In the last year, over 4000 asylum seekers arrived in Australian waters by boat — an increase of 29 percent over the previous year.

Many were Afghans and Sri Lankans who paid Indonesian smugglers to transport them. The number of Afghan arrivals was up 45 percent.

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Australia’s opposition parties claim that this increase results from Mr Rudd, on becoming Prime Minister, having scrapped the previous government’s “tough” policy of making asylum seekers remain either on Pacific islands or in detention centres in remote parts of Australia, until their status was determined.

Worldwide, numbers of asylum requests have not increased, which negates the Labor government’s theory that the increase is due to greater unrest overseas.

It seems that Australia’s weakened laws were the big factor.

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Some church leaders, both Catholic and non-Catholic, criticise opposition leader Tony Abbott’s promise that when he becomes Prime Minister he will re-toughen the laws.

Somebody from the Edmund Rice Centre (nominally Catholic) called his policy “fundamentally flawed” and “cruel”.

Overseas experience suggests, however, that too-rapid acceptance of persons of Muslim and other foreign cultures leads mainly to trouble.

BRITAIN got it wrong in 1996 by legalising Sharia tribunals operating in mosques setting up a de facto parallel and alternative system of justice — which they are still more or less stuck with.

In CANADA, a similar move met with spirited opposition from, interestingly, Muslim women. They pointed out how such a system would lead to injustices – including unpunished domestic violence, women’s evidence in court being less valued than that of men, daughters inheriting only half of what sons inherit etc. Their campaign resulted in such sectarian legal arbitrations being banned.

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Australia should determine that there shall be one set of laws for all people who live here.

Traditionally our laws have been based on those inherited from a mostly Christian moral culture. It has worked out better than the justice systems of almost all other nations.

Not being specifically Catholic, some Australian laws are pretty weak and need attention — the half-hearted attitude of Protestant Christians regarding abortion being an obvious example.