Punitive truth behind Dutton's 'sham marriage' furphy

Thank you, Kerry! The vicious absurdity of this needed to be set out and you have said it well!

I watched Peter Dutton making his case during Question Time in parliament. Even he didn't seem convinced. What on earth is going on? Is our civil, reasonable and intelligent PM going to cast of the mask and reveal himself as Dr Evil? What can we do about this?

Gillard and Roxon thought to be ever so clever when they were denied the right to traffic and trade humans to Malaysia so the Pacific solution mark 11 was done with the complete deletion of all human, legal and civil rights.

Thank God for Cathy McGowan and Andrew Wilkie and their like. Peter Dutton was probably challenged enough on the beat.

"It is poor legislation because it is discriminatory..." Is there any legislation which is not discriminatory? Is not discrimination sometimes very wise and even necessary? Is it not true that all discrimination is not discriminatory? Time everyone stopped playing with words (such as "queue") in this whole debacle. On the law of averages and considering refugees are human beings there are bound to be wheeler-dealers amongst them. Perhaps some discrimination is essential.

This article is excellent in detail. The proposed lifetime ban on innocent people ever entering on Australian soil is immoral, let alone unethical. Freedom of movement for human beings is a basic right.and this law punishes innocent people yet is aimed at people smugglers - the end does not justify the means. Refugees in Nauru and Manus Is. are not criminals, they have no convictions.

One wonders whether the current prisoners on Manus and Nauru will be permitted by Trump to enter the US under the deal struck by Turnbull and Obama. And what is really behind the reciprocal Costa Rica trade off? Maybe they are not Muslim. Hence less likely to cause trouble down the track.Trump has indicated a pending tough stance against future Muslim immigration following attacks in France, the US, Nairobi. Dutton appears to be holding the line. Talking tough as usual. I also wonder since they are offering 20 year sweetener visas in Nauru, what would happen if those refugees took citizenship in Nauru and Manus and then applied to enter Australia or NZ? It would seem a long process but they could hardly be refused. The irony is in the mode of transport. Thousands of Chinese illegals have entered on containers through the major ports undetected. Plenty of small planes fly undetected from PNG to Australia. It all depends on what one can afford.

Thank you, Kerry, for explaining a system which is fraught with extreme confusion at best. The rhetoric of this latest and inaccurate proposition has now identified another 'horde' of queue jumpers: sponsored partners 'subverting' the family visa system (let’s not just limit this to 457s, non-productive elderly parents and asylum seekers). Many of the recent changes to our immigration program have been about heavily regulating it, to its detriment and justifying the changes on unfounded fears through political spin and clear misinformation. Whilst Australia, as a sovereign nation, has the right to do what it thinks best for its people and its borders, it also has the responsibility to do it truthfully and for the common good, not at the expense of human and civil rights breaches, separating families and proposing that we turn off our ‘social justice’ switch and ignore our sense of gross inequity when targeting those who have no voice to defend themselves or set the record straight.

Peter Kiernan. You say "Freedom of movement for human beings is a basic right". Does that mean that none of us need our passports anymore and all visas are "immoral and unethical"?

John, your argument appears to be that because there are 'wheelers and dealers' whatever you mean by that, that a select group should be permanently banned. So if in a group there are people who may do something wrong in the future, that means it is ok to collectively punish the whole group. I may have misunderstood your point, but on my reading it seems incredibly harsh.

What I am alluding to, Kerry, is that genuine refugees (the vast majority) should not be disadvantaged by others who may have "wheeled and dealed" to arrive in Australia. Examples might be the Sri Lankans who chose to voluntarily return to Sri Lanka (presumably not fearing dire consequences) and some domiciled for some years in Indonesia before paying a people smuggler to drop them here by boat. These are not people who "might do something wrong in the future" but have paid no heed to this country's requirements for immigration (doesn't really matter whether we approve of the requirements or not - they are facts). I believe that we should be allowed the discriminatory capacity to ensure that we take those who are genuinely escaping persecution.

John - 2 points - the way someone arrives seeking protection is IRRELEVANT to the refugee criteria. Just read the definition and tell me where it says how you arrive, or whether you move to another country is a relevant factor in determining whether you met the refugee definition. secondly - the point of the article is to question the stated reason for this draconian Bill - which bans any visas for life - not just refugee resettlement - any visa.

Kerry. I do think that leaving the future decision to allow a visa to a single minister is very bad. We could have, God forbid, many Duttons or Hanson clones in the future who might find themselves invested with this singular power to deny humane re-union for example. I imagine that in the chaos of seeking refuge from prosecution some families suffer separation with some members being granted asylum and others lost in the no-man's land of detention. Surely there should be no ban on reunification of such people. It would seem that perhaps there are deficiencies in the law governing refugees if no account is taken of the manner of entry to another country. It seems to mean that you or I could quite legitimately enter another country by boat at night, walk up to the local police station and seek asylum and it wouldn't matter one iota if we were not genuine refugees but simply wanted a change of scenery or greater opportunity. I am not at all suggesting that the majority of asylum seekers fit into such a mould but I do think the law should embody the discriminatory capacity to deal with those who seek to rort the system in some way as it does in many other areas. It remains true I think, that Australia does take refugees and makes available social services unlike many other countries. The numbers affected by this latest visa fiddle would not seem to be great when placed in the overall picture. Perhaps there are reasons for that to which we may not be privy because of things like security concerns etc. Governments keep so much from our collective ken these days!

Just another smokescreen by Dutton to keep the door slammed shut on Manus and Nauru refugees. There is obviously a lot of political mileage in beating up the "sham marriage" application idea. Dutton's not the sharpest tool in the Liberal shed.