Asylum seekers having fun – how very dare they?

Look at this picture of asylum seekers playing soccer on Christmas Island. What the hell is going on here? Why are they having fun when Australians are going to work to pay taxes everyday. They can’t be real refugees if they are happy.

And look at how well dressed they are. Goodness me that woman is even wearing nice sunglasses. Did my taxpayer dollars go to those sunglasses or are they hers? Surely if she can afford nice sunglasses she can’t be a real refugee. And what sort of woman plays soccer with her daugters after risking their life by setting fire to a boat and throwing them overboard?

Have they thought that while they are having fun playing soccer (not AFL or League) that Australian soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan for them. Neil Mitchell on 3AW said they eat better than our soldiers fighting their war. This is an outrage. How dare they eat. And I bet we have to cook them their kind of food – if they don’t like bacon or Vegemite they should go back to where they came from. We decide who comes here and eats our food.

I hear that these illegals have to be guarded when they play soccer. How much does that cost us taxpayers. If they want to play soccer why don’t they go back to where they came from. I’m sure they play soccer there. And who paid for the soccer ball, not us taxpayers I hope?

My pitiful life would really be better if the we sent them back – hell we should put them on a boat and give them two days to leave Australian waters. If they don’t get out on time the Navy can use them as target practice.  And make sure they put the people who were injured in the explosion on board with them. How dare they get medical treatment when Australian taxpayers are dying because they are refused treatment.

I’m over this, I really am. I’m sick of asylum seeker stories on Today Tonight, I want more  stories about fat women who lost weight and got rich selling fat-reducing creams on eBay and have written a book about it. 

I want these potential terrorists out, what next will they want the Baby Bonus and Krudd’s $900 - that is our right? This country is going to hell and soon we’ll all be talking Muslim.

I hope the Herald Sun publishes my comment.

Boatpeople fail to make a dent in Rudd’s popularity

I have been dreading this week’s Newspoll. The Rudd government has stumbled through the big issues since coming into office yet the PM has managed to retain an approval rating hovering around 70 per cent.

Despite the mistruths and attempts to rewrite economic history, the rightards have until now failed to make an impact on the public,  which rightly concurs that issues such as the global financial crisis is beyond Australia’s control but Rudd is managing it reasonably well.

Hence I dreaded a significant decrease in Rudd’s popularity this week as it would have shown that most Australians rate the asylum seeker issue important enough to change their vote. For a government to be popular during a recession to suddenly become on the nose because of a perceived soft stance on asylum seekers would be a very sad state of affairs ineed.

Thankfully today’s Newpoll suggests otherwise. Not only has Rudd and Labour maintained their popularity (Rudd slumped a bit, but from very high base), the Liberal Party have failed to make any ground from the tragic deaths of five asylum seekers near Ashmore Reef, despite doing it’s best to lay the blame squarely at the government. In fact Malcolm Turnbull’s popularity has dripped even more.

On the issue of which party would best manage the asylum seeker issue the Government has a slender lead  at 27 per cent compared with 26 per cent for the Opposition. A significant 33 per cent say they are uncommitted.

This surely was the last bastion for the Libs to make up any ground on Rudd.

But the bit that made feel good was that only 36 per cent of voters  voters believe a tougher regime would make any difference in cutting illegal arrivals, while 57 per cent believe it would do nothing to stop boatpeople.

What figures we don’t have is of the 53 per cent who believe a tougher regime would stop boat people, how many have formed this opinion based on their own ingorance or racist attitudes. I’d like to think a minority. The same minority who wave the Andrew Bolt flag and are welcomed to insight hatred in the Herald Sun comments section.

So I’d like to admit I was wrong. Issues like asylum seekers in peril don’t bring out the worst in Australians. It just gives the racist minority an excuse to have their disgusting views aired.

The trouble with living in the blog world is you assume everyone else gives a shit about what these fucktards  (and me for that matter) have to say. But they don’t. And as Newspoll shows most people see what happened on Ashmore Reef, shake their heads in either sympathy or indifference and move on knowing that these things happen.

While I’ll always be concerned about such matters perhaps I should do the same, or at the very least stop getting worked up over what is an ugly but insignificant section of our community.

Eddie McGuire makes a great point on asylum seekers

Sometimes you forget that multimedia millionaire Eddie “Everywhere” McGuire is a big lefty. He wrote a good piece in the Herald Sun today, which calls on a new policy for asylum seekers while condemning the panic and “racist tinged” rhetoric.

Compared to some of the absolutely appalling reporting this issue in the Herald Sun, it’s good to see McGuire put things into perspective.

Here’s a snippet of McGuire’s article.   

The current Government has hardly thrown open the doors. And let’s get things into perspective – so far there have been six boats, not 600. That’s 264 passengers who all go through an exhaustive checking routine on Christmas Island before they get in.

Yes, four of those boats have arrived in the past fortnight. But that’s my point, it’s not unexpected. That is still a tiny number compared with the numbers seeking asylum in Britain and Canada.

So stop panicking … . Given this has proved to be a life and death scenario, surely the boring, predictable, racist-tinged appealing to the worst side of our nature and the rekindling of fear in the populace led by our politicians and news media can be put aside so that a coherent policy can be implemented … ?

What is badly overdue is a hard and fast, rigorous policy on immigration and asylum seekers – a policy based on the needs of Australia, the humanitarian philosophy of our country, but with an iron hand of enforcement.

What we don’t need is scare-mongering tactics over an issue that for the year so far has seen fewer people arrive than sit on one morning train to Flinders St.

The good thing about McGuire writing such articles is that he’s not seen as a usual-suspect bleeding heart. Hopefully he’s got through to some of the masses whose bigotry is based in ignorance.

At last a newspaper publishes the reality about Australia’s asylum seeker issue

An article in The Age, Facts behind a rising asylum seeker tide, by Brendan Nicholson and Michelle Grattan, puts the facts behind opposition claims that the government has weakened its border protection policy, all but inviting people smugglers to ply their trade.

The article busts certain myths:

• In 2008-09, funding to the Immigration Department had been increased by $116 million. More recently, it had committed an additional $44.1 million to combat people smuggling in co-operation with regional nations
• Surveillance by ships and aircraft had been increased significantly, with more aerial patrols and an additional navy patrol vessel on border protection duties
• While the Rudd Government has scrapped the inhumane (my emphasis) Pacific Solution and temporary protection visas retained the excised migration zone and offshore processing on Christmas Island of asylum seekers who arrive in boats. These people do not get access to the Australian legal system
• And as I highlighted in a previous post. The increase in boat arrivals compared with a 12 per cent increase in asylum seekers in industrialised countries since last year and the numbers are minuscule compared to countries such as Greece, Italy and Canada.

Another excellent article in The Age should be compulsory reading for anyone who quick to call for asylum seekers to be  sent back.

No way back now, by Paris Aristotle, starts off by saying Australia “can’t return to the policies which have inflicted so much harm on people seeking our protection”.

Aristotle, the director of the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture and a member of the Immigration Detention Advisory Group, provides case studies of people who have successfully made a new life in Australia after going through horror in countries such as Iraq. One myth he is quick to extinguish is the one where if an asylum seeker has money or is well dressed he/she can’t be genuine.

He writes:

I don’t know if those responsible for the story were just ignorant of the fact that the rich and the middle-class as well as the poor suffer persecution because of their religious faith or political beliefs, or were they implying that we should use a clothing standard to decide who deserves our protection.

I am reminded of Arif and Fahim, who spent three years in detention on Nauru and were eventually found to be refugees … Arif and Fahim had been tortured in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, family members were murdered and both survived experiences that many of us could barely imagine. They continue to suffer the psychological consequences of that time. They have always presented as well-groomed and well-dressed. Indeed, they are two of the most impeccably dressed individuals I have met. Not because of their wealth (they are not wealthy) but because to them good dress is an expression of respect for themselves and for other people.

This is an excellent article and well worth reading in full regardless of what side of the debate you’re on.

You don’t have to be a bleeding heart, lefty hippy to be on the side of a few hundred people who want to escape unimaginable horrors - just a decent person. I reckon if you read Aristotle’s article and come away with that send-em-back attitude or even worse call for refugee boats to be used as target practice than I guess you’re nothing but a racist cunt.

It’s really as black and white as that!

Asylum seeker facts by numbers

As the opposition immigration spokesperson Sharman Stone was on Lateline trying to make political hay from the tragic events on Ashmore Reef by claiming that the easing of the Howard’s insidious Pacific Solution I came across the a press release at the UNHCR web site which putes things into perspective. According to the UNHCR, there has been a significant increase in asylum seeker numbers this year because of conflict in Afghanistan, Somalia while Iraq still produces the highest number.

It’s worth noting too that many of the recent arrivals in Australia have been from Sri Lanka where there has been an escalation in the conflict between the government and Tamil Tigers.

The Federal Opposition is talking shit when it says the number of asylum seekers is higher because of Labor’s abolition of the Pacific Solution. The fact is there is simply more people looking for asylum.

Even with the increase, the numbers of asylum seekers to Australia needs to be put into perspective.

12 per cent - the rise in asylum seekers in industrialised countries between 2007 and 2008 from 341,000 to 383,000

19 per cent- the increase in aslyum seekers to Australia between 2007 and 2008

4750 – the number of people who sought asylum in Australia in 2008 (after arriving by sea and air)

36,900 - the number of people who sought asylum in Canada in 2008

31,200 – the number of people who sought asylum in Italy in 2008

0.2 – the number of asylum seeker applicants per 1000 people in Australia (compared to 6.4 in Malta, 4.6 in Cyprus, 3.1 in Norway and 1.1 in Canada)

1 per cent – Australia’s share of global asylum seeker applications in 2008

8 per cent – Italy’s share of global asylum seeker applications in 2008

16th – Australia’s ranking by number of asylum applications in 2008

Finally, the Navy can do it’s job without political interference

A little known drama occurred in the Indian Ocean this week, when a Royal Australian Navy patrol boat intercepted a vessel in Australian waters with 14 people on board.

The people have been transferred to Christmas Island for questioning. The Federal Government, through Immigration Minister Chris Evans has said it’s unlikely the boat was involved with illegal fishing but has refused to speculate if those on board were asylum seekers or potential illegal immigrants.

It’s refreshing to hear Senator Evans take a cautious approach to the matter and provide the necessary information without the bullshit hysterical rhetoric that came with such arrivals in recent years.

The story has hardly made news, yet if this were the Howard Government there would be bells and whistles going off as well as a great deal of uninformed (and deliberate) speculation about the motives of the people on this boat, as well as the wrongful linking of asylum seekers with national security.

Hopefully this is a sign that we’ve moved on from the political grandstanding around illegal boat arrivals and the resulting bigotry that comes with it.

Something stinks when Amanda Vanstone defends granting a visa for “humane” reasons

Is Vanstone married to The Mob?

Former immigration minister and mu mu wearer Amanda Vanstone has told The Age  her decision to personally intervene to reinstate the visa of a known Italian mafia figure in 2005 was ”in the interest of Australia as a humane and generous society”.

The Age, has reported that the visa was granted to Francesco Madafferi- who was arrested last month for an alleged major drug trafficking conspiracy- around a year after his supporters donated money to the Liberal Party and four Liberal MPs made representations or contacted Vanstone about his case.

A document signed by Ms Vanstone, reveals that she granted Madafferi a visa in November 2005 after “having regard to this person’s particular circumstances and personal characteristics”, thus overturning a decison by former immigration minister Philip Ruddock, who had ordered Madaferri’s deportation in 2000 because of his alleged involvement in serious crimes in Italy in the 1980s.

The Age revealed on Saturday that 14 months before Mr Madafferi was granted his visa, Ms Vanstone and three other Liberal MPs attended a Liberal fundraiser in Melbourne attended by several of Mr Madafferi’s supporters. The three MPs who attended the September 2004 fundraiser – Russell Broadbent, Bruce Billson and Marise Payne- each lobbied or contacted Ms Vanstone about the case on behalf of Mr Francesco’s supporters or family.

There is no evidence they did so because of donations or improper influence.

Like fuck!

This stinks like a wheelie bin during Lent. Even putting aside the link between the fundraiser and the visa, the fact that Vanstone has used the “humane” defence to justify the granting of a visa should ring alarm bells.

This from a former Government whos immigration ministers, including Vanstone:

• Deported long-term Australian residents to their country of birth even though they had not been there since childhood, could not speak the anguage and ended up living on the streets because all their family was still in Australia
• Unlawfully deported and locked up Australian citizens after foolishly mistaking them for illegal immigrants.
• Allowed asylum seekers to live like caged animals in remote detention centres, and split families by deporting some and allowing others to stay
• Demonised asylum seekers for political gain
• Deporters genuine asylum seekers, sometimes to the wrong country, despite departmental and expert advice. Some of these had already started living worthy lives in Australia.
• Bypassed or overrulled the justice system when making decisions to deport people based on political populism rather than due course.

John Howard once boasted his govrnment would “decide who would come to this country and the circumstances under which they come” – it seems donating money to the Liberal Party was one way to ensure such circumstances are in one’s favour.