What it is, is a change to Australia's treatment of asylum seekers that arrive here on boats. Lots of countries deal with boat people, nothing new there. And then you've got the uneducated masses at the bottom of the pile crying "They are endangering our country!" "They are stealing our jobs!" "They won't assimilate!" "They should do it the right way with a visa, illegal immigrants blah blah". I noticed when I was in Canada that people who have legally immigrated get even more torn up over the boat-people issue than regular folks. I guess they are pissed because of queue jumping. And yes, I've been known to crack a few jokes like when Obi was waiting on his PMV to come here in 2011... But the facts are that seeking asylum isn't illegal, nor should it be. Tell me how exactly those people are going to get visas? Are they going to cower at home in fear, waiting months for the government to process their cases? No. They are going to splurge their life-savings and run the fuck away.
People are all "Oh but they just want to live in Australia" and "We take too many as it is..." and yes, I can see why you might think they just want to live here. Not long back there was a boat, and they were towed to somewhere in Indonesia because they were sinking (If I recall correctly, I might be off on where their destination ended up being) and there was a recording played all over TV of a conversation with one of the boat people. He was saying basically "Take us to Oz, don't help us if we're not going there"
Which looks bad, right? If you're running away, why do you care where you go as long as it's away from death?
But we don't take too many. Most refugees flee to neighboring countries, usually third world countries that don't have the means to support them, yet still try. We only take a fraction of the people who are fleeing conflict, there are millions world wide who are displaced.
And they are not taking our fucking jobs because we don't allow them to work. Which is stupid, but anyway. You know what we do with them? We lock them in detention centres. For years. Some of which these people spend in solitary confinement. We don't give them any medical care. We treat them like criminals until we prove that they are not. And if they are found to be genuine refugees, they need a charity to sponsor them for housing, which is very limited.
I was talking to Bec last night, who's very in favour of Rudd's new law, here's your picture btw:
And she's like "Yeah but most of them aren't genuine refugees!" Uhm, why on earth would they risk their lives on rickety boats if they were not genuinely running for their lives? and "It costs them thousands of dollars to get on those boats" (I think she said seven thousand) You know how much it would cost them to fly and get visas? Especially for a whole family?
You know what else I'm hearing a lot of "There weren't half as many boats coming here when Howard was in power" uhm... there weren't as many boats because there weren't a fraction of the amount of refugees at that time! There was less to run away from.
I know it's a national security thing, people are afraid of terrorism. And I suppose it's likely there have been many terrorists coming in on those boats that the government have stopped and I just don't know about it, but it seems to me that organized terrorism would find a better way. It doesn't make sense.
Anyway, so now if a boat is apprehended in Oz waters we have an agreement with Papua New Guinea to dump them all there. In a country with one of the highest crime rates in the world, where many human rights are still being denied. For example: It's illegal to be gay in PNG. And what are we doing? Funding their schooling, whilst our own schools take a funding cut. (I'm glad they have chosen to fund education instead of something else though, education goes a long way) But is sending them there not just going to make a bad situation far worse? Doesn't PNG have enough problems without adding this?
It will do one thing though, it will win Labour a lot of votes. People are rejoicing over this, while I sit here disgusted with my country. Most people here don't even realise that there are things in the world worthy to be fled from, how sheltered and pampered we are. How lucky! Little do most people know but the vast majority of refugees and actual illegal immigrants come in droves via planes. How many people come in on tourist visas and just never leave? Enough. I know that first hand from the kind of people Obi worked with when he first got here. The boats are a small portion of the problem. But that doesn't matter because it's a visible problem that's being "fixed" and those of us that don't want to sound like racist cunts will be able to say "Oh I'm just happy because it will stop people getting on the boats and thus it will stop children dying..."
Wow, that was long. Sorry about that. I also realise I'm not as educated on this subject as I could be (though quite a bit more than average Joe) and I might have missed something. But, as opinions go, this is mine.
Nicole- [this is getting off topic, but whatever!