Sunday, July 21, 2013

Krudd's 'Simple & Elegant' Solution

Listen up, you tired, you poor, you huddled masses yearning to breathe free...

If you liked Nauru...

"The Nauru detention centre descended into chaos on Friday night with riots breaking out and reports that a policeman had been stabbed and was being held hostage. There were also reports of multiple explosions and parts of the centre being set on fire. Between 150 and 200 detainees were involved in the rioting and many have breached the fence, according to a spokeswoman from the Department of Immigration & Citizenship. A witness on Nauru... said the riot was sparked by false rumours that the Manus Island centre had been closed. The rumours emerged before Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's announcement on Friday afternoon that all asylum seekers heading to Australia by boat would now be sent to Papua New Guinea for processing and resettlement... According to a written order obtained by Fairfax Media, Nauru's acting Police Minister, David Adeang, has deputised a new 'Nauru Police Force Reserve' to respond to the riots. The force includes contractors from Australian company Transfield as well as 'all others deputised to respond'. Women and children on Nauru have been instructed by the government to lock their doors and stay inside until further notice. All men have been told to present to the centre to be deputised as security guards. Up to 1000 men are estimated to have responded to the call for deputies distributed via text message on the island's mobile phone network. Police now have the extra challenge to control these men, 'baying for blood', as one islander put it." (Rumours spark wild riot on Nauru, Bianca Hall & Daniel Flitton, Sydney Morning Herald, 20/7/13)

... you are going to love Papua New Guinea:

"The deadly disease cholera is endemic, the murder rate is 13 times higher than in Australia, sexual assaults - particularly gang rapes aimed at foreign women - are on the rise and the crime rate is escalating. The Foreign Affairs Department is so concerned about the safety of people travelling there it has issued travel warnings about ethnic disputes and a lawlessness that is so bad they advise Australians to travel in convoys after dark with car windows up and doors locked. This is Papua New Guinea - where foreigners live in compounds with security guards and where the treatment of women has come under the spotlight this year after a recent series of gruesome crimes, including the pack rape of an American academic in April and the burning murder of a 20-year-old mother accused of witchcraft. Plans by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to send asylum seekers there for resettlement have been met with disbelief by refugee advocates and been described as 'mind-boggling' by one nun who worked there for almost 20 years and visits regularly. Franciscan nun Sister Aileen Crowe said that because of land ownership issues, the only place asylum seekers could be resettled was in the towns, where the violence has increased, driven up by widespread unemployment. 'This is a very difficult social climate to put these people in,' she said. 'There is a long list of people waiting for jobs. The asylum seekers will become very ostracised if they try and [get] into the labour market.' Sister Aileen said the last time she visited nuns in Port Moresby, they spent every night terrified as men tried to break into their house. Father Paul Lonot Sireh, who was born on Manus Island but now lives in Australia, warned that the island's facilities needed upgrading because islanders were already living with a main road that was like a logging track and 'people are dying every day because there are insufficient drugs and no hospital facilities.' Expats living in Papua New Guinea have written about the out-of-control inflation, how renting a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house costs $US6500 ($7075) a month and how fresh produce in Port Morseby - almost exclusively imported from Australia by air - is prohibitively expensive, with broccoli costing $8 a bunch and a small lettuce $5. Port Moresby was last year rated as the eighth most expensive city in the world." (Violence, disease risk for asylum seekers, Natalie O'Brien, The Sun-Herald, 21/7/13)

Welcome to fortress Australia, where a Labor PM (with Israel in his DNA) recently took over the reins from another Labor PM (with Israel in her bones) in the name of fending off a challenge from a Liberal prime ministerial wannabe (who believes we're all Israelis now).

Welcome to a nation which sends maritime asylum seekers to a concentration camp on a nominally independent Pacific island state called Nauru, ruled by an 'acting president' and protected by an 'acting police minister' who calls upon the local lads (who 'bay for blood') to rally to the defence of the island whenever those in Australia's Guano Ghetto just can't take it any more.

Welcome to the Australia of PM Krudd, the 'prissy, precious, prick' who now proposes that, as of 19 July, all maritime asylum seekers be sent permanently to the above-mentioned paradise of PNG, a solution hailed by the Israel-loving, Jerusalem Prize-winning foreign editor of Rupert Murdoch's flagship rag, called - what else? - The Australian, as "simple and not without elegance." (PNG solution has to bridge the credibility gap, Greg Sheridan, 20/7/13)

2 comments:

Peter D said...

I used to be a bleeding heart lefty, but it seems I'm not one anymore. The protesting bleeding heart lefties I see on the news seem to be missing the point: the ultimate solution to refugee problems is to fix things in the country of origin so that people don't become refugees in the first place. And Australia has a lot to answer for when it comes to creating refugees in other countries (e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran), yet the BHLs choose to wring their hands and open themselves to criticism from the right, rather than go on the offensive and chastise the right for doing so much to create the refugee problem in the first place.

Paul said...

Its called "framing the debate". Its all in how the parameters for discussion are set.