A faded dream !

It is laughable to remember the plan that the government claimed would stop the people smugglers in their tracks.   Negotiations were being held with Malaysia to send eight hundred asylum seekers to that country - and in return we would accept two thousand refugees from their internment camps.   They never did get the numbers in parliament to make that a reality.

Events made that plan pale into insignificance, but the government still persists in claiming that it was - and still is - the answer to the problem.   For lack of a better idea, the government is sticking with something that will clearly not work.

So far this month we have received twenty-five asylum seeker boats in just nineteen days, and that has delivered 1801 new applicants to be processed, fed and housed - and found some sort of political accommodation.   The drag on the Australian Treasury is reported to be somewhere in the vicinity of $ 2.9 billion - and that is money that is badly needed for other purposes.

Sending eight hundred to Malaysia would be a drop in a bucket in relation to the numbers that are now arriving.    What we are seeing is an induced panic spread by the people smugglers who are telling prospective customers that Australia is about to have a change of government -  and the door will slam shut in their faces.    The advice is to get on a boat now - or miss out !

We can expect this flood of asylum seekers to increase sharply in the weeks remaining until the September election.   The people smugglers see a chance to maximise their profits and it is noticeable that they are using bigger boats - with room for many more people.    One recent arrival was an Indonesian inter-island ferry, ironically one of the gifts from another country to help mitigate the aftermath of the tsunami disaster.

So far this year we have had 134 asylum boats reach our waters and deliver 8885 people.   Given the virtual state of war in many countries and the seemingly endless financial crisis in others, the refugee problem is approaching tipping point.     Europe, the Middle East and now Africa is in such a state of turmoil that we could be about to see a mass exodus of citizens seeking refuge in what they see as " peaceful and prosperous " havens - and Australia will be high on the list of destinations.

It could be said to be a case of an unstoppable force meeting an unmovable object.   The future of this country's ethnic mix will depend on how " fair dinkum " we are in defending our national borders !