Let’s cut to the chase in the debate over the arrival of illegal immigrants by boat.
When John Howard was Prime Minister he sent a clear message to people smugglers and they got it loud and clear. The boats stopped coming!
His successor, Kevin Rudd, talked tough and acted soft. Labor changed the rules and the people smugglers quickly got the message. They are now back in business and we now have to brace ourselves for the arrival of thousands of illegal immigrants a year. Thanks Kev.
John Howard’s strategy, known as the ‘Pacific solution’, was to keep illegal immigrants out of the reach of parasitic human rights lawyers while they were being processed to determine if there were genuine refugees among them.
The chattering classes bleated that it was inhumane to accommodate them on Pacific islands to our immediate north. They seem to forget that a couple of million people already live, work and play in this area. The establishment of detention centres on their islands also provided a much needed boost to their local economies.
The silence of the commentariat in regard to a genuine Pacific solution for our near neighbours in Melanesia is deafening. No protests about our refusal to give them access to seasonal work on our farms. No protests about the 160 West Papuan refugees living on the outskirts of Port Moresby for the past 30 years. They have no access to health or education programs, no sanitation, no citizenship, no income. No hope. All they have is one tap for drinking water and ablutions.
Australia spends billions maintaining embassies around the world to represent our interests and process applications from prospective immigrants. We have programs for skilled workers, seasonal workers, temporary workers and family reunions.
We are obviously restricted in the number of immigrants we can accept due to the limitations of our economy. We also have a humane obligation to offer safe haven to our share of genuine refugees from war-torn countries.
While many of these countries are ruled by dictators or religious zealots. Any attack on them is quickly branded ‘racist’ by the commentariat from the left.
The success of our past immigration policies is evident in the rich multi-cultural society we have to-day. John Howard’s success in preventing the corruption of this process by allowing people to ‘jump the queue’ is evident in the fact that the boats stopped coming during his term of office.
This has changed since Kevin Rudd laid out the welcome mat. Kevin’s soaring popularity in the polls suggest that most Australians would prefer to cede responsibility for immigration to people smugglers rather than trained Embassy staff overseas.
Now the gates are open it will be difficult to stem the tide of illegal arrivals. While it will deliver the bleeding heart vote to Kev in the short term it is yet another problem he is bequeathing to the next generation – along with the debt associated with his ‘election stimulas package’ and new tax regime in the disguise of his Emissions Trading Scheme.
While they will have nothing to thank him for they can always blame their parents for voting for him.
