Compassion for Boat People

Last night I watched the debate between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.  Apart from the fact that I got the idea that both of them either don't know where they want to go in the next 3 years, or they won't admit it to us yet, I was particularly disturbed by what I saw on the worm.

Whilst I am often pleasantly surprised by the decisions that the Australian public makes when it comes to choosing political leaders, I hate the way that we think of people arriving to Australia illegally.

Last night during the debate there were about 3 topics that caused the 'worm' to go up and down.  Two of them were paid maternity leave (which I don't like because it only places value on mothers who work) and what to do about illegal immigrants arriving by boat.

I am appalled that the general consensus is to stop all boats from arriving and to stop refugees from entering Australia by any means other than applying for refugee status, then applying for refuge in Australia. 

I am disturbed by this for 2 reasons.
1. Too often I hear people say that since it costs these people thousands of dollars to get here illegally in bribes and passage, they can't be that poor and desperate.  This is simplistic and unfair.  Too often I hear these people called queue jumpers.  The idea being that there is a list somewhere that lists all people who have applied for asylum in Australia and these people are taking the places of people who have gone through the right channels.  My response to this is:  There is no queue.  At least not like people think there is. 
To obtain refugee status you must be referred  by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.  In order to apply for this status, though, the country that you are in must allow the UN to a) be there, and b) to work with refugees there.  So f you are Burmese and living in Bangladesh, you cannot be given the status of refugee.  Or if you are one of the 1.7 million refugees living in Pakistan at the moment, the chances of ever seeing a UN official who can help you with this is very low as the number of asylum seekers is just too high to administer and the UN as placed restrictions on the number of people they will register (I think, it is more complicated than this, but this is how I basically understand it).  So for the people who need somewhere to live in safety but cannot apply for refugee status, what do they do? 
The answer is that they do what they can to look after their families.

2.  The second reason I am so disturbed by this is that it shows such a lack of compassion.  When Christian people tell me that they think asylum seekers need to be detained for prolonged periods, or sent back for whatever reason, what I hear them saying is that 'I am happy to love my neighbour as long as they don't live next door.'  I may be wrong, but that's what it feels like. 

I have been told (and I have no idea of the validity of the claim) that people living in Muslim countries have a much lower than 1% conversion rate to Chrstianity if they are already following Islam.  In Australia, though, something like 10% of Muslim people wo come to live here get converted to Christianity.  That in itself is, for me, reason enough (f it is true) for Christians to want people to come to Australia, as we have the opportunity to minister to them and introduce them to Jesus, which is, above all else, what they need.

Let's have some compassion for our neighbour and be willing to love them even if they move in next door.  And let's stop saying inaccurate and naive things like 'queue jumpers'.  And, by the way, if we are going to keep out keep out illegal immigrants let's target the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants from Europe and the US and not just the couple of thousand who come from non-English speaking countries and are poor.  Be consistent.