"tell us what we should do with illegal immigrants."
Provided they don't grind the faces of the poor (with things like AWAs instead of collective bargaining) I'm a believer in 'Free Markets'.
In contrast to the days of High Protection when it was illegal to export or import all sorts of goods and capital without complying with all sorts of rules and bans and sanctions and fines and duties and having your 'illegal goods' impounded by zealous Customs officers, today (apart from drugs and plastic explosives) Free Trade is all the rage EXCEPT when people are involved.
So my solution is simple - delete the word 'illegal' in regards to immigrants and let maket forces determine who comes in and who comes out - exactly as we let market forces determine what goods and capital come in and come out - but with all the necesary checks that are given to cash and goods for crime connections being done for people movements.
A case in point about migration and market forces:
As there are good jobs in Canberra, people from other cities and towns migrate here - but when (after living in a motel for several weeks) they find that affordable housing is non-existent, they pack up and head elsewhere.
If there were no jobs here, long-term residents with no other income would pack up and leave for were jobs and affordable housing could be found.
What the Liberal 'Cage Em' policy lacked (apart from humanity) was the very thing that the Liberal Parrty was founded to protect - personal liberty and autonomy.
During the Howard era, it was OK for goods and money to cross our borders without let or hindrance (except for the proceeds of crime, drugs or quarantine threats) but autonomous movements of people were seen as a HUGE AND MONSTROUS THREAT to civilisation as we know it and MUST BE EXTIRPATED WITH ruthless efficiency - even concentration camps for innocent children!
There HAS to be better way so why not have an ultra-simple migration test:
You're an Australian if you say you are.
You're a tourist if you say you are.
The government's job is to record births, deaths, marriages, in and out travel movements and keep an eye out for heroin, Semtex and salami sausages from the Old Country where exotic animal diseases occur.
BUT what about the Yellow Peril and the Black Death and the Red Hordes and being swamped by people who will use MY front lawn as a public lavatory?
When the federal governent said it was going to float the Aussie Dollar and abolish many tarriffs and liberate cross-border capital movements from goverment controls, the Nervous Nellies screamed and yelled - but the sky did NOT fall and life was much better.
So let's liberate goods, capital and people movements from over-zealous border protection and let Market Forces be our Guiding Light - which is precisely why the Liberal Party was founded - not to run concenration camps!
