Large parts of Australia are under water as I write and many country communities have been almost wiped out by the worst floods in fifty years or more. The spiritual and economic damage is almost beyond estimate. However generous Australians might be, resources of aid have limits. Millions have already been donated to a relief fund. (almost $20 million to date). Its really though just a drop in the bucket compared to the estimates of damage that range well into the billions.
Meanwhile, the federal Australian government yesterday announced changes to the asylum seeker legal processes that will add millions to the cost of processing boat people. For anyone not familiar with how the asylum seeker process works, here’s a brief summary.
Asylum seeker Ali gets on a boat with his family and travels to Australia. The boat is intercepted and Ali and family end up held in a detention centre. There Ali is initially assessed and he goes in one of two directions. If he meets internationally designed guidelines, he is accepted as an Asylum seeker and granted a visa. If not, he gets sent home. Ha ha. That a joke of course. In fact that is what the new regulations address. Previously, Ali had one right of appeal to a body called the “Independent Merits Review. If Ali failed there he was sent back to where he came from. The Gillard Government has extended the appeals process. Ali now has access to the full Australian judicial system.
Ali now has four appeal routes. If he misses out at the Independent Merits Review, he can go on to the Federal Magistrates Court, from there to the Federal Appeals Court, and from there to the High Court.
An opposition study last year showed that the average asylum seeker cost Australian taxpayers $82000 to process. Meaning it takes the taxes of nearly seven average wage earners on $62,000 a year to cover the cost of one detainee. What will the changes add to this cost? Well there’s 1400 ready to be processed right now and if they appeal, they’ll most likely do so under legal aid. What do you think this will add to the cost readers? I’d say probably about a half to one million dollars.
It doesn’t end there of course. There are all the other costs associated with running various government services such as interceptor ships, aerial and sea surveillance, transport of the aslyum seekers and boat crews. Funding their applications for family re-unification processes.
Non English speaking 29-year-old Iraqi refugee Wesam al-Khaledi was granted a protection visa last July. He presently lives in Sydney on $230 a week in dole payments but has also applied for his wife and two children to be granted protection in Australia in August.
“They are still not here yet and I say ‘Why, why is it taking so long?’ . . . I can’t sleep, I am so depressed without them,” he said. “There must be more transparency in the work of the Immigration Department. There also must be a clear time-frame….because it is not fair for them to treat us the way they have. The government must fix this properly.”
I agree Wesam. The government must indeed fix this properly. I say that Australia immediately withdraws from any international agreements mandating participation in the asylum seeking system on the grounds that the floods make it unaffordable. The whole shonky system, that is in reality a magnet attracting people like Wesam to Australia, should be shut down. Any boat people arriving should be immediately transported by sea or air back to their country of origin. We just cannot afford any more of this lunacy.
I wonder how much Wesam has donated to flood relief.
TrueblueNZ 
9 responses to “Charity Begins At Home- Stop The Boats”
This is a great post, Red. The leftist MSM in Australia refuse to call these people what they are … queue jumpers. Rather than wait their turn in offshore processing centres (like the vast majority of asylum seekers) they pay a massive amount of money (I wonder where it comes from?) to Indonesian gangsters to get onto a leaky boat and make a bee-line for the Australian mainland.
There are multiple rorts at multiple levels. Idonesian port authority workers take bribes from the people-smugglers. Those who get stopped are now all claiming they are <18 years old, so that once they are confirmed as "genuine" they can also have their parents brought over on "humanitarian" grounds.
Andrew Bolt has been on this for a while. The number of boats has sky-rocketed since Kevin Rudd killed off John Howard's "Pacific Solution", and Fanta Pants Gillard has blood on her hands for allowing the trade in human cargo to continue.
NZ doesn't have the same problem as AUS, because NZ does not have a massive border close to a fundamentally corrupt regime like Indonesia. NZ's geography (being a pimple on the arse of the world) protects it from this type of rort.
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Quite correct in all of that GG. The part that pisses me off is that all of these systems just act as a magnet. They encourage “asylum seekers” to jump on boats and come here, because they know they have an even chance of processing through the system. If the system didn’t exist, many of them would be dissuaded from trying their luck.
In fact they system only exists because of international agreements. Australians are really under no obligation to support it or pay for it.
This latest idiocy is what they get for electing the stupid extreme left scumbag Gillard. When will they learn???
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“When will they learn” They won’t. Most Aussies are no more politically aware than kiwis.
Most still see the UN as an inherently “good” thing and are surprised when I start pointing out their real aims of global government and the re-distribution of wealth and power from the first to the third world. Many still think Fanta Pants is doing an OK job, despite the fact that everything she touches turns to shite. A massive number will argue that spending the $20 billion Howard & Costello left them, then mortgaging their children’s and grandchildren’s futures just so Rudd/Gillard/Swan could proclaim “We avoided a recession” was a good thing overall (they’d rather future generations swallow the debt medicine).
In short, AUS is just as much a socialist shite-hole as New Zealand. The only difference is, economic destruction via progressivism is one area where NZ leads AUS. I think there are a large number of Aussies who will get a hell of a fright when China stops buying Aussie minerals, because then the recession will bite, and hard. Fanta Pants still wants her Emissions Trading Scam, and in collusion with Bankrupt Bob Brown (Australia’s very own Keith Locke) she’ll get it.
Fuck, where will I go then? Can’t go home and can’t stay here.
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I don’t think China will ever stop buying Australian minerals, but China being Australia’s main customer will one day tell Australia this is how much we will pay for these minerals and Australia will swallow hard and say yes sir three bags full sir.
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Mark, they may not ever stop requiring Australian minerals, but the day may come when they tire of paying for them and use more … persuasive means of acquiring them. Such as the largest standing army ever seen.
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It’s outrageous and it’s only getting worse.
The West is ruled by traitors elected by greedy people voting to receive other people’s money.
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I daren’t comment on this. lest I descend into vitriol and obscenities. Great post.
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I agree and New Zealand has an earthquake to pay for.
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Great post, Red!
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