Shame Kevin Andrews, shame

Let’s hope Kevin Andrews, a staunch Catholic, has been going to confession to repent his sins, for using the race card to bolster his political Party’s of securing the red neck vote to take it to another election.

Not content with with hanging an innocent man, in Dr Haneef, to hang out to dry, it has been revealed that Andrews puposefully denigrated all African refugees in Australia as criminals, against the device of his on department.

According to The Age’sJewell Topsfield, a confidential Immigration Department briefing to the then minister, written after a spate of crimes on public transport believed to have been committed by young Sudanese men, stressed that studies suggested it was not ethnicity that determined criminal behaviour but a combination of socio-economic problems and other disadvantage.

Topsfield writes, the briefing, dated September 27, 2007, said: “Whatever the background of the perpetrators, it would be wrong to blame all people from a particular migrant group for the behaviour of a few.”

But a week later, Mr Andrews appeared to ignore its advice, and in a classsic example of dog-whistle politics, cited the failure of Sudanese people to integrate as a reason for cutting African refugee numbers - comments which led to anti-Sudanese sentiment to mushroom on the basis of sensationalist and biased reporting in the media - which has incredibly fallen silent on the subject of gang violence by white kids,

What’s even more disgusting is that Andrews’ comments came after he was asked about the fatal bashing of 18-year-old Sudanese refugee Liep Gony in Noble Park - a classic case of turning the tables on the victim for one’s own advantage.

To be fair to Andrews, it’s hardly likely this was all his doing.

Thank God we had the election result we did.