Boat people often risk their lives to get to Australia.
In a move that is bound to anger human rights agencies, new Australian PM Julia Gillard has declared tough new measures on asylum-seekers.
In a series of measures put in place before the next election, including sorting out the controversial mining tax, Ms Gillard has grabbed the refugee debate by both horns and declared that political correctness was dead and should be “swept out of the way”.
Ms Gillard seemed to endorse the Howard policy on asylum seekers when she defended him after an attack by Indian media suggesting that he was racist, she stated that he was “most certainly” not racist and moreover, that ordinary Australians who are concerned about immigration levels are neither racist nor intolerant. Her hard line approach is leading some to believe that a strong policy on immigration is imminent.
“I certainly dismiss labels like intolerant or racist because people raise concerns about border security, but we’ve also got to be very alive to the complexity of this and that there’s no quick fix,” Ms Gillard said. She went on to say that there was nothing humanitarian about refugees risking their lives to cross the Pacific in boats.
Just two days ago The Herald Sun accused the Australian government of being “soft” on boat people and allowing the word to spread throughout the world. They claimed that Vietnamese people were now arriving by boats in greater numbers. The government have so far suspended asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, but other Asian nationalities face no such suspension.
Ms Gillard has promised an open and honest public debate on the problem of asylum seekers and has said that political correctness and niceties only serve to disrupt such debates and take the focus away from the real issue.
How do you feel about immigration in Australia? What are your thoughts on the refugees who arrive by boat? At the moment if asylum seekers arrive by plane they are held on the mainland, but if they arrive by boat they are held in detention centres – do you think that is fair? Let us know your thoughts by filling out the comments box below.
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