stop people-smuggling.

Well-organised groups who are aware of any boat coming to Australia coach prospective asylum-seekers to say they were harassed and tortured in Sri Lanka, and would be harassed and tortured if the Australian authorities were to send them back.

These groups have the support of “refugee councils” and refugee lawyers. It is no secret that this has become a very profitable business ”” these journeys cost $US5000 ($5340) to $US8000 a head ”” sugar-coated with the sympathy of unsuspecting Australians.

Even some in the media are not aware of the racket although I have seen certain journalists in Sydney quote nameless, faceless people and wondered whether they were really journalists or in fact refugee advocates.

Sri Lanka and Australia enjoy excellent relations, and there is a great understanding between our countries. We have worked together in regional forums, such as the Bali Process on Human Trafficking, People-Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime and the ASEAN Regional Forum.

These interactions have been mutually beneficial in curtailing *illegal mig*ration and improving security in the Indian Ocean region. But there is also great understanding at the people-to-people level..

{Mybolds)

Ambassador Bandula Jayasekara is the consul general of Sri Lanka for NSW and Queensland.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...-lucrative-trade/story-e6frg6zo-1226982224602

 

[Julia]

I notice you and others here have failed repeatedly to comment on returning people to Sri Lanka,

No one has asked me until now. So how have I 'failed repeatedly to comment'?

do you support this?

I decline to offer an opinion. You could, however, refer to Bob Carr's comments on the matter. One would assume he's entirely more qualified to comment than am I.

 

[noco]

Something you will not hear from Milne and Hanson-Young, or on the ABC nor in the Fairfax Press.

Vested interests push asylum propaganda to profit from a lucrative trade


BANDULA JAYASEKARA THE AUSTRALIAN JULY 09, 2014 12:00AM

{Mybolds)

Ambassador Bandula Jayasekara is the consul general of Sri Lanka for NSW and Queensland.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...-lucrative-trade/story-e6frg6zo-1226982224602

Doc, I would like to see all the Fabian Society members rounded up and deported to Siberia ......their mother country....They are a menace to our society.

 

[dutchie]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/fearmongers-hateful-fraud/story-fni0ffxg-1226983468451

THE outrage over the forced return of 41 Sri Lankan boat people has been exposed as a fraud by the “asylum seekers” themselves.

Here’s conclusive proof that our “refugee lobby” is motivated by deceit, self-preening and insane hatred of the Abbott Government.

These 41 were on one of two boats of Sri Lankans intercepted by our Navy over the past fortnight, and were sent back this week.

Greens leader Christine Milne was apoplectic, describing the passengers as victims of a Sri Lankan tyranny and the evil Tony Abbott: “Sri Lankan asylum seekers have been returned to Sri Lanka: the persecuted to the persecutor.”

Refugee lawyer George Newhouse and former prime minister Malcolm Fraser even likened returning boat people to Sri Lanka to returning Jews to Nazi Germany.

And journalists of the Left competed to be the most horrified. ABC host Fran Kelly, won, gasping: “Since when does our Government disappear people?”

Bad luck for Kelly. The 41 have now appeared again, back in Sri Lanka where they spoke to reporters.

So were they “refugees”? Were they truly the “persecuted”, fleeing a Third Reich in the Indian Ocean?

Let me quote every single one who talked to reporters. You judge.

Punchi Banda Podinilame, speaking for 10 relatives on board, told Fairfax “they had all gone to Australia to find employment”.

Manushika Sandamali, wife of another passenger, admitted: “My husband went to Australia to get a job.”

M.G. Sumanadasa said he was a stone mason who “got on board to earn more money and to have a family house in New Zealand”.

Anthony Fernando said: “I have gone to Australia by boat to find employment.”

The only human rights abuse Fernando reported was our Navy feeding him old muesli bars: “Australian authorities have ill-treated us; they have given expired food, which had a date of May 22.”

Passenger Bhamith Caldera refused to say if he really “had a case for asylum”.

Kasun Hemantha Jayasekara said he was actually “very happy to be back in Sri Lanka”, given “the alternative was an island prison” like Manus.

Sujeewa Saparamadu came closest to claiming some passengers feared persecution. She said a Special Task Force commando accused of helping to organise the boat “has a political problem”, which she did not identify.

She also claimed she’d been harassed by Sri Lankan authorities after giving an interview to the ABC two years ago, leading her family to decide “to go to another country like New Zealand that offered better economic circumstances”.

In fact, that ABC interview had merely recorded her husband admitting his four brothers had themselves just been returned by the Gillard government after trying to find work in Australia.

(And, yes, Labor returned more than 1000 Sri Lankans against their will, yet the Left waits until Tony Abbott does it before protesting.)

The only human rights abuse Saparamadu complained of this week was Australian officials confiscating her iPhone 5, her daughter’s digital camera and her husband’s gold credit cards.

So how could the Greens claim it a crime to have sent back economic migrants? How can so many journalists ”” and the Human Rights Commission ”” scream we’ve breached our human rights obligations?

But don’t expect a sorry. No, the Left is now screaming about the second intercepted boat, this carrying 153 passengers now believed to be in Australian custody at sea.

Newhouse and barrister Ron Merkel, QC, have persuaded the High Court to issue a temporary injunction against returning these 153 to Sri Lanka, and the same superheated rhetoric is heard about torture, the “disappeared” and Nazis.

But are these boat people any more likely to be true refugees?

Answer: no, even though these, unlike the first 41, are mainly of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority.

In fact, Merkel has already conceded most ”” if not all ”” sailed from India, where they presumably lived in the safety of the established refugee camps.

So why did they try to come here?

As yet, they are still held incommunicado, but Ragajini, the 32-year-old wife of one passenger, told The Sydney Morning Herald from India’s Aliyar refugee camp that “her husband had crippling debts and had needed to escape to a country where he could earn money”.

So not needing our asylum. Just our jobs.

Sure, the 153 might not want to be returned to Sri Lanka but I’m guessing the plan is to send them back to India, where they were always safe.

So if a crime against morality has been committed it is surely this: that so many atrocity-mongers and moral poseurs have inflicted upon us a gigantic fraud.

 

[IFocus]

No one has asked me until now. So how have I 'failed repeatedly to comment'?


I decline to offer an opinion. You could, however, refer to Bob Carr's comments on the matter. One would assume he's entirely more qualified to comment than am I.

I saw Carrs comments and I suspect he to is living in a fish bowl

 

[IFocus]

Something you will not hear from Milne and Hanson-Young, or on the ABC nor in the Fairfax Press.

Vested interests push asylum propaganda to profit from a lucrative trade


BANDULA JAYASEKARA THE AUSTRALIAN JULY 09, 2014 12:00AM

{Mybolds)

Ambassador Bandula Jayasekara is the consul general of Sri Lanka for NSW and Queensland.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...-lucrative-trade/story-e6frg6zo-1226982224602

The Sri Lanka government (read Rajapaksa Mafia) has been very consistent rejecting all claims of human rights abuses as a western / bad people conspiracy.

Nice to see the Liberal Daily News back up the government line

 

[bunyip]

It's not a fault that this government is more effective at border security than the one before. If you're not against the boats being stopped, perhaps you could offer some credit instead of the constant criticism for what has been a hugely successful policy area after the mess left by Labor.

Labor in government didn't battle the boats. It encouraged them and still does so from opposition.

Doc – our ol’ pal IFocus is never going to give the Abbot government credit for anything. His constant criticism is nothing more than sour grapes because the Abbot government has succeeded where his ALP heroes failed.
He says he’s not against Abbot stopping the boats, yet he does nothing but criticize him for doing just that. And yet he never directed as much as a hint of criticism at his hero Rudd who caused the problem in the first place, then was clueless about how to fix it, as was Gillard.
I find it very difficult to believe that IFocus and his ilk want the boats stopped - I think we can reasonably assume that he’d be happy to see the illegal boat arrivals return to the levels we saw under Labor, so that he could then chortle with glee about how Abbot had failed.

 

[noco]

Doc – our ol’ pal IFocus is never going to give the Abbot government credit for anything. His constant criticism is nothing more than sour grapes because the Abbot government has succeeded where his ALP heroes failed.
He says he’s not against Abbot stopping the boats, yet he does nothing but criticize him for doing just that. And yet he never directed as much as a hint of criticism at his hero Rudd who caused the problem in the first place, then was clueless about how to fix it, as was Gillard.
I find it very difficult to believe that IFocus and his ilk want the boats stopped - I think we can reasonably assume that he’d be happy to see the illegal boat arrivals return to the levels we saw under Labor, so that he could then chortle with glee about how Abbot had failed.

the Green/Labor Party sent back over 1000 during their time in Government, so why are being so intent in getting a court order to stop the Abbott Government from returning the latest contingent. ......What a mob of hypocrites.

 

[drsmith]

Doc – our ol’ pal IFocus is never going to give the Abbot government credit for anything. His constant criticism is nothing more than sour grapes because the Abbot government has succeeded where his ALP heroes failed.

IF's avatar says it all.

He just comments on this topic for a bit of a stir without too much concern about having his feathers constantly plucked.

 

[drsmith]

Some stats to emerge from yesterday's senate hearings,

Operation Sovereign Borders commander Angus Campbell, appearing before a Senate inquiry yesterday, praised “the policy settings of both the current and former governments” for stemming the flow of boats from 48 a month last July to five in October and November.

It was decided even that small number was unsustainable and the government began towing boats back to Indonesia from mid-December. “No ventures have departed in Indonesia since early May 2014, there have been no known deaths at sea since 9 December 2013 and no deaths at all in Australia’s territorial waters since Operation Sovereign Borders began,” he told the inquiry.

Australian law enforcement had assisted the arrests of 204 suspects, including 49 alleged organisers and 34 alleged facilitators of people-smuggling, as well as the disruption of 44 ventures.

The Department of Immigration told the inquiry that between July last year and June 19, 317 detainees were returned to home countries: 245 Iranians, 27 Iraqis, 17 Lebanese, 15 Vietnamese, four Bangladeshis, three Indians, two Pakistanis, two Sri Lankans and two Sudanese.

The article also includes Scott Morrison on matters Sri Lanka,

On his return from Sri Lanka yesterday, the Immigration Minister said that isolating Sri Lanka would only harm economic growth and increase the prospect of more people-smuggler boats coming to Australia

Mr Morrison said advocacy for asylum-seekers was being used as a ‘’very negative platform on Sri Lanka itself’’ to turn the *nation into a pariah. “The ultimate aim of some is to isolate Sri Lanka which is not only dangerous, arrogant and indulgent but smacks of moral colonialism,’’ Mr Morrison said.

“It is offensive to suggest that people being returned to Sri Lanka, most of whom are economic refugees, face persecution. It is even more offensive to India to suggest Sri Lankans, Sinhalese or Tamils returned to India would face persecution.’’

All but a “very few’’ of the 41 asylum-seekers ”” 37 Sinhalese and four Tamils ”” returned to Sri Lanka after being seized by Australian Navy and Customs had been released from custody. Those still in custody were being questioned.

The Abbott government’s policy of intercepting boats from Sri Lanka or India outside Australian waters and returning them is being challenged in the High Court by asylum-seeker advocates. Mr Morrison said the Australian government’s policy was to treat Sri Lanka with a policy of practical engagement, which was the same policy as former Labor Foreign Minister Bob Carr.

“We raise human rights issues where there is a need, but the economic growth in Sri Lanka has affirmed our view of working constructively and supportively with Sri Lanka,’’ Mr Morrison said.

He said Sri Lanka did not deserve the torrent of abuse.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...ics-of-sri-lanka/story-fn9hm1gu-1226986157128

 

[drsmith]

Scott Morrison in Parliament yesterday commented that it's been almost 7-months since a successful people smuggling operation has reached Australia.

That leaves the question as to what is happening to the 153 from a boat subject to the high court who are in our care, presumably sill on a customs vessel on the high seas.

According to the following article, Sri-Lankan government *officials and the UNHCR are *believed to be in discussions about that boat load.

An NGO source told The Daily Telegraph the relationship with the Sri Lankan government had deteriorated in the past two weeks, with many nervous about *speaking openly with media about asylum seekers. Government *officials and the UNHCR are *believed to be in discussions about 153 asylum seekers intercepted by the Royal Australian Navy.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...uslim-extremists/story-fni0cx4q-1226987688677

 

[noco]

I saw Carrs comments and I suspect he to is living in a fish bowl

But Carr is a Labor man speaking the truth...something the rest of the Fabian comrades don't know how to speak the truth.

 

[drsmith]

According to the following article, Sri-Lankan government officials and the UNHCR are believed to be in discussions about that boat load.

This might be the game plan,

These arguments will ultimately be decided by the High Court. In the meantime, the asylum seekers will not be going back to Sri Lanka without 72 hours notice being given. Justice Crennan noted that the injunction she granted did not prevent "any decisions which may be made by the Australian executive about taking the persons in question... to some other place for processing".

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-14/fact-file-asylum-seekers-fate-in-high-court/5581926

My bolds.

 

[ChrisJH]

But Carr is a Labor man speaking the truth...something the rest of the Fabian comrades don't know how to speak the truth.

Who is this Fabian you keep going on about, and what is the opposite of a Fabian?