More than 7,000 Australian soldiers lie buried in war cemeteries at Bomana, Lae and Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. Hundreds more lie in unmarked jungle graves. They were fathers, sons and brothers to grieving families back home during the war in the Pacific in 1942. Some were teenagers.
These brave Australians sacrificed their lives to protect our borders from invasion against a fanatical Japanese force who had reached our front door in the island chain to our north. They died to protect their families and our Australian way of life.
As I walked amongst their graves in Rabaul last week I felt they could be forgiven for thinking they might have died in vain.
Their sacrifice has now been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency by the left wing Labor-Green Alliance now running the country. They have been betrayed by the generation they fought to protect.
The collective sacrifice of our pensioners who built our nation has also been betrayed by the current generation of political spivs, legal parasites and bleeding hearts from the left. Whilst the Gillard government pours billions of dollars of our taxes to support illegal immigrants and carbon taxes our pensioners have to swelter and freeze in their homes because they can’t afford electricity.
Polls suggest that Australians now rue the day they voted the Howard Government out of office.
John Howard respected our heritage and the sacrifice our servicemen and women made to protect it. Increasing numbers voters are now regretting their rejection of his commitment that a Liberal Government would decide who comes to Australia and the circumstances under which they come.
The situation is more depressing in view of the fact that there are realistic options available to prevent illegal immigrants from gatecrashing our generous welfare system.
Papua New Guinea – our closest neighbour, former mandated territory, wartime ally and fellow Commonwealth Member – would welcome the opportunity to establish offshore processing facilities in their island provinces of Manus and East New Britain. More than a million Papua New Guineans survive on less than $1 per day, almost three million are illiterate and they have the highest infection rate of HIV/Aids in the Pacific.
Offshore detention facilities could therefore be used for schools and health centres when the flow of foreign welfare gatecrashers stopped as it did when the Howard Government slammed the door shut on foreign people smugglers.
Unfortunately the Gillard Government would rather waste billions and ignore the plight of pensioners and low income earners rather than admit that John Howard was right.
