EXTRACT: AUSTRALIA SHOULD NOT BE CAVALIER TOWARDS ASYLUM SEEKER ALLEGATIONS Scott Morrison is right in declaring that thwarted asylum seekers have a strong motive to advance spurious claims of bad treatment at the hands of the Australian Navy. But he is wrong and politically unwise to treat allegations that have been made with searing contempt. Morrison could defend the navy’s reputation while saying that the claims - of people getting their hands burned from being made to hold hot engine parts, and other injuries - did need to be properly investigated. Instead he resorted to a diatribe. “The Australian government is not going to put up with people sledging the Australian Navy with unsubstantiated claims when they have high levels of motivation for spinning stories in order to undermine this government’s very successful border protection program and policies,” he told a news conference. “There is no substantiation to the sorts of allegations that are being made and publicised and put around. “I think the mere publication [by the ABC] of things that are clearly so unsubstantiated is unfortunate.” The minister said he had been given assurances about the conduct of the naval people and “I believe those assurances because I believe in those individuals”. On whether an independent investigation was needed, he said: “I think I’ve made my position on this crystal clear.” Morrison’s comments are over-the-top and ill-judged on a number of fronts. You would think the government would have absorbed the lesson from its unfortunate experience last week. After an unequivocal declaration that no Australian ships had entered Indonesian waters, information suddenly came to light that forced it to admit this had happened on a number of occasions. Go back a lot further, to 2001: the Howard government was equally unequivocal that asylum seekers had thrown “children overboard”, when it had not happened. It’s always best to be a little cautious. The government probably would be if the allegations did not involve asylum seekers. Continue reading: bit.ly/1dwOIGA
Posted on: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 00:47:35 +0000
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