John Howard stopped all the boats coming with his pacific solution then Rudd dismantled it and now thousands are arriving again, is Rudd to blame? Are they real refuguees or just after the much better standard of life OZ has.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/gov...-1225847169485

Its too easy to just call them "boat people". Makes it easy to forget they are actually human beings.

my aussie partner was having a daily mail moment on sunday, reckons the illigal immigrant centres are full and they are staying in 4 star brissie hotels and going on tax payer funded shopping sprees.

Peed him off all the more as he was trying to book a decent hotel in brisbane and he was looking at 200+ a night plus parking. I kindly pointed out we paid less in London for a hotel than the parking in bris

Geez these bloody aussies can half whinge.

The thread title should read " a very small amount of boat people pour in". The article you link to says 4386 asylum seekers have entered Australia under the Rudd Government (ie since the end of 2007).

Does that seem a lot to you?

Seems almost insignificant to me. In 2008/9 alone there were 158,000 permanent settlers entering australia including 25,000 from New Zealand and 21,000 from the UK (the largest two countries of origin)

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/statist...vs/totmova.htm

So what exactly is the issue? As an imigrant youself are you saying you disaprove of more imigrants coming in? Or are you just trolling?

Theres a difference between legal and illegal immigrants , l don't see discussing the topic of illegal immigration as " trolling".

Actually whilst other posters seem to want to attack you a little, I happen to think that the Rudd government's policies are too soft and encourage people smuggling.

Let me say from the outset that I fully appreciate we are dealing with human beings here. However, we as a country also have humanitarian visa allocations and arriving by people smugglers is in effect just jumping the queue when others have applied properly. By allowing people to undergo security checks and then enter sends what message to people who are desperate for economic migration (as opposed to refugee migration) who arrive having chucked passports overboard on the way ?

The is not a clear cut subject by any stretch, however there needs to be balance and to my mind Rudd is all talk and nothing else. He doesn't want to offend anyone by taking any sort of stand. After all, might hurt job prospects for a nice UN job down the line if you take a stance that might be too hard on the international platform. Howard, for all his issues did have the balls to make hard calls, whether they were right on wrong - as so frequently they were sometimes.

I liked Howard when he was in with his policies. there just seems too many wanting to come here now Under Rudd .

I have relatives in uk that are moaning the way uk has gone over the years.

Don,t often agree with the Greens , but their solution makes a lot of sense

Illegal (boat ) immigrants are returned to there country of origin and two from the transition camps (who have applied legally ) are given a visa.

So they know by paying a people trafficker they are putting themselves at the distant end of the line back in there own country.

Aye, a great reason to ESCAPE the UK ... immigration ... gone to the dogs ... those <shifty look> 'Eastern Europeans' ...

So there 'seems too many wanting to come here' ... on what evidence is this based? Have you sent out questionnaires? Or is it based on reports in the media?

I'm sure Howard liked the likes of you too, ready to react to this warped BS.

Yes, I know, the troll wants all of this reaction but hey, I'm bored

Boat people are not illegal immigrants until their status has been verified.
If you are not trolling then your choice of thread title is a little naive. 4386 "boat people" is hardly pouring in - trickling yes.

You are obviously influenced by Daily Mail type journalism.

An illegal immigrant is " not holding the relevant entry visa "

How can they be legal if they don,t have visas ?

Alot or most burn all their ID before they come to OZ because their real identity reveals they are not real refugees, real refuguess in camps who don't have $20,000 to pay people smugglers miss out on coming to OZ becasue they steal their places.

Don't be ridiculous. Howard didn't stop the boats from coming.

Here's a chart showing the number of boat people who arrived between 1991-2003. Bear in mind that Howard was in power from 1996-2007:



(Source).

You can see for yourself that ~10,000 illegals arrived by boat from 1996-2003. That was all during Howard's administration. It also begs the question: why did Howard take 4 years to introduce the Pacific Solution? Was he soft on illegal immigration?

Of course, what really matters is not how many boats arrive but how many people are permitted to enter the country. You could have a thousand boats arriving every month, but if 99% of their passengers are turned away, what's the big deal? Counting boats is just a red herring. You should be counting permanent residents.

And check this out:

98 boat people are being kicked out of the country without even catching a glimpse of the suburbs because Rudd's government has determined that they are not proper asylum seekers. And you think he's soft on illegal immigration? Seriously?

Australia's annual asylum intake is 13,500 per year. If boat people continue to arrive at the current rate, and if they continue to be rejected at the current rate, we won't even be halfway through our quota by the end of December 2010. There is no massive influx of boat people. We are not drowning in a flood of illegal immigrants. Look at the numbers and you'll see that it's a storm in a teacup.

If we are talking about illegal immigrants (the proper terminology is unlawful non-citizen) the issue is not the boat people. Current Australian Government estimates are that there are approximately 46,000 unlawful non-citizens in Australia, of which 26,200 have remained in the country unlawfully for more than 5 years. The largest groups of unlawful non-citizens in Australia come from the United Kingdom and the USA.