Letter
Labor sets sail in the same policy boat
Thank you, Annabel Hennessy, for calling out the persistent policy cruelty of our political “leadership” and its impact upon many stateless refugee neighbours in our midst. The legislation referred to, as background to the Nauru deportation proposal, presents us with the same lethargic compliance we have endured from Liberal-National Coalition hard-heartedness.
Are we to allow Australia to take the same “new normal” path pioneered by the Trump administration to “win” by withholding justice from Kilmar Abrego Garcia? How long will it be before the Labor Party (and its equally lethargic Parliamentary opponents) realise that a healthy Australian democracy has to be accountable to electors, with public policy opened up for discussion, rather than closed down by amoral strategic media signalling designed to protect electoral support?
How are we to avoid construing ourselves as an exploitative, malforming, neocolonial power in the South-West Pacific? Our civic task involves facing up to our responsibilities to all neighbours including those in legal limbo because they have been exploited by smugglers seeking to profit from their plight. Wasn’t Labor in government when visa holders from China were allowed to stay after the Tiananmen Square massacre was seen on Australian TV screens?
— Bruce Wearne from Ballarat Central