from Crikey …..

Nothing soft - or cheap - about our border protection

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

The most alarming thing about our border protection arrangements in north-western Australia is not that they are insufficient, it’s that they are far in excess of what is justified.

We spend tens of millions of dollars on naval patrols in that area to intercept, at best, a few hundred asylum seekers. Meantime, thousands of illegal immigrants and criminals enter Australia through our airports, overstaying tourist or student visas, often disappearing into the community. If any terrorists are going to enter the country, that’s surely the entry mechanism. Of the 400-odd people in immigration detention on 30 June last year, 1% were boat arrivals. 7% were illegal fishermen. Nearly 90% arrived by air or overstayed visas.

Never mind the current increase in people smuggling, we’d have to reach Italian or Spanish levels of boat arrivals, numbering in the thousands, to justify the money we spend on naval patrols. But because we’re obsessed with boat arrivals, the absurd misallocation of resources to naval border protection continues and will worsen.

Maybe it’s our innate sense that, as an island, we should be safe from the sort of border insecurity that plagues most countries and water-borne refugees affront that. The Fraser Government adeptly handled the influx of Vietnamese refugees, over Labor objections. It was the Keating Government that really ramped up Government hostility to boat arrivals, particularly from China.

Until recently we were bringing in large numbers of Chinese workers on 457 visas. Back in the early 1990s, Labor started locking them up when they came, placing incarceration at the centre of Australian refugee policy, to public acclaim. And we all know how the Howard Government exploited the issue.

The Opposition -- or at least some of them -- has been consistently arguing that the Government has softened border protection, but refuses to say what it would actually do to strengthen protection. Would it restore temporary visas, which left asylum seekers in limbo for years, prevented from earning a wage or accessing decent services? Would it put them back on Nauru while they were processed and -- inevitably, as in the case of nearly all the boat people who arrived during the Howard years -- adjudged to be legitimate asylum seekers?

How, exactly, has the Government softened border protection when we retain the world’s strictest process for asylum seekers? The Opposition needs to point to facts, because it is making an extraordinarily grave allegation, that the Government has in effect willfully encouraged people smugglers. People smuggling is primarily an Indonesian activity and the solution lies in the Indonesian Government more effectively checking the activities of organised crime.

Nevertheless, the Government has a developing problem of perception. It can’t rely on Liberal moderates like Russell Broadbent, who commendably spoke out against the reaction yesterday, to throw the Coalition off course on this. The Opposition has little going for it, so it will exploit any issue it can. The Government needs to convey the context of the boat people “problem”: that it is a highly visible but minute part of a larger problem, a diversion that we cannot afford to stay obsessed with.

The alternative is another trip back to incarceration and punishment of asylum seekers. The ALP can never win that debate anyway and would lose its soul if it did.

An Afghan community group is questioning claims from Federal Government sources that asylum seekers on a boat which exploded near Ashmore Reef poured fuel on the deck deliberately.

Five people were killed and 44 injured after the boat caught fire on April 16.

Government sources told the ABC that fuel was deliberately poured on the deck as a threat after the Navy intercepted the boat, because those on board feared they would be turned back to Indonesia.

But the head of the Afghan community in Western Australia, Farad Popal, says some of the survivors now in immigration detention say it was an accident.

"Their understanding is that it was during the time of the refuelling, when they were refuelling, putting the fuel to the engine," he said.

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Gus: having travelled and worked in some rough corners of the world, I know that careless refuelling is common occurrence. I travelled in that clapped out mini bus once, where the fuel tank was an open drum of gasoline — inside the bus, with a syphoning plastic pipe going to the engine that was overheating every 15 minutes. The "road" was reminiscent of a dry rocky-muddy creek-bed with water in it...  I had a window seat (there was no glass) and was prepared to jump as soon as I saw the smoking driver extinguish the butt of his cigarettes on the side of the drum...

Who's to know what happened on the boat... see toon at top...

The new Australian of the Year, Victorian psychiatrist Professor Patrick McGorry, has called for an end to immigration detention centres because of their link to mental illness.

Professor McGorry has been recognised for his work in the mental health field and particularly his achievements in improving the mental health of young people.

The 57-year-old has championed the importance of early intervention to prevent mental illness.

When accepting his award at a ceremony outside Parliament House on Monday night, Professor McGorry called for radical change in the mental health services in Australia.

He also called for an end to immigration detention centres.

"You could almost describe them as factories for producing mental illness and mental disorder," he said.

"I've heard some terrible stories and I've seen some lives really shattered by this policy."

He says Australia is poised for a new era of re-engineering of our mental health system.

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 Meanwhile:

From the mob at the loony bin of the rabid "white australia policy" protectionist right..:

Over forty boats with at least 1,800 people have arrived since August last year as a direct response to Rudd’s weakening of Australia’s border protection.

The alleged “refugees” themselves have said that they were attracted by Rudd’s weak stance on border protection and the appeal of making it to the promised land of the big Centerlink.

The Rudd government is currently planning to refurbish two defence force bases into “refugee” hotels, expanding the Christmas Island facility to cope with the expected influx.

We really do not know who these alleged refugees are. There is a good chance of there being terrorists and terrorist sympathisers amongst the them. They have already threatened to blow up a boat with 250 men, woman and children on board and we have seen it happen before at the Ashmore Reef boat fire.

All of the survivors of the Ashmore Reef explosion have been given permanent residency with some having received first-class medical treatment for their self-inflicted injuries at the expense of the Australian taxpayer.

The Rudd government, with the assistance of some Liberal MP’s have voted in favour of not billing “refugees” for their detention. So not only do they get free accommodation and “culturally appropriate” food, they also get “pocket money” and the only thing the Australian voter gets is more taxes to pay for it all.

Its clear that the Rudd government cannot be trusted on border protection...

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& crap to the protectionists party...

Mental as rabid right loonies... see toon at top.