An election to the bottom of the barrel

Asylum seekers arriving by boat have, once again, become a hot button political issue in this year’s election.  We have returned to the worst of the Tampa election year, where asylum seekers have once again become a political football.

We have witnessed a failure of leadership on both sides of the political fence with each party devoid of a moral compass when it comes to how they have dealt with the issue of people seeking asylum.

Gillard and Abbott have battled to try and win the contest of who can be ‘tougher on boat people’.  Each is trying to outdo the other, one promising to turn back the boats and re–open Nauru, the other, committed to damning them to indefinite detention on the impoverished country of East Timor.

One would think that the arrival of people seeking asylum by boat, has a significant and negative impact on the lives of everyday Australia and Australians.  The reality could not be further from the truth.  The few thousand of people who seek asylum by boat are a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands who come on student, skilled and family visas.  This year, 99.99% of all people who enter Australia will do so by airplane not by boat.  This is not the common perception but is the reality.  Most people are also unaware that there have not been any terrorists who’ve arrived on a leaky boat for the 35 years of modern boat arrivals.

The great tragedy is that it is the people fleeing for their lives who will pay the true human cost.  Whether it is the 651 children in detention or the hundreds of Afghans who face an August with their refugee claims frozen who would otherwise have been found to be refugees.