time for australia to harden up on boat people, page-55

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    Globally, there are 11.4 million refugees and 31.7 million internally displaced people and asylum seekers.

    That's a total of almost 43 million people who could be coming here and only 1767 have so far this year.

    That's right, just 1767.

    That's 0.0041 per cent of the world's refugees.

    Hardly a big problem.

    In any case, the 1767 are a tiny fraction of the 158,021 people who settled in Australia last year.

    They make up just over 1 per cent of people who come here.

    And let's not forget that on average 90 per cent of them would be legitimate refugees and allowed to stay.

    Think about that for a minute.

    Nine out of every 10 people who come here seeking asylum are allowed to stay here.

    This means that of the hundreds of people locked away behind razor wire during the Howard years, 90 per cent should not have been incarcerated.

    In other words, our Government got it wrong 90 per cent of the time. If 90 per cent of people in a regular Australian jail were innocent, there would be an extraordinary public outcry.

    This should be no different.

    And don't get me started about them being queue-jumpers.

    The reason many of these people don't get in line is that in most war-torn countries there aren't queues they can join.

    Besides, the wait for refugee processing overseas can be up to 10 years.

    Forget about giving your kids a better life in Australia - they'll be adults by the time you get here.

    And so desperate people do desperate things, handing over massive amounts of money to climb onto unseaworthy boats.

    The fact that they have paid huge amounts of money for their passage doesn't negate their right to seek asylum.

    It doesn't mean they have lots of money either - many of those paying to get on boats have saved for years.

    It's true, they use money to seek advantage.

    But if you are genuinely opposed to that, you should also be against private health insurance, private schools and nicer neighbourhoods.

    Yes, there is a problem with people smugglers, but we should focus on that industry rather than punish those who use their services.

    There is not-too-subtle racism in some of this, exposing a nasty, bigoted underside to the Australian psyche.

    Our fear is completely unnecessary.

    As a country, we are probably the least affected by refugees. We are an island, for goodness sake.

    We've got the greatest natural protection from asylum seekers there is - it's called the Australian coastline.

    We don't have a boat people problem.

    We just seem to have a problem keeping this issue in perspective.
 
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