Armchair_Politician wrote on Jan 10^th, 2012 at 8:37am:


K Rudd.

Rudd and Gillard removed a working Coalition policy and replaced it with a failed one.
Then to compound the stupidity, then wait until the situation is out of control before doing 'something' which has turned out to be nothing.

cods wrote on Jan 10^th, 2012 at 9:30am:


Probably no point at all, considering the fault for the removal of the Coalitions former working border protection policy lays cemented firmly at Labors feet.
However, the 'piper' is yet to be paid by Labor for this massive policy bungle, and wont be until the next election.
The real question is how many more will die because of Labor's wreckless policy vandalism.

To fix the problem of influx of refugees you take a two pronged approach.

1) You engage in their starting countries to remove the regimes that are causing them to leave - be it Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran etc.

2) If you do accept there will be refugees you make it as difficult as possible for them to come to your country. You make your place a less attractive option if you like.

So by dismantling the controls put in by John Howard, the Labor Government did partially create this problem.

What needs to be done is remove a lot of the benefits asylum seekers would be entitled, mandatory detain them for long period, do not allow in their families or children - so they know they can't get them in.

Just make things difficult.

You fix the push problem and you remedy the pull problem.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Jan 10^th, 2012 at 10:02am:


Not at all.
Had Labor made those policy changes in 2008 which reduced boat arrivals even further, could have earn't them the respect and cudos that has since eluded them for so long after the euphoria of Rudd's historic election win.
Who knows, Turnbull could have even been leader of the Opposition for an even longer period had that occurred as a party can forgive a leader to a certain degree who has difficulty in making headway over a good Government.
But not to make headway over an incompetent one is unforgivable, and Turnbull paid the price.
But for them to make those initial changes, and compound the subsequent issue that has been created through continual inaction borders on being criminal.
And to announce to the world Labors plans and intentions over and over again prior to any agreements being signed borders on gross stupidity of the highest order.
If Gillard was a professional poker player, she would be homeless and on the street by now.

Why does corporate_whitey want to fense us all in and control all of the worlds natural resources for himself.  You even require a licence to tajke a fishing pole to the pier, meanwhile corporate greed dredges mountains of fish out of the oceans for the exclusive profits of the 1%.  Where is Gandhi when you need him?
The Food, the water, the seeds, the land and the salt belongs to the people, not to the Greens and not to corporate Greed - you may not bar us from access to it.

There was no problem till the Liberals found they could gain political ground by exploiting it.