Refugees v Asylum Seekers

It's been a while since my last post... sorry about that.

I've been slowly digesting the current debate about boat people and asylum seekers. It's a tough one, that's for sure.

At the outset, I should let you know I don't subscribe to certain politicians' views that Labor has "gone soft" and that encourages people to come to Australia by boat. That's a little simplistic and fails to take into account worldwide patterns in refugees. This article, if a little complex, might be of interest to you: http://bit.ly/4ESmPo

On the other hand, I appreciate for political reasons that a complete open door policy is unlikely to be sustainable.

What concerns me, though, is this idea that we must lock up refugees until we find out whether or not they are refugees. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter if they are on Christmas Island (what a let down it must be for children when they realise there is nothing remotely "Christmas" about that island!), on the mainland, or in Indonesia. It worries me that the government is being so secretive over its plans with Indonesia.

I can see the potential for a cooperative approach to detect boats of asylum seekers, take them safely to mainland, and process them as quickly as possible - but by involving Indonesia are we setting up a system that enables us to close our doors (after all, if these people haven't arrived in Australia, our obligations under the Refugee Convention don't necessarily apply to them).

At this stage, the jury is still out, but let me ask a favour of all my readers: don't believe all the propaganda that is fed through our media: "asylum seeker" is not a French word for "terrorist", Australia is not the centre of the universe, and like it or not, we do have a duty to help the less fortunate around the world... now, if only our government would take a decisive and leading role in this debate...