The tide is turning for our boat people policies, and Australia’s shameful treatment of several thousand men, women and children fleeing war and oppression, some of it created by us, in the Middle East and Afghanistan. The overwhelming proportion were found to be genuine refugees, but, thanks to our policies, successive Australian governments, starting with the second Rudd government, tried to prevent them ever getting any right to live in Australia. Instead these people were placed in concentration camps on Nauru and Manus Island, and treated with conscious and deliberate cruelty as a way of sending a message to other asylum seekers that there was no point in trying to enter Australia by boat.
Many of those, including children, who suffered long term harm from their incarceration are now suing the Australian government. Not surprisingly, the Commonwealth has been trying to deflect blame for failing to meet its legal and moral responsibilities onto others.
Tide turning on boat people bastardry. By Jack Waterford, P&I