Recent weeks have witnessed no shortage of ink spilt on the matter of the Australian government’s disgraceful – and illegal – policies vis-à-vis asylum seekers. And appropriately so! A number of people have asked me to comment on this question, and at some stage, when I have more moments to spare than I do this week, I may spill some ink of my own on it. In the meantime, however, I wish to draw attention to, and to commend, one editorial (among the many dozens that I have read) that I found particularly helpful. It’s Robert Manne’s piece (published in March this year and so before developments in recent days), ‘Tragedy of Errors: Australia’s shipwrecked refugee policy’.
[There is also an edited transcript of a speech by Barry Jones: ‘Asylum is the greatest moral challenge of our time’. The latter is significantly less satisfying than Manne’s piece, but worth a read all the same, not least given Jones’ long and high profile relationship with the ALP.]
jasongoroncy.com 
There is great need to understand the difference between migration-on-a-budget and those genuinly escaping tyranny. There is a great need to cut through the primarily ‘white’ bourgeois self-righteous bias, which is evidenced in the imaginations of those wishing to distort this issue purely out of a self-interest, that not only creates hysteria but also diaguises the problem. Simply labeling people who desire a fair outcome for ALL here as racist, takes away from the fact that traffickers are taking economic advantage of disadvantaged people. E.g. giving people the false hope about easy entry, easy employment and safe passage is unjust and inhumane. Not addressing that by strawman argument s is encouraging such inhuman treatment.
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