70m poof! up in smoke

tourist visa is pretty easy to get. it's how most of them get into Indonesia.

 

Tourist visa is also easy enough to get for coming to Australia. If you're capable of getting yourself to Jakarta you can get to any major city in Australia..

 

Preface - I have worked in Africa & Asia and have met and talked with real boat people & refugees from Congo, Sri Lanka and Iraq here in Australia.
I am also ex-military who had a minor involvement in border protection.

I do appreciate the situation of genuine refugees.
They are 10 years in a camp in Africa and are lucky to be chosen by UNHCR as suitable for resettlement....it's a lottery.
The illegals (entry) have the luxury of planning their trip.....
How they get 12,000km from their country to Australia is mainly with the purchased help of people smugglers. It's a multi-billion dollar growth business.
Families raise or borrow funds to enable one person or a family to travel to Australia, often more than $10k ea. This is a debt due for repayment.
Indonesia is a compliant stop over after the long flight from the Middle East and encourages "visitors"....
First step, tear up all identity documents and rehearse the back story of your life, then on the boats for the risky trip to Christmas Island - easy entry under Labour - hard now the boats are being returned.
Very difficult to check the facts of the back story or even establish the persons real name.

The problem for many is that they cannot repay the people smuggler debt if they return to their country, so they are trapped.

I do not like the payout against the Aust government at all - but - I do think it may answer the debt question for the detainees.....
It will certainly be less expensive than keeping them in detention....
Gives a clean solution for the PNG government as well.
And it gives some needed $$$ to Slater & Gordon, the struggling bottom feeding law firm who charged $20m....all taxpayer money.

Don't like it at all, but it is part of our free democracy and the policies of the government we voted into power.
My 2c.......

 

Well it's easy depending on your country of origin ....

 

The Australian Government in 2015 released some facts about asylum seekers and refugees stating:

Although the numbers fluctuate, usually only a small proportion of asylum applicants in Australia arrive by boat—most arrive by air with a valid visa and then go on to pursue asylum claims. While the number of boat arrivals has risen substantially in recent years, it is worth noting that even in high arrival years they still comprise just over half of onshore asylum seekers in Australia and a greater proportion of those arriving by boat are recognised as refugees. In 2014, arrival numbers fell again and there was only one boat arrival in Australia. As a result, the majority of asylum applicants arrived by air.​

Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts? – Parliament of Australia

The whole mess on Manus and Nauru was both made and almost entirely avoidable.

Personally I find it very irritating that it seems a lot of people commentating about seekers and refugees have no idea what they are talking about. Not singling you out personally with this comment @geoffw. The ignorance is very widespread.

I find the whole situation with how asylum seekers have been treated very distressing. Abbott has copped much of the blame for this by people completely ignorant of the facts. Here are some lowlights:

Mandatory detention in Australia was introduced by the Keating (Labor) Government in 1992.
The Howard (Liberal-National) Government established Offshore Processing Centres on Nauru and Manus Island (Papua New Guinea) as part of the so called 'Pacific Solution'.
On 8 February 2008 the ‘Pacific Solution’ was formally ended by the Rudd (Labor) Government.
In the 2011/12 financial year, the Federal (Labor) Government recorded 14,438 unauthorised boat arrivals.
In 2012, the Gillard (Labor) Government reintroduced the policy of transferring asylum seekers to offshore processing centres in both Nauru and Papua New Guinea (Manus Island).

What I personally find most disgusting is the treatment of children. Despite resolving not to hold children in immigration detention centres in 2008, by December 2012 there were 1221 children in immigration detention.

The detention of children has also proved to be a contentious issue for the Labor Government. One of the seven ‘immigration detention values’ endorsed by Cabinet in 2008 was that children should not be held in immigration detention centres, but in lower security detention alternatives such as immigration transit accommodation or in community detention.[157] Yet as more and more people began arriving by boat from 2008 onwards this ‘value’ was put to the test. The number of children being held in detention rose steadily, attracting vocal criticism from refugee advocates and human rights groups.[158]

In response to growing pressure by interest groups and overcrowding in detention centres generally, the Immigration Minister announced in October 2010 that children would be progressively moved out of detention facilities into community-based accommodation by June 2011.[159] Progress on this commitment proved to be slow, but by 30 June 2011 the Government announced it had moved ‘most’ children out of centres and into community detention.[160] According to DIAC, as at 31 July 2011 there were 872 children in immigration detention, but there were no longer any children detained in immigration detention centres:

As at 31 July 2011, there were 872 children (aged under 18 years) in immigration detention—446 were detained in the community under residence determinations, 329 were in alternative places of detention, 45 were in immigration residential housing and 52 were in immigration transit accommodation. No children are detained in an immigration detention centre. An increasing number of children are living in the community under a residence determination (community detention) since the Government's announcement on 18 October 2010. The number of children in immigration detention has also been decreasing.[161]

By the end of December 2012 there were 1221 children in immigration detention:

As at 31 December 2012, there were 1221 children (aged under 18 years) in immigration detention facilities and alternative places of detention. The increase in the number of children in detention facilities for December 2012 is due to a rapid increase in irregular maritime arrivals during October and November 2012. The majority of children in facilities-based detention have been in detention for less than two months. No children are detained in immigration detention centres.[162]​

Immigration detention in Australia – Parliament of Australia

 

These threads always end up the same....the folks who overwhelmingly support letting in refugees....want them all to come here, and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make the rest who dont support that view feel guilty.

The rest of the folks have a far more pragmatic approach to the problem, and will never feel guilty about looking at it from a more economic standpoint ; despite what the other side says...heartless, etc is a common accusation.

It's very commendable to want everyone to come....but at some point there has to be an economic (and security) aspect to it, otherwise massive economic problems will occur...don't even start on the cultural ones.

We simply cannot keep on bringing in ever-increasing numbers of legal immigrants and/or refugees if there is;
* not enough housing for the yearly quotas,
* not enough jobs to get them into when we have increasing unemployment (plus the 200,000 school leavers every year)
* welfare bill that is increasing every year,
* National debt that is also increasing every year.

At some point our Politicians need to put the economic hat back on....sorry to be blunt.

 

We just need some extreme vetting.

We have decreasing unemployment. Stats out today have UE at 5.5% - very close to full employment.

 

We have a winner!

 

I was directly responding to your claim that if it was easy for anybody to get a visa to fly in they would have been doing so, and there would have been tens of thousands of people (at least) doing so. It is on the record that most asylum seekers arrive by plane, not boat. It is a fact that Although the numbers fluctuate, usually only a small proportion of asylum applicants in Australia arrive by boat—most arrive by air with a valid visa and then go on to pursue asylum claims.

With that knowledge, I personally find this comment ignorant:

And just to clarify that. I am not calling you ignorant. You are clearly not. I will label your comment ignorant though. It is on the record that tens of thousands of people have arrived in Australia by plane to seek asylum. This is not visa overstayers, these are people who have arrived by air to seek asylum in Australia.

While in 2013-14 the number of boat arrivals and air arrivals was roughly even, throughout the 2000s the majority of asylum seekers arrived by air.

Air Arrivals

The above link has a table showing the number of people arriving in Australia by air since 2001. Adding up those numbers, more than 72,000 asylum seekers have arrived by air since 2001.

So when you say "If it was easy for anybody to get a visa to fly in they would have been doing so, and there would have been tens of thousands of people (at least) doing so", that is exactly what has been happening. Literally tens of thousands of people (more than 72,000 since 2001) have arrived by air to seek asylum in Australia. Not all of those had valid visas, but all of those flew into Australia.

 

@geoffw I will explain my comment about ignorance around this topic (not yours). I am sure you have seen some of these claims:-
1) illegal immigrants arriving by boat or illegal boat people
2) boat people are taking up all the refugee places
3) boat people are queue jumpers
4) Australia is being swamped by boat people
5) boat people are not genuine refugees

Of course none of these claims are true and it's easy to disprove them, but I still see them bandied about and it annoys me. The facts relating to the above are very clear:

1) It is not a crime to enter Australia without authorisation for the purpose of seeking asylum. Asylum seekers do not break any Australian laws simply by arriving on boats or without authorisation.

2) Historically, successful onshore applicants (boat and air arrivals) usually only make up a relatively small proportion of the total number of refugees and other humanitarian entrants accepted by Australia each year - usually in the region of 17 to 20 per cent. In 2013-14, 20 per cent of 13,750 grants went to onshore (air and boat) applicants.

3) Even for refugees who are in need of resettlement, there is no orderly resettlement ‘queue’ to join. In reality, the resettlement system works more like a lottery than a queue.

4) In terms of migration to Australia generally, boat arrivals have always been a very small cohort: in the context of our migration program, the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat to Australia is very, very minor. It is less than 1.5 per cent of new migrants

5) Past figures show that between 70 and 100 per cent of asylum seekers arriving by boat at different times have been found to be refugees and granted protection either in Australia or in another country.

Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts? – Parliament of Australia

 

I know this thread isn't completely about that - what I did say is that "these sorts of threads always end up"...and it is already happening.

This thread started off with a whinge (a valid one) about paying compensation to refugees and of course; many will not agree with that view.

Without saying "all refugees should be let in" there are several folks who always end up implying it in various ways; invoke the blame/guilt card;
1. Shame Aus for not doing enough; not letting more numbers in,
2. Quote stats from other Countries who let in more than we do.
3. Drag out our horrific past of invasion/white privilege and all this.
4. Trot out the racist card, etc.

How many refugees per year would make these people happy?

But back to the topic; help these people by all means within our economic scope; but compensation? No way; they are not Citizens, they pay no taxes, do not vote, have no rights, get looked after while our guests; it's a very dangerous and slippery slope, and sends a bad message for others to jump onboard and milk the system....and if folks don't think they will?....I have a block of land just underneath the centre of Sydney Harbor Bridge I would like to sell them.

 

We do not. It's BS, Ed.

The figures are fudged.

I was watching a news/talkback show a week or so ago which had a finance guy on (can't recall his name now) who made the statement that he believed the "real" figure to be in excess of 10%, and possibly as high as 15%. Now; that is possibly hyperbolic; but let's assume a figure of say; 8% to 10%...still bad.

And of course; neither the Libs or Labor will admit this; the Libs dare not because it will make them look even more crap than they already are right now, and further destroy and slim chance they might have had of winning the next Election and Labor won't dare admit it because it will mean they will walk into this figure and inherit it at the next Election, knowing they have no hope in hell of decreasing it in the near or medium future....we are (well; not all of us) all being conned on this.

1. Many full-time jobs are gone, and have been replaced with less hours part-time and casual jobs....even a 10 hour per week job is counted as a job.
2. The figures do not include folks who are not even trying to get a job...not actively looking for work.
3. Look at the welfare bill...it is only increasing, and many of these are "dole" type arrangements, many are "disability" type arrangements...there are plenty of folks out there who are rorting these two items alone to avoid working; these folks are not included in the jobs figures.

All of the above, plus more; decrease the actual amount of jobs - meaningful jobs - available, so the unemployment looks less.

How many jobs have disappeared over the last few years from;
1. Car industry (and associated businesses which feed off that industry)
2. Coal industry as mines close (and associated industries which feed off this industry)
3. Resources boom ending (and other businesses which feed of this industry)
4. Retail shop-fronts closing/contracting as on-line shopping increases.
5. Education as schools amalgamate/close etc.

Where have the replacement jobs come from for all of the above industries (and more)?

 

Did you not read the article you linked to?

 

I don't think that any of these "facts" are true in regards to immigration. For example it's been shown that immigrants are less likely to depend on welfare.

But who needs facts when you have opinions, am I right?