Newsflash: The "Boat People issue" is NOT an "issue"... people!

RANT WARNING: It infuriates me that the "boat people" issue has raised it's ugly head again.  The last election was free of all this horse-pooh and instead delt with real issues like climate change and indigenous affairs.  The only reason its important this time is at whenever politics gets desperate in this country - like in 2001 - the right can go raiding the left's heartland by appealing to the racist, ignorant underclass for their votes.  You wouldn't want these people in your support base if you were comfortably ahead, and you wouldn't demean yourself by blowing this whistle if you were popular.  But as soon as the going gets tough, the tough get racist...it's like raiding the sofa cushions for spare change, like combing the ashtray for cigarette buts.  It's filthy, abhorrent and beneath us all - particularly when they use phrases like "peaceful invasion" or "armada of boats".


The statement "at the current rate of arrivals it would take 20 years to fill the MCG" may simplify the issue somewhat, but it does a great job of identifying just how meaningless and insignificant this problem is.  The only reason we are debating it is because the Tories are scraping the bottom of the vote barrel.  It's the only issue that turns the so-called Rudd "working family" into the "Howard battler".  A boat arrived yesterday - apparently the 6th since the election began.  Do you know how many "boat people" were on it? Fifty. FIFTY! Most West Sydney RSLs wouldn't notice an influx of that many people.

Of course the Liberals are making hay while the immigration sun shines.  More boats have arrived - they will repeatedly tell us - in the last 6 weeks than in the last 6 years of the last Liberal Govt. Know why? Because they re-routed them all to some island in the middle of the pacific no one has ever heard of, that most people describe as nothing more than a pile of bird pooh.  They were sent there to 'process' them to ensure they were "genuine" refugees and not "economic migrants".  Know how many turned out to be "genuine" and eventually took up their right to asylum?  All of them.

I'm sick to the teeth of listening every morning on the radio to one ignorant bigot after another wittering on about "the boats" like it was some life threatening blight.  It's not.  The only thing it threatens is someone's desire to live in some 1950s mono-chrome idyll their parents eulogized as "how it should be".  Not only is not going to be like that anywhere ever again (ever heard of the global village) but it shouldn't be like that.  We are all people: skin colour, faith and culture make no difference.

And yet its top, TOP, of The Liberal Party's "National Security" policy agenda.  Ahead of terrorism!

People who think this way will spurt all the empty slogans the Liberal party have thoughtfully furnished them with, slogans that thrive in an otherwise vacuum of  political intelligence. "They should join the queue". Join the queue? What queue? Have you ever seen anyone queue their way off a battlefield? The last people to do that were The British at Dunkirk, getting raked by Messerschmitts.  I'd like to see some of these so-called "battlers" politely wait for their papers to come through as they try to sleep in the mud of some disease-ridden refugee camp while their wives are raped and their children die of malnutrition.  I'd like to see them patiently wait for their paperwork to finalise as the murderous army they fear kill their way ever closer to their doorstep.  Why should they queue just so we can sleep easily in our beds safe in the knowledge that everyone on our street barracks for the same footy team?

I'm not saying these people don't know desperation. Most of them probably do.  Many of them no doubt have horrendous debt problems, severe health issues maybe, or drink abuse.  Its possible they are under-educated and have probably never had the opportunity to travel inter-state let alone enjoy the kind of international travel that broadens your mind and allows you to accommodate foreign cultures and traditions so much more easily.  But aren't all these far more important issues to be worrying about in this election than 10 or 12 desperate families looking for a place where they can start again in a lifestyle we take entirely for granted but they can only dream of?

Speaking of desperation, why isn't THIS an issue: "The Grog still flows in Alice Springs"?

If we want the "problem" stopped, then let's go to the disaster zones, lets identify the people that should leave and TAKE them away.  We can "process" them expeditiously on the spot.  Provide asylum there where they need it, quickly and sensibly in the same way we deliver food and water.  We have a duty to these people, its our fair share as the world's most privileged 5% (we do take more than 13,000 every year anyway!).  Let's deal with this "issue" like responsible grown ups instead of ignorant morons. 

But then that would be leading.  Today's polititians only follow whatever base instinct they can appeal to to get votes.

 

Same as The Old Boss?

“Frankly, the nation is being governed by amateurs.”

Nothing pains me more than to agree with Tony Abbot but on this observation, we seem to be in agreement.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m comfortably left of centre and with the Greens’ self-righteousness perennially turning me off supporting them, Labor is really all I’m left with.  But this government has lost all of my faith.  I am struggling to think of anything they have done that has been well thought-through, suitably socialised and then well executed.  If anything, were Homer Simpson to be Prime Minister, its unlikely there’d be fewer laughs.

They will immediately point to their management of the GFC, which admittedly is without parallel in the world in terms of its success.  However, I am one of those people that believe they benefitted from a strong Liberal Party legacy – albeit mostly ill-gotten.  Furthermore they were for once decisive and acted very quickly and secured a complete avoidance of recession in either the literal or the conceptual sense.  However, they did hurl a staggering amount of money at it – somewhat I feel like a father and householder losing a bet for $100 and mortgaging the house to pay for it.  It must also be remembered that much of that execution has been abysmal.  One can;t of course forget the disastrous “pink bats” scandal which, far from being badly managed almost seems not managed at all.  Not only did people die – about as bad an achievement a project could score – but untold amounts of money have been wasted in training, litigation and damage.

Fundamental to their management of the GFC has been the Buildings for schools program, and we must never forget who was responsible for that if we are to suitably judge just how much of an improvement we can expect in Labor’s change of leadership.  Appallingly run – or rather again, not run at all – the program has not only wasted hideous sums of tax-payer’s money, but is highly questionable in the way it provided Labor with countless valuable local photo-opportunities around the country.  For a period of time Kevin Rudd disappeared from the national press but instead scored a front page photo-story on the front page of every local rag coast-to-coast.  In time, it may be that in the dictionary they may define the term “pork barrel”  with the simple reference: “...see BER”

Outside of this, the Health reforms are stalled with the whole of West Australia refusing to be part of it.  The still-born Resource Profits Tax was antagonistically announced by-passing any kind of consultation and then desperately diluted in fear of a damaging fight with the mining industry.  There was the Apology and Kyoto of course, and they should not be sniffed at, but in terms of execution – Kevin saying a word or signing a all-but-superseded and impotent Treaty – they are not going to be remembered as radical reforms.

I’ve already described  how Kevin Rudd lost me after his scrapping – or rather never-never-ified – the ETS.  But after only a few weeks we can see that the style of this government has not dramamtically changed.  Bad process, a lack of consultation, spin-obsession and no stomach for an argument seem already to remain key planks of this government’s modus-operandi.  The Internet Filter has finally been shelved after two years of ever-circular debate and procrastination.  The Green Loans program  has also been dumped on the basis of, not surprisingly, poor management and budget blow-out.  Julia Gillard’s Regional Solution to the immigration problem (which isn’t really a problem with a flow equal to filling the MCG every second decade )– started off with a ring of quality.  To co-ordinate a program fastened to the UNHCR has an aura of credibility and seemed almost to seek the higher ground for a 24 hour period.  Her speech did almost seem as if it might be a watershed in the miserably xenophobic tone of the traditional migration debate.  However, as soon as the surface was scratched a wave of disappointment swept across the nation – as if they had all been collectively let down by the same scratchy card.  It was a nice-sounding though-bubble that was not properly consulted and given Labor’s track record, has almost zero chance of getting properly executed.  It wasn’t a solution, it was a political fantasy that had been brought no more reality than the voicing of someone’s “desire” to travel the world.  The East Timorian Prime Minister’s reaction to questions about the plan summed up its integrity – “Plan, what plan?”

For me, this sounded too much like The Old Boss.  Lots of high-minded rhetoric primarily focussed on generating satisfyingly positive and applauding headlines.  There’s nothing unusual about that in politics but that’s more or less where the Labor’s Party machine begins and ends.  There’s very little policy execution and what policy execution there has been has come to a grinding halt in the last six months.

The Prime Minister said, “I’m happy to be judged on what I say.”  Sadly Julia – like your predecessor - you’ll be judged on what you do, and to date your government has achieved very little of lasting quality but abject incompetence.  Expect more eggs.

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