I'm sorry but I must say "f**k 'em".
If we are to take refugess (which we should) then we have certain obligations. We must feed and clothe them, and put a roof over their heads. Education, language skills, job skills, possibly counselling plus additional welfare payments.
That means that this costs money. f**king shitloads of it.
As such, our refugee intake must be capped.
With this in mind, we cannot allow else anyone to dictate who comes to this country and when. Hand control of your refugee program to refugees and your budget will be blown out of the water. This detracts from your ability to serve the country and you cannot have that, as your first responsibility is to the people who live here and pay their taxes to fund everything, including the refugee program.
With a quota in mind, we can easily fill this through regional UNHCR centres and programs. As a matter of fact, we'd fall well short of what those refugees, as a whole, needed so we're already excluding people and leaving them behind.
Through UNCHR centres we can meet our responsibilities to the fullest of our ability. The second we let people start coming here themselves, we're screwed and we'll fail in the obligations we definitely have towards those in need.
We need to shut down people smuggling. An added benefit is people won't drown coming here. Children won't drown coming here. We need to be extremely harsh to establish a deterrent. This needs to stop and the best way to do that is to put our foot down on its throat, hard.
Just remember - every boat person (sorry about the term) we take is one more person we leave behind in a regional centre. Any morality people claim regarding asylum seekers and having an open border policy is hypocritical as they conveniently forget every woman and child they condemn to a poor death and a UNHCR regional centre.
