People-smuggling must not be implicity encouraged by NZ in any way, by accepting boat people we will do just that. Thats the hard truth IMHO.

Often these poor people pay their life savings to criminals who dump them, half dead, into Australia, if their boat doesn’t sink first. By making them less likely to succeed, they won’t come, as Australia has realised.

We could consider taking some of them as part of the 700-odd refugees we are obliged to take under the UN guidelines, and aim to repatriate them to their homeland if conditions improve. However in exchange NZ should expect some concessions from Australia, as we did after the Tampa affair.

The problem is NZ has a good quality of life because it has so few people, and as much as I hate Johnny Howard he is correct in his policy towards immigration (IMHO)- It must be managed and well organised, rather than a desparate escape from somewhere.

The situation in SE Asia is crazy- there are quarter of a billion people living there, many in terrible circumstances- but what really can NZ do? It would be nice if we could save the world, but realistically we cannot. Lead a good example and help with humanitarian aid, sure. But accept hundreds of boatpeople as a nice gesture? Not a good policy IMHO.

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Hey, I’ve known people who are part-Papuan, living in NZ, and they acclimatised just as well as Fijians, Tongans, Nuians, and any other Melanesian peoples who have come to our post-colonial, pre-multicultural nation…

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Are you going to guarantee some of our own citizens “behave” Marshboy ?

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Excellant idea. Are you going to guarantee they behave when they are in NZ?

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