Every election, you have to think of what to say to give you an upper hand in winning elections and if more elections have been done, you run short of what to say to be re-elected and so people like John Howard had to bring new faces to his front bench to develop a “new” love with the Australian people (Joe Hockey, Kevin Andrew, Malcom Turnbull etc).

Other propaganda like the child overboard had worked in the past but this time, it had to be “Africans not fit to be Australians” propaganda.

In the past, Australians were educated by Howards government that muslims or Arabs were a big threat to the Australain way of life. This had to backfire and all you could read from the faces of most muslims/Arabs is nothing but “no vote for John Howard”. The cleaver Howard has to make sure that he reconcile this and so had to send out kevin Andrew to go and please the middle east people (by increasing their refugee intake by slashing the African intake). After all, we only have a handful of Africans and their votes would not be significant compared with the Asians whose population is in millions. This has to be blamed on Australians who elect John Howard election after election.

unfortunately, I see John Howard coming the Australian prime minister for more years to come “as long as his party wants him to”. How many times had he broekn his promises even between him and his deputy Tim Costello? He can simply break another promise this time by getting rid of Costello in the front bench so that no more threats to his position in the short run. Kevin Andrew and Hanson will be enough to assure him of securing the votes of the few racist Australians. Other ministers will be busy designing the child-overboard-like strategies to ensure a succussful re-election.

When my grandmother came to Australia in the 1950s and began to work, the feral local sheilas were telling her to go back to where she came from because women in Australia don’t work, that she was being greedy. Immigrants who challenge the status quo can teach Australians a lot about their own deficiencies…

Oh please. The thing about brutal despots is that they’re brutal. They’re hardly more likely to perpetrate wrongs on their own people because somewhere deep in their evil despotic hearts they know that we Westerners will take care of them. They don’t actually give a damn.

Look. We don’t have an obligation to take in every single person who’s in trouble. But we are obliged to assess potential refugees on the merits of their fear of persecution, not on some trumped-up and, yes, racist idea of who fits in best. It’s hard to see how people fleeing Darfur don’t qualify.

Great piece, Legal Eagle. Refugee-kicking is indeed disgraceful.

If you’re going to take very damaged people, there’s a lot to be said for doing it well. But like you LE, I don’t see the evidence that the numbers need to be reduced in order to facilitate this.

When each fresh wave of people come in, the previous group are accepted… People say, “Well, the Italians and Greeks fit in fine” or “Look at how well the Vietnamese have integrated now” - but it wasn’t easy at the start, and there were deep cultural tensions initially. It’s just that with time, things ease and people become accustomed to one another. The best we can do is ease those tensions at the start, I suppose, is by learning about each other, and making it clear what we expect of people who come to live here (that they will obey the law and the like).

I am reminded of a story my mother tells. She was a teacher. One day, she was cleaning down the chalkboard after class when she heard some boys denigrating “chinks”, saying that they weren’t real Australians, and they didn’t fit in properly. Her school had a very high proportion of students from Asia.

She turned around and asked each boy where his parents had come from. One said Greece, another said Persia (Iran), another said Latvia and the last one said England. My mother asked them to think about how they would have felt if someone had made comments like that about their parents. The boys looked very embarrassed and slunk out with their tails between their legs, saying, “Sorry. Yeah, that’s a good point. We won’t say it again.”

I think the timing of this discussion is extremely concerning, and as a result I don’t think there’s any chance of a reasoned discussion of the issue. This is extremely sad, considering the things these people have been through - they at least deserve the dignity of not being treated like a political football. This is potentially more so, given that they are people who have been approved as refugees with the highest level of need - those with full protection visas.

I am involved with a community music group who are currently working with a group of Sudanese refugees to make music together. Their stories are extraordinary, from torture to starvation to treatment in Egyptian refugee camps, over long periods in their life, and their gratitude for their safety in Australia is commensurate with how horrendous their experiences have been.

“Kicking refugees” is a political sport in this country that denigrates us as privileged westerners. I am ashamed that we cannot do better than this.

I agree that we do need to provide decent support and services to those who come here. Interestingly, the groups “dumped in rural towns” have actually done far better than those in cities, usually because they are filling a workforce shortage. Rural abattoirs have benefitted greatly from refugee labour, and because these people are working and contributing to the town’s economy, they are actually welcomed. For the Sudanese as well, many are more comfortable in rural rather than urban settings.

And I’m sorry Iain, but as long as we have people who earn enough to own mansions on the North Shore, we are perfectly economically capable of providing the minimal amount of care needed for those who come here with nothing. And we might just learn from them, as I have.

You agree that a large number of such immigrants are “high maintenance”, so this is where I disagree with your quoted passage.

If we put some $ figures on it (ignoring for the moment the increased need for stretched services), so each Sudanese costs $20,000 more on average to look after, in comparison with an Iraq or Vietnamese. The Immigration Dept has to run to a budget, so if taking too many Sudanese breaks that budget, then isn’t is fair to say we need to re-work the numbers in favour of those who are less costly? That we have taken more than we would have if we knew the cost.

This is not being racist, and the racist card is being played by the MSM.

Of course lefties scream that is what Andrews wanted, but it is the MSM which turn something quite bland into a frenzy - we have seen too many examples of this.

Also, given the election is near, anything the Govt does is apparently solely a move to win the election.