Asylum seekers:
Justin Templer writes: Re. “Coalition’s asylum-seeker policy — lost at sea” (yesterday, item 14). John Menadue (AO) and Arja Keski Nummi have written 1000 words on asylum seekers and yet, despite their senior service in Immigration, have added nothing to the debate.
After filtering out their blinkered opposition to the Coalition’s policies their actual recommendations can be summarised as follows (and I quote):
- “The Malaysian arrangement is not perfect, but supported by the UNHCR, it is a start”
- “work with Indonesia in addressing the poverty of the fishing villages from where crew are recruited by the smugglers”
- “orderly departure programs with refugee source countries such as Afghanistan”
- errr … that’s it.
If I get this right, Australia is going to uplift the Indonesian average wage of $2 or $3 per day to such a level that people smuggling at (say) $10,000 per passenger becomes uneconomic. That should work. We will then set up an office in Afghanistan to create an “orderly” refugee program — presumably then we will cease collaboration with the disorderly UNHCR and go out on our own.
Which leaves the Malaysia solution, of which UNHCR on its website says: “the absence of a legal protection framework and weaknesses in the administrative structure for asylum have caused many people of concern to remain at risk.”
This from former senior bureaucrats from Immigration. Lost at sea? — yes.
Matt Davis writes: Why, oh why, Crikey? In an otherwise well-reasoned and sensible article — albeit one that contained nothing new in terms of facts for regular readers — the authors abandon their area of expertise to give us this piece of blind political opinion: “The Greens have a great deal to answer for in their earlier policy purity on climate change.”
These “former Department of Immigration officials” who have obviously never been journalists, also attack the Greens for “purist policy” and further “impotent policy” (remember, we’re talking about a party with only one lower house MP). As if that’s not enough, the Greens are now “accomplices of the Coalition on asylum policy” and were apparently equally duplicitous on climate policy.
How exactly “a former secretary of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs in 1983” and “a former first assistant secretary of the Refugee, Humanitarian and International division in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship from 2007-2010” have come to be such experts on the recent history of Australia’s parliamentary system, or the legislative advantages of one form of carbon pricing scheme over another, remains unexplained.
This Green bashing has become a recurrent theme in Crikey lately and in this instance it really goes too far. The authors better stick to what they know or do some proper research — or Crikey‘s subbing process better lift its game.
That the Greens are being made a scapegoat for the political failings of two governments and an opposition isn’t really so surprising. But the comments in this article are lazy and unfounded and do no one any favours, least of all the Crikey masthead.
Shoreham:
Richard Cornish writes: Re. “Tips and rumours” (yesterday, item 7). I am the freelance writer of the piece in The Saturday Age about Shoreham mentioned in yesterday’s Crikey.
I was born and bred in Shoreham. When I went to high school 30 kilometres away, some people hadn’t heard of the seaside hamlet and confused the place with Horsham (we were farmers). So it was ironic that when I wrote about my home town a map of Horsham was accidentally used with my copy.
My email is at the bottom of the column and I was I overwhelmed by the number of emails many angry a using me of “Google hack journalism”. One accused me personally of bringing down Fairfax and letting Gina Rinehart through the gates.
It reminds me that Fairfax truly is a public company and readers are protective of their paper.
Re: letter from Matt Davis – Obviously a Greenie!
Of course the Greens are due such criticism. They are supposed to be
in a loose alliance with the ALP, so they sh+t all over them and basically
side with the lunatic fringe (LNP). Such purity as the Greens display
makes it obvious that they are living in cloud cuckoo land.
How else do you explain their crazy, unbending policy of on-shore processing, which
necessitates asylum seekers CONTINUING TO GET ON LEAKY BOATS
AND DROWN ON THE WAY TO SAID ON-SHORE PROCESSING????
What a great way to take care of asylum seeker’s human rights! I don’t
think drowned/dead people have much use for rights human or otherwise.
Chr++t you people are thick!!!
@ CML
My membership has lapsed.
Your rhetoric only serves to strengthen my point.
If you would attack Greens policy, you should first take the time to understand it.
At present, millions of dollars are being wasted on imprisoning people on islands and in deserts because of where they come from (and how….) not because of who they are.
That money, and the departmental resources freed up as a reault could be put to use preventing boat trips.
The idea that minor party machinations within Federal Parliament have any impact on the business operations of people smugglers is just a salve for your conscience.
The Labor and Liberal policies on this issue are deliberately designed to appeal to the latent racism at the heart of Australian society. The Greens seek to rise above such things. Blaming them for standing hteir ground, when changing the rules in Australia won’t make the least difference to the situation on Java or anywhere else in the western pacific……. I think that’s very small thinking.
Mattsui
You Greens are ignorant of the fact that processing centres in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and HongKong camps were closed down because eventually the vast majority of Cambodians and Vietnamese there were economic migrants, hardly any were qualified for refugee status, it became unsustainable so they had to close them down.
You Greens keep looking at the world through rosy glass and in denial of the ‘pull’ factor just like the right-wingers keep looking at the world through dark bleak lenses and ignore the ‘push’ factor.
If you support racist policy, that makes you racist.
I’ve never stated my support for any policy, merely pointing out facts people are ignorant of.
If quickly labelling people racist and attack them is all you got, without accepting facts and learn to reason might make you feel superior to others but it does not help resolve the situation. It does not lead to any good policy put forward, it continues tension and destroy social cohesion, and worse of all it will only lead detrimental policy against asylum seekers when the Libs win government if the situation is not resolved.