Australia, the UN, and Refugees

No, you showed that people smuggling is illegal.

Nobody has shown that paying a people smuggler is illegal.

There is a difference.

 

Yes, this post described it quite well:

This is 100% correct.

 

Yep, it certainly is illegal to smuggle people.

However, paying the smugglers doesn't make an asylum seeker an "illegal immigrant".

 

So paying a criminal to conduct a crime is not illegal hey, well who'd of thought it.

 

With all due respect, you didn't read my post correctly.

Anyway, here's some more interesting information regarding the quota we discussed:

"Australia no longer has a queue, it has a quota. Six thousand refugees a year are permitted to come to Australia. Of all the refugees in the world (and this is only referring to the ones that UNHCR has been able to reach and register) less than one half of one percent will be offered even an interview for potential resettlement. And maybe 1 in 3 of those interviewees will be successful. In real terms, that means they’re in a queue for resettlement the same way I’m in a queue for this week’s Powerball.

So what do you do about a queue that doesn’t exist, and a home that you can’t return to?"

http://www.ourworldtoday.com.au/news/article/queue-jumpers

 

Yawn.....pass the salt....yawn....

 

Yes people smuggling is illegal, but you have to prove the boat people werent trafficked and in fact paid to get smuggled which is impossible from our end alone. Of course its illegal to pay a criminal to conduct what you've agreed is a crime. Buying pornography in the ACT is irrelevant. If the asylum seeker pays a people smuggler to commit the crime of people smuggling then they are directly funding the crime itself. Whether its technically a law in Indonesia that the boat people are arrested for I'm not sure is relevant, they are still funding a crime and that is why we have the AFP over there arresting people smugglers with the help of the Indonesian authorities.

Do you mean specifically your use of illegal immigrant because thats irrelevant for you to bring up isnt it? I'm not talking about illegal immigrants, even if I did mention illegal immigration, we are talking about asylum seekers trying to immigrate to Australia via refugee status. I consider it illegal because they fund a crime to facilitate entry to claim refugee status. The only proviso I have to this is if they are coming directly from their homes where they are oppressed because then that is genuine seeking asylum. Traveling through Malaysia and Indonesia, which are places of asylum already, SHOULD invalidate their claim for asylum. Sending them back to Malaysia is a good idea insofar is sends them back to one of the first points of asylum many of them reach, but it ignores that they are spending money to fund a criminal network which I argue should not be ignored. Their are plenty of poor refugee's in refugee camps who deserve to live in Australia more then people who avoid the law in several countries just to pay criminal people smugglers to get specifically into Australia.

 

Nobody here has ever suggested that people smuggling is not a crime.

However, the asylum seekers are not the criminals.

Nobody is arresting the asylum seekers.

Why?

Because they're not criminals.

 

Again, with all due respect, it doesn't actually matter if you (or anyone else) considers it illegal.

The simple fact is, it's not.

They enter legally, are subsequently processed and in the last 3 years 94% of them have been granted refugee status.

All legal.

 

Here ya go:

 

I dont know where your going to stick your salt, but boat people are arrested. Its not just the people smugglers. Why are they being arrested if its not illegal????????


Indonesia arrested 43 Afghans who were trying to reach Australia illegally, police said, a day after Asian nations pledged to work together to tackle people smuggling.

The migrants, including women and children, were arrested in the waters off Madura island in East Java province on Thursday morning, provincial maritime police chief Anang Hidayat told reporters.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-03-31/indonesia-arrests-australia-bound-asylum-seekers/2633784

 

Charged with?

 

..breaking at least one law I'd imagine. The story says because they were trying to illegally enter Australia. It goes to the main point I'm making, they are obviously wealthy enough to reach asylum on their own in Malaysia and Indonesia so why dont they stay and let the poor refugee's with no money to get the spots in Australia. It costs us a fortune patrolling and processing up there because of this, and not to mention all the lives lost in sinking boats... just so the wealthy 'refugees' who have already found refuge but want to move up in the world at the expense of the poor who are unable such luxury of options.

 

If eventually charged, they're charged with "documentation offences", not people smuggling offences.

"Asylum seekers irrespective of their mode of arrival, like others that arrive in Australia without a valid visa, are classified by Australian law to be ‘unlawful non-citizens’. However, the term ‘unlawful’ does not mean that asylum seekers have committed a criminal offence. There is no offence under Australian law that criminalises the act of arriving in Australia or the seeking of asylum without a valid visa."

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/bn/sp/AsylumFacts.pdf

 

Not a people smuggling law.

 

Says you. Were getting to the nature of this problem. They do not just magically arrive on a boat out of nowhere. Your position is that they do and that this is perfectly allowable under the law.... but we all know the reality is they do not just arrive out of nowhere. They've been breaking laws in at least one country before they get to that point. Australia shouldnt reward criminals, especially when it fills out quota when so many needy others are doing the right thing in refugee camps and also especially when so many die trying to make the journey.

 

The whole thing is just a big mess.

Of course it's 'not lawful' to arrive in Australia without a visa, or to overstay your visa (wtf would be the point of visa's otherwise?). Of course 'people smuggling' is illegal. But once they're in Australian territory, (although we do our best to keep them out) they can seek asylum and that over-rides everything. And then, of course, we still lock them up.

It's completely contradictory. On the one hand we are trying everything to stop them entering Australian territory. Seeking asylum is 'legal', but we lock them up in detention centres for x years to be 'processed'. These 'legal' arrivals destroy their passports/id papers before coming here. They riot and complain because they think their processing takes too long (which it does).

It's clear that the majority of Australian's are 'against the boats'. Which really is fair enough as it is an illegal trade run by organised criminals who make hundreds of thousands/millions of dollars from exploiting desperate people.

The UN agreement encourages this criminal activity. It precludes any kind of organised process from being able to exist. Because it is essentially an open borders policy.

I do not think the agreement is relevant to modern Australia.

There are tens of thousands of confirmed refugees already waiting in Indonesia to come to Australia. Again, why don't we just have individual agreements, that Australia can control directly? Indonesia is basically the hub for our traffic of asylum seekers. Why can't we just build a big arse processing center there and create an orderly queue? We have embassies all over the place, surely they could also take asylum applications. And of course anyone arriving by plane who wants to seek asylum can be dealt with onshore (much more easily because they have already obtained a visa and been id'd, therefore there should be no reason to lock them up).

Since we're not tied to the UN agreement, we can make a law: Anyone arriving in Australia via an unapproved vessel will be immediately deported, no exceptions. BAM! No more criminal enterprise worth millions of dollars. No more boats sinking and killing dozens of people. And still a full quota of refugees and a process for asylum seekers.

 

Oh I see, so you think we should be doing whatever we can to ensure that people seeking asylum, should be denied protection and the chance of reaching safety. This is after all the inverse of what she said! Now be careful to ensure you have checked the definition of "asylum" before you answer.

We have had in recent years, white, Christian refugees from Europe.

 

I understand what you are saying about dumping the UN agreement and creating an Asia Pacific agreement, or another agreement with other countries. But I do feel that it is neccessary for us to maintain the agreement we have made to the UN as it will keep relations in tact with the UN and the countries involved with it. Some of these relations are essential to Australia and it's development.

Another question I raise is, obiously the Government had little respect for Asylum Seekers, especially for children, with their original plans allowing unaccompanied children to be taken to Malasia. But the Government's response to the youth held in Bali after being captured by the police for drug possessions (breaking the law well known to him), was large and some argue over the top. Why is this one boy, so much more important that the potentially hundreds of child Asylum seekers that were originally going to be sent to Malasia (a country well known for not following human rights agreements) unaccompanied?

 

Yeah I'm sure you're right about the UN, I don't expect us to ever really challenge the status quo, our politicians will just undermine it as best they can until someone calls them out.

And to answer your other point... Because he is an Australian.

 

Yeah ...fhwoar! I wouldn't mind seeking asylum with her little boat person

 

Well at least some of you are now admitting that it is not illegal to seek refuge or asylum, which is after all to refute the very definition of the words.

Now you are attacking them (the refugees), because as passengers on the boats, they are accomplices, both before and after the fact. Therefore they are criminals.

Let me tell you something .... If my family was under threat for their safety or liberty by a criminal regime. I would do nearly anything that I felt was not hurting any innocent party. .... Anything and I have no qualms with any person who did the same

 

That is one sexy lil politician:



Probably the only decent looking pollie we have.

 

Well firstly it suits the UN to have chaos looming in western countries where the latter - economic refugees in particular arriving by boat after destroying ID - as well as as those waiting in the camps in a queue denied by the left to exist - are sourced mainly from Islamic countries whose ideology denies assimilation into any western culture - and the chaos is evident in most countries with the problem.

As well as looming large here in Australia - only time before they manage to actually detonate a bomb on our soil - have been foiled with those intending locked up in gaol and costing the taxpayers thousands in keeping their families as well on top of prison costs.

Secondly one has to wonder now that this group is actually outed and not just a conspiracy - Bilderberg Group - who are reputed to be behind the push for OWG - and seeing as the members of the group are the elite of the world in wealth and influence and are alleged to have the leaders of many countries in their pockets - it will suit them to have OWG having only one lot of pollies to pay off - and of course goes along with one world market which they have achieved mainly to date.

Such a pity John Howard didn't listen to John Stone Ex Treasury when in around 2001 he advised to give our notice to the UN on the 1951 Treaty and also its 1967 Protocol which I believe allows anyone to travel through a safe country seeking asylum in one of their choice - making it a country shopping exercise and targeting those with good welfare systems of support and ours is the best.

 

I'm confused to you position because the boat smugglers are the criminal regime that the boat people seek out and employ ie finance.