fatvegan

Australia is the only country in the world that incarcerates children using indefinite, arbitrary, non-reviewable detention. Chilout

Is the difference between Australia and other countries that people come to Australia by boat, and children are placed in significant danger by the voyage? Most developed countries are either much to far to travel to by boat, or they're connected by land. Land borders are logistically very different to sea borders. You can't turn someone away at a sea border. Especially if their boat is sinking. If I showed up at the French border requesting asylum they'd just say "No, you can't come through." The Navy can't say that to a sinking boat.

Chilout likes to quote statistics of dropping levels of asylum seekers. It dropped from 12000 to 5000 between 2000 and 2002. And because not so many people are coming, they say it must be OK to release everyone. Except they don't say that the reason people stopped coming is because of mandatory detention. Someone needs to come up with a solution where 12000 asylum seekers (or more) can be dealt with, without mandatory detention.

What I would like to see is for mandatory detention to be made way less crap. Without that horrible barb wire. And with good food. And with regular outings and adventures for people inside. And for us to increase by heaps and heaps, the number of refugees we take it. We only take 12000 a year. And probably just Australian soldiers have created at least that many, much less the soldiers of Our Allies.