Deja vu, we've seen it all before. A policy bankrupt party expecting to win electoral favour by ramping up its rhetoric on asylum seekers. Howard & Reith offered bribes to Pres Rene of Nauru to get the Pacific Solution up & running. Now, Abbott & Morrison are doing the same nasty two step shuffle.
I was ringside as the Howard fiasco played out. Public servants were threatened with career damaging outcomes if the Nauru 'program' went off the rails.
There should have been a full judicial inquiry into the governance and human rights abuses that underlay this strategy to ensure it could not happen again. I lobbied Senator Evans to this effect and got the standard she'll be right mate response from his department. Wrong, wrong, wrong.....Click here to read an account by a Doctor familiar with Nauru to appreciate one aspect of why the Pacific Solution was a disgrace.
Susan Metcalfe has written a book on the Pacific Solution that will be launched in Melbourne on 17 August. I encourage people with an interest in this benighted area of asylum seeker governance to read her book.
2 comments:
Depressing stuff all round. I wanted to say I'm grateful for your writings here. And thanks for the tip re: Metcalfe's book!
Hi M (do I know you?)
thanks for the feedback. Labor may fall over the line but the general malaise in the area of human rights will not be addressed easily...
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