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Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." @Bigfellah, with your permission, I would like to add that I thank you sincerely for acknowledging my success at being a ... more
Bella on Preferential voting FIRST PAST THE POST ~ is not as democratic as you may like to think.In a preferential system every registered voters final ... more
steve on A few facts on illegal boat people Hey Wendy - I'm an immigrant - I've lived here for 40 years and have learned to ignore people with attitudes like yours but ... more
James Weir on A few facts on illegal boat people Wendy, I'm surprised anyone lives in Adelaide. Even the Welsh born redheads are getting out of the place. more
Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." @Bigfellah. Again in typical Socialist Fashion, you are denying me my right to form an opinion. Mr. and Mrs. Newton ... more
Meg on "He's a dog..." I believe that any ordinary person who assaults women would have been charged and jailed not sent to rehab. Has Matthew ... more
Wendy on A few facts on illegal boat people Look around..In Adelaide now, you cannot spot an Aussie. Everywhere you look its Chinese/Asians, Indians and Pakistani's. ... more
bigfella on "He's a dog..." Hi z,The point is: How the heck would Phil of Springwood know what sort of parents Bert and Patti were to their son? For all ... more
z on Bob Brown Lazarus Where is the costings that they demand of everyone else, thier 5 minutes of fame will be up shortley more
Shanelle on System failure The whole system is stuffed. I have been apart of it for 10years now and still im confused. Im in a bad place at the moment ... more
James Weir on Barnaby Joyce How many Clem 7's would you like in your Super Fund, Barnaby? It lost $1.5B in it's current reporting period. Only Govts can ... more
Steve Martin on "He's a dog..." Rebecca Wilson as per normal is just plain out of touch.The hitting of women is wrong but personalising this with "he's a ... more
Ronny Of Brighton QLD on Preferential voting MichaelIve just come back from a holiday.That bloke Dean Jaensch Siad that if someone(call Him RONNY) had 40% he said 60% of ... more
z on Preferential voting the way it is working at the moment is the first loser joins with 2nd loser and so on untill they beat the winner, so a ... more
brisman on Bob Brown The guy is not green he absolutley red through to the core. His environmental visions are shallow and don't serve ... more
z on "He's a dog..." bigfella, Phil of Springwood is not talking from so called flippantly expertise, Ivory tower stuff but more from commonsense ... more
robert goodchild on Support our Diggers the sticker Idea is great.I would happily part with $20 for one and would like to see the profit go to families who have ... more
Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." Hey Bigfella, back again so soon after your mobs magnificent defeat by the Tories, I thought you and the rest of your Left ... more
z on "He's a dog..." Hey Phil, why don't you say what you really mean more
bigfella on "He's a dog..." Congratulations to Phil of Springwood,We've become accustomed to his astute political and social commentaries based on ... more

People smugglers and queue jumpers

Posted by: Michael Smith | 8 October, 2008 - 10:51 AM

Last week a boat carrying 14 people was intercepted by the Royal Australian Navy at Ashmore Reef. The boat's crew were Indonesians and it was carrying Iranian and Afghani alleged refugees seeking asylum in Australia. It had sailed from Indonesian West Timor.

Our legal affairs expert and former head of the National Crime Authority Peter Faris QC said on air on Friday that the boat signalled the first tentative steps by organised Indonesian crime gangs testing the Rudd Government. He said that the Rudd government's new policy signalled an open door for queue jumpers and people smugglers. Under the Rudd Government's policy Australia no longer sends asylum seekers to other countries such as Nauru for processing - instead they must spend as little time in detention as possible and if they're refugees, be given permanent visas and then flown to Australia to be resettled at the taxpayer's expense.

Not surprisingly the Immigration Minister Chris Evans disagrees with Faris and me. He said last week that this was not the start of more arrivals. He was dead wrong.

Yesterday I reported that a second boat arrived - just sailed right up to one of our offshore oil rigs. It came alongside the Front Puffin oil facility - 700km west of Darwin at 11.50am. How can a foreign boat, with God knows what on board just sail right up to a multi-million dollar oil facility and tie up without our authorities knowing about it? This second boat contained 14 passengers and 3 crew. Again they were alleged Indonesian people-smugglers carrying alleged refugees from the Middle-East. They spent the day at the oil rig until 6pm when the navy arrived and took them to Christmas Island.

Yesterday, Indonesia's Director General of Immigration Maroloan Bariming said Australia's new policy may "give better opportunities for people smugglers."

My contacts in law enforcement say privately that criminal networks in Indonesia are aware of the changes the Rudd government has made and they're exploiting them. They track reports on the internet - and then use the information from those reports to tout for business with queue-jumpers from the Middle-East.

We've got a real problem here. The criminal networks in Indonesia are back in business. They're exploiting perceived weakness in Australia's policy. We need to send them a very firm message - don't bother trying us out. There must be no easy ride into Australia for criminal networks and queue-jumpers

Blog comments

Michael, thanks for fighting for our rights. You're wonderful! The Health Minister carries around a Journo's code of conduct, yet he did not have a copy of the Qld Health code of conduct available when interviewed on the horror story of rape in the north.....hmmmm!

Sydney Thursday 9 October, 2008 - 6:30 PM
'give better opportunities for people smugglers' - ha send em straight to naru ...

sandwich Wednesday 8 October, 2008 - 11:30 AM