Greg Sheridan reviews Tony Abbott's first trip to Indonesia as Prime Minister.
October 3, 2013
September 1, 2013
Piddling into the wind
Let’s buy all the boats in Indonesia
What a jolly good idea, they proudly thought. “Australian taxpayers would purchase leaking fishing boats from poor fishermen where intelligence identified they planned to sell them to people smugglers,” was announced with all the excitement of a first newborn.
Another stupid thought-bubble from Kevin Rudd, I thought with a smile. A final nail in the Labor coffin it would be. No, it was not Rudd’s gaff! This madness came from; Scott Morrison the Coalition’s Shadow Immigration Minister whom I thought had more sense. Where were you during John Howard’s gun buyback Scott?
This stratagem to buy old boats from Indonesian peasants will fail. In fact, it will be a political nightmare, as anyone who has been to Indonesia would know and two words cover it aptly—poverty and corruption.
Jakarta is furious over Abbott’s buyback plan and has responded already with its customary, “get stuffed Australia” response. Mahfudz Siddiq, the head of Indonesia’s parliamentary commission for foreign affairs said, “The Coalition wants to make Indonesia look inferior because they just want to provide money and ask Indonesians to get the job done for the sake of their interests.”
June 15, 2013
The watery grave that Labor dug
Writers of political weeklies can’t possibly be topical given the rapid change in Labor’s pandemonium as the noose of electoral execution tightens by the day, if not hour.
Political chess moves of Rudd, Shorten and Tony Sheldon seem unlikely to cause any stay of the hangman’s scaffold. A two-party-preferred result according to surveys, have remained rather stable for more than a year. Any re-arrangement of deck chairs might save a handful of seats but won’t affect the outcome. To put it nicely—Labor is stuffed—in a manner unprecedented.
For the past 18 months voter concern about the nation’s porous borders has been marching toward top billing. And now, with the latest drowning of more than 50 off Western Australia’s coast, any hope and all spin Labor might use to camouflage reality perished with that craft and those poor souls on it.
June 3, 2013
The Muslim problem
This perspective on a touchy subject comes from a young, Aboriginal man who feels need to speak out about a looming problem. GC.Ed.@L.
Prior to the 70s it was the Aboriginal Problem. Mainstream society was concerned that the Aboriginal population would over-take those of non-Indigenous Australians. Some politicians were concerned that politics would be side-tracked and made to pander to Aboriginal Affairs until kingdom come and essentially under-valuing non-Indigenous Aussies.
Every generation has a Youth Problem, "those trousers are too creased!", "that music is too loud", and the golden-oldie "what's those things in your ears?". Well as a nation we now have the Muslim Problem. Society goes through eras where a particular people are placed under the social, political and academic micro-scope. Which, given Australia's rather cagey history (i.e. White Australia Policy) when it comes to new comers, can be understood. It is a part of growing up, it is a part of educating ourselves on those who come to our shores. It is the process in which we compare old values and perceived values and then decide on maintaining or re-forging a national identity.
In the late 60s we did just that, and grew to be a nation inclusive and non-discriminatory (in theory) towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. One would suss out someone on one's door-step attempting to enter the home, and so I say people hoping to come here should be sussed out likewise by society.
May 7, 2013
From Scott Morrison
The arrival of the latest boat means that over 40,000 people have now arrived by boat under Labor’s failed border protection regime.
That’s more than the population of Kalgoorlie-Boulder (30,900), Wodonga (31,600), Gladstone (32,100), Queanbeyan (35,900) and Tamworth (36,200).
So far this financial year, over 20,000 people have arrived on 320 boats. This compares with just 25 people on three boats in the final year that the Howard Government’s policies were in place.
Labor’s failure to protect our borders worsens by the day – and alongside its failure to control the Budget, is this Government’s greatest policy failure.
It is a failure that has cost lives, damaged our country’s reputation, cost over $6.6 billion in Budget blowouts and resulted in tens of thousands of people dumped into the community.
April 26, 2013
The Netherlands to Abandon Multiculturalism
It appears the Netherlands are set to Abandon the longstanding policy of Multiculturalism.
March 25, 2013
EXCLUSIVE: UK Leftist Concedes, Left Was Wrong on Immigration
A UK based leftist concedes the Left was wrong on Immigration. Quoted from the Daily Mail author David Goodhart says that he is "now convinced that public opinion is right and Britain has had too much immigration too quickly". Hopefully he isn't ostracised for speaking his mind.
TWH, AME
September 17, 2012
It’s our house, we set the rules.
What a joke! The government’s baulk at solving the tsunami of foreign interlopers was trotted out as a powerful message certain to cause people smugglers to cease business has increased human traffic. Nauru is now technically filled to capacity even before it is operational.
And, Immigration Minister Bowen seeks to resume chatter with Malaysia and the magic fix where we send one and take five. Rarely mentioned is our legal system is absolutely clogged with appeals, many of which are frivolous.
While our socialist inspired leaders fudge and fumble with an avalanche of people who are acutely aware that the drawbridge will soon be raised, Canada, under Stephen Harper’s conservative government, is bravely leading the way with a bold but workable solution to the same problem. Their move is to revoke citizenship of those found to have obtained permanent residency by fraud.
Tim Andrews
Menzies House is the leading online Australian community for conservative, centre-right and libertarian thinkers.
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