"would you just accept all asylum seekers arriving by boat or would you limit their number?
Australia accepts 200,000 economic migrants a year. Of the 30,000 asylum seekers a year (that rot in our prison camps, some for years) some 90% of them are assessed as genuine refugees. Meaning we currently accept only 27,000 genuine refugees and 200,000 economic migrants. Hence my proposal: Legalise people smuggling and tax it. This would save lives and convert a huge enforcement cash outflow into a revenue stream that could be used to charter one 737 a day to bring 100 refugees a day to Australia. (that's the number arriving now) vet them for terror or criminal links and resettle them and finance English courses.
We accept 200,000 economic migrants per year now - if refugee numbers rise under my proposal (beyond the current 30,000 a year) we reduce the 200,000 so our resources won't be over-stretched. Consign Rudd's PNG penal colony plan to the rubbish bin of history.
Prohibiting refugees (like prohibiting drugs) puts up the price and makes smuggling more profitable. But legalising people smuggling cuts the cost and provides a revenue stream to the Government, not to foreign smugglers.
