Jones & Akerman on Rudd’s Australia 2 years on.
The consequences of the Genius of Rudd’s open borders policy
The ever ready Fifth Column
Multicultural Cop Killer allowed to remain in Australia.
FU*K*I*G Terrorist !!!! oops woowww,sorry what was he thinking? how about Muslim “car enthusiast” (that’s better), bailed for Easter riot, cameraman stood down.
Labors’ Medi DONT Care and never did.
Rudd’s Illegal’s on their way to Australia
HMAS Childers finally a chance to speak the truth.
Prof.Bob Birrell Speaks for Australia and Australians
HMAS Childers finally a chance to speak the truth.
Lu Kewens’ internet censorship plans “unworkable” says Google
Rudds’ Australia: Iran,Australia and North Korea a threat to internet via censorship regulation
Update on Rudd's internet censorship laws
Americans BEWARE Australian internet to be CENSORED by Australian Labor Party
That’s 100 failures by Julia’s logic
Piers Akerman
Daily Telegraph
Saturday, April 10, 2010
‘ANOTHER boat on the way, another policy failure,” is how deputy prime minister Julia Gillard characterised the flow of people smugglers’ vessels when she was in Opposition on April 23, 2003.
Seven years later, Labor has been in office for two-and-a-half years, and the spate of unlawful boat arrivals has mounted to more than 105 vessels since the Rudd Government introduced its watered down tough-but-humane approach.
So, Julia, is this more than 100 policy failures? Or would you like me to add all of the other policy disasters: the failed Fuel Watch, Grocery Watch, Murray-Darling program, the lethal home-insulation disaster, the wasteful and disgraceful education revolution building program, and the rest?
Reviewing the Rudd Government’s record, Julia, it’s hard to find any policy that has done any more than make a handful of self-stroking true believers feel warm and comfortable while the nation has been plunged into billions of dollars of debt and even the supposedly secure capital reserves of the Future Funds have been looted to pay for Labor’s reckless spending.
The backflip on refugees is merely the latest of the Rudd Government’s policy failures, but it epitomises so much of this administration’s lack of policy and management skills.
Clearly, the plan to halt the processing of applications for refugee status of arrivals from Sri Lanka for 3 1/2 and Afghanistan for six months is designed to take the heat off Labor in the run-up to this year’s election and bury the issue as plausibly as spin doctors are able to.
It is in line with last weekend’s appointment of Agriculture Minister Tony Burke as the nation’s first Population Minister - with instructions not to report until well after the election.
It is apiece with the Hawker Britton strategy of announcing reviews of divisive issues to prevent further damaging debate.
In the case of the suspension of refugee applications, however, the Rudd Government has only its inexperience and lack of understanding to blame, combined with its innate venality in Opposition, for the enormity of the policy backdown.
Former Prime Minister John Howard was pilloried by Labor and by its supporters in the community for his principled stand on people smugglers and those who paid for their services.
Gillard promised Labor would run “a fast, fair and transparent processing regime on Christmas Island and on mainland Australia that determines 90 per cent of refugee claims in 90 days. Genuine refugees will be quickly identified and released while failed claimants will be quickly returned” (Hansard, 13/5/2003).
Former Opposition leader Simon Crean made the same claims. Gillard went further, promising “under Labor’s system, there won’t ever be a time where people are kept without review year after year, languishing in detention centres, which is what happens under this current government”, except now, when new arrivals will be detailed but will not be processed, let alone reviewed, for a three- or six-month minimum.
In determining how they will vote, the public listens to what their representatives have to say on issues.
Here is what Burke said four years ago on detaining asylum-seekers on Christmas Island: “The Labor Party understands that while health, security and identity checks are being carried out it can be necessary for people to be placed in detention.
But there is no reason to take these people to Christmas Island while we have spare capacity on the mainland. Health, identity, security - they’re the reasons for detention to take place.
Once those checks are complete, there will be no reason for people to not be allowed back within the Australian community while it’s being determined whether or not they are genuine refugees.”
Oh, Minister, why is Christmas Island full to the point of overflowing today?
Proving again there are none so blind as those who do not wish to see, the outspoken Fairfax commentator David Marr just a fortnight ago told an ABC audience that he had problems with an “unsourced” warning from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that the Rudd Government’s decision to allow dozens of Sri Lankan boat people in Indonesia to jump the immigration queue would encourage others to try similar tactics.
Perhaps he will believe his own newspaper’s report last week which said that people smuggling is “totally out of control”, even though the source was the UNHCR’s senor representative in Indonesia?
Manuel Jordao would not comment on whether the “push” factors, which the Rudd Government has claimed are to blame for the flood were responsible, or the “pull” factors of the Rudd Government’s weakened refugee policy, but the article did note that “in just over three months this year, 1808 irregular immigrants and 96 crew have made it to Australia by boat.
“If that rate continues, 2010 will be the biggest year yet for unauthorised arrivals by boat, easily exceeding the 5000 or so who arrived in 2001.
“In 2009 - the first full year under the Rudd Government’s new immigration policies - 2706 asylum-seekers and 115 crew made it to Australia. This was a sharp increase on the 127 asylum-seekers and 15 crew who arrived by boat in 2008,” the report said.
The demand has now reached such a volume that it has pushed the price down to $US4000 from $US10,000.
The new Rudd policy of suspending visa applications is worse than anything any previous government has put into place in a bid to stop the flow of asylum-seekers.
It places humans - men, women and children - in limbo. It shreds any claim to compassion the Labor Party may have foisted on the public in the lead-up to the 2007 election, and it probably fails the Australian Government’s own laws on discrimination grounds.
Furthermore, it will not stop the boats from coming. Empty, dangerous and ineffectual - it sums up the Rudd Government nicely.
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