ECONOMIC Refugees - gee really?

[Rorschach]

This what many of us have been saying for years and Labor and the Greenies have been in deep denial about.

Sell house and sail away to better lives
* by: EXCLUSIVE by Gemma Jones
* From: The Daily Telegraph
* October 12, 2012 12:00AM

ELECTRICIANS, security guards, government workers and businessmen were among a wave of middle-class asylum seekers caught leaving Sri Lanka by boat, the country's navy has revealed.

In a briefing to a Liberal MP on a study tour, Sri Lanka's navy revealed that most of the 2279 people arrested leaving on 52 boats this year from 24 locations were "economic migrants" looking for a better life in Australia. Sri Lankan authorities believed the asylum seekers had mortgaged property, taken out loans, pawned jewellery and received support from others to fund the $10,000 payment for people smugglers to take them to Australia. Really? Who'd a thought. Well NOT; Sarah Hansen-Young, Christine Milne, Bob Brown, Adam Bandt, Chris Bowen Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Craig Emerson, Anthony Albanese, Tanya Plibersek, Penny Wong, Nicola Roxon, Greg Combet, Peter Garret, Bill Shorten... etc, etc, etc

The navy claimed in a briefing that asylum seekers chose to board unseaworthy one-engined boats for the dangerous 25 to 30-day journey to Australia in "appalling conditions" because of the "success rates" of Australia's asylum processing claim system. Thank you Labor thank you Greens thank you refugee agents and ambulance chasing migrant lawyers.

Almost 100 of those arrested were businessmen, 179 were fishermen, 27 government workers, 87 drivers, 158 labourers, 15 electricians, 87 farmers and 43 masons.

Photographs taken by the navy (above) show filthy hulls into which dozens of people had been crammed along with pictures of each boat and a separate image of the asylum seekers, sometimes more than 100 from each boat, including pregnant women and very young children.

Sri Lankan officials have arrested eight people-smuggling kingpins, six of them in the Sri Lankan port city of Trincomalee.

Despite the arrests, 4109 Sri Lankans have reached Australia this year, including one boat carrying 70 people which arrived at the Cocos Islands yesterday. An unknown number have drowned.

Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to Australia, Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe, said yesterday there was no way of knowing how many had died on voyages but that relatives had reported family members missing to police.

Liberal MP Don Randall was briefed two weeks ago by the head of the navy in a region of Sri Lanka.

He spoke with 36 asylum seekers who had been arrested, including a man with his children. All said they wanted to come to Australia for a better life. Others who had been arrested were fishermen wanting to earn more.

"He had the rest of his family with him, he had sold his house, he resigned from his public service job," Mr Randall said before adding the asylum seekers who were arrested were not tortured or mistreated upon their return. Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said that after the largest refugee camp in Sri Lanka was closed last month, following the end of the nation's civil war in 2009, the government had an opportunity to return asylum seekers.

"Labor's inaction is encouraging more people to ... undertake a voyage even more dangerous than the one from Indonesia," Mr Morrison said.Asked about the report, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen declined to comment. Oh dear Chris "I decline to comment" Bowen. No need to be coy Chris it's what most of us sane people have been telling you lot for years.
The UNHCR has recently returned more than 230,000 internally displaced Sri Lankans to their villages and assisted 873 who voluntarily returned from overseas.

A spokesman said the UNHCR still recommends "all claims by asylum seekers from Sri Lanka be considered on their individual merits", which the Australian government said it complies with.

Meanwhile, an Iranian man attempted suicide yesterday at the Nauru processing camp.Refugee advocates said the asylum seeker was "blue" when found. A Department of Immigration spokeswoman said he suffered no injuries.

When asked about the report, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen declined to comment.

[Rorschach]

Economic refugees exploit generosity
* From: The Daily Telegraph
* October 12, 2012 12:00AM

AUSTRALIA'S humanitarian intake program is one of the most generous in the world.

We take our responsibilities as a global citizen very seriously and our sense of a fair go means we are prepared to offer help and protection to those genuinely in need.

Sadly, we now have strong evidence that that generosity is cynically exploited by people who are seeking not to save themselves or their families from persecution but merely to "trade-up" countries.

This is an outrage - not just against us but against the millions of genuinely oppressed or dispossessed refugees worldwide and most especially the thousands whom we are forced to say no to because our intake quota is filled by boat arrivals, many of whom now appear to be of dubious authenticity.

We have discovered already that even just the prospect of being sent to Nauru has seen many Sri Lankan boatpeople suddenly decide that life is not so bad back home after all, and opt to suddenly repatriate - unlikely behaviour from anyone genuinely in fear of their life.

And now we have the fullest picture to date of the reasons for this: That many of those seeking asylum from Sri Lanka are not the poor and desperate but the wealthy and opportunistic, lured to Australia by better economic prospects or promises from family members or people smugglers.

It is time for the government to act decisively on this matter once and for all. We know that temporary protection visas work for the simple reason that they are a godsend to people in genuine danger yet worthless to anyone simply trying to climb the international ladder. Labor must reintroduce them now.

We cannot afford this influx of exploitation strategically, financially or - for the sake of those genuine refugees out there - morally.