Well this week was somewhat uneventful, until we got to Friday.
That’s when Kevin Rudd announced his new asylum seeker policy – to settle those who arrive by boat to Papua New Guinea.
I’m assuming that the idea is to thwart people smugglers, who are sending these boats to Australia, as asylum seekers pay them to get here – the idea being that if it’s obviously apparent that paying a people smuggler to get to Australia, when the likelihood of doing so is incredibly low, the smuggling will stop.
Ok. In a way, I get it. It will stop the people smuggling and that’s a good thing. But I was under the impression that if they ended up on christmas island or Nauru, then they were Australia’s responsibility to process and resettle in Australia, not to palm them off to PNG. In return PNG is getting more development aid. It’s one of these things where, until I have more information – which is what I like to have in order to make decisions – I’m not entirely sure whether or not it’s a good policy.
Earlier in the week, those interested were entertained by Mr Tony Abbott’s comments on the emissions trading scheme Kevin Rudd’s government announced, which you can read in Quotes of the Week below. The emissions trading scheme switch is thought to give the budget 4-6 billion dollar-wide hole. Labor’s denying this though. However, businesses like the idea, and it is how Europe is doing it. Oh, and while the carbon tax was something like $25 per tonne, this is a variable rate, depending on the amount you emit.
Other than that, the asylum seekers are rioting on Nauru – I can’t tell why though.
Quotes of the Week
“This is not a true market. Just ask yourself what an emissions trading scheme is all about…It’s a so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no-one” – Tony Abbott on an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)
“I understand this is a very hard-line decision. I understand the different groups in Australia and around the world will see this decision in different ways,but our responsibility as a government is to ensure we have a robust system of border security and orderly migration on the one hand, as well as fulfilling our legal and compassionate obligations under the Refugees’ Convention on the other” – Kevin Rudd on the PNG policy.
Tweet of the Week
The ABC’s Indonesian Correspondent was the one who had to tell asylum seekers what was going on when he came to interview some of them – they hadn’t got the news yet…
Faux Pas of the Week
Say again?
Kara L 