The asylum seeker issue says a lot about what passes for debate in Rudd's Australia
October 24, 2009 by APP News
Let me be sure I understand this properly.
The flood of boat people from south Asia continues, with yet another vessel carrying 32 people intercepted by the Navy near Christmas Island this morning.
That makes it the 35th boat to make it to Australian waters this year, carrying almost two thousand people.
Sources have told The Australian newspaper that the boat carrying 78 people now on its way back to Indonesia was deliberately scuttled to force a rescue.
In a previous case five boat people were killed when their boat caught fire and blew up. We have now been told by police that this was indeed what happened, despite the media and left wing politicians mocking people like WA Premier Colin Barnett for making just such claims.
But the Rudd Government's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith preferred to keep us in the dark on the Afghan boat explosion and he is doing the same again.
Wilson Tuckey speculates on an apparent Australian Federal Police report which says boat people could include terrorists.
He is slammed left, right and centre by politicians, the media and the moral elitists. Here is an ABC Online headline:
Wilson Tuckey rolls out terrorist threat line as asylum-seeker debate turns nasty.
Rudd calls for Tuckey's pre-selection to be blocked.
The media gang up on the Coalition and rail against its criticism of the Rudd Government, even though it is pretty clear that the easing of border security after the 2007 defeat of the Howard Government is driving the surge in people smuggling. They may be "vile" in Rudd's words but they are not stupid.
This is what passes for public debate in Australia in 2009. A witch-hunt, a cover-up, McCarthyism and a modern-day Star Chamber.
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UP to 20 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers were last night preparing to leave the Oceanic Viking as early as tomorrow, in the first signs of an end to the standoff that began almost four weeks ago.
While Australian authorities remained hopeful of persuading all 78 of the Tamils to leave the Customs ship tomorrow, when the Oceanic Viking's permission to remain in Indonesian waters ends, there were reports last night that up to 20 of them would submit to health and identity checks today before being taken ashore to the Tanjung Pinang detention centre.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry official Sujatmiko said tonight that, by today, "hopefully some of them are ready to be verified".
The break in the impasse came as Kevin Rudd insisted no protests or threats by protesters would divert him from his policy on border security, even as Australian authorities confirmed they had offered to give the 78 Sri Lankans preferential treatment if they left the Oceanic Viking.
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Related Coverage
OFFER: 'Get off boat and you'll go to Australia'
LETTER: Message to the Oceanic Viking 78 End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Speaking in New Delhi, Mr Rudd said he had not been briefed on the offer to the asylum-seekers but expected "normal resettlement processes consistent with the UNHCR" would apply.
A written offer guaranteeing resettlement was presented to the 78 boatpeople earlier this week.
Published under Department of Immigration letterhead and signed by Australian diplomat Jim O'Callaghan, it promised those already declared refugees would be resettled within four to six weeks.
Those whose claims were subsequently successful would be resettled within 12 weeks.
The letter does not promise a particular country but sources close to the negotiations said the bulk - if not all - would end up in Australia.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans acknowledged Australia would take a "sizeable amount of the load".
He denied that the offer - which would see declared refugees processed well within the 90 days that those on Christmas Island must wait - amounted to special treatment.
But he did acknowledge that other refugees detained in Indonesia often had to wait much longer for resettlement.