Refugees - and violence !

It is now inevitable that we will see acts of violence from refugees held at the detention centre on Christmas Island.

Most boat people will see the plan to delay processing of arrivals from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan as the first step in a policy change that will see them denied settlement in Australia - and removal to their country of origin.

The stated reason is that both countries are supposedly returning to normal and therefore refugees are not fleeing persecution, as they claim.

Things may be improving in Sri Lanka, but by no stretch of the imagination can Afghanistan be considered a safe and settled country.

Forty one asylum boats have arrived in Australian waters this year - and there is no evidence that this flow will cease in the future. We have a problem - and ignoring it is not going to make it go away !

The weakness in this plan of delaying processing is that it destroys hope of a better life - and when hope is lost violence inevitably follows.

Desperate people resort to desperate measures - which will shortly appear as newspaper headlines !