There is a dirty campaign being waged to smear the name of the Prime Minister. The claims go back as far as twenty years and seek to discredit Gillard's days as a lawyer before she entered parliament. Not a single substantive claim has been made against her. But the Murdoch press and the right wing political mud slingers are intent on throwing as much muck as they can in the lead up to the next federal election.
Indeed Abbott is wielding every trick in the book, today back flipping on his commitment to increase the humanitarian intake of refugees from 13,750 to 20,000, a promise he committed to scant months ago. The government is in a no win situation with regard to the asylum seeker problem. The media is intent on creating xenophobic hysteria in the community, which plays into the hands of Abbott and co. as they play the race card for all it is worth.
We need a national dialogue on refugee policy. That dialogue should seek to defuse asylum seekers as a political issue. It is after all a humanitarian issue, and there are international implications to everything we do on refugee policy. It should not be a political football, but alas it is. It is as if the media is in a frenzy over each new boat arrival. There is a good reason to argue that humanitarian refugee settlement ought to take up at least half of our annual migration intake. If this was the case we could accommodate ech and every asylum seeker who reaches our shores.
But Australia has a racist underbelly. If we cannot even treat our indigenous population with dignity what hope have we got of treating "outsiders" with any form of common decency? Pauline Hanson is live and well in Australian politics. We ought to be careful however not to lay the entire blame for the current refugee problem at the feet of the government. Gillard has had her hand forced on this issue through a gridlocked parliament. The government could not have known the hard line the independent panel would take on the issue of asylum seekers, and the other mob promise not only more of the same but much worse.
The media is as much to blame for this farrago of justice. The solution lies in a national and an international dialogue. That our democracy is unable to treat this matter with the dignity it deserves is a reflection on each and every one of those who feed the frenzy of fear and xenophobia over this issue.
Undermining the Gillard government is not the right course at this time. Frankly I am fearful of what mad Abbott might do should he ever become Prime Minister. We need dialogue, not destruction. The government has achieved much good over the pas two years, we should not condemn it based upon one failed policy that it has been forced to adopt by the intransigent positions taken by both the Coalition and the Greens.
Comments
Labor apologist Noel Conway reporting for duty
Labor apologist Noel Conway reporting for duty.
Can he conceive that the campaign is dirty because there is dirt to find on Gillard?
Everything that has been published about her shows her to be a ruthless opportunist.
All politicians are. The higher they rank, the more interest we take in their ruthlessness and opportunism. If everything thrown at her turns out to be true, she is immoral to the core along with her ruthlessness and opportunism. I don’t want a prime minister like that. Let Labor find someone else. The woman you so vehemently and consistently defend – without offering proof of her “cleanliness” – is making it easy to attack Labor and smooth the way for Abbott.
The gridlocked parliament came about partly because of Gillard’s slashing her way into the top job and her large part in the Rudd government’s failure to deliver policy.
Xenophobic hysteria is easy to whip up in a nation that not only has a racist underbelly but is racist through and through. Such a society values Abbotts and occasionally Gillards.
Do tell us, Noel, the “much good” the government has achieved over the past two years. I see nothing but maybe my vision is clouded by my disgust as a social democrat.
You like knocking The Greens, presumably because you see them as the strongest competitors for left-of-centre votes, ie taking away from Labor. They are, as well as being the only politicians in any parliament across the country who make any sense at all. They are not perfect by any means, especially when they’ve tasted a whiff of power, but they do force the main players to pick up ideas they normally wouldn’t.
We will never get a national dialogue on refugee policy. Just as little as we will get a dialogue on equality on all levels for our Indigenous compatriots. Australia remains locked in a colonial mentality in which whites believe they are better, and know better, than Indigenous people and arrogate the right to suppress them and lord it over them. And to steal the wealth that is their birthright.
What you are suggesting, Noel, is that a rotten Gillard is a better choice than a crazy Abbott. Not good enough.
Malaysia solution 1,000 times better than what we have now
Mr Anonymous in many ways you agree with my view. Yes, a rotten Gillard is better than a crazy Abbott. You are not the only social democrat in the room.
Can you offer Labor a choice of an alternative as Prime Minister, given that you agree that Rudd failed? Bill Shorten would lurch us further to the right, and yet he is touted as Prime Minister in waiting.
You are correct, we won't get a national dialogue, and much of the reason for that falls at the feet of the Media.
You are quick to defend the Greens, whom I have voted for in every election for the past twenty years, but they betrayed me when they supported air strikes against Libya, and when they did Abbott's work for him when they dead locked Parliament over the Malaysia solution. Was the Malaysia solution adequate? No. Would it have worked to dissuade asylum seekers from coming here? No. Would it have been a thousand times better than what we presently have? Yes.
I won't rehash the achievements of this government and the government under Rudd. There have been many, and you can only call it willful blindness to not acknowledge them. Two of the most positive were shredding Work Choices and introducing a carbon price.
As i say, I think we agree on more than you wish to acknowledge. Is anything in Gillard's association with the AWU twenty years ago worse than Tony Abbott punching the wall of a building beside the head of a young woman who defeated him in a student election? That is the question you have to answer. A pity the Australian media has failed to do its job.
Gillard is Dangerous, get her out!
Noel Gillard is gone Bill Shorten will lead Labor to the next election and win,Why? you ask, simple Gillard is a lyer. Last month Gillard refused to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Because She said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel should be wiped off the map,This is all bullshit Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not say this just more bullshit from Gillard now she wants us to believe that they have weapons of mass destruction just like Iraq How f...... dumb do they think we are?.Imagen making false claims against a leader of another country just to keep Israel and America happy.Then we have that other clown Bob Brown asking for the assassination of the President of Syria,can you do that?Labor is in the hands of evil we want our Labor party back throw the lying b.... out.
Another mysoginist comes to the fore.
Wow I doubt you ever represented anything in Labor. What makes you think that Shorten will be any different on Israel? Because he isn't a woman?
Israel, America and Australia are war criminals
Noel you are right! Shorten will be no different, Liberal will be no different, Israel and America will still dictate Australian foreign Policy and just think I was silly enough to think we had a democracy but both parties are the same we either back Israel and America or don't vote what a great democracy we live in.It is about time we stopped supporting War criminals like Israel and America, come to think about it Australia are war criminals too.
People like Gillard, Carr and Shorten should be booted out
I have removed some personal jibes from this post. - An editor
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Noel if I point out what Gillard has done is wrong, I am a woman basher.If I point out what Israel has done wrong I am Anti-semitic. Noel, may be you can tell me how the statements she and Bob Carr have made are right.I have been supporting Labor since Gough Whitlam ( you know the Great man that pulled Australia out of the lie they called Vietnam) but I will not support a party that goes to war on lies and helps spread those lies,that makes me a real Labor man and people like Gillard,Carr and Shorten should be booted out and get back to real Labor values.