In the closest we get to hitting the street for voxpops, occasionally Crikey does a sweep of talkback transcripts to take the nation’s pulse on hot button issues. Today — Gillard’s border protection policy: hot or not?
A snippet from Malcolm of Nareen caught our attention. That’d be former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, calling in to ABC Melbourne 774 to offer qualified support to Prime Minister Gillard in her efforts to establish a “genuine regional centre, properly supervised, properly managed… We’ve got the beginnings of a regional approach that might well work.”
Then on Line 2, up popped Former Defence Minister Peter Reith, calling in to be on the radio for the first time in “many, many, years”:
“I suppose the reason I’m even on the phone today is that … for years the Labor party belted people like me around the head with what we did with the … Pacific Solution and now we find they were just playing a game … they actually think it’s the way to go…”
“We took a hell of a lot of political pain over that [the Pacific Solution] and yesterday we saw one of the most extreme cases of vindication I’ve seen in Australian politics for a long time … it is quite an incredible development you have to say… It is a pretty amazing set of circumstances…”
But we’ll let the last word go to ordinary old talkback caller Paul, who called in to ABC Karratha Drive last night:
“We should lock Gillard and Abbott both in a room and wait for them to come out with a bipartisan solution.”
Paul for PM.
Paul could be Secretary General of the UN – he’s a fine thinker.
But it would take Abbott years to recover from the lock-up experience, he’d be mentally scarred.
Now there’s a filthy name I’d erased from my memory. When they bury Reith, the ground will be so toxic that a 50Km exclusion zone will be required.
Talkback caller Paul might be onto something there.
Send them both to Dili.
On another topic, Julia Gillard issued a statement about Internet censorship today. It is depressing and presumably signals the outbreak of war against many hundreds of thousands of ordinary Australians who strongly oppose this policy.
Her statement registered the fact that there is widespread community concern, but fails to articulate any response to the concerns or set out any process for resolving them.
It was as though she’d said to the mining companies: “I hear your concern. Now cop the original policy – and cop it sweet!”
I have a particular perspective on this issue. Unlike most people, I’m convinced that political censorship is what’s really driving this policy – and that’s it’s being pushed by unaccountable behind-the-scenes forces (Conroy is just a front man on this analysis).
I imagine my view will grow in popularity as long as the Governmnet pushes ahead with an irrational and highly unpopular policy.
See Internet Censorship: Getting real about what’s at stake at http://sydwalker.info/blog/2010/07/07/internet-censorship-getting-real-about-whats-at-stake/
Peter Reith ! Did he pay for the phone call or use his expense account ? I guess he thinks people have forgotten his shameless lies about children overboard and dodgy photo he used ” prove ” the scam. The main purpose of the Labor policy ( Timor ) is to neutralise the libs and on that basis alone I support it. I dont support the proposition of either policies but have no solution to offer that is better. If we go one way we will have even more arrivals if we go the other we deny the few who make it. Its the language of the liberals that I dont like plus the intention of punishing the refugees while pretending its the smugglers they are hurting.
No matter what the Prime Minister does she will be in trouble, you can’t please every-one. It’s okay to sit in your safe home and have all the answers, get up there and see how they live, our pig’s on farms live better. My husband has been to some of these places (not the camp’s) and when you are on the run , you just can’t say ” oh by the way, give me a reference”. I think she is doing the best of a bad situation, give her time,please,