Tag: Asylum Seekers

Watch Dog slams Israel Rights Abuse; Australia below-par on human rights; US leads global attack on human rights. Well, such are the headlines. I’ve always wondered why the MSM don’t draw attention to the real human rights abuse in Ten or so little shithole countries in Sub-Sahara Africa, Iran, North Korea, Russia and all of her *stans, Vietnam, all of the Middle East and half of the countries in South America including the champion of all, Cuba. Of course, we get into trouble for our locking up fortune seekers arriving on our shores. As Australia welcomes tens of thousands of refugees every year, Amnesty must be talking about the few who arrive by boat claiming to be bona fide refugees after having conveniently divested themselves of any papers or ID that could prove otherwise .

“Amnesty has maintained for a long time that the Australian Government must support the rights of of refugees to seek asylum, rather than punish them for it,” she said.

Australia doesn’t punish refugees but we do contain unidentified boat people until we know who they are, what their background is and where they come from. That seems fair to me. Amnesty refers to the case of asylum-seeker Peter Qasim, who has entered his seventh year in indefinite detention. Peter arrived and made claims that when checked proved iffy. He says he is Indian but the Indian government are refusing to accept him back. Therein lies the rub. Amanda Vanstone argues that;

…he has failed to fully cooperate with the immigration department to resolve his nationality, and that his story has been inconsistent and some times contradictory.

I would just as soon we didn’t lock these people up for too long..it tends to give oxygen to the left but by the same token, if we let everyone in on their word alone we take a risk of becoming a soft target. I posted last year on the Amnesty report, Not much has changed

As ready as ever to reinforce failure the Left are into what must be their 984th attempt to prove Howard lied over the bloody Children Overboard saga. Even when confronted with the official reports on the behaviour of the Illegals people like Chris Shiel can only say

A stirling bid to deflect the issue Currency, excuse the pun. It fails, but congrats on all the effort.

What on earth does that mean? Currency Lad has done his homework and summarised the Defence reports. Go read it there and marvel at the ineptitude and Howard Lied mantra of the Left. Be sure to check the comments – they are illuminating.

The ALP want a US style Coast Guard and whereas images of cutters like the USCG Cutter Hamilton (pictured) might make us feel grown up and a significant player in the world all such thoughts would disappear when the first payment fell due. Peter Reith, when Minister for Defence had this to say more than two years ago when Kim Beazley first raised the coast Guard issue. You can read the ALP policy on the Coast Guard issue in their Policy Paper – 007 – 27 November 2002 Although mentioned in this election build up, the ALP have yet to update their site with more recent considerations. Try as I could I couldn’t find a picture of our Coastwatch cutters. If the debate continues could we have some please – Mr Coastwatch PR man. I know they won’t be as big and as flash as the US Cutters but they sound OK to me. Our cutters are 38 m long versus the US 250m plus versions. The division of Customs that handles Coastwatch vessels is the National Marine Unit (NMU) The NMU fleet comprises eight vessels: ACV Roebuck Bay ACV Holdfast Bay ACV Botany Bay ACV Hervey Bay ACV Corio Bay ACV Arnhem Bay ACV Dame Roma Mitchell ACV Storm Bay. All ACVs are surveyed under the Uniform Shipping Laws Code (USLC) to class 2B standards with a 200 nautical mile (NM) offshore capability. Bay-class vessels have an operational fuel load of 25,000 litres and are powered by two MTU 1050-kilowatt diesel engines. This provides endurance in excess of 1000 nautical miles at 20 knots and considerably more at lower speeds. Each ACV has two 6.4m tenders capable of carrying two crew and four passengers. Each tender is powered by twin 90 hp outboards and has a cruising range of 150 nautical miles. Tenders are deployed from an ACV via compensated davits on the port and starboard sides aft. The standard crew for an ACV patrol consists of eight Customs Marine Officers. These officers come from a diverse range of backgrounds and spend 22-30 days at sea per six week roster cycle. Southern ocean crew will work under modified conditions and will generally spend around 40 days at sea. A variety of training is undertaken to ensure crew are skilled to operate as a safe and professional team. Training includes: occupational health and safety at sea Bay-class operation operational safety and defensive skills statutory Federal and State marine qualifications other Customs specific training. More than two years ago I was sailing off the West Australian coast and while at the Monte Bello Islands a Coastwatch plane (pictured above) come over and demanded all sorts of answers such as yacht’s registered name and home port, who was on board, last port, next port, ETA next port and what did we know about the other yacht nearbye that they couldn’t raise on radio. I was impressed. Days later we witnessed Coastwatch operatives conducting training with heli fast-rope inserts onto a small rock way out in the ocean. I’ve been there, done that, am critical and they looked professional to me. The Australian Coastwatch service has a website here and the National Marine Unit here Coast Watch is a uniquely Australian answer and currently under the umbrella of Australian Customs. Why change that?. If the ALP think Coast watch is not working properly then why not just boost Coatswatch? Canada are looking at our system and ask; ‘Australia’s Coastwatch ? What Can Canada Learn?’ Read that here. It’s a short piece Could someone tell me why we shouldn’t just develop and improve Coastwatch. Why do the ALP insist on a Coast Guard when we already have one? Is it just a name change or do they want it under the umbrella of Defence? All sounds like books for kids to me – the wrong angle of approach.

In todays Australian we are told immigration matters, including asylum-seekers and those appealing against tribunal rulings, now account for more than 50 per cent of the matters filed to the High Court. Lawyers have hijacked the Australian Legal system by clogging up the High Court with matters relating to non-Australians and Justices Kirby and Gleeson defend the intolerable state of affairs

High Court judges in February said the Coalition’s attempts to prevent immigration appeals to the High Court – through the contentious legislative method of “privative clauses”, which limit appeal rights – were unconstitutional.

I don’t care for their interpretation. How can 20 million Australians be denied justice, as must be the case while 50 % of court matters relate to a few hundred non-Australians; just because Kirby et al have a hatred against Howard, a softness for all the human debris that is washed up on our shores and an apparent responsibility to feather the nests of lawyers as they pursue larger bank accounts under the guise of helping illegals fight unwinnable cases.

Mr Ruddock said it was clear the majority were “unmeritorious applications” because 92 per cent failed or were withdrawn. “This is the only area of public law where to obtain a delay is an advantage,” he said.

It should be ‘separation of powers’ not separation from reality.

According to Misha Schubert and Mary-Louise O’Callaghan in todays Australian, over in Nauru some weirdo’s are on a hunger strike and for some reason, some commentators have managed to blame this self-inflicted hunger on Australia.

Refugee advocates claim many of the men will never recover from the trauma they have inflicted on themselves in a desperate bid to avoid repatriation to turbulent climes in Afghanistan or Iraq.

…trauma they have inflicted on themselves is what it is all about. Stop inflicting trauma on yourselves and your medical problems will disappear.

The already controversial protest attracted more criticism yesterday with accusations some of the 100 children in Australia’s detention centre in Nauru were being told to join the 35 hunger strikers.

Now they’re deliberately starving their own children. What gets up my ribs is that there are idiots in this country that are encouraging this sort of behaviour and in some strange way, believe they are helping address human rights issues. Give me a break! The hunger strikers are fading as fast as their chances of becoming Australians.

Lets see. We’ve had hungers strikes, riots, abused our kids, sewn our lips together and publicly applauded Osama for murdering thousands of innocents on Sept 11. Now what else can we do to get mainstream Australia offside and suspicious. I know, lets claim to be born again Christians Give up. Go home.

It’s not often the Sunday press has anything worth commenting on but today the Queenslands Sunday mail has a report on a new book. Poet and stand-up comedian Sandy Thorne has written of her time behind the wire as a guard at Curtin and Woomera. For the first time we have comments from someone who was inside – not a dreadlocked and bejeweled hippy with bodily fluids trapped in the rings in his nose. Not Philip Adams or some other apologist for despicable behavior but someone from the coal face. And it ain’t pretty. Ms Thorne says her book debunks the perception that most of the illegal immigrants were hard done by. “Certainly some of them are very decent people, but some were very unpleasant characters,” she says. She goes on to describe some of the inmates reaction to 11 September. “I half-heard something on the television about what had happened and I went to the compound where the detainees were. There was a group huddled around a transistor listening to what was happening in New York and they were overjoyed. They were punching their fists in the air and laughing. Their reaction really shocked me.” These guys are going to fit in well with the Australian society with their attitudes to women and kids. “Some of the biggest fights happened in the medical centre where the men would do their blocks because women and children were treated first,” she said She mentions some are decent people and worthy of help but any jerk who applauds the thousands murdered at the World Trade Centre or demands treatment before sick women and kids is only worthy of a ticket home. The Democrats would have us release them all into the society before we have a chance to vet these sub-species out and send them home. Maybe Andrew Bartlet can help with the vetting. As I understand it, his workload will be light on next week. Via reader Dave Burrows. Thanks mate. Update: For further details on the book including purchase options visit Sandy’s web page. Via Dave again.

While the debate about illegal asylum seekers rages in coffee shops and the media in Australia it is easy to forget that the UK has a much larger problem. The Weekend Australian has an article that lays out their response to the problems. Asylum-seekers in Britain face being electronically tagged or kept under satellite surveillance instead of being held in detention centres, under new government proposals. Reducing legail aid and curbing opportunities to challenge decisions in the High Court are just the start. In a further attempt to prevent lawyers and applicants from prolonging cases, a judicial review will be allowed in appeal cases only under certain circumstances. There will be no judicial reviews allowed of decisions that an asylum-seeker or illegal immigrant must be removed. In future, immigration officials must take into account when considering an asylum application whether the applicant has any travel documents. An applicant faces two years’ jail for failing to provide a good explanation for not having the documents. Makes sense to me. Arrive on our shores without papers and no valid excuse then go straight to goal and face extradition on release. That could go a long way to stopping the practice. I think we need follow up on some of these points. Legal aid to non-citizens is very questionable and an invitation for our legal brothers to print money. Earlier this week the press quantified this legal aid at $40 plus million dollars last year, money that could well be used on Australians in trouble.

Good! That means we are conducting a realistic programme to counter illegal entry. In this article from News.com.au a rep from UNHCR takes us to task. The vessel, carrying 14 suspected Turkish Kurds, sailed into a storm of controversy when it arrived at Melville Island near Darwin a week ago. It was boarded by Australian defence force personnel and its engine was disabled under a tough immigration policy adopted in 2001. Can I have a check on that last statement. The way I remember it is – the crew of the Minasa Bone disabled the boat and placed engine parts in a container on board. On Nov 6 the Australian reported; The crew of HMAS Geelong searched the boat. They found the engines had been disabled, and made repairs before towing it clear of the shore. Full article here>> Lets not have the facts interfere with a put-down on Australia.

A traumatized child is suing his parents for creating the circumstances that put him in a detention centre and left wing lawyers for keeping him there while they boost their company profits with pointless appeals. Hang on…thats not it. He is suing the government. I don’t get it. I can’t find a link but Stuart Rintoul raises the issue in todays Australian. The boy, Shayan Badraie has previously been in the news and the subject of a Four Corners edition that depicted the boy being manipulated by his parents to gain left wing sympathy. It worked but the rest of us, including the government are a little bit sceptical about it all. They are Iranians, come here illegaly and are costing us a lot of money. The father, Mohammad Saeed Badraie, has the abilty and parental responsibility to alleviate the poor kids problems immediately. Stop traumatising your own son and go home. Update: From reader Dave. The Age has a link here The refugee parents of an Iranian boy, 7, whom a Human Rights Commission investigation found to have been seriously traumatised by detention, will launch a $750,000 legal action against Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock and his department. Mohammed Badraie, father of Shayan said he would follow his lawyers’ recommendation to seek substantial compensation for the pain and suffering inflicted on his son who still suffered from “night terrors and bed wetting” after being detained at Woomera and Villawood. “It is not about money, although life is tough for us,” Mr Badraie said. “It is the need for an apology and an acknowledgement from Mr Ruddock for our unnecessary suffering.” Mr Badraie has said he doesn’t want money so we only have to deal with the apolgy and acknowledgement. Ruddock’s chief-of-staff may like to use the following as the first sentence to the ‘apology’. We are terribly sorry you inflicted all this unnecessary suffering on your children and by way of apology here are free tickets to Iran for you and your family.