Amid the predictable uproar today from those on the left clambering over each other to lay claim to the moral high ground, a few key facts are worth considering.
When the ALP won power in 2007, the number of refugees held in detention could be counted on one hand, and none of them were children. Under the Howard Government, Australia had had the highest immigration and refugee intake it had ever had.
The measures which were taken to achieve this result were harsh, and caused suffering, but they provided a strong enough deterrent to prevent more suffering from occurring had it not been done. Nothing short of these measures could have achieved this.
The removal of Howard’s Border Protection regime by Labor, strongly supported by the Greens, directly caused the death of over 1000 people who drowned trying to come here in unseaworthy boats.
Australia’s refugee and immigration quotas had to be reduced in order to cope with the 50 000 refugees who arrived here illegally in Labor’s two terms. Now that the Liberal Party has restored order to the immigration program, (again at great cost, sometimes fatal, to the unfortunate refugees involved,) Australia will once again be able to help more people.
It is mind-boggling that those who call for “compassion” and “mercy” for refugees can advocate a policy which causes them nothing but abject suffering, and the policy which they decry as “racist” and a crime against humanity is the policy which helps refugees the most.
The ALP and the Greens have blood on their hands, the blood of over one thousand people who drowned trying to come to Australia by leaky boat, who made the attempt as a direct result of Labor and Greens policy. This point cannot be stressed enough, and it is vital that this point is repeated over and over again, for the sake of our country and for the sake of all who want to come here.