Saturday 23rd of November 2024
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resurrecting rattus .....

resurrecting rattus .....

from Crikey .....

Battle for Melbourne: how Gillard's tougher solution will play in the city

Andrew Crook writes:

ALP, GREENS PARTY

Julia Gillard's pledge to cloak the Howard Government's 'Pacific Solution' in a new East Timor regional fix could spell trouble for Labor in the race for the federal seat of Melbourne.

The inner-urban electorate vacated by Melbourne University's favourite son Lindsay Tanner might be expected to edge closer into the clutches of the Greens, who are within striking distance with a margin of 4.7%, despite the nuanced elements of the speech delivered by the Prime Minister at the Lowy Institute this morning.

Gillard was careful to throw the progressive set a consultative bone early in the address, but the more measured tone, which has been missing from the mainstream debate thus far, isn't likely to be picked up amid the hardline sound bites that will bounce around the electronic media.

The raw statistics, which show that Australia takes 0.6% of the world's asylum seekers, are likely to play well, as will the PM's pledge to "make our decisions on the principles that unite us", to "accept people in legitimate need", alongside an appeal to "Australians' basic decency", which sounded like a reverse dog whistle for the denizens of Melbourne (and Sydney and Grayndler) whose revulsion about the debate being played out nine years after Tampa is legion.

Tanner's mooted replacement, former trade union official Cath Bowtell, who received official party endorsement yesterday, was grilled by Jon Faine on the question of boat people on ABC Radio this morning.

"On the issue of asylum seekers I think that people in the inner city understand that this is a very complex issue, they understand that the prime minister is right when she says that we have to have the debate on facts not on name calling," she said.

"What they understand is that we have to bring people with us. But they also understand that people seeking asylum are people who are fleeing their homelands because they fear that they are at risk personally or that their children's lives are at risk and the people in Melbourne who I talk to understand that."

The statement was met with a retort by Faine. "They'll punish you for dog whistle politics!"

In her first tough interview, the WorkSafe executive director appeared on more stable ground over bread and butter issues of superannuation reform, paid maternity leave and working class struggles: "Labor has a very good record of progressive reform. You have to build the case with people and you have bring people with you."

After the promising start, this morning's Lowy announcement was pockmarked by tough language from Gillard like "the rules are the rules" as the PM implored successful asylum seekers to "learn English, get a job and send their kids to school".

Greens candidate Adam Bandt, who is promising to "stand up for refugees" in a fresh banner slapped on the party's prominent Brunswick Street office, rejected the revised policy when contacted by Crikey.

"It's a similar approach to the Howard era but a different place, a lurch away from a fair and compassionate Australia. Labor seems to think the only marginal seats that matter are those where they're in contest with the Coalition, but now voters in the inner city seats like Melbourne have a chance to send a message."

But Bandt said the Greens had not been deliberately playing up the refugee issue for political gain, despite using it as central plank of his campaign.

"Nothing would make me happier that if that wasn't an election issue," he said. "It's really distressing to find ourselves having Howard-era debates. The best thing for the country and for refugees was if we could have a cross-partisan approach anchored in international law.

"It's the major parties that are choosing to turn this into an election issue."

Bandt warned a more rigorous approach in processing Afghan asylum seekers would be coupled with a toughening of the criteria, and the offshore solution would add to the cruelty.

and, from Richard Farmer .....

The so-called smart Labor machine men (few if any apart from the PM herself are women) believe that they have out smarted the Coalition by coming up with their East Timor solution. Well my guess is that the biggest beneficiary of this amazing about turn by Labor will be the Greens and that Bob Brown will find himself not only leading a group with the balance of power in the Senate but with a substantial representation in the House of Representatives as well.

Today's announcement by Ms Gillard will certainly split the Labor Party in a most unedifying way. It gives new understanding to Kevin Rudd's cryptic remarks on the eve of his dumping about refusing to move to the right on the question of boat people. A week ago I would have thought a comeback by Rudd to a position of power and influence was impossible. Now he has the opportunity to re-emerge -- this time as a successor to those who fought the good fight back in the 1960s to ignore the racism of so many of Labor's voters.

Julia Gillard's approach to asylum seekers reminds us of one thing: for most of its history a consistent thread in Labor Party policy was a fear of coloured migrants. The inherent racism of the ordinary working classes was papered over from the late 1960s by a Labor Party leader of moral strength but Gough Whitlam's leadership is being swept aside today by Julia Gillard. The new federal Labor Leader has chosen to pander to ugly racism with its modern touch of anti-Muslim feeling rather than fight it.

from one who's been there before...

Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser has voiced his support for Julia Gillard's plan for asylum seekers.

Mr Fraser set up Australia's first regional processing centres to deal with asylum seekers during the 1970s when the refugees were Vietnamese boat people.

He recently confirmed that he quit the Liberal Party that he once led, in part because of his disgust over the Coalition's scaremongering on asylum seekers.

Mr Fraser says Ms Gillard's policy is better than former Liberal prime minister John Howard's Pacific Solution.

"If the objective is to stop getting into dangerous boats and therefore to remove that element of danger, and also to take people smugglers out of the equation, then I think there is a significant difference between the Gillard policy and the opposition policy, which was really a revival of the Pacific Solution," he said.

"Which wasn't... people were still coming on boats, once they were caught they'd be taken off to some other remote island and to a place that was not a signatory to the Refugee Convention. I understand East Timor is a signatory to the Refugee Convention.

"That also creates an obligation, which makes for a real difference."

paul for PM .....

A snippet from Malcolm of Nareen caught our attention. That'd be former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, calling in to ABC Melbourne 774 to offer qualified support to Prime Minister Gillard in her efforts to establish a "genuine regional centre, properly supervised, properly managed... We've got the beginnings of a regional approach that might well work."

Then on Line 2, up popped Former Defence Minister Peter Reith, calling in to be on the radio for the first time in "many, many, years":

"I suppose the reason I'm even on the phone today is that ... for years the Labor party belted people like me around the head with what we did with the ... Pacific Solution and now we find they were just playing a game ... they actually think it's the way to go..."

"We took a hell of a lot of political pain over that [the Pacific Solution] and yesterday we saw one of the most extreme cases of vindication I've seen in Australian politics for a long time ... it is quite an incredible development you have to say... It is a pretty amazing set of circumstances..."

But we'll let the last word go to ordinary old talkback caller Paul, who called in to ABC Karratha Drive last night:

"We should lock Gillard and Abbott both in a room and wait for them to come out with a bipartisan solution."

ready, fire, aim .....

from Crikey .....

Offshore processing plan: someone forgot to tell East Timor

Professor Damien Kingsbury writes:

ASYLUM SEEKERS, BORDER PROTECTION, BORDER PROTECTION POLICY, EAST TIMOR SOLUTION

The announcement by the Gillard government that it intends to use East Timor as a processing stop-over for asylum seekers is either a very clever political ploy or a blunder that has the potential to derail her run for a second term for her government. At its heart appears to be a qualified endorsement from a man who has no capacity to offer it - East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta.

The asylum seeker issues will no doubt be a central election issue and the Gillard government is looking to neutralize it. Using East Timor as a point of processing asylum seekers is smart because it keeps asylum seekers off-shore and hence satisfies voters who believed the 'Pacific solution' was a good idea.

It is also smart politics because East Timor is a signatory to the Refugee Convention, has a good if limited history on asylum seekers and continues to be viewed with sympathy by much of Australia. If asylum seekers are sent to East Timor, the chances are they will not be locked up but allowed to roam freely, and will be supported by the Australian government which will assist the Timorese economy. But there are, of course, real problems.

The first problem is that it is far from clear that the Gillard government has spoken to anyone else about this other than President Ramos-Horta. Unfortunately, despite his propensity to speak out on issues, he is a largely ceremonial president with no executive authority. His recent intervention in the Woodside Petroleum dispute over processing LNG from the Timor Sea earned him a blunt rebuff from the East Timorese government.

The view within Dili was otherwise one of surprise - no-one seems to have been forewarned, much less consulted about this proposal. Indeed, one minister was privately saying that the East Timorese government had been 'blind-sided'. This is at best poor diplomacy.

As noted by Fretilin opposition spokesman Jose Teixeira, such a move will require a change to East Timor's immigration act, which would at best take months, given the slowness of the legislative process there and the debates this will undoubtedly raise.

Further, prime minister Xanana Gusmao has recently been critical of Australia's aid program and its refusal to push Woodside to establish an LNG processing plant on East Timor's south coast. The East Timorese government equates Woodside with the Australian government, despite their obvious separation, and he has lambasted Woodside for its own announcement on a floating LNG platform. East Timor was, he said, 'blind-sided' on this decision as well.

Being blind-sided again, then, will not go down well in East Timor. So, if East Timor does agree, it will try to extract a hefty price from Australia, not just in terms of support for the asylum seekers, on top of its $100 million aid program, and some longer term benefit for East Timorese citizens who still largely live in dire poverty. It will also want to see the Australian government put real pressure on Woodside, which it has so far refused to do. Woodside, for its own part, is not likely to accept such pressure with much enthusiasm.

In short, the 'East Timor solution' does not look to have been well planned and has a high probability of falling over. However, if Gillard can hold together a process of negotiation until after an election, expected to be called sooner rather than later, then she will have neutralized the issue in the short term and have the luxury of time after an election - assuming Labor wins - to deal with the problems the proposal raises in the longer term.

PM Gillard does have strengths as a negotiator and perhaps she can pull this one off. But PM Gusmao has been in a feisty mood lately and is likely to be at best taciturn if not outright combative. A genuine 'East Timor solution', then, seems some way off.

East Timor is a far better option for asylum seekers than Indonesian camps or the Pacific islands, if it is done right. For a start, the asylum seekers would probably be free, if within the confines of the island. Others have even started new and productive lives there, despite its obvious difficulties.

But it is a long way from certain that East Timor's government will agree to this proposal, which it is difficult to view as other than a stop-gap measure. And an initial outright refusal would damage the Gillard 'brand', perhaps fatally.

To try to ensure the 'East Timor solution' stays on track, it is highly likely that Australia's Ambassador to Timor-Leste, Peter Heyward, will be fully exercising his considerable diplomatic and personal skills.

If this proposal stays alive as even just a possibility, it will be in large part due to this diplomat's role. If it does not stay alive, Gillard and co can only look to what appears to be their own lack of planning. But if that eventuates after the election, then perhaps they won't care quite so much.

Professor Damien Kingsbury is in the School of International and Political Studies at Deakin University.

The Liberal attempt to bring back the fascists.

I wouldn’t do this would you?

Given that the Australian people very convincingly destroyed the pro-Bush administration of the Howard “New Order”, what should we consider is the motivation of the Murdochracy in using past unpunished criminals like Reith and Downer to push the fascist ideology?

First we have the "pussy" Downer who jailed two journalists from the Melbourne Herald Sun when they leaked information about his lies.  Then he "saved our nation's financial stability” by using a cheap Indonesian airline which crashed and killed five Australians? Plus others. 

And shall we ever forget his affair with the AWB Saddam Hussein kickbacks which Howard managed to squash by a very "both hands tied" not so Royal Commission into that criminal behavior.  And the complicit leader of the Nationals in the House of Representatives, Mr. Truss, is still in the front bench of the Howard "left-overs". 

And “my son can use my free telephone card any time he likes” this from rewarded Howard criminal Peter Reith!!! Fair dinkum.

I have been frustrated by the failure of the Rudd/Gillard Labor Party for not bringing forward the criminal acts of both Reith and Howard (plus others) in ordering an Australian warship (that I will not name) to stand idly by - with the floodlights on the helpless people in the water - while an estimated 365 humans, mainly children drowned. This that a simple order by Howard/Reith to the Australian military vessel could have saved most of them, if not all.

This was Howard’s stand then and now Abbott’s, to just “turn back the boats” and stuff the International Maritime law by their “strength” in refusing the “Tampa” incident with the Murdochracy protected their actions by claiming “national interests”.

I refer to the “Dark Victory” written by David Marr and Marian Wilkinson.

While just wondering at the apparent “scratch my back and I will scratch yours” attitude of the major parties, I return to the vote in Parliament that was called an “Accountability Bill” for all Parliamentarians. 

It was defeated on party lines by each and every Liberal and National Party member and conversely voted for by all members of the Labor Party.

There is a message there.

God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.