West Papua

So glad West Papua was given attention in this story... I think it should have been the headline...

97% are the 'geunine article' because:

Maybe it is because the UN definitions are actually quite lenient. This makes it easy for anyone seeking a better life to claim protection and resettlement in a higher standard country. If it is hard to prove someone is not a genuinely threatened person, give a lot of benefit of doubt in other words. High success rate does not necessarily indicate authnticity of claims just lax criteria and standards of proof.

Some reality

The Refugee Convention is outdated and has become in effect a pathway for migration mainly by those seeking a better life. That's the reality. It gives people the right to arrive in any country by whatever means and claim refugee status. Even if people are abusing the system and have no genuine fear of persecution the receiving country is required to process them. How do you decide whether a person is a refugee or an economic migrant when they have no documentation, tell similar stories and use people smugglers? The reality is you can't because most of the time claims are impossible to verify particularly from places in the Middle East. The principle of non-refoulment means you have no alternative but to grant refugee status thus the high acceptance rate from those countries regardless of whether there is genuine need of protection. The people in greatest need, vulnerable women and children in refugee camps are usurped by those who have the means to pay and the ability to travel and present themselves predominantly men who have left their first country of asylum. They know the system well and that's why border security is such an issue for so many Australians. It's not a lack of compassion

Welcome Home

I believe we should welcome refugees and try to help to make their lives better here in Australia. 97% or thereabouts are the genuine article as refugees; and we should welcome them and praise them for their brave journey through awful times and treacherous seas. We shouldn't stick them in other countries as if they have some odious disease. That's just rubbish thinking. The Xenophobia of the obese.

WEll it is just illegal

Article 33 of the refugee convention says we are not allowed to force anyone away from Australia and jail them in other countries. It's time we stopped our ignorant whining about not much.

How to get to an Off-shore Refugee processing centre

Our Politicians claim concern about the safety of the Refugee's who attempt to arrive in Australia by Boat, which are at times considered un-seaworthy. How then, are these refugee's expected to arrive in Nairu or East Timor, whom are currently coming mainly from the Middle-East? How were they getting to the processing centres in the past? (If they truly care about refugees, why is the matter not trusted, on behalf of UN members, by the UN with processing centres near the regions of origin?)