renth

Whilst I think boat people are queue jumpers and paid a lot of money to leapfrog those in United Nations refugee camps I do think that their initiative and gumption in doing it makes it less likely that they will spend their lives on the dole when they get here.

They are much more likely to end up running thriving businesses, much like my colleague whose family came here from Vietnam, clinging to a floating door. Well, on board a leaky boat anyway. I'm always inspired when I hear stories like these.

Maybe we should be welcoming the boat people and telling the UN Humanitarian Program to send their reffos elsewhere.

moneypenny20

The Vietnamese boat people were amazing and were honest asylum seekers and the stories of what some of them did once they found a country to take them in are truly inspirational, the children who became geniuses at whatever subject etc. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see the current fleets of boat people in the same light. Don't believe they are escaping the same issues and as I remember it, the Vietnamese weren't paying large amounts of money to a third party, they just got together to escape.

You may be right though, some of them may be what the country needs for the future.

NedKelly

Perhaps we could swap some of our low life scum dole bludgers for refugees on a one for one basis.

Deancm_MKII

Then there will be no Australians left.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

I think this could probably stop the boats.

Sherlock Holmes

100% correct...they managed to shut Thatcher up eventually (though I liked her till she went bonkers)

Broad Shoulders

...about the time she first got elected then?

mohogony

Yes the vietnamese sailed from vietnam to OZ, the current boat people fly to Indonesia then pay people smugglers to take them to OZ.

bcworld

Rubbish, where did you make that up from?

The vast majority of them were resettled from refugee camps in SE Asia, including Indonesia. A tiny number sailed direct from Vietnam to Aus.

lapin_windstar

Kinell, that's a trifecta of fail.

1) Read critically what he actually said instead of what you imagine he said. Hawke said Australia needed people with those characteristics, not that refugees who arrive by boat should be allowed to stay in Australia as a matter of course or right or without processing.

2) It is not illegal to present yourself at a frontier and request refugee status. In fact, it's a right guaranteed by international law.

3) Howard didn't "stop the boats". He just intercepted them, shifted the problem offshore, at great expense, before the the asylum seekers' applications were processed and the vast majority were found to be refugees to be moved to Australia.
Same place he gets all his information in his many, many threads and posts which demonstrate his remarkable preoccupation with foreigners, immigrants, asylum seekers, Aboriginals, Chinese, millionaire Chinese, Asians...

Mr Grumpy

It is incredibly easy to stop them - simply blow them up. Whats the point in having a military if it doesnt stop an invasion force? The time for brutal military action has come.

sonlymewalter

You wouldn't be posting this crap to create a flame war would you mate

ponyrama

Anyone who can get here on the equivalent of a floating door has my sympathy. I get so seasick on a boat its unreal.

Also, theres plenty of room in WA and Perth needs livening up a bit so whats the problem? (*ducks for cover*)

lapin_windstar

I agree entirely. Bloody Poms, coming over here, filling up the country with their misinformed, poorly thought-through simplistic bollocks...

Broad Shoulders

I've noticed a common trend with ABCDiamond over recent weeks. He seems to have dropped his reliance on Australian Bureau of Statistics Facts and replaced them with Coalition "Facts"