Scott Morrison & Tony Abbott have really hit a low point in the last 24 hours by attacking the Federal Government for footing the bill for flying the asylum seekers to Sydney to attend the funeral of their loved ones who perished in the boat disaster at Christmas Island!
What do they think they are doing? Appeasing & winning the ignorant uneducated marginal seat votes, which by the way they failed to win enough of in the last Federal Election anyway?
And at what cost to human dignity? At the expense of their own reputation being tarnished (especially in case of Scott Morrison, who is basically a decent person but somehow seems to transform to a different person in his capacity as the shadow Immigration Minister)
And at the great expense of taking away the very last few shreds of human dignity from the grieving asylum seekers who have lost their loved ones in a tragedy?
Isn't it enough that the rest of the world is starting to view Australia as a redneck xenophobic & racist country? Do we need to strip these desperate grieving people of their last shred of dignity by denying them reunion with their loved ones?
Last but not least, Joe Hockey should be commanded for his integrity & dignity & for not selling out his principals.
As a Liberal voter I am ashamed of what the right wing religious factions in the party stand for & hope Tony Abbott gets his act together & stop being held hostage to their views.
All in all, three important questions in the immigration debate in Australia need to be addressed:
1) Are economic refugees a bad thing for a sparsely populated country like Australia after all? And does the main problem lie in successive governments' lack of sufficient investment in infrastructure which means our cities can not cope with larger populations? After all many major Western Cities have higher populations than Sydney & Melbourne.
2) If the situation in places like Iraq & Afghanistan is stable enough for us to turn refugees from such places away, isn't it time then that we bring our troops back home?
3) Are we really a compassionate tolerant multicultural nation or are we simply kidding ourselves?
