What a total and cynical fraud this man is. Tim Blair: It’s quite demeaning to describe them as merely “boat people.” Considering the multitude of transport modes used by alleged refugees on their epic journeys to Australia, they should at least be called “cartrainjettruckfootbikeboat people”. Speaking of whom, here’s Bob Brown avoiding a straight answer on how many cartrainjettruckfootbikeboaties we should accept: KERRY O’BRIEN: Is there no point at which you would acknowledge the Government’s right to limit asylum seeker arrives? BOB BROWN: Well, let’s not talk about hypotheticals, let’s talk about the reality. 180,000 immigrants have come to this country in the first part of this year. It is a very tiny number. Let me again say: do we accept the 50,000 overstayers who’ve come by plane about whom there’s no debate. And let me also put it at - the numbers forward, where we’ve got a humanitarian program in this country which is very tiny compared to the rest of the program. Sure, that may need to be adjusted, but the time has not come for that yet, Kerry. What has happened here is this concentration on this, on this ... KERRY O’BRIEN: What limit would you put on it? At what point - where would you draw the line? BOB BROWN: What do you think it should be, Kerry? What do you think the population of this country should be? Governance takes the circumstances at the times and calibrates it. KERRY O’BRIEN: You’re the elected senator. You’re the party leader; I’m asking you.
And Brown isn’t answering. At a guess, the number would have to be upwards of 1.5 million before Brown and his kind thought to act. UPDATE. Live Gillard press conference on boaties here. UPDATE II. Labor’s view in 2007: Kevin Rudd has taken a tough line on border security, warning that a Labor government will turn the boats back and deter asylum-seekers, using the threat of detention and the nation’s close ties with Indonesia … “You’d turn them back,” he said of boats approaching Australia, emphasising that Labor believed in an “orderly immigration system” enforced by deterrence.
Gillard now dismisses “turn the boats back” as a “shallow slogan”. |
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