How many children died in the water on Thursday in a boat that had been ‘turned back’? How many more children should die in this way?
Killing children is frowned upon in our society even now, as Lindy’s twenty-year sentence lately proved, and Tony Abbott’s insistence that more and more of them be killed if we don’t save them his way seems unChristian, even unCatholic, to me but not I suppose to some of this readership, or to all of News Limited who think he should be Prime Minister and Julie Bishop Foreign Minister not Bob Carr.
The solution to all this is clear now. Admit all 120,000 in ‘the queue’ of refugees, delaying by a year 120,000 of the normal intake, the 170,000 Japanese waiters we usually find more deserving than children orphaned and smashed of soul by civil war.
The queue gone, there will be no more jumping it, and refugees without papers could be offered cheap flights to Darwin, a multicultural place, and Broome, a multicultural place, and ‘processed’ there. Most would get in. They could then be offered unemployment benefits and a free caravan in, or outside, country towns that want them, and there are about 120 of these, with the proviso that they work, or seek work, locally for seven years.
This would cost much less than what we spend now on air-sea rescue, Christmas Island, Villawood, Baxter and flying children across Australia for the funerals of their drowned fathers in Sydney. And it would also revive the country towns, and help revive the Australian regional economy.
Any questions?
Name:
Too rational, too sensible.
A thought beyond our tribal leaders.
Not a foolish idea.
There are problems -
1. The queue would instantly get longer, much longer and chances are some will still try their luck by boat.
2. It would not be possible to make it a condition that they stay in one town. The refugee advocates would be in court as quick as you can say fuck off.
But perhaps something like this could be made to work to reduce the deaths.
Thanks for the line about the Japanese waiters
I glanced at today’s offerings with trepidation knowing there’d be something on the subject. And I have to say my heart is really heavy about this. I needed something to smile at.
I don’t know about the specifics. Maybe you’re being somewhat flippantly over simplistic, but they need to be taken somewhere and I can’t see the harm in helping.