TWO writers have taken Frank Pulsford to task for his letter focusing on people smugglers.
While individual Catholics can be commended for assisting the desperate people who seek asylum, governments are obliged to look at the broader picture.
I question whether the “pernicious trade” can be stopped without some sort of deterrent.
Genevieve Caffery suggests two policies – increasing resettlement places and providing safer pathways to get here.
I believe that neither will stop the trade. The Refugee Council of Australia website shows over 45 million people in its three categories of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced.
Suppose Australia agrees to resettle one million refugees each year, and provides safe transport. There will still be millions of unsettled people. A people smuggler can put 250 people on a leaky boat, pay all his costs and have approximately $1 million in profit. He will find customers. If the Government’s deterrent policy works, it will in fact save lives.
I am disturbed by the way charitable people set this consideration at naught, saying it is only spin, constructed for an unworthy purpose, and so on.
Politics is “the art of the possible”, and politicians have to craft policies that a voting majority will support, where not all of the voters are Good Samaritans. So being ashamed of the Government because it doesn’t act like a Catholic charity organisation seems a little pointless.
Michael Cashman
Grange, QLD
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