Karnal
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Rabbitoh, if we allowed anyone in the world to fly to Australia without a visa, and then offered anyone who asked for asylum settlement, people would flock here.
Just think- anyone with one or two grand who’s desperate enough to leave India or Russia or China, would be free to come, persecution or not. All they’d have to do is give it a go.
Processing such a crowd would require new departments, new databases, new courts. Deporting such numbers would be an operation bigger than the Berlin air lift. Housing them - where?
The world is such a different place to when my father jumped ship here and, a few years later, went down to the Immigration office in a suit and filled out the residency forms.
The escalating boat numbers alone show this. The people smuggler price - up to twelve grand for a two day trip - makes it clear. People will go to great lengths to come here, and they do.
For this reason, I can’t see how onshore processing could work - without a huge drop in numbers. Five years ago, no problem. I can’t blame Rudd for getting rid of the Pacific Solution.
Things are different now. These are new times, and they need different measures. The Greens are living in some bizarre parallel universe.
The detention centres are, indeed, inhumane. Years behind barbed wire - for what? Billions wasted and nothing produced but misery.
This is why settlement in New Guinea is the better option. What’s better still is that people don’t come in the first place. We plan our quota and we fly them in ourselves. Safe, humane, and no one feels cheated or robbed of years of their lives spent festering in detention.
And this is what New Guinea will do.
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