Asylum seekers week 2

For another week asylum seekers who arrive by boat have been front and centre of the political talk this week.

The more I read and engage with the issues, the more complex and difficult it seems. The intricacy of the "problem" (for want of a better word) actually makes me dislike our main media news outlets even more as they seem to paint the problem as black and white. The propaganda is quite unbearable.

Thanks to a friend who works in international policy, I see there are three main issues working in tension that make the "problem" of boat people hard.
1) The need to deter human traffickers;
2) The need to maintain border security; and
3) The need to have compassion for people desperate enough to try to come to Australia by boat.

The stories from the people on these boats are heart breaking. As a mother particularly, I find the stories about the children and the babies drowning just plain awful. Yet, the solution is not to just let everyone come to Australia if they want. This article opened my eyes to see the current asylum seeker policy in a positive light. I still do not think it's ideal but it is trying to find a happy medium between the three tensions that pull at this issue.

Any solution that has a strong emphasis on compassion for the boat people needs to also appeal to the residents in Australia and (selfishly or sadly) needs to appear as a benefit to Australia (not a negative). Stories like this are heart-warming and exciting but we need larger figures of the benefits of increase immigration (including asylum seekers that come by boat).

One piece of writing that challenged me this week is this article about the "why" of Australian's aversion to boat people particularly (not asylum seekers in general). It is easy to use the compassion card to get away from racism but to be challenged about why we need to "defend" our lifestyle when we have actually not done much to deserve it is confronting in a good way. It aligns with how I feel that as Australians we have a life and a lifestyle that is the envy of probably at least 75% of the world's 7 billion population. Us lucky 20 million who live in the land down under.

Lucky Country, Austinmer Jan 2013

A funny

The news this week has continued to be about asylum seekers who come to Australia via boat. I have not had a chance to read enough articles to recommend, but I did see this come through my FB newsfeed and had to share.

Greens are GO!

(Hobart, February 2009)

For those of you who are wondering if there is another option than Liberal and Labour, the most obvious candidate for "the other guy" are the Greens. And (thanks to The Man), they have listed out the policies that they will be pushing in a rather clear way.

http://greensmps.org.au/content/media-releases/greens-plan-australias-future

I realise that the 2 major parties may not be able to spell out their policy-points this clearly, but it would be awesome if they did!

My favourite bit:

"To secure the innovative industries of the future, Australia must stop spending billions subsidising the fossil fuel sector and redirect money to science, research, education and innovation," Mr Bandt said.

The part I am most cynical about:

"Every policy announced by the Australian Greens this election will be fully costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office and we will collect the revenue to pay for every single one of our policies.

Asylum seekers - Asylum seekers - Asylum seekers

(Looking at boats October 2012)

In the news this week, if you missed it (which may not be surprising if you are anything like me and between work, kids, cooking and cleaning are lucky to catch the news of the day let alone read an article) has been about ASYLUM SEEKERS, or the term used by the media BOAT PEOPLE.

At the beginning this blog I raised one of the key policies I was interested in was Australia's treatment of refugees. In my naivety, I thought that onshore detention was better than offshore. I confess I am still trying to get my head about all the issues involved with asylum seekers who come to Australia by boat. The most common sense, human feeling is to think that people who are so desperate to flee their own country to come to us via a dingy boat must need help. So, when Labour released their Refugee policy this week, and brought this to the forefront, it has provided a lot of fodder for me (honestly, maybe too much).

I haven't worked out what I think yet, but this is what I am thinking at the moment:
* Separating child from family should not be allowed, no matter how the child arrived in Australia;
* Mandatory detention seems wrong. Should this not be on a case by case basis?
* Not allowing asylum seekers to work reduces their existence even further.
* What happened to the the words in the Australia anthem that says "From those who come across the seas, we've boundless plains to share"? (Yes, I have seen the memes.)

Here are some articles that some of you might be interested. Please let me know how they make you think:

Highly informative and huge article (ie, need time to read this) http://m.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/youve-been-misled-on-boat-people-here-are-the-facts-20130718-2q5rv.html

Poignant, first hand, personal challenge point of view: http://christinemead.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/so-you-think-its-a-good-idea-to-welcome-refugees-excuse-me-while-i-burst-your-bubble/

A Christan take on things: http://markrglanville.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/australian-refugee-policy-for-dummies-1-disingenuous-rhetoric/

Slightly sad/realistic viewpoint: http://theimmigrationblog.com/2013/07/19/so-what-should-we-think-of-the-rra/#more-430

Let me know your thoughts!!

Wanna a man?

Firstly, apologies for such a big gap in posts. I will strive to blog weekly but please forgive me when this doesn't happen. Life (work, kids, family, cleaning etc etc) gets in between me and the computer often! :)

(stolen from SMH March 10, 2010)

I am going to blog today about something that deviates a little from my previous discussions on the policies. I want to raise the issue of the actual PERSON we are voting for as Prime Minister. Even though our democratic system doesn't allow us to actually vote for the prime minister (unless you live in the seats of Manly or Griffith), our culture is so celebrity/character driven that the MAN who is PM counts a lot. So - which MAN should I (we) vote for?

I am not aligned to any political party. I have no like/dislike for K.Rudd other than I am impressed he can speak Mandarin. He receives no sympathy points from me in regards to the Julia Gillard backstab/betrayal.  I do confess however that I have a personal dislike for T.Abbott. Why? I don't think it's his appearance or his party. I think it is his language. It is the way that he uses a lot of negative language in the public sphere that he walks in and which I feel isn't helpful for us voters as we try to look for policies instead of slogans. His speech are sometimes just a string of slogans. I listened to him talk about the recent boat-people crisis and actually found his use of the word "mugs" offensive.

But I want to and am willing to put aside that personal opinion of T.Abbott, if the man and his price/policy is right.  I really want to look beyond my own preferences to see what sort of character he is and also K.Rudd.

So I read this article about T.Abbott:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/abbott-the-thinking-persons-prime-minister-20130619-2oj68.html

I also recall this article about Mike Baird who says some equally glowing accounts of T.Abbott:

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-son-rises-20121023-282ga.html

And then read this one about K.Rudd to provide some balance:

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-son-rises-20121023-282ga.html


All articles are bias. Some are just more obvious than others. All of the above are extremely bias. But I would like to hear what other people think. I confess, after reading the first article (and being slightly scared by the image that is in the article) I nearly fell off my seat laughing at the concluding line that T.Abbott was a "thinking woman's Prime Minister". (Down, prejudice, down!). It wasn't a convincing article for me.

Open to more though! So, please send me through articles to help me get a clearer picture of what MAN I want (to vote for).