A Win For Everyone … and for Decency

I came across an interesting statistic a few days ago. 

The Australian Government spends just over $2 BILLION a year keeping asylum seekers and refugees in detention.  The ones we’ve dumped on Manus Island and Naura are costing us $400,000 a year per person.  And remember we have a population of fewer than 25 million people in this country footing the bill for this.

If we allowed most of these people to live in the community (at a cost to the country of about $20,000 each per annum), the country’s debt problems would be solved. We wouldn’t be talking about increasing university fees, cutting welfare payments, closing down legal advice centres, or increasing medical charges.

We’d have no children behind barbed wire. No babies born “in captivity”.  And we’d have a number of people who are willing and able to make a contribution to this country actually being allowed to do so.