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All asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat will be sent to Papua New Guinea for processing and resettlement and none will be allowed to stay in the country, the prime minister has announced, as he sent out a draconian pre-election message that Australia’s borders are closed to refugees.

In what he said was “a clear and undiluted message to every people smuggler in the world that your business model is basically undermined”, Kevin Rudd said the new rules would apply initially for one year and there was no limit on the numbers of asylum seekers PNG would take.

In return, the government announced new aid to PNG for hospitals and universities and said it would pay unspecified “resettlement costs” for the refugees as well as bearing the costs of the expansion and upgrade of the Manus Island processing centre. Rudd said only that the package would “not be inexpensive” but no cost details were immediately available.

Refugee advocates said the substandard conditions in PNG’s Manus Island detention centre, the very high crime rates in the country and “daily pervasive human rights abuses” were evidence the new arrangements contravened Australia’s basic obligations to help refugees who come here.

The Greens leader, Christine Milne, said it was a “day of shame for Australia” and accused Rudd of “lurching so far to the right that he has leapfrogged Tony Abbott in terms of cruelty”.

Milne said it was “appalling” that Australia would “pay our most impoverished neighbour” so it could “dump” people there without any chance of safety or work or a decent life.

The Coalition leader, Tony Abbott, said the crackdown was “a promising development in offshore processing” which he welcomed, but said Australians should not trust Labor to stop the boats or implement the crackdown.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I guess I understand this a bit, which put me well out of the mainstream left here. We also have a problem with "people smugglers", but that's because the USA is still a relatively attractive destination. Because of that, we have 12 million people living here who never came thru the front door. It sounds horrible at first blush, but a nation DOES have a right to control its borders.

What I don't understand is how Australia gets to dump its wretched refuse on PNG's shores.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

And here I thought racism started and ended on the shores of the United States.

At least, that's what the MSM would have us all believe.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

And here I thought racism started and ended on the shores of the United States.

At least, that's what the MSM would have us all believe.

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That's idiotic. Perhaps the MSM in the US talks about racism in the US because the MSM has little interest in reporting information from other parts of the world.

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Firstly, I strongly object to your describing these men, women and children as 'wretched refuse'.

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A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

And that's partly my point. Not only does the MSM shape public opinion by how they report stories , they also shape it by what they DON'T report.

But Chris Matthews, form msnbc, is a prime example. He goes on the air to apologize, for ALL white people, in the matter of racism.

Not only is it not his place to do so, but it also implies that racism is solely a 'white' problem.

Group apologizes, for those living who have done nothing wrong, are meaningless. We can acknowledge sins of the past, by those who committed them. But we don't need to graft those views and actions onto OUR essence, and then try to clean our souls by apologizing for the sins of others.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

Australia has had a similar history ( though not identical ) to that of America, in how colonists came in and over ran the indigenous population. I think it's important that everyone understand the impact that had on those who were here first, who had to watch as their world was slowly taken from them. But apologies for such events , which took place centuries ago , are easy to give and imo, have very little value. " I'm sorry for something I didn't do " , just doesn't hold that much weight. While it does acknowledge the pain and suffering, there's next to nothing that can actually be done about it. Because once you start apologizing for something, legally, it can become an issue of liability. If you didn't DO something, you ought not be apologizing for it.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Except the actions were by the government, so Rudd apologised on behalf of the government.

It doesn't matter if they thought what they did was right, they caused generations of pain. Nazis believed they were doing right, doesn't make it so.

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Western countries including the US and Britain may be asked to accept tens of thousands of Syrian refugees because the exodus from the civil war is overwhelming countries in the region, the UN's refugee chief has warned.

With no end to the war in sight, the flight of nearly 2 million people from Syria over the past two years is showing every sign of becoming a permanent population shift, like the Palestinian crises of 1948 and 1967, with grave implications for countries such as Lebanon and Jordan, UN and other humanitarian aid officials say.

One in six people in Lebanon are now Syrian refugees. The biggest camp in Jordan has become the country's fourth-largest city. In addition to those who have crossed borders, at least four million Syrians are believed to have been displaced within their own country, meaning that more than a quarter of the population has been uprooted.

In an interview with the Guardian, António Guterres, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said the situation was already far more than just a humanitarian crisis. If a resolution to the conflict was not found within months, the UN will look to resettle tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in countries better able to afford to host them, including Britain. Germany has already offered to take 5,000, but other offers have been limited, Guterres said.

"We are facing in the Middle East something that is more than a humanitarian crisis, more than a regional crisis, it is becoming a real threat to global peace and security," Guterres said.

"We are already seeing the multiplication of security incidents in Iraq and Lebanon, and Jordan is facing a very difficult economic situation."

Guterres compared the Syrian refugee issue to that of Iraqis during the last decade, when more than 100,000 were resettled away from the region. "If things go on for a prolonged period of time then resettlement will become a central part of our strategy," he said. "We would like when the time comes … to be able to launch a resettlement programme as massive as the one for Iraqis."

The Syrian exodus has already surpassed almost every other refugee crisis that international organisations have dealt with in the past 40 years. The Yugoslav wars of the 1990s provide the closest parallel, with both conflicts having a strong ethnic-sectarian dimension and the crumbling of state control raising the spectre of partition.

The knock-on effect on regional countries has been telling. Tensions between refugee communities and local populations have increased dramatically in Jordan and Lebanon, as the influx of people piles pressure on local services such as schools and hospitals, and disrupts job markets. The upshot has been a greater effort by Syria's neighbours to manage the flow of refugees into their countries.

"Turkey and Jordan have become so overwhelmed. At the same time there are some very worrying consequences on the security point of view, with the infiltration of armed people, that the border has had to be more controlled. This means refugees are still coming, but they have to come in gradually, which means we have a number of people stranded waiting to cross," Guterres said.

Some refugees have found life so wretched in camps that they have started to return home. But at present this is still a trickle.

"They are not going home, and nor can they be expected to at a time when communities are being slaughtered and Syria is disintegrating," said one Jordanian official who declined to be named. "We are living the reality of a long and devastating war with perhaps unmanageable consequences for us."

"The original expectation was that this was going to be a short wave of people that would quickly recede," said the EU's humanitarian commissioner, Kristalina Georgieva, who has twice visited Zaatari recently. "It has taken more than a year to recognise that this conflict is going to be long. We have been in contact with development organisations. We need urban managers, we need planners. We need permanent solutions."

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
MD, it's not that such apologies are too complex to understand, I just don't see the practical point. And while the acknowledgements are all well and good, restoration of the victims' dignity is done how, exactly ?

Excessive guilt over that which you had no part in is a bit silly, is all I'm saying.

You can acknowledge, and have empathy for, but to then go on and apologize ? Contrived pablum for the public's consumption by politicians who want to look good.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Except perhaps to have the last word, eh? ;)

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Western countries including the US and Britain may be asked to accept tens of thousands of Syrian refugees because the exodus from the civil war is overwhelming countries in the region, the UN's refugee chief has warned.

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