Gillard caves in to reactionaries

By Graham Cooke

The Australian Labor Government's new policy on asylum seekers is a bitter disappointment.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has caved in to reactionary forces and produced a position that is little different from what existed under the previous Howard Government.

Instead of the Pacific Solution we have the Timor Sea Solution.

It is to be hoped that the proposal will be roundly rejected by the Government of East Timor and that it will not give in to the financial inducements that will inevitably be offered to allow a 'Regional Processing Facility' to be set up on its soil.

In a prime example of the spin employed by governments of all persuasions these days that Gillard has attempted to dress up this objectionable plan as a way of halting the people smuggling trade, while trying to hide it behind the announcement that processing will begin again on asylum seekers from Sri Lanka.

The Coalition and Labor are now engaged in a disreputable race to the bottom, with eyes firmly fixed on how their pronouncements play out in the opinion polls. The concept that governments provide leadership on the important issues of the day is dead.

The sad fact is that this is really a non-issue. As the prominent lawyer, Julian Burnside, has pointed out, even at the current rate of arrivals, it would take 20 years to fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground with boat people.

The problems existing in some of the outer suburbs of our major cities are real, but they are caused by poor planning and incompetent local authorities, not by asylum seekers arriving by boat.

We are entering a new and dangerous era in Australian politics where opinion polls and the pronouncements of populist media shock jocks form government policy and, therefore, the way we live our lives.

A not so brave new world.