I have seen some of these so called refugees first hand lined up last christmas in Darwin. Some of them are "gold card carrying, armani suit wearing criminals" whose previous visas were refused on alledgedly criminal grounds or they are just plain queue jumping. Some have been known to have in their posession first class ticket stubbs to Indonesia from their country of origin. In many cases they have no respect for infidels. (yes thats us Aussies).
They have at hand when landing on Australian soil access to health, law, education and residential facilities when they land here. Beats the hell out of me what is wrong with the facilities they are in, if they came from worse. Youd reackon they would be happy with three square meals a day, and free accomodation.
The Tampa group are but a small percentage of the total number arriving in our waters. Just look out on Darwin habour before the boat burning is done on a regular basis, or the vessels are impounded pending agreements or sale. Some are fishing vessels but many carry illegals.
(ironically one Indoneasian woman alone owned twelve of these vessels and has been convicted numourous times in Darwin court for various offenses but she alledgedly still sends "fishing vessels" into our waters.)
Whilst involved in the transport of our guests at one point, the following exchange occured.
When I did a cabin brief, one "guard" laughed at me, "they dont understand english".
One of the happy travellers said as he disembarked, "thankyou for the nice flight mam." Many males just really scowl at me. A woman in a place of authority in their culture is unthinkable.
mmmm I say whole heartedly, thankyou Mr Howard, and send the "refugees" Mr Beasleys house to live! Im sure the facilites there would suit them just fine thankyou.
If it possible to imagine the captain of the Tampa had been threated by these people into "doing things" their way, its quite feasible to leave the SAS where they are, refuel the ship and send it to say..... Britain! Or would the afore mentioned British tabloid just have us put them out in our deserts to die. It shows a sad ignorance of our geographics.
Whilst my opinion is somewhat hot headed, it has also been noted from time to time that the so called sinking of the people trafficing vessels is also planned. The speculation in some cases is the Indonesian organisers know the shipping channels and have boats in place at the "right time" for a "rescue" to occur.
I am happy enough for my tax dollars to be spent on genuine cases, but Mr Beasley, my tax dollar at this point backs the Howard government.