ALP
The federal Australian Labor Party is not doing a very good job of resurrecting itself to be a political alternative.
First, it was unable to produce a majority to support a principled stand on refugees. Now it is allowing itself to be misled, for some perceived political advantage, into supporting the attacks on the governor general, attacks which smack more of hysteria and bigotry than of reason.
At that rate it will be years before they produce enough principle to call for the withdrawal of Australia from the American war machine.
Col Friel
Alawa NT
PM's apologies
Apologies are not the prime minister's strength. But what possible excuse does Mr Howard have in relation to the children overboard myth?
Even if the PM inadvertently misled the community an apology is still in order.
Furthermore, all ministers should have instructed their staff that, if ever they have information suggesting that important public statements made by the minister are false, they should promptly inform the minister. Did Howard and Ruddock do this?
To quote John Howard (1996), "I think it is important to the future of our country that we rebuild a sense of trust and confidence in the words given ... by our political leaders."
Howard maintains he didn't check with public servants because the government was in caretaker mode.
But where did the PM get the original allegation from? Answer: From Philip Ruddock, who got it from public servants. If Howard was happy to rely on advice supplied by public servants when he made the original false claim there is no justification for him not referring back to public servants to check.
Apparently, whilst in caretaker mode, the government was mainly taking care of its re-election prospects.
Brent Howard
Rydalmere NSW
Secret media business
Yesterday I heard Mr Ruddock say there were some 120,000 asylum seekers in the UK today, of whom some 5000 asylum seekers have disappeared into the general population without authorised UK connection with an immigration surveillance/detection mechanism.
Maybe I have misheard him and there are 15,000 asylum seekers at large without a government capacity to apprehend them or track them down, which would be around 12% of the number officially under surveillance.
This is not a comparative figure that Mr Ruddock could easily take the comfort from which he is able to do, without a "secret media business" operating in Australia to allow him to escape the censure this resort to inappropriately magnified UK figures should bring down on him were there any where near a free, open and independent media in Australia as we are led to believe by all the major media proprietors and outlets.
Ruddock hysterically compares very much milder figures from the UK of asylum seekers, while the actual number of unauthorised arrivals in Australia is only 5870 — approximately 1/10 of illegal overstayers on the DIMA figures as of December 2001. Where is the media outcry at this blatantly contrived hoodwinking of the ordinary Australian population ?
Even if my hearing proves to be very off and the UK figures are 50,000 out of 120,000, Australia would only face some 1500 people disappearing (i.e., approximately 1/40th of those already at large and undetected, and some 1/8th of the US- and UK-origin illegal immigrants already here).
Patrick Byrt
email
{Abridged]
From Green Left Weekly, February 27, 2002.
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