A Coalition Govt Will Ban Media Reports of Boat Arrivals
Images we may no longer see under a Coalition Government
A Coalition government will prevent the media from reporting on arrivals of asylum seeker boats, with Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott stating that the decision to report boat arrivals should not be a responsibility of politicians.
Mr Morrison made the claim yesterday at the National Press Club, saying he would leave the decision to announce boat arrivals up to the three-star general who would head up his ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ policy.
The Opposition has made much political mileage out of publicising boat arrivals over the last term of parliament, saying each boat arrival was a Labor policy failure.
As it currently stands, the Department of Home Affairs publishes the details of every boat arrival, including where the boat was found, the number of people on board and the asylum seekers’ final destination.
Mr Morrison now says the release of boat arrival information would be an ‘operational decision’.
“I don’t think those decisions should be put in the hands of politicians to use as this Government has on occasions,” Mr Morrison said during the National Press Club debate with Immigration Minister Tony Burke.
“I think those decisions should be made by implementation officers and I’m happy to trust one of the three-star military officers of our defence forces and I’m surprised Tony Burke’s not.”
Mr Burke says Australians will remain in the dark on whether the Coalition has lived up to its promise to “stop the boats”.
“Because Scott’s not guaranteeing to let the media know the way Labor has, (former Liberal Prime Minister) John Howard has. He’s already taken that promise off the table,” he said.
“It may well be Australians are no longer told because he refused to re-commit to the information and the disclosure even occurring.”
Mr Burke and his opposition counterpart Scott Morrison were asked whether they had any regrets about the way their parties had handled the asylum seeker debate.
Tony Burke indicated that he had “big regrets” about Labor’s failure to shift its policies in 2009 after changes in the global movement of displaced people.
“At that point, there was a new path-line of people smuggling and we needed to change our policies immediately.”
“We didn’t, and I believe we should’ve and I deeply regret the consequences,” Mr Burke said.
He also expressed regret over the government’s failure to garner support in parliament for its Malaysia people-swap legislation after the High Court ruled it unlawful in 2011.
“I wished we’d done some of what might’ve been needed to be done to make sure that that legislation would’ve gone through smoothly,” he said.
theguttertrash.com 
Oh, for Chrissakes.
Exactly where has Morrison said he “…………will prevent the media from reporting on arrivals of asylum seeker boats” ?
A Coalition Govt Will Ban Media Reports of Boat Arrivals…
Typical coalition trickery, they will stop the boats by stopping people from hearing about them. Of course they wouldn’t tolerate that policy from a labor government. As if the 3 star general [if he wants to keep his job] will be keeping everything top secret. Memories of suckhole mick keelty and his AFP in indonesia sabotaging boats anyone? Children overboard?
baddies vs baddies…
Why is the public treated like 5 yr olds who will just accept as truth everything that is told to them? I know that conservatives accept this type of deviousness as standard operating procedure and perhaps even a parenting style, but to treat the public as fools is simply breath taking arrogance and deception. Spare us from these criminals.
Since when does Oz have three star generals? 🙄 🙄
Since when has border patrol been a military operation? 🙄 🙄
Liberal National Coalition = Back to The Future 2005 … 🙄 🙄
I’m on a bit of a roll at the mo … 🙄 🙄
Lol! 😆
Since when has border patrol been a military operation?
Don’t you know TB, we’re at war with people fleeing war, death, misery, persecution and brutal oppression?
‘We’ll decide what you know about people who come here and when you know it’
With the election in 3 days time, I’m 50:50 whether to NOT vote for Abbott, or NOT vote for Rudd.
Australia’s future is stuck between a rock and a hard place, but that information will not be released.
The election will solve very little, but it will sharpen our enthusiasm for a nice cold beer.
http://cartoonmick.wordpress.com/editorial-political/
Cheers
Mick
Disturbing…if it’s an indication of how the incoming government is to deal with prickly, unsolvable issues.
Keeping the population deliberately uninformed is a slippery slope to manipulative governance.
I’m almost surprised that they are dumb enough to show their hand thus before their impending victory.
‘We’ll decide what you know about people who come here and when you know it’
Precisely. And, if it works, how many other spheres of influence will it be extended into?
‘ ‘ ‘ Keeping the population deliberately uninformed is’ ‘ ‘ standard teabag practice. Where the fcuk were you during teh-howard regime Dunny.? Trapped in the middle of teabag-land.?
The 5th Estate will keep the population fully informed.
‘An Australian businessman is offering a $10,000 cash reward for poor Indonesian villagers to become “bounty hunters” to stop people smugglers leaving the coast of Java bound for Australia.
‘Alan Johnson, the Australian chief executive of a Jakarta-based security firm, also wants to recruit a network of 1000 “part time, highly motivated, coast watching, bounty hunters”, paying them $50 per month.’
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/aussie-offers-cash-bounty-to-catch-people-smugglers-20130904-2t54t.html#ixzz2duzVNIKt
We should have sacked the whole lot!!!
Let’s remember: You can fool some of the people all of the time but never all of the people all and/or some of the time. And once you get caught out you will be assigned to the has beens in the political wilderness. This all looks like political suicide to me. Let’s just hope they’re stupid enough to try it.
The media blackout on asylum seeker arrivals has started…
When Fairfax Media asked on Friday for information from the Immigration Department on recent boat arrivals and the number of asylum seekers living in the community on bridging visas, a spokeswoman initially said she would locate the information.
But she later called back and said all inquiries were now being dealt with by the minister’s office.
Mr Morrison’s spokesman did not respond directly to the inquiries but said the ”decision to release information on Operation Sovereign Borders will be a matter for the Operational Commander. Further information on Operation Sovereign Borders will be released soon”.
During a National Press Club debate between Mr Morrison and then immigration minister Tony Burke during the election campaign, Mr Morrison said publishing information about boat arrivals would be ”an operational decision, as part of Operation Sovereign Borders, for the three-star military officer”.
Mr Morrison has declined all interview requests this week from Fairfax Media.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/clamp-on-boat-arrival-figures-20130920-2u5as.html#ixzz2fTi5KbzR
Dodgy as fuck. Ministry of Truth stylin’.
No criticisms from the Abbotteers. How surprisement.
“No criticisms from the Abbotteers. How surprisement.”
You just sprung the trap – on yourself. The trick is to wait till someone argues for this course of action, then slap them down. What chance of that happening now?
Yeah, because willful ignorance & silence never ever correlates with tacit approval. 🙄
It’s not very hard to imagine the clamour from predictable quarters if the previous government had tried that shit on.
* crickets
Mr-Rabbit should just shut down the boat-people department under the NO_MINISTRY=NO_PROBLEM mantra that has been applied to science already.
‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘During the election campaign, Mr Morrison flagged the possibility that boat arrivals would no longer be reported if the Coalition won government. He said at the time this would be an ”operational matter” for the three-star head of the Coalition’s new Operation Sovereign Borders task force.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘
.
The Tory`s have tried to hide their future failure to `stop-teh-boats` by dumping the responsibility or `reporting` and replacing it with some hob-goblin `operational-secret`. This is really a gift for a smart opposition, to belt Mr-Rabbit over the head with every question time.
A charismatic revolutionary leader takes away the pain and the people are content. On a need to know basis, its not a high priority.
Anyway, there is no way they can keep a secret on this island, Fairfax will have investigative journalists camped out waiting for a scoop.
Out on the West-coast Archie has been keeping an eye on the boat-people situation for quite a while now. This Link may be of interest to some folk here.
http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/?s=refugee+boat
Morrison is a dill. I’d be interested to know whether anyone can nominate a dumber minister in history***
(***aside from Swan)
“I’d be interested to know whether anyone can nominate a dumber minister in history***”
Peter Dutton
Mal Brough
Julie Bishop
Bronwyn Bishop
Joe Hockey
George Brandis
Kevin Andrews
Burnside reckons van dieman’s land should become home for new desperate arrivals, this is a capital idea but is Abbott listening.
No mention of Eric Abetz?
Dumb as they may be, Morrison is in a special category***
(***but not quite Swan’s category)
*tumbleweeds…
Andrew Robb
Tip Custard
Dolly Downer
Sensible Bolt…
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/dont_hide_the_boats/