Government admission on boat arrivals

You didn't have to be a genius to have figured this out already, but Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, has admitted that significant numbers of boat arrivals are not genuine asylum seekers but economic migrants:

we're getting many advise [sic] that it is economic pressure (and) economic aspirations (driving the arrivals)."

The latest boat, carrying 84 people, sailed directly from Vietnam, where there has been no conflict for 30 years.

Already this year, 759 Vietnamese boat people have come to Australia - the largest group to turn up since just after the Vietnam War - and more than four times the total number that has arrived in the three previous years.

One way to reform the current refugee system would be to resettle those claiming to be refugees in countries with a similar standard of living to their own (the costs of doing so could be borne by wealthier countries). This would remove the incentive toward economic migration.