Indeed Rudd has confessed his devout Catholicism on numerous occasions. His government continues to refuse to recognise same sex relationships, claiming, as Howard did, that marriage is the sanctity of heterosexual couples. With the abortion debate raging in Victoria, the federal parliament is about to debate late-term abortion legislation (some time during September).

Enter the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL). This organisation's sole purpose is to influence Australian governments to adopt Christian values and principles. Now this not sound too bad to some I'm sure but once you scratch the thin veneer you see a much different organisation; one that espouses a fundamentalist set of Christian values and principles.

The Australian Christian Lobby is so desperate to keep its extreme agenda in the halls of parliament that it has solicited the help of the fundamentalist Christian lobby in the US. As quoted from The Age:

"An American "abortion survivor" will lobby federal politicians in Canberra tomorrow, ahead of a Senate debate next month on late term abortions.

Gianna Jessen, 31, will relate her extraordinary story at Parliament House. She is being sponsored by the Australian Christian Lobby."

The ACL once again uses weak and debunked arguments to continue to maintain their manifesto in Parliament. Rather than accepting that abortion is a matter between a woman and her doctor, the ACL only accepts birth as the answer to all pregnancies. It fails to recognise the potential harm and damage done to women having pregnancies for a range of reasons, but then the ACL is a fundamentalist Christian organisation.

It's not surprising to see someone like Senator Barnett (TAS, Lib) make the following kind of comments:

"...he fully understood how women may be offended by male commentary on abortion, and he understood the intimacy of the pain suffered by women who considered having an abortion. But he said he was more persuaded by the rights of a child to live and grow up."

The Bill being debated in Victoria to decriminalise abortions seems set to move through the Parliament. It was heartening to read of Colleen Hartland's (Western Metro Region, Vic Greens) preparedness to share her story in The Age earlier in the week. The Bill's debate will have plenty of pro-life clap-trap thrown in from Members of Parliament like Bernie Finn (Western Metro Region, Lib).

But back to Canberra.

I sure hope any Senator approached for a meeting flatly refuses (of course Fielding and Barnett won't need meetings).

Such complete disinterest in wielding the camera prompted by a number of factors. I'd just about reached the end of a fairly intense period of photo-related tasks. The weather was totally uninspiring... grey, overcast, drab and dreary. And, to cap it all, I'd finally managed to track down a batch of Climate Camp pics that had somehow gone astray... meaning another round of selecting/processing/uploading within the not-too-distant future.

So, there I was, waiting at the stop for the bus to arrive and carry me into town when I hear the sound of an approaching siren. Hmm. Dunno what it is, what its for, what its about, but might be interesting.
And quickly whip out the camera (well, despite my lack of intentions inevitably I had my camera backpack with me... after all, you never know). Within seconds a Fire Service vehicle comes belting around the bend... straight into my viewfinder!
A totally inconsequential shot maybe but I was quite pleased nevertheless... if for no other reason than my presence of mind.

Camera away. Bus arrives. Jump on. Head into town.

Bus station. Wander into a couple of nasty bill-paying type places, then amble on to the Bear. And there, on the High Street, another Fire Service vehicle! Wow! Two in one day! The coincidence and opportunity was just too good to miss (even though the vehicle/crew didn't seem to be doing much at all), so fire off another shot.

Finally, the Bear! But I ask you... how long do you seriously expect matey (matey at the Bear that is, the ill-fated fotddarren... ill-fated cos he knows me! Heh heh) and I to be rabbiting away to each other before the good old pic-taking kit comes out and we start messing around.
Alas, the lighting therein was particularly abyssmal today... no doubt on account of the fact that there was absolutely no sunshine coming through the windows at all. So all the messing-around shots we did were virtually unusable. But we then repaired outside and, though I say it myself, I ended up with a coupla shots that I actually find quite pleasing.

During the course of all this messing around we started chatting to a mutual acquaintance (a Bear customer, naturally) who happened to mention that the John Howard statue along the High Street a bit is well worth looking at... particularly the ornamental base which possesses some interesting features. Might be worth a shot or two.

Matey finishes work and the three of us (matey, his girlfriend, and yours truly) set off on the regular weekly mile or so trek to our favoured supermarket for the week's supplies, stopping en route at the aforementioned statue.

Now normally about this sort of time (early evening) the Wednesday market is still being packed up and cleared away but today, bizarrely, it had all gone. Not a soul around!
Well, despite the crap lighting the opportunity was too good to miss, so out come the cameras and click, click, click.
It has to be said, the pics in this particular set aren't terribly inspiring. Getting decent shots of statues at the best of times can be a bit of a challenge, and this certainly wasn't the best of times. But I came out of it with a handful of moderately reasonable ones, and one particularly that seems to me to be quite dramatic.

The final shot of the day (same location, but not of the statue) also turned out to be one I find rather pleasing.

And so much for lack of intentions... or the intention to not take any pics today!

Tim Blair today disputes Philip Adams' assertion that Malcolm Turnbull is the federal opposition's best bet for leader, and that the Liberal Party would do well "to attack Labor from the left, as British conservatives are learning to do with new-style leaders such as David Cameron and Boris Johnson".

Ever the climate-change opportunist, he counters Adams' argument on environmental grounds, claiming Cameron's rise in popularity follows his "shift away from greenism". He also cites a couple of Johnson's "about-faces" on environmental issues.

Tim concludes with the following:

Australian conservatives tried to neutralise global warming as an issue last year by making happy sounds about carbon trading and such. They lost the election anyway, and now find themselves tied to various warmster words. They should cut loose and declare themselves the party that will save the jobs Rudd would destroy.

Malcolm Turnbull doesn't seem like the man for the job.

Tim Blair isn't the only high-profile NewsLtd blogger arguing along these lines (and we'll be awarding no boxes of cigars for guessing which other outspoken, fiercely independent thinker is nodding furiously in agreement), but his advice for the Liberals warrants some analysis.

It seems to me madness to suggest there are enough votes in climate-change denialism to get the Liberals across the line in a forthcoming election, irrespective of who leads the party and notwithstanding the jobs Tim alleges will be "destroyed" as a result of the Rudd government's environmental policies.

Tim appears already to have forgotten that John Howard's reticence to acknowledge the electorate's concerns --- or make "happy noises" --- about climate change was one of the key contributors to his government's resounding defeat at the 2007 ballot.

Can this tide of pubic opinion have changed so dramatically so soon? Could it do so before the next election, or even the one after that? I wouldn't have thought so.

Tim Blair's and Andrew Bolt's daily pronouncements that the scientific proof is mounting against the thesis of anthropogenic climate change are, as we've argued at this site, often little more than bluffs and white lies delivered to a gaggle of sycophants eager to gobble them up.

It goes without saying that Tim's and Andrew's regular commenters are not representative of Australian society as a whole (to be fair, neither are ours), and that these two bloggers wield far less influence than they or their employer would like to believe, preaching as they do to the largely converted. 

So what is the prevalent mood in Australia about the challenges we face in dealing with climate change --- whether the problem is real or imagined, anthropogenic or natural, trivial or critical? And seeing that the debate is now utterly politicised, what shade of government would be best equipped to tackle such issues?

Furthermore, is Tim's advice to the opposition indicative of another form of denialism --- i.e. an unwillingness to acknowledge that Australian attitudes moved well beyond the Howard government's right-wing ideology in the latter part of its incumbency, and that the last thing that will bring the Liberal party back into power is a sudden, uncompromising return to its thoroughly repudiated (electorally speaking) conservatism?

Love to hear your thoughts.

With John  Howard now well and truly departed from the political scene in Australia, having lost his job to both Kevin Rudd and Maxine (in his electorate), I thought it might be time for John Howard diehards to purchase their bit of memorabilia to remember him by. What better way to remember John Howard than with owning your own copies of ‘The Complete Walks of John Howard’ can there be?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TynaPefTTqY

When I was a kid growing up the "Save the Whales"  protesters were the stereotype for hippies and do gooders of the 70's. In fact, before there was the term "green", "save the whales" had that same feeling. The same type of people, just a different time This entry is a tribute to all those who have struggled and fought to save the whales!!!

Whale Call Incorporated are still fighting the good fight. Here are some petitions they list on their site.

Petitions

To support the efforts of Councilor Greg Best of Wyong Shire to protest Whaling
Target: The Japanese Embassy

To educate the Japanese public through the use of global Sister City relationships
Target: Mr. Shinzo Abe, Japanese Prime Minister, Japanese Government and Royal Family

Tell Australian PM to say NO to Japanese whaling in Australian Antarctic Territorial waters
Target: John Howard, Prime Minister, Australian Federal Government

The Mad Mermaids have their own thing going on...

Then there is Whales.org. Their mission is to be the global voice for the protection of whales, dolphins and their environment.

Save the whales.

-Cara

There's been another email message circulating the inner-body of cyberspace like a virus, or an anti-body, depending upon how you look at it. Even though the news is old hat, the email still attempts to drum-up support for Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, who lit the fuse to Australia's Muslim community with seemingly un-PC remarks about Muslim extremists.

Is that true? Has he really crossed that line and become one those socially acceptable opponents of political correctness?

He has indeed.

According to Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, "He said a commitment to jihad and extreme attitudes towards women were two problems unique to Muslims that previous intakes of migrants from Europe did not have, and that Australia wanted people to assimilate and adopt Australian ways." Howard also said that Australians want people to assimilate.

By social convention, there's acceptable and unacceptable departures from PC, you know. An example of an acceptable departure from PC is welcoming asylum-seekers and migrants of any phenotype with the unenforceable condition that they assimilate. Of course, Jewish migrants are the exception to that example: they would find such demands impudent and Czarish. The Jewish population of Australia goes back to the beginning of that country, and so does its struggles against assimilation. But that's the socially acceptable, un-PC voice. That is what passes as the alternative and remedial view to the fanatical advocates of political correctness. It's very much akin to the positions of socially acceptable PC apostates in America and Europe.

In the marketplace of ideas, you have only two options if you're to avoid any real stigma. You can either be a socially acceptable pluralist who embraces migrants of any phenotype unconditionally, or you can be a socially acceptable PC heretic who welcomes them with superficial conditions.

Don't get me wrong. Dismissing the demands of outsiders, who insist on changing the ways of the country which had been gracious enough to grant them refuge, solely to accommodate the culture of the nation from which they fled, is always a sign of sanity. But it's a perfunctory exercise of sanity. It not only fails to subject the melting pot model of coexistence to adversarial testing, but it presupposes that the melting pot isn't boiling over at all! And if any difficulties are recognized, the solutions are always more diversification or assimilation. Never separation.

Sometimes the socially acceptable deviation from political correctness appears to make sense. But that's only because you're being told that all is not well in the melting pot (and you can see that with your own eyes). A good example of this is former Governor Richard D. Lamm's I Have A Plan To Destroy America. Lamm identifies racial identity, bilingualism and multi-culturalism as causal factors in national suicide. He even suggests there are explanations other than prejudice for the drop-out rate in the black and hispanic communities.

Hymm, interesting. Has Lamm read Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein's Bell Curve? Or Richard Lynn's Race differences in Intelligence: an Evolutionary Analysis? Or Philippe Rushton's Race, Evolution and Behavior? At first glance, Lamm appears to make sense, just as all socially acceptable opponents of political correctness appear to make sense. But upon closer inspection, his rhetoric is nothing short of rubbish.

Lamm, like John Howard, suggests that "assimilation" and "unity" will magically cure the problems we see in the melting pot, making it a Utopian smorgasbord with national longevity. How exactly do genetically different races, with genetically different brains and genetically different hormones, assimilate? Will the population be processed through an assimilation machine to equalize cranial capacity, brain size, cerebral cortex convolutions, IQ, and testosterone levels? In walks your average, crotch-grabbing, low-IQ negro with sagging pants and crime-prone behavior, and out walks a business man with a hsapien V.2.1 upgrade, with new features like adjusted hormones, larger cranium and brain sizes and higher-IQ. Civilized behavior guaranteed. SAT scores will be so high that sports scholarship offers will be an insult. No more rapping the national anthem.

If you haven't guessed it yet, the unacceptable departure from political correctness is the racist one, and it's condemned by liberals and conservatives alike. The racialist view is also the causal view. This view doesn't stop analyzing the problem after realizing that multi-culturalism isn't working, or that differences exist in the drop-out rate and values of various races. The racialist does not simply realize that races are not alike. The racialist asks why races are not alike. What differences exist and why do these differences exist? Are these differences genetic? And if the differences are genetic, can they ever be changed? Furthermore, how sane is it to base social policies upon the fallacy that all races are equal, when biologically they are not, and never will be?

So John Howard made a socially acceptable, politically incorrect remark. Big deal. He's hardly worthy of patriotic applause.

He's not even a true-blue assimilationist. A real assimilationist would have rejected pressure from Jewish activists to create criminal offenses prohibiting anyone from subjecting the holocaust to historiography. Rather than standing up for free speech, a tradition of freedom-loving Australians and Americans alike, John Howard allowed historian David Irving to be arrested, jailed and prosecuted, solely to accommodate the whims and conceits of Jewry, particularly those Jews who exploit human suffering for profit and political advantage. A real assimilationist would have said "No. This is Australia. We don't create laws to imprison historians who disagree with other historians. This is Australia and we value free speech. Assimilate now or leave!"

PC-infidel John Howard is merely a part-time assimilationist. When he's not making assimilationist demands to Lebanese and other Arab migrants, he's a Jew-appeaser.

If you get the same email, return to sender, so the forwarders can get it through through their heads. We don't want non-European immigrants at all; and as for the ones already here, we don't want them to assimilate. We want to racially segregate without public or private interference.

I saw photos of Lance that actually made me gasp, as he has grown SO MUCH! His appetite has to be seen to be believed- is it any wonder I have transformed into Suzie Homemaker, preparing batches of cookies, muffins and other diabetes-friendly taste sensations. He's morphed from a little boy into my best pal. We chit-chat and laugh all day long, and never tire of each other's company. I'm so blessed to have him. :D

I recalled historical events like World Diabetes Day, and the ousting of our former stale and tiresome Prime Minister.

I read comments from all of the wonderful, supportive and unfailingly kind D Bloggers, when Lance was diagnosed with his first complications.

I also marvelled at the many new and special friendships I have made.  I am so proud of the people that I call "friend" in my Blogroll, each of them are entirely different, and it's that diversity that I dearly cherish .

Over the past year, I have reinforced my friendship with my good friend, Shannon, who is a fantastic confidante, and so unbelievably kind. Even though we have an ocean between us, we walk in very similar shoes. (Of course, I am Lance's Mum, and Shannon is Brendon's Mom, Brendon being Lance's penfriend and link to what's happening in the States.) Dan, my younger brother, has taken some collosal steps over the past year, and as a result is sitting in a very cosy nook, where the sun is always at its brightest. I am so proud of who you have become, sweetheart. Then there is Kerri, the first D Blogger I ever made contact with. She too, has had a fantastic 12 months, and a result, made a stunning bride in May.

I have also made some fascinating friendships along the way.  Janek-possibly the most charismatic man I have ever known. I swear, he is the equivilent of Human Valium-his ability to transform me from inconsolable and exhausted, to tranquil and calm is a true gift. He feels more like family these days. Dae is a really funky chick who Lance has taken an extreme liking to-her posts are very inspiring and fresh, despite lugging Type 2 Diabetes alongside her. Oh my, then there is Kezza. This gorgeous creature has left me wheezing from attacks of manic laughter. He also talks my talk, and without fail, has something interesting or inspirational to say. If Lance could grow up and manage to squeeze his Diabetes into his back pocket the way Kezza can, I would be a very content mother. Other "Mom's" like Rhonda and Penny are inspirational women, and it's been comforting to learn about their daily struggles and successes as parents of beautiful kids with Type 1 Diabetes.

To every person who reads my posts, and has sent love, prayers, best wishes and hope for Lance, thank you, thank you, thank you. A sentence with a kind sentiment included can make such a difference on a trying day. It also means a lot to Lance that people from all over the world have him in their thoughts.

This post is dedicated to each of you. You continue to provide me with glimmers of hope, and some raucous cackles thrown in for good meaure. The worst day can be turned around by some gentle, patient words of encouragement.

On the same note, please know that I am always really eager to know how your lives are progressing, and that catching up on your posts is always a special time of my day.

Ah, you are just a bunch of shiny, happy people.

I've begun reading a new book though, 'The World Without Us' by Alan Weisman. Cheery title I know, but its not so gloomy, as much as a book about the extiction of the human race can be. It describes what most likely would happen if humans suddenly vanished leaving behind all the stuff that we've created. I've only read the first few chapters, but its an interesting idea to explore. One thing that stuck with me, and makes this whole shpeal slightly relevant to the blog, was that while most human built additions to the landscape, generally get absorbed into nature, with little or no trace, there is one thing that has survived in many cases. Food producing trees and plants. The means of food production live on after we're long gone, well in some cases anyhow...

Another thing raised in the book, was when it talked about how modern houses are constructed compared to ones in history past. The rise of particle board and all its off shoots, was rationalised with this, 'the massive trees that yielded the great wooden posts and beams that still support medieval European, Japanese and early American walls are now too precious and  rare, and we're left to make do with gluing together smaller boards and scraps'. It put into context how much we've taken from the world, and what we have left. I think it is human nature though that we only start to think about how we use a certain resource, when we realise there is a finite amount and can see the end. Think about when you have a full jar of nuts, you'll eat them by the handful, not taking much notice. But once you get towards the end, you'll start eating only a few at time, and then say individually. Till point where the amount you ate in one handful at the beginning, will last you a good half hour. Its only on these last few that you realise the full flavour and texture, and then they're all gone.

As you can see I had a little bit of time to reflect on things today... On the way home I popped into the smallgoods place down the road, and grabbed some sausages for dinner. Once I was home I made up a quick bacon and spring onion omlette, before embarking on a number of things that seemed productive at the time, but I can't place now what I actually got done. Anyhow round 7, got I dinner ready which consisted of diced sausages fried with some onion and the rest of the mushrooms, on mashed potato. Flicking on the tv, I came across an interesting story of a well regarded Australian businessman, who came to the realisation that a steady as she goes attitude wasn't the way to address climate change, and decided to challenge the PM of the time, John Howard, over his stance on climate change. He went to the point of quitting his highly held job and investing his own money to campaign against the PM over climate change. I found it really interesting to see someone of his position in the business world, throw everything away pretty much to stand up for what he believed in. Pretty compelling stuff.

And in case you were wondering (I know you were) dinner was pretty good too. So there you go, another day down.

(Someone said John Howard likes Bob Dylan. Maybe I have to stomach even this.)

"Every other country looks like professional athletes, like winners. The Australians look like they've just come from the pool and someone has said 'Quick, you've got to be at the stadium'. Isn't this the most embarrassing thing? It's so disappointing - yet again."

Australian fashion designer Peter Morrisey is not impressed with the uniform worn by the Australian team at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games. Australian Olympic Committee spokesman Mike Tancred was defiant:

"The opening ceremony is not going to be for old fogeys and fat officials, it [the uniform] is designed so young athletes feel comfortable about wearing it."

Writers to the Daily Telegraph disagreed on whether or not they liked the uniform:

"It's 24 hours later and my friends and I are still discussing how hideous the Aussie uniforms looked. A 1970s roller disco cap, a John Howard tracksuit and 80's bluelight disco silver shoes. Come on, who are you kidding Sportscraft?...AOC, sack your stylist." Shelby Chatter.

"Oh that uniform...Pity about the Aussies in their wish-wash blue "boiler suits"." Trish Honeyfield.

"On our athletes marching in Beijing, my first thought was they were "rappers' of the music kind, and then "wrappers"...the merging blue and white colouring of the trackies was bright and fresh, and I immediately thought of menthol lolly wrappers." Tom Daly.

Not everyone thought the uniforms were hideous:

"As far as I am concerned, Australia would have taken a gold medal and the fashion stakes." Tatiane Labarthe.

"Get a life, people, insread of whingeing about things. And put your energy into something else - something far more important. Like cheering on the Aussies at the Olympics!" Kylie Hutchings.

Unemployment is high and buildings is gettin chopped down

Gold teeth populating the block

Slurring slang they ignite on the lookout for cops

Make the shots ring out like the liberty bell

No escape from the heat that's getting hotter than hell

Like the oven's on broil, with blood stains in the soil

Pimped on in the colors of crown royal.."

When the summer heat is sweltering, not in the blissful middle stages where frolicking in backyards through sprinklers is rampant, but the unbearable humid and unrelenting fan forced oven temperatures, I can admit I'm not in the best of moods. While I love the summer and I probably mention it every two posts, I hate the sweaty, unbreathable days where all you can do is lay in the dark under the air conditioner, or if you are even unluckier, under a fan. So is it any wonder that the heat has been linked to violence? Shakespeare was onto it well before The Age was. We are no strangers to the idea, with common sayings such as 'heat of the moment', 'hot under the collar', 'hot head' and so on reinforcing the idea of anger with hot temperatures.

This can only get worse with the current climate change. Cue the Luli pointing to global warming again, attempting to influence some changes in attitude towards the phenomena and perhaps an incentive to get motivated in changing our lifestyles. Things are only going to get worse, until we manage to get our emissions down to reasonable standards. And even that is not enough, we need global cooperation, a massive scale of effort. Surely I don't need to point to the pictures of Beijing, to get the point across?

I'm still cursing Howard for his bullshit spin on whether or not global warming is real. It has already been proven that we are the cause, yet the amount of people who debate with me about its existence fucking stuns me. The power of denial is incredible. In the face of damning scientific evidence, Howard said 'No I don't believe it,' and we all go along with him no questions asked. Must be such a slap in the face to the experts.

What we are doing is not enough, we have to start converting our houses to solar power or other renewable energies. My mother is a big fan of the most annoying tv 'news' shows on the earth, Today Tonight and ACA, but the other day even they made a strong case in favour of solar energy houses. A woman has converted her house and now generates so much electricity with her solar panels that the electricity company borrows from her, and pays her for HER electricity. Her bill reads +$20 or something. Look, if those shitty propaganda machines can agree, surely the evidence is damning?

Say it costs $12,000 to convert, if the government paid everyone $8,000 of that, who wouldn't be willing to change? We can do it, we have the resources and the money, I mean come on, we're working with surplus now.. Lets put it into something helpful. Fuck the baby bonus! These quick fix programs are not going to work. There is overwhelming evidence that once the caps melt (roughly 30 years), the world is going back to the Ice Age. I hope you can snowboard.

"It's sad the map of the world is on you

The moon gravitates around you

The seasons escape you

And I always was, always was one for crying

I always was one for tears

No, I never was, never was one for lying

You lied to me all of these years

The sun's getting cold, its snowing

Looks like an early winter for us.."

The lads from The Chaser have pulled out of a trip to Beijing to crash the Olympics, citing safety concerns.

"We talked about it, but we trust the NSW police more than the Red Army,"

Proving once again that it's really all too easy to pull stunts at "evil" Western conservatives like Bush and Howard who will be nice to you, than confront real villains who will throw you in jail or murder your family. So brave are these guys! It remind me of a quote from Mark Steyn:

Because that’s what civilized nations like doing — chit-chatting, shooting the breeze, having tea and crumpets, talking talking talking. Uncivilized nations like torturing dissidents, killing civilians, bombing villages, doing doing doing. It’s easier to get the doers to pass themselves off as talkers then to get the talkers to rouse themselves to do anything.

At least The Chaser guys seem to understand the difference between the real villains and imaginary ones. If only John Pildger, Robert Fisk and 90% of Guradianista and The Age set also got it.

Mr Rudd is not the first Australian politician to boast a convict past. Former prime minister John Howard, who was unseated by Mr Rudd last year, has convict forebears on his mothers' and fathers' sides, including a maternal second great-grandfather who was convicted of complicity in the theft of a tortoiseshell watch.

I am attaching a fascinating document sent to me by John Van Luyn, who has been taking an interest in the Whitfield family history. John wrote:

Came across this paper today from the Irish National Archives. It gives a very good insight into the horrible times during transportation. Very interestingly there is a reference for transportation for life where a convict was sentenced to transportation for life for arson.

Our ancestor was a "lifer".

On Irish Convicts (PDF)

This is an issue I ranted about at some length, my position being that what the then government was really doing was pandering to xenophobia, a ploy that proved even more effective, for a while, as an election winner than it may or may not have as a reasonable and ethical -- especially ethical -- approach to refugee issues. There were noble voices on the government's own side opposing the policy all along the line; those voices were amply vindicated, in my view, and deserve honour. There was little honour at the top on the Howard government side, from the Gnome himself down through The Cadaver to the last occupant of The Cadaver's portfolio, the Po-Faced (Dr Haneef is Eeeevill and I know it but can't say why) Plonker, whose name I have temporarily forgotten...

Now my collected rant on this is a page over on Floating Life 04/06 ~ 11/07: Rants and raves — 1: “Massaging the Asylum Seekers” — Howard government and border protection.

As for what The Cadaver is saying now, the first comment on the ABC story linked in paragraph one sums up my feelings pretty well.

The sad thing is that Phillip Ruddock seems to actually believe the nonsense that comes out of his mouth. Hitler and Stalin probably thought they did a good job of "solving" ethnic migration issues too (a long term historic view suggests their bloody efforts did not achieve their original goals, however).
Like it or not, we live in a globalized world nowadays, and that should mean that national borders everywhere become more porous. Anyone who has traveled to Europe in the past few decades will know what I am talking about: not only do EU citizens travel freely from one member state to another, but citizens from northern Africa, the Middle East and other non-EU countries are increasingly represented.
Sure, this creates some social tensions and even economic challenges. But you cannot have free movement of trade without free movement of people, and the benefits far outweigh the negatives.
Kevin Rudd's decision to issue special work visas for Pacific Islanders is a step in the right direction. When we get similar deals in place with Indonesia, Malaysia and other northern neighbours, our economy will benefit and we'll have no excuse not to slash the bloated "Defense" budget.

-- Gary Lord

Though the Hitler/Stalin comparison is a cliche, and possibly offensive, and is not one I would resort to.

As even The Oz opines today, it is well and truly time the policy changed, and one would hope the Senate would put no obstacles in the way of such necessary reform. To me it is a matter of national honour. Mind you, The Oz gives the Gnome, The Cadaver, and The Plonker more credit than I would.

THE federal Government's relaxation of Australia's mandatory detention rules is appropriate for current circumstances. In welcoming the changes as humane and decent, The Australian recognises that such reforms would not have been in the nation's interest when more than 8000 boatpeople arrived from 1999 to 2001, mostly from the Middle East and Afghanistan, via people-smugglers running unseaworthy vessels out of Indonesia.
The measures announced by Immigration Minister Chris Evans mean that asylum-seekers and those caught overstaying their visas, who mostly arrive by air, will be detained in centres only if they pose a risk. As a deterrent, the Government will retain mandatory detention for all unauthorised arrivals to allow health, identity and security checks. Unless they pose a threat, however, they will then be held in the community until their cases are finalised. Children, and if possible, their families, will not be held in detention centres. Despite criticism from human rights groups, the Government has decided that boatpeople will continue to be detained on Christmas Island, with their cases to be resolved as quickly as possible. This is a prudent deterrent against a resumption of people-smuggling.

The changes are no surprise. On election eve, Kevin Rudd made it clear in this newspaper that his Government would pursue an "orderly" policy on asylum-seekers, using detention as a last, rather than a first, resort. He also pledged to retain the Christmas Island facility...

NEXT DAY

Arthur has a good post on this.