Asylum Seekers claim to have been beaten by Navy - what do you think?

[Barry G]

Let's just keep this statement  correct and unbiased the Howard government. Some members of the liberal party at the time participated in the "sorry " walks. Costello for one so your statement of "Libs" is off the mark

Liberal Gov't didn't say sorry, so not off the mark at all.  They were reconciliation walks, I know, participated in the Melb one myself.

[Barry G]

You are joking, seriously, aren't you?
Some just love to bury their heads in the sand and pretend there is no problem.

I am aware of various jihadists etc going before the courts, but heard nothing about them being refugees.
Similarly, the Syrian immigrants going back to fight in Syria, most of them here for decades, again not refugees.
Lots of 'problems' many would say that the problem is "multi-culturalism", but again that isn't anything to do with refugees.
IMO lumping this on 'refugees' is exactly the type of fear monger ins hype that Big Jules was addressing.
Seriously, you are obviously convinced that you are right, so surely it isn't unreasonable to request at least an anecdotal exale of what has led you to that conclusion.

[alnjan]

B&B, I am not sure what it is you are asking for. Just what "sh1t or bad attitude" you are referring to, or just which asylum seekers you are specifically referring to. 

There have been numerous refuges charged with various offences, minor to major, but there is no easy way of gathering that data as when someone is charged the only race data recorded is if they are ATSI or Non ATSI. 

[Mrs smith]

I am aware of various jihadists etc going before the courts, but heard nothing about them being refugees.
Similarly, the Syrian immigrants going back to fight in Syria, most of them here for decades, again not refugees.
Lots of 'problems' many would say that the problem is "multi-culturalism", but again that isn't anything to do with refugees.
IMO lumping this on 'refugees' is exactly the type of fear monger ins hype that Big Jules was addressing.
Seriously, you are obviously convinced that you are right, so surely it isn't unreasonable to request at least an anecdotal exale of what has led you to that conclusion.

Didn't you see, hear or believe in that they done and how they treated the island detention centre when rioting ?
I believe IMO the island had better conditions even though not prefect (after all it is a processing centre for illegal arrivals and not a hotel) than the boats they choose to risk there lifes coming here in. If thats how there going to behave when they don't get what they want, IMO I'm not sure we need them here, especially illegally. 

We ought to be showing faith and supporting our navy, if you don't trust them now what would we do if war or similar broke out ?
There doing a good job under orders for us, and for anyone to say otherwise IMO is bloody wrong.       

[BigJules]

There has been some atrocious behaviour in the detention centres, that is undisputed. Would those people have created problems if they were not incarcerated for an indeterminate amount of time in relative difficult conditions? This is not a defence of their behaviour, but as I wrote earlier I believe our approach to the detention of these people has contributed to the cost, complexity and difficulty of the whole thing.

Getting back to the original question, I doubt that the Navy mistreated those refugees. I think the ABC acted irresponsibly in the way in which it reported the allegations.

A few people made an allegation against our Navy, does that taint all of them?

[disco2]

I'm sorry guys but some don't seem get it.

 How many countries do these 'Asylum Seekers' need to cross to get to Australia.?

I'm all for people wanting to escape injustice, but to denigrate our Service People in order to get to Australia, I think not.

Indonesia has a problem I agree, but they now claim that they are increasing their Navy presence. Good- maybe they can stop more boats.

However, Australia can play it's part.

Give Christmas Island to Indonesia.

Then it becomes too far to travel.

Cheers Guys.

[chookduck]

However, Australia can play it's part.

Give Christmas Island to Indonesia.

Then it becomes too far to travel.

Cheers Guys.

Then they go to Cocos Island (west of Xmas Island) or Ashmore Reef, just south of West Timor and the more 'traditional' place to land in 'Australia'.  Anyway you look at it, still a complex issue.

[disco2]

Then they go to Cocos Island (west of Xmas Island) or Ashmore Reef, just south of West Timor and the more 'traditional' place to land in 'Australia'.  Anyway you look at it, still a complex issue.

Cocus Island is a LOOOOOONG way to the West.

Ashmore Reef is just a Light Station.

Believe me , I've been there when I worked for the the old Commonwealth Dept of Shipping and Transport,  Lighthouse service on the old, 'M.V. Cape Don', lighthouse vessel.

Cheers.

[chookduck]

Cocus Island is a LOOOOOONG way to the West.

Ashmore Reef is just a Light Station.

Believe me , I've been there when I worked for the the old Commonwealth Dept of Shipping and Transport,  Lighthouse service on the old 'Cape Don', lighthouse vessel.

Cheers.

Agree Cocos is a far way, but still a lot closer than the mainland by some 1000s of kms.

While Ashmore Reef is 'only a light station' as you put it, it is still territorial Australia and only 180 km from Indonesia.  so same rules apply as if landing at Xmas Island, only compound the issue as there is a 'transportation to .....' perspective to undertake.

[Barry G]

Why would we give any territory to Indonesia?

ABC reported the claims, didn't say they agreed with them.  This became instant beat-up on bash the ABC, which is totally unsurprising, given where the complaints came from.

I am damn sure that the naval personnel involved in the case of the life boat didn't sign up to put women and kids onto life boats in international waters.  What p1sses me off is that politicians have created the 'necessity' to do this, in order to appease the political fear that they generated about it.

As I have said before, we should not give aid to any country which isn't a signatory to the UN agreement on refugees.  More signatories means less need for them to try and get here, and greater chance to create a regional solution.

[Bunyip]

I too am an avid ABC listener. I travel approx. 3.5hrs a day in the car and always have ABC on.

I can honestly say that when I first heard the report I in no way assumed that the ABC were saying they agreed with the allegations, just that video appeared to back up the allegations.
As an adult with the ability for free thought I immediately questioned the validity of the claim base don the fact that the video was not shot on the boat, showed no Navy personnel and really was jsut a video of someone getting a burn treated. I could show you a video like that after several camping trips we have had around NSW.

Like BigJules I doubt very much that the Navy has behaved unprofessionally, however I do question the Governments reluctance to say or show anyting relating to the turn back the boats policy, in particular (now this is from memory so may not be 100% correct) their changing a law/rule or whatever to say that Navy Personnel cannot be held personally accountable for their actions.

Happy to be constructively corrected on my last point.

Bunyip

[rocket327s]

hhhm having done time in the RAN in engineering branch, i never once saw an unlagged pipe that someone could wrap their hands around & get burnt, especially not to the degree as shown in the pic by the claimant.
To my knowledge ALL hot pipes/lines on ships are lagged...
I would suggest the guy wrapped his hands around a pipe on the clapped out  boat he was on prior to being picked up by the navy................
desperate act by desperate individual, now he's paying for it with the pain & scars

[DeLuxHiLux]

I hear the padlock coming..........

So im in for my 2 cents.

The UNHCR has rules and definitions are what a refugee is and a countrys esponsibilites to them.

We are NOT the closest SAFE country to anywhere that ends with -stan or africa!  Accordingly we are not obliged to accept anyone who Bypasses a number of other countries to lob here where we have nice weather and a welfare system that hands out $$$$$ like a broken ATM.

If you can afford to pay the people smugglers, you can afford a plane ticket. Que up.go to the embassy in Jakarta. Get a Visa. Happy Days! Welcome to Australia!

[Robbo]

I hear the padlock coming..........

So im in for my 2 cents.

The UNHCR has rules and definitions are what a refugee is and a countrys esponsibilites to them.

We are NOT the closest SAFE country to anywhere that ends with -stan or africa!  Accordingly we are not obliged to accept anyone who Bypasses a number of other countries to lob here where we have nice weather and a welfare system that hands out $$$$$ like a broken ATM.


X2............
If you can afford to pay the people smugglers, you can afford a plane ticket. Que up.go to the embassy in Jakarta. Get a Visa. Happy Days! Welcome to Australia!

[dazzler]

I have only read the first page, was gladdened to read some sensible posts.

There is a reason that asylum seekers coming to Australia by boat cost us so much. Hysteria! If everyone calmed TF down they could be accepted and processed without shipping or flying them thousands of kilometres to expensive facilities erected in the highest cost locations.

I don't for a minute advocate that we simply "open the door", but the globally reality is that there are millions of refugees or people under persecution and those that have the capacity to attempt to escape will. And they need to go somewhere. I'm pretty sure others have highlighted the fact that asylum seekers coming by boat are a minority of refugees or illegal immigrants* who come to Australia. Countries like Italy face a far greater number of arrivals than Australia, by virtue of being closer to North Africa where there are some horrific wars going on.

Stop being afraid; these poor b4stards won't take our jobs and rape our women. There might be some bad apples in there, as there are in any group of people, and so our laws will take care of them.

People keep bringing up the fact that asylum seekers pay, so they have money so how bad could it have been for them. If my kids, my family were living in fear I'd do whatever I could to change that too. Those millions of poor people living under a sheet of plastic in a refugee camp for the rest of their lives didn't have the resources to do more than they did. In truth it would probably be harder to integrate those folks into a society like ours just because they have absolutely nothing.

I am an avid listener to the ABC, and was very surprised when I first heard the reports of abuse by Navy on asylum seekers. I felt then that the report had asserted as fact something that was clearly only an allegation, and was almost certainly not true. They made a mistake. Last week the boss of the ABC admitted this and apologised. I also believe the Govt has taken this as a convenient opportunity to attack the ABC and asylum seekers. There is almost certainly Navy video that clears the sailors, but it seems the Govt won't release anything because that would end the debate. The Indon Govt has never been a bastion of morality and this continues. It is the 19th largest country in the world by landmass but the 4th biggest by population. They've got their own issues.

I implore those who feel boat arrivals are a huge problem to seek some independent facts, not those spouts by Alan Jones or Ray Hadley or even our current Govt (whose primary goal was election, not stopping the boats). We don't have to accept them (all) but we don't need to hate them either.

Also, apart from some racist crap on Facebook have you ever heard of any credible evidence that anyone wants to:
Stop Australians celebrating Xmas or Easter?
Rename Australia Day?
fundamentally alter our national being?

It is easy to create a meme that looks like it has facts etc, but most of it is simply untrue. Worse, most of it is copied and altered from some hillbilly US crackpot post and then made to look Australian.

L E G E N D !


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[dazzler]

Oh, and the other thing.  If you cant trace your lineage unbroken to 1770 Aboriginal Australia I hope you can see the hypocrisy if you set up a soap box declaring people as 'illegal immigrants',

Think about it.


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[Mrs smith]

Oh, and the other thing.  If you cant trace your lineage unbroken to 1770 Aboriginal Australia I hope you can see the hypocrisy if you set up a soap box declaring people as 'illegal immigrants',

Think about it.


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I was born here, so I'm every bit if not more Australian than the first to arrive here starting that lineage regardless of there colour or how they got here.

Think about that.

[rocket327s]

damnnnnnnn and I can only go back as far as 1791............

[dazzler]

I was born here, so I'm every bit if not more Australian than the first to arrive here starting that lineage regardless of there colour or how they got here.

Think about that.

No you don't.  A race of people had custody of this land for between 35 and 70'000 years.  Others came here later uninvited by these custodians, including yours and my descendants.   Unless of course yours were invited here by original owners.

EDIT:  Sorry I think I misunderstood your post.  Are you suggesting that because you were 'born here' you are more 'Australian' than indigenous Australians?

Can you explain this in detail?

[Bird]

Bring on the torpedos.

[Mrs smith]

I am aware of various jihadists etc going before the courts, but heard nothing about them being refugees.
Similarly, the Syrian immigrants going back to fight in Syria, most of them here for decades, again not refugees.
Lots of 'problems' many would say that the problem is "multi-culturalism", but again that isn't anything to do with refugees.
IMO lumping this on 'refugees' is exactly the type of fear monger ins hype that Big Jules was addressing.
Seriously, you are obviously convinced that you are right, so surely it isn't unreasonable to request at least an anecdotal exale of what has led you to that conclusion.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2014/02/13/06/20/asylum-seeker-pleads-guilty-to-pool-gropes

[Bird]

[Mrs smith]

No you don't.  A race of people had custody of this land for between 35 and 70'000 years.  Others came here later uninvited by these custodians, including yours and my descendants.   Unless of course yours were invited here by original owners.

Pfft, self appointed.
1770 or 35,0000 or 70,0000 if your born here your just as aussie (sadly just not equal) as the next bloke, and the sooner people realize and accept it the better we'll all be.

[dazzler]

It shouldnt get locked provided the debate is civil. 

I had left this thread alone until Big Jules added some rational input.  I hope this is left open.  Its healthy to debate controversial stuff.

cheers


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[grafy82]

Oh, and the other thing.  If you cant trace your lineage unbroken to 1770 Aboriginal Australia I hope you can see the hypocrisy if you set up a soap box declaring people as 'illegal immigrants',

Think about it.


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Sorry Dazzler, but what a load of crap.
You know quite well that this is a totally different situation. I don't hear any foul cries against the Aboriginal people for wiping out the Papuan's who were here before them. Every country has been invaded, war style at some point in time.
I was born here, making me indigenous to this land and I have just as much right to the land as anybody else. Not to take anything away from the terrible atrocities that happened to Aboriginal's in the past, but don't go telling people they were the original illegal immigrants because most of our forefathers were dragged here in chains as convicts and had to fight to survive.