Refugees do not appear out of nowhere.
They are the result of one thing. The desire to live. They come, bruised, terrified and emotionally scarred out of armed conflicts round the world.
Beginning with the Villawood Detention Centre a series of Concentration Camps were created, mostly in uncomfortably hot, unfriendly outback Australia. Under John Howard and his xenophobic Immigration Ministers, Ruddock, Vanstone and Andrews, Australia stopped running those Concentration Camps.
Those responsibilities were passed to a foreign-owned private army.
We have seen an increasingly harsh attitude towards those who are desperate for our help. In a vain attempt to minimise the political pain, the Gillard Government has moved back to the Howard “solution”. It hasn’t worked, as Howard would have found had he still been in power.
There is only one thing which will stop this flight to life. That is the certainty that there is no safe haven in Australia. Turning the boats back is not going to work as “pulling the plug” on cheap Indonesian fishing boats will guarantee the rescue and arrival in Australia of the majority of refugees.
The guarantee of a return to the place they left will not solve the problem because the refugees will at least see a few more dawns before their inevitable death at the hands of the oppressors they have been fleeing and to whom they will be handed back.
No, there is only one step more an Australian Government can take
Shaun Micallef nailed it on “Mad as Hell” the other night. “Stop the boats – loose the Kraken!” A farcical comment to cover the embarrassment of an uncomfortable truth.
There is only one way to effectively “Stop The Boats” and that is to remove the incentive to flee. Think frying pan and fire.
The Kim Jong-un of Australian Immigration, Scott Morrison keeps looking for new and more punitive ways to remove the “advantage” of fleeing to this vast, empty land.
The Opposition has painted Australia into a corner and, after the Navy refuses to accept illegal orders to turn sinking boats back, there will be only one place left to go.
The nuclear option.
Kim Jong-morrison will promote an automatic death penalty for all “Irregular Maritime Arrivals”.