Another Boat Another Policy Failure
In 2003, as Shadow Minister for Immigration, Julia Gillard commented on illegal boat arrivals saying: “Another boat, another policy failure.”
As Prime Minister some nine years later, Ms Gillard has failed to address the heinous trade in people trafficking from Indonesia with the latest tragedy unfolding off the coast of Christmas Island.
Australian authorities were first alerted to a distress call two days before a capsized asylum-seeker vessel was located yesterday.
The boat was carrying some 200 people and latest reports suggest up to 90 people may have lost their lives.
A 13-year-old boy is among the 110 passengers of the vessel to have been rescued.
The tragedy is the latest in a string of asylum-boat related disasters.
In November, 200 asylum-seekers perished off the coast of Java after their boat capsized in high seas.
In December 2010, about 50 asylum-seekers drowned when their boat was smashed against the cliffs of Christmas Island during a wild storm.
Customs yesterday announced another vessel, believed to have been carrying 117 asylum-seekers and crew, had been intercepted the previous night.
The latest arrival takes the number of asylum-seekers who have made the journey to Australia to 1112 so far this month and to 4494 over the year to date.
For the second consecutive month, asylum-seeker arrivals have eclipsed 1000 – which, prior to May, had not occurred since August 2001, the month of the Tampa crisis.
The Federal Government remains bereft of an effective solution to stem the trade in human trafficking from Indonesia following the defeat of its so-called “Malaysia Solution” in the High Court last year.
theguttertrash.com 
Here’s a solution: give Christmas Island to Indonesia.
That sounds like a good idea.
Why hasn’t anyone thought of it before?
Mmmmmmmmm
What about the oil fields ?
It’s always about the oil with “you people”. 😉
Might I suggest that had Phoney Tony and the NO Coalition signed off on the deal offered by Labor, we might not have seen this kind of tragedy again and the number of boats crossing a dangerous ocean might have stopped.
For self-interested political reasons a group of politicians who wish to become the government ‘by any means whatsoever’ (aka the NO Coalition) refused to sign off. I consider that the blame for continued arrivals and the recent tragedy lies entirely with them.
“….I consider that the blame for continued arrivals and the recent tragedy lies entirely with them.”
Why am I not surprised ?
The problem with your approach deknarf is that you can keep saying that until Hell freezes over but it wont change public’s opinion that blaming Abbott is a piss poor argument when it was the ALP that changed the policy in the first place and then proceeeded to follow it up with the East Timor debacle, the Malaysian debacle and this latest tragedy.
We can expect to see Noddy any moment with ‘The Howard Years’.
As policy goes…it worked.
Oooooh Jaws! That hurt!
Nevertheless, If Phoney and the NO Coalition HAD signed off on the deal, the issue would have been resolved, wouldn’t it? So the point stays.
Actually I was more interested in the response to the following;
‘For self-interested political reasons a group of politicians who wish to become the government ‘by any means whatsoever’ (aka the NO Coalition) refused to sign off’.
That is, there wasn’t one. So I guess you agree that the NO Coalition is a bunch of self-interested policitians who want power by any means. Mind you that appellation would also fit Labor in that they want to hang on to power by any means. To say that I’m thoroughly disgusted with the whole sorry bunch of them would be an understatement!
As for Hell freezing over, it’s got mine and buckleys now that we have Anthropogenic Global Warming
Have a toasty day!! ;-]
I see another boat has capsised off Christmas Island…
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/asylum-seeker-boat-capsizes-20120627-211jz.html
Meanwhile Tony refuses to even talk to the government…
How much of a complete dickhead does he look…
It’s a disgusting political game of ‘Uncle’.
Mr Onthemoon nails it again..
http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/06/25/%e2%80%a6then-where-will-we-be/
Had to do an annual CPR refresher with St John’s yesterday.
Apart from the mind numbing boredom of retreading the same old ground (I think everyone should be able to do CPR & operate the defib, btw, especially if’n you have children) & the fact that the ‘coordinator’ was doubly cranky
possibly due to a yeast infection…the dragon lady saw fit to enlighten the group with a bit of refugee bashing!I DO NOT appreciate ignorant political medicine with my training!
It made me think how deeply the reflexive disdain for refos permeates society.
I’m not too sure the broader populace cares too much about it. All they see are A-Rab people doing illegal queue jumping, burning down detention centres whilst constantly on a taxpayer mobile talking to buddies in Lakemba, being ferried around on charter jets, and then bludging off the taxpayers whilst they wait for citizenship watching Foxtel Al Jazeeera in a reasonably plush motel, planning their initial terrorist attack.
Yeah, probably.
What they don’t see or bother to consider is why people might be willing to flee their shithole countries to begin with. I’m sure that a lot of people just reckon that ‘they’ are coming here to ‘steal’ our supremely lucky lifestyles.