Swerv-o

Thanks.

This article in today's Australian seems to suggest that these people were mostly from Lebanon.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1226729603696


S

sonlymewalter

correct. The Lebanese region of Akkar

The boat had apparently foundered in Indonesian waters yet Australian authorities were phoned begging them to rescue the children

paulry

Those videos are very sad but the people responsible for the tragedy are:

1. The people smugglers who for a fee put those poor souls on the unseaworthy boat.
2. The former government - who dismantled the pacific solution.
3. The would-be migrants who encouraged by 1 and 2 above, adopted this high risk strategy to obtain Australian residence through the back door.

eddie007

There is no "useful" discussion being had here...

I'm withdrawing.... " the only bigger fool than the person who knows everything is the one who argues with him"

You can have this one...

paulry

By "useful" do you mean agreeing with you?

eddie007

No... .... The "argument" that asylum seekers are causing people with cancer to die ... PMSL...

I can see no point In encouraging responses to such thinly veiled narrow minded bigotry... Hopefully you will finish patting yourselves on the back and the thread will simply fall off the page...

sonlymewalter

"A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him" - Oscar Wilde



It's called debate. Everyone has an opinion and yours is no better or worse than anyone else's. That doesn't make anyone else a fool.

sonlymewalter

Pedant; "marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning especially its trivial aspects"

paulry

It must be embarrassing to the Indonesian government to learn that it's military transported the would-be migrants to the quayside.

sonlymewalter

They'll give them to Tony Abbott as a going away pressy when he next visits them

scrubbedexpat098

I'm bored and flying home today so I'm going to comment

I've seen first hand what people risk when they try to move to a 'better life' in the form of a smashed up body on the railway at Eurotunnel. I don't think I could ever condemn these people for trying. They've been fed lies about what life is like in 'the new world' to relieve them of their cash, and are the only victims in all this. Not for one minute am I saying open all doors, but I do find the lack of humility towards them distasteful. Perhaps we should do what the yanks do, attack the problem at source, bomb the shit out of them and force a regime change.

paulry

No matter how people view the practice of others getting on a boat to secure a visa to Australia, I think everyone who has posted so far on this thread is sad at the tragic human loss.

If Indonesia made people smuggling a capital offence it would stop the trade in it's tracks.

sonlymewalter

yep amazing that dealing with drugs can attract the death penalty yet people smugglers get away lightly

OzTennis

It's a bit ironic to see people let into Australia under part of its migration scheme (skill, family and special eligibility streams) debating the rights and wrongs of people who might be let into Australia under the humanitarian part of the migration scheme.

It's also ironic to think back on white settlement beginning with the original 160,000+ boat people sent from 1788 to 1868. I bet a lot of these were dodgier than most of the displaced Lebanese too and there was no processing offshore before they were let in either.

sonlymewalter

Comparing skilled migrants with unskilled boat people is like comparing apples with pears. For starters and for the most part migrants bring economic benefits into the country and due to English skills can start adding to the workforce straight away whilst boat people cost the country and provide no immediate economic benefit. Also migrants are health and police checked prior to coming to Aus whereas this is also not the case for boat people. Comparing the two is nonsense.

Re white settlement in 1788 - if it wasn't for these settlers Australia wouldn't even exist as it is today - so that's also a moot point.