Ah, the return of the living dead.
Old habits die hard with Philip Ruddock. About as hard as Ruddock’s own progressive principles died when he had a sniff of ministerial power. He happily became John Howard’s go-to man in the demonization of asylum-seekers and the minister responsible for that high point in Australian public life, the reference to a boy locked up in Villawood Detention Centre as “it”.
The Government’s “softening” of illegal immigration laws has now, according to Ruddock, produced a “pipeline” of 10,000 people a year trying to get to Australia.
You know what goes through pipelines. Not people. Maybe water, at best, but more likely sludge, or some highly unpleasant chemical. Sewage, perhaps.
Those 10,000 pipelines, we know, are of course not white people.
Ruddock, like some of its colleagues, must be thoroughly flummoxed that Australians have thus far greeted the rise in boat arrivals generated by the Sri Lankan civil war and other regional conflicts with a reasonable amount of equanimity. It’s not like the good old days, when a single boatload of asylum seekers could be guaranteed to tap into that deep-seated Australian fear of invasion from the north by different-coloured hordes.
The flow of arrivals via boat of course remains an entirely trivial immigration problem. If you’re obsessed about border control, you should be picketing our airports, where illegal immigrants and future visa overstayers arrive every day by the hundreds. In July last year there were 48,500 people in Australia unlawfully, and nearly all of them got off a plane.
Philip Ruddock will tell you the Howard Government stopped the boats. But how’d it go stopping the other 95+% of people who aren’t supposed to be here?
Well, turns out, not so good. In fact, so badly its Department stopped publishing the statistics in its annual report, and only properly resumed when the numbers started coming back down again after it had been replaced as Immigration Minister.
There were 45,000 people in Australia unlawfully in 1996, when Ruddock first applied its tender ministrations to the Immigration portfolio. The following year they shot up to 51,000. A good start for Ruddock, but it was just warming up. Immigration stopped reporting the numbers for a couple of years, but when we next see them, in 2000, they’d climbed to nearly 59,000.
And as we learn from the Department’s 2004 annual report, they’d peaked at 59,800 in the last months of Ruddock’s stint as minister. So it presided over a 33% increase in illegal immigrants. Nice work, and it didn’t even have a pipeline to help it.
It occurs to me that these facts as stated by Bernard are broadly consistent with Ruddock actually being quite compassionate towards asylum seekers generally, while doing everything in his power to deter people smugglers. Just saying.
I have nothing but contempt for this person. I refuse to call him a ‘man’ as there are many of those who are decent human beings. I’d like to rip that Amnesty International badge out of his lapel, if he still has the gall to wear it. Who can forget the role he played during the Dr Haneef disgrace. During his last stint in Opposition, he opposed some ALP legislation as being against human rights???Just proves the saying, that ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. I just hope I can avoid having to look at him, he really spoils my day – enough to curdle the milk in my coffee! He’s not only the champion of no human rights for those tortured people from other lands, who have to flee, some due to our murderous activities in their countries, he announces it like the front ‘walker’ at a funeral! I recall too, that dear little boy he referred to as “it’ not once (that could’ve been a mistake) but several times. Someone should tell him, that boy children are referred to as “he” – as they’re living human beings, to be loved, cherished and cared for; only inate objects are referred to as “it”? Yuk!
I am a little of the subject but not to far – I believe the immigration issue is why so many legitimate asylum seekers have to resort to illegal entry – I am happy to accept that most have legitimate reasons to seek asylum – particularly from Sri Lanka – but why can’t they be legitimate immigrants from the start.
BK, again I must agree.
I find Ruddock to be an unwelcome memory, mixed with my contempt for those who brazenly wasted money, distorted and invented facts and purposefully set about making life a misery for 5% of his Department’s case load of illegal immigrants and visa overstayers.
Australia’s reputation for fairness, if it ever existed, was totally destroyed by his bigotted, biased and discriminatory war against some of the most needy people in this world. Not content with changing the rules and ignoring basic human rights which are enshrined in internaational treaties, he then used the collective might of the armed forces to bully and harrass those in search of refuge, wasted a squillion dollars building “Detention Centres” (pig pens?) and buying the services of internationally recognised, overpaid corporate prison guards to watch over these hidden prisoners.
His party was voted out of office and I am disappointed to find that 2 years later he hasn’t changed his tune.
Let’s concentrate on the 05% and deal with the remaining 5% no more harshly than the rest. That is fair. That sounds more like my image of Australia.
Sorry, the last para should read:
Let’s concentrate on the 95% and deal with the remaining 5% no more harshly than the rest. That is fair. That sounds more like my image of Australia.