Illegal boat people

[Andrew Bolt]

Another reason not to believe a single word Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says about boat people:



The boat is sinking?

Hanson-Young, on board the “rescue” vessel, also imagines she is saving “refugees” from war:




But, wait. Who exactly was on this boat?




From Bangladesh? Cameroon? Pakistan? And 14 other countries?

So let’s describe more accurately what Hanson-Young is actually doing out there. No, she has not just not participated in the “rescue” of “refugees” from a “sinking” boat. She has instead participated in the transportation of illegal immigrants to Italy, encouraging a mass movement that is putting lives at risk and importing danger to Europe.

[Andrew Bolt]

YOU’D think Sarah Hanson-Young would shrivel in shame at the drowned boat people on her conscience.

But, no, “accidents happen, tragedies happen”, the Greens senator chirruped when asked in 2011 if she took moral responsibility for the then Labor-Greens government luring hundreds of boat people to their deaths at sea.

And now she’s helping to repeat in the Mediterranean exactly the tragedies we saw in the seas between Australia and Indonesia before the Abbott Government ended the horror.

This week Hanson-Young was on a millionaire’s ship between Italy and Libya, using some of her taxpayer-supplied overseas study allowance to join an expedition that encourages the people smugglers plying a deadly trade.

Of course, she doesn’t see it that way.



UPDATE

Sarah Hanson-Young tells a gullible and unquestioning ABC host, Fran Kelly, that the “refugees” she is “rescuing” are generally foreign workers trapped in Libya by the militias. People smugglers tell a different story - a taking truckloads of illegal immigrants over the Sahara for shipment to Italy.

[IQS.RLOW]

Lefty heads are imploding tonight after Shorten announced that the ALP policy for illegal immigrants for the last 15 years has been a complete lie and admitted outright they fucked it up and will now adopt the coalition policy that has been shown to work over the last 15 years when implemented.

Say goodbye inner city Labour seats.
Say hello to your new Green cannibal representative.

I've predicted before you will eventually see the Greens and ALP fighting over the wooden spoon as they balance out and settle on 15-20% of the vote each.

[Rorschach]

Hanson-Dumb is just that... dumb.
More than likely the Bangladeshis are all economic refugees looking for work and a better life in Europe.
As for the boat, it seems to be riding awfully high on the water for a sinking boat.
Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll take Hanson-Dumb in for resettlement.

[Andrew Bolt]

For how long did Labor sell the lie that boats from Indonesia could not be turned back? Seven years is the answer, during which 1200 people died, 50,000 illegal immigrants landed and $12 billion was wasted.

But even then that wasn’t enough to change Labor’s mind. Only the fear of election defeat did that - and Labor leader Bill Shorten still needs to change the collective mind of colleagues who got drunk on seeming good, not doing it:

Labor immigration minister Chris Bowen, 2011:

Turning back the boats is dangerous. The Navy say it risks lives.

Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard, 2012:

Mr Abbott is peddling a myth to the Australian people. He knows Indonesia will not agree to facilitate tow backs, and he’s trying not to be exposed as telling the Australian people something that can’t and won’t work.

Labor Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, 2012:

Mr Abbott’s bloody-mindedness is astounding – he and Scott Morrison arrogantly spruik a tow-back policy that our Navy and Border Protection authorities say is dangerous and risks lives… This is a policy the United Nations’ refugee chief said breaches the Refugee Convention; a policy that was recently found to be illegal in the European Court of Human Rights. Crucially, even Indonesia – the very country Mr Abbott wants to tow the boats back to – has made it crystal clear on a number of occasions that it will not agree to the policy.

Labor Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare, 2012:

[Tow backs have] been savaged by everyone from the former Chief of the Defence Force to the Indonesian national police. Most importantly though, it has been savaged by the Australian men and women who would have to do this job. Why? Because it puts their lives at risk.

Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, 2013:

During his first press conference since ousting Julia Gillard, Mr Rudd said yesterday that the coalition’s boats policy would set Australia on course for a “policy collision” with Indonesia…

“When the Indonesian government says they will not accept such a policy ... I really wonder if he (Mr Abbott) is trying to risk some sort of conflict with Indonesia,’’

Labor Immigration spokesman Tony Burke, 2013:

NEW Immigration Minister Tony Burke says that people-smugglers have outsmarted Australian efforts to turn boats back to Indonesia, warning the Coalition plan would only succeed in towing “people around in circles” in the Indian Ocean…

“Once they worked out that Australia was not the sort of country that would turn around and leave people drowning in the ocean, they knew they could turn any circumstance into a safety-at sea-operation.”

Labor immigration spokesman Tony Burke, 2013:


[Tony Abbott] made an election political call that was never going to be able to be delivered.

Labor leader Bill Shorten, 2013:

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Coalition’s boat person policy is absolutely not working.

Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles, 2013:

Richard Marles says it’s now plain that turn-backs are not happening… “It was inevitably going to fail. And that’s what we saw yesterday… ”

But last night Labor leader Bill Shorten finally announced he would try at the Labor national conference to overturn one of Labor’s deadliest and costliest policy mistakes:

Labor wants to defeat the people smugglers and we want to prevent drownings at sea. And therefore one of the options which we believe has to be on the table, if we’re given the privilege of forming a Government, has to be the option to turn back boats… It’s not easy, though, because it involves the admission, I think, that mistakes were made when Labor was last in government.

[Andrew Bolt]

Shorten doesn’t want a boat tow-back policy. He just wants a blank

Bill, Shorten says he now wants to turn back the boats.

Would you trust him?

Phil Coorey:

Mr Shorten will make his argument for the policy change at the Labor National Conference this weekend…

(A) deal is being negotiated between factions with the aim of leaving the policy platform blank on the issue of turnbacks – neither supporting it nor opposing it. This would give any future Labor government the discretion to apply the policy should it feel the need. Mr Shorten will argue on Saturday for that option.

Just an option? Not a policy, supported by the party?

Smells like a con.

[Andrew Bolt]

It’s a con. Bill Shorten does not really want to turn back boats of illegal immigrants.

He just wants to be able to say he’s not ruling it out.

Proof - Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles on 2GB yesterday:


BEN FORDHAM: If a boat arrives, you will be turning it back, yeah?

RICHARD MARLES: That is an option - that we unreservedly reserve the right to… We just want to make sure that this can be done safely. We want to make sure about how it works with the relationship with Indonesia. But I get it, Ben.

Only an option? Labor must first be sure it’s safe? And be sure Indonesia isn’t upset? And with many Labor MPs already angry about the whole idea? Oh, and with Marles saying he’ll end the policy of not discussing on-sea operations - a policy that has stopped boat returns from becoming a media circus?

Isn’t going to happen.

UPDATE

Shorten is not just leaving the back door open again. To get through his non-policy he’s opening the front door much wider, too:


Mr Marles and Mr Shorten are working to appease the Left with a package that includes doubling the annual humanit­arian intake of refugees and intro­ducing more transparency on turnbacks to Indonesia.

The Australian understands that doubling the nation’s human­itarian intake, which currently stands at 13,750 places a year, would cost an extra $2.7 billion over the forward estimates.

Then there’s the factor few politicians dare discuss. Let me put it this way: how well have we so far integrated refugees from Lebanon, Somalia, Iran and Afghanistan? So well that you think it’s worth doubling the intake?

UPDATE

I hope Albanese is against Shorten’s backroom process rather than turnbacks, but, either way, it’s ominous for the Opposition Leader:

Labor Left heavyweight Anthony Albanese..., the most pragmatic of the Labor Left faction figures, took aim last night at Mr Shorten’s reversal on Tony Abbott­’s contentious turnbacks policy, announced in an interview on ABC’s 7.30 on Wednesday night.

“I think that it is absolutely critical, critical, that we always remember our need for compassion and to not appeal to the darker side,’’ Mr Albanese said at a candidate function in Melbourne.

Mr Albanese, who lost the leadership race to Mr Shorten after the 2013 election, also voiced “real concerns about the way that yesterday was conduct­ed in terms of the announcement on asylum-seekers”.

Anyone yet heard a peep from Tanya Plibersek? Is she for or against?

Mr Shorten’s leadership would be fatally wounded if he lost but multiple sources said Mr Shorten would prevail. Factional bosses and senior members of Mr Shortens shadow ministry, including those from the Left such as Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek and Senator Kim Carr, were among those negotiating behind the scenes on Thursday, sources said.

This is not a policy to turn back boats

[Andrew Bolt]

BILL Shorten can’t be trusted — or forgiven — when he says Labor should now support turning back boats of illegal immigrants.

After all, for seven years Labor refused to turn back boats from Indonesia and vilified the Liberals who wanted to.

Moreover, the Opposition Leader hasn’t now changed his mind from shame that 1200 people drowned at sea under Labor’s policies.

He hasn’t changed it from guilt that Labor let 50,000 illegal immigrants land, or wasted $12 billion.

No, there’s just one reason Shorten waited until two years after the Government started its Operation Sovereign Borders before conceding its key tactic has worked and Labor should adopt it.


No, Shorten’s backflip isn’t to save lives

[skippy]

Well Andy, I don't think what Shorten thinks matters. I expect Labor will be smart enough to dump him before an election. Unlike the Libs were with Abbott.
I think a spill is imminent given Shorten seems to be trying to undermining Albo and Pliberseck and their electorates.
Maybe the talk Pliberseck is in discussions with Swan for a coup is not that outrageous after all. Also Albo posted a tweet in support of refugees on his Twitter account last night, just before Shorten is attempting to tow the government line. All is not cosy in the Labor ranks. Better to dump Shorten now than wait until Labor take government.
Given the disaster that is Abbott, Labor should be even further ahead than they are if they had a competent leader.

[mantra]

I agree. Labor know they have to do something now before it's too late and replace Shorten.

Labor should be even further ahead than they are if they had a competent leader.

And that's the big question. Have they got a competent leader? There were rumours that Morris Iemma is going into federal politics and he was very popular.

It’s a con. Bill Shorten does not really want to turn back boats of illegal immigrants.

He just wants to be able to say he’s not ruling it out.

Proof - Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles on 2GB yesterday:

BEN FORDHAM: If a boat arrives, you will be turning it back, yeah?

RICHARD MARLES: That is an option - that we unreservedly reserve the right to… We just want to make sure that this can be done safely. We want to make sure about how it works with the relationship with Indonesia. But I get it, Ben.

Yes it's all very nice that Abbott has almost stopped the boats, but he's using unorthodox methods which sets a precedent for other countries to follow - and it's brutal. There has to be a more moderate way of solving this problem.