If I were languishing in a refugee camp in Africa, Thailand etc I would bitterly resent that my family was being kept in such dire straits due to those who could afford either monetarily or geographically to "jump the queue".
And that is only part of the picture. This week we have seen a chunk of the overseas aid budget being diverted to pay for accommodating the asylum seekers arriving by boat in the community. This deprives massively disadvantaged parts of Africa, e.g., of immensely useful agricultural assistance and other aid.
Further, unless you are happy to pay considerably more tax, there are only so many welfare dollars to go round.
So as money is absorbed in paying for accommodation and living expenses for boat arrivals, that is less to assist our own unemployed, homeless and disabled.
A few weeks ago there was an article in one of the papers of a family of asylum seekers from the Middle East, Muslims, who have
thirteen children, at least some of whom have been born since they arrived in Australia. The family lives entirely on welfare. No one works.
Is it fair that, for example, Australians with some years to go before reaching retirement age, when they are retrenched purely due to the contracting economy, are forced to use up all their savings before being able to access the meagre unemployment benefit which is a payment below the poverty line, while the 'irregular maritime arrivals' have immediate access to taxpayer funded accommodation plus an income?
Or that disabled Australians are confined to bed because the funding does not exist for a wheelchair?
Or that aged Australians lie in poorly run nursing homes in their own waste because Aged Care is insufficiently funded?
Or that people with serious mental ill health cannot obtain access to treatment when they need it again because of insufficient funding?
Of course it's sad that in many parts of the world people are poor. But do you really believe we should be opening our borders to everyone wanting a better life at the expense of our own who are so in need?
I don't. But most of all my heart breaks for those who have been the victims of hideous assault and abuse, mostly in Africa, who have walked for weeks, carrying their children, to escape the violence, and who are continuing to spend apparently endless years in UNHCR camps while we admit those not at all suffering persecution but just looking for a taxpayer funded existence which they could never dream of in their home country.