Obligation to look after refugees.

The proposal to send boat refugees to Malaysia is obviously fraught with problems and should be canned as soon as possible.

There is nothing illegal about refugees arriving by boat here and seeking asylum.

The Australian Government simply has a legal and moral obligation to look after them, full stop.

It is scandalous that the ALP is shopping around all over the place to off-load the refugees onto various Pacific Nations most of whom are too poor to feed their own people.

What is their real motivation?

They claim it is "to stop the boats" but in reality they fear voter backlash, the same gutless response as the Howard Government's to the Hansonite attitude.

The only effective answer here is to rapidly process the refugees, get them housed and into the workforce.

The record of refugees succeeding is exceptionally good.

The ALP Government has been driven to ape the Howard Government cowardice and it reflects poorly on them - and on Australia as a nation.

This attitude does not engender respect at all, to the contrary.

Email, 4 Jun 2011 Klaas Woldring, Pearl Beach