The first part of this article appeared in Friday's edition, and, outlined the rest of the details. What I was struck by is the way the issue was presented by the reporter -- Australia's policy is "harsh" and "racial discrimination", because, well, geez, the poor people have had such a hard time getting to Australia.
Clearly, the "refugees" (AKA illegal immigrants) have suffered greatly, and deserve human compassion, but the Times spin is enough to make one dizzy. In particlular, Friday's piece outlined one group's sojourn from Iraq, to Iran, to Malasia, to Indonesia (I count three separate countries that they could have stopped and stayed in after escaping Iraq in that list), but it's OZ that is the bad guy. For the crime of enforcing their borders.
The parallel to the situaion here is just to close to ignore -- the difference is that OZ has recognized the problem, and is doing something about it, and we're not.