Gillard Govt Sinks to New Depths on Asylum Seekers

Gillard Govt to adopt Howard policy they previously opposed

• Gillard Government to rush through controversial asylum seeker bill
• It’s the same bill they furiously argued against in 2006
• Bill abandons Australia’s international obligations under Human Rights Convention

It’s the disgusting Asylum Seeker hypocrisy triple somersault backflip that the Gillard Government doesn’t want you to know about but with thanks to our EXCLUSIVE sources we can reveal the seedy sordid truth. 

It’s the human rights issue that separates Julia Gillard from her predecessor Kevin Rudd.

Two years ago Mr Rudd issued a veiled warning that he would not be drawn to the “hard right” on the issue of asylum seekers.   Shortly thereafter he suffered a blood-splattered political assassination orchestrated by his own deputy, a move unprecedented in Australian political history.

Fast forward two years later and under the Gillard government Australia has taken a dramatic lurch to the right on the issue of asylum seekers, surpassing the roundly condemned policies of the Howard government and traversing unchartered depths in abandoning Australia’s international human rights obligations.

It is clear that under Julia Gillard and her Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, Australia’s policy approach to asylum seekers is to essentially prevent anyone from seeking asylum in the first place, a clear breach of United Nations protocol.

Back in 2006 when Labor was in opposition, they roundly condemned the Prime Minister John Howard’s move to excise the Australian mainland from the migration zone, a batlle they successfully won.

However, six years on, the Gillard Government will now rush through legislation in parliament this week to do exactly that.

According to Chris Bowen, the mainland excision is “a recommendation of the expert panel on asylum seekers and is legal.”

If it proceeds, the excise would effectively mean that the legal rights of asylum seekers who reach Australia by boat would no longer be recognised.

But the whole idea was something that Labor furiously opposed in 2006 and now wants to pass “under the radar.”

Back in 2006, then Shadow Minister for Immigration, Chris Bowen said this about the same proposal put forward by the Howard Government:

“This is a bad bill with no redeeming feature.”

“This is a stain on our national character.”

“This is a bill that reduces the Parliament and the nation” said Mr Bowen.

But Mr Bowen was not alone in his condemnation of the plan.  No he was not.

In 2006, Anthony Albanese called the Howard government proposal “a bill that reduces the parliament and the nation…”

Tony Burke said “It undermines our sovereignty, it offends our decency and it mocks the Parliament.”

While Simon Crean called it “shameful and xenophobic”.

Kate Ellis went even further, calling the proposal that she now supports today as “lunacy, ludicrous, harsh, indecent, inhumane, unfair and gutless.”

My how things have changed….

Greens Leader Christine Milne has made her own party’s position clear.

“Prime Minister Gillard has done what even John Howard couldn’t do and that is Prime Minister Gillard has wiped Australia off the map when it comes to our global obligations under the Refugee Convention.”

“John Howard tried this but even he couldn’t get away with it. His own backbench revolted” said Ms Milne.

Former Liberal party backbencher Petro Georgiou opposed John Howard’s move in 2006 and he says it’s still wrong today.

“It’s a disgrace” he said (yes, he actually did!)

“It means that nobody arriving on Australia from wherever they come by boat will get the protection of Australia and it’s just a denial of every responsibility; a proposal that the Labor Party universally rejected.”

However the controversial bill is set to pass with speculation that it would be difficult for the Opposition to block it when it was their policy six years ago.