I don't think that's true.
He is a human like everyone else and obviously deeply affected by the poverty,dislocation and fear that he has seen in Somalia. He clearly is not a racist, which he is often painted as.
The thing is, there is a HUGE difference between a personal response (usually compassionate) and having a POLICY response.
In the Go Back to Where You Came From show this is not explored at all.
At one point Peter Reith said to Cetherine Denevy "Well how many do you suggest we accommodate in Australia per year, and how would you deal with the next boat that came after the quota is full?' She did not answer.
But theirin lies the dilemma for a politician.
If we developed policy soley on our compassionate response well we may as just well remove all border protection and let every person who is in poverty or a wartorn country come here. How many would you like? One thousand? ten thousand? a hundred thousand? a million? two million? ten million? twenty million?
I bet there are twenty million displaced people in the world right now. Does Catherine want us to invite them all? Personally, I feel for them all.
However, good policy should be a mixture of compassion (yes, let's have some refugees), and an analysis of what our current society can accommodate in terms of finances/infrastructure/social fabric.
Once that has been determined, then good policy should also define a safe and secure way for the refugees to arrive. No genuine refugee should feel the need to circumvent a process to risk their life in a leaky boat.
Clearly the existing safe offshore process needs to be fixed so that it is easier and quicker for refugees to apply and get to Australia. Bad policy is where these people who follow the guidelines are pushed to the back of the queue by a policy that rewards boat arrivals first.
The thing is we need POLICY debate, not a debate on people's personalities and how they react to the very clearly distressing state of many people's lives. I think the 'Go Back to Where You Came From' is a good show, but I think it focuses soley on the personal, rather that the POLICY.
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I don't think that's true.He is a human like everyone else and...
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