Who sank the boat?

Posted by Jenni Colwill on 18 August 2010 | 0 Comments

Who are the ALP and Liberal parties talking to? I want to know more about the hardhearted self-satisfied people who want to sink the hopes of people who have been through hell – are they truly my fellow compatriots?

Both the ALP and the Liberal party believe most Australians are so upset by the trickle of refugees that they have made policies to stop refugees’ boats central to their election campaigns.

Out of 15 million refugees in the world and 26 million internally displaced people, only a very small number make it to Australia.

Those who do come here are certainly no threat to our border security; they are inevitably picked up by our border security patrols, and more often than not they are granted refugee status as they are genuinely fleeing from circumstances worse than we can ever imagine.

It is easy to pick on people less fortunate than yourself, isn’t it?

I can’t vote for a party with these values and sincerely hope that in their next lives both Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard are born into a family of refugees living in a refugee camp in Indonesia. 

After all, whether you are the person on the boat or whether you are the person who wants to stop the boat is entirely an accident of birth.