I will keep my post on this complex & gut wrenching subject short and simple:
I was never a supporter of Howard Government's harsh stance on refugees & the disasterous detention centres policy. Like many others, I was appalled by Howard's political exploitation of public mood at the time at the expense of desperate refugees. However, Howard was at least upfront with the public about his tough policy on boat refugees.
I am now even more appalled by PM Rudd disingenuous attempt in trying to make the problem disappear, & more importantly it seems, to protect his "teflon popularity" by shifting the refugees to Indonesia & their much harsher camps.
In my opinion, both PMs have brought shame to Australia & its proud history of compassion & fair go. However, Howard was at least upfront about his shameful policy whilst Rudd is trying to hide his in order to portray himself as a humanitarian!
1 comment:
The question is: what do you think the answer is? What's a refugee policy that will work?
Howard said (though he used different words) we hate refugees, Australians for Australian values, immigrants should f--- off.
Australians can be divided into two camps.
One: they hate foreigners, they are ultra-nationalists, they believe migrants should be taught 'Australian values' when they come here, they took pride in watching the Cronulla riots, they wrap themselves in the flag, they love watching the cricket and seeing Australia pound Bangladesh into the dirt, they bash (or at least want to) gays in the alley-ways; they believe that because they are Australians, they are more important than other peoples. They are always on the look for ways to justify their racism, such as the current 'Population Sustainability' question.
They believe all Tamils should be sent back to Sri Lanka (where the despotic Sinhelese government will kill them all).
Two: these people believe in 'social-justice', they try hard to be kind and genuine in their concern for others, and they believe in a certain level of multiculturalism (within reason). But, if you push them hard enough on the refugee issue, they will come up with racist fence-sitting: we should put them in detention centre and investigate whether they are genuine refugees or not.
I believe all the refugees should be let in, no questions asked.
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