"Julia Gillard should be making onshore processing work properly;"
When boat people arrive without documents, we attend to their every need. Give them benefits denied to our own pensioners and needy people.
Lets say the same people arrive by plane, but between the plane door and the Customs Hall, they throw their documents in the bin. They arrive at the Customs counter with no documents. What do you think happens then?
There is no doubt that under those circumstances almost 100% would be sent back to their origins. Those that were allowed in would go through the most stringent security and medical checks to see that they were not carrying any one of 100 diseases. I just returned from home South America and if I had not presented my yellow-fever cetificate, I would probably still be there. Yellow fever almost wiped out some big American cities (eg. Memphis) in the 1800s. There is no cure once contracted. Do the boat people have their certificates?
Just days ago, ASIO admitted that their resources are not up to the boat people task. There is no doubt that people are entering without the checks for security and medical that they would absolutely have to face at the airport.
There is little doubt that this free-for-all situation will end very badly. Probably with an outbreak of some communicable disease which once here, cannot be removed.
We've all heard the messages on the planes as they approach Australia; "Australia is an island isolated from many serious diseases...." It is just not possible to check the boat people. There is no going back once the first case of foot-and-mouth is diagnosed.
