This short message to the PM needs to be taped to the back of his toilet door.
The controversy over whether taxpayer money was used to pay people smugglers to return asylum seekers to Australia has been raging for days, with claims now also embroiling the previous Labor Government.
Tony Abbott has repeatedly dodged questions and refused to confirm claims that his government paid tens of thousands of dollars to the crew of an asylum seeker boat.
Related: Did the government pay people smugglers to turn boats back to Indonesia?
Today, the Prime Minister insisted the government had done the “moral ” and “right thing” by stopping the boats.
But the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, which assists asylum seekers in the community and advocates on their behalf, posted the best smack down on their Facebook page.
Check it out:
In case you can’t read that text, it says:
So this just happened this morning.
Tony Abbott this morning on being asked again if Australia paid people smugglers, made it unequivocal that our Government did. Our PM refused to answer and said only the following:
“The only thing that counts is that we have stopped the boats. The most moral thing you can do is stop the boats, to stop the evil trade. The moral, decent, compassionate thing you can do is to stop the boats.”
Actually no Tony Abbott, the most moral thing you can do is protect refugees not aid people smugglers in what you call an “evil trade” as you have by funding them.
The most decent thing you can do is not turn refugees back at sea to torture but assess their claims for asylum as required under international law.
The most compassionate thing you can do is not abandon refugees at sea to just drown somewhere else.
What you have done in paying people smugglers is illegal, a crime under Australian law and you deserve the sack, not praise.
Winning votes at any cost to the lives and human rights of refugees is immoral, indecent and inhumane.
Never a truer word has been spoken.
For related articles, try these:
10 things you need to understand about asylum seekers.
These men are supposed to protect our asylum seekers, but they’re doing the opposite.
The school principal changing the lives of asylum seeker children.
Are you Team Tony or Team ASRC?
Top Comments
Paying the smugglers to go back would incintivise them to make more trips for more pay checks. It is illogical that the government would take this approach. However, the asylum seekers and their advocates have everything to gain by creating this rumor / story.
That's true for the smugglers but refugee advocates always assume that asylum seekers are passive actors without any knowledge of what's going on whereas they are quite well informed and know how the system works. The word will get out very quickly that smugglers will take your money and then take more to go back to Indonesia. Combined with the message that getting on a boat gets you to Nauru and PNG and yet another nail in the smugglers' coffin.
Has there ever been a bigger own goal than Shorten making this the biggest issue of the week and then having to shut up about when it was revealed his lot did the same in government? I was sure when this story first came out that the government leaked it because it makes them look like people who are prepared to do whatever it takes to stop the boats while the ALP can't be trusted. Now they also look like hypocrites. This, combined with the reminder that Shorten shafted two ALP PMs in quick succession and union rorting allegations has pretty much politically killed Shorten. Unless Abbott scores a spectacular own goal (always a possibility unfortunately) I think he's gone within a few months.
Thanks for posting this! The government must be held to account for this. It's deplorable.