A goo article by Richard Ackland - some extracts.Before our...

A goo article by Richard Ackland - some extracts.

Before our eyes, day by day, Scott Morrison becomes the hollow man. His face tightens and twists, his eyes are dead, and his words strangled with jargon. We've seen this before. Remember Philip Ruddock gradually turning into a stick of chalk, as immigration minister and later attorney-general, while he plodded his way through the ''Pacific solution'' and the vilification of David Hicks? This is what happens to human beings who believe the ends justify the means.

When you peel back the layers, the oft repeated Coalition justification for stopping the boats is that ''the Australian people want it''. It hardly needs me to point out that history is littered with tragedies when justification is hitched to popularity. Stopping the boats is an end, and any amount of nastiness to achieve that is justified - popularity confers legitimacy.


Maybe, in decades to come, we will look back at this time and regard it as one of the worst stains on our nation. More awful than the White Australia Policy and up there with the stolen generations. A time when our nation had a dark heart. Manus Island and Nauru are wretched wastelands, gulags without activity, but they justify the ends. Professor Ben Saul, on ABC television on Tuesday night, drew an interesting parallel with our policy of indefinite detention, where refugees have been given an adverse security assessment. The other place under the jurisdiction of a western democracy where this also happens is Guantanamo Bay.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/welcome-back-to-white-australia-20140227-33m4w.html#ixzz2uYgjdpP7