Extract from "A liberal dose of snake oil" by Alan Ramsey in The Sydney Morning Herald, Date 13/05/2000 "... Politicians are always standing up, hand on heart, and telling you they are only really interested in doing "what is right for the country", selflessly serving the people, doing good deeds, spreading light and happiness wherever they go. And why, you wonder, does Howard think the best interests of Australia are synonymous with the best interests of the Liberal Party? Surely no political leader believes voters are naive enough to think party, political and national interest are the same? Costello wants us to believe he, too, is motivated by the same selfless attitude. Asked by Melbourne radio 3LO's Jon Faine why the Government decided to drop the Timor troops tax levy on incomes of more than $50,000 before the tax even came into operation, the Treasurer replied, with hardly a dry eye in ear-shot: "Well, some people said to me, 'Well, you've done the hard work, why don't you keep the money anyway?' And I thought, well, it wouldn't be right. Because we said it was for East Timor to keep the Budget in surplus. People would have said, 'Hey, the Budget is in surplus! You've paid for East Timor. Why the levy? You've broken faith.' I didn't want to be accused of breaking faith, so we abolished it." They don't make treasurers like that any more. They still, make them, though, like the political twerp who felt $49.5 million over four years, including $15 million in the next 12 months, wasn't too much to placate voter concern about government "doing something" to stop boat people - 3,900 this year - illegally arriving in Australia from Third World countries, but spending almost nothing to stop tourists, mostly Brits and Western Europeans - 53,000 this year - remaining illegally in Australia by overstaying their visas. Most of the first $15 million will go into building more "detention centres" in remote parts of the country into which boat people of assorted races will be herded immediately their sinking, stinking ships are intercepted off the Australian coast, even though you never hear of any of the 50,000-plus illegal, overstaying tourists of the Caucasian variety ever being shut up behind barbed wire and armed guards. As Budget Paper No 2 says, on page 132: "... the Government is implementing a package of measures to address the rapid growth of unauthorised arrivals by boat. On current trends, expenses associated with the interception, detention and processing of [these] unauthorised arrivals are expected to approach $1 billion over the [next four years]. While the impact of this strategy is not immediately quantifiable, the successful implementation of initiatives in the [$49 million] package is expected to substantially reduce the costs to Australia from unauthorised arrivals." Or, as Costello told one interviewer: "... we are going to take a very tough attitude. If people get into the country illegally, then they are going to be put into detention and properly processed ... People are genuinely concerned. They wonder why people smugglers can traffic in people." They wonder far less, apparently, about people who arrive legally but remain illegally on expired visas. But that is not an issue so dramatically visible to voters on the nightly TV news bulletins. Neither is the plight of aged parents whom migrant families want to bring here. The same compassionate Government attitude to refugee boat people is apparent in the policy of "new entry requirements for aged parent migrants" outlined on page 136 of Budget Paper No 2. There it discloses that, from July 1 next year, some 4,000 places are to be set aside in a "contingency reserve" of the annual migration quota to "accommodate an expanded parent migration program", but only on the basis that each "principal applicant" puts up a $10,000 "social security bond" plus another $4,000 for each adult dependant, "with a 10-year assurance of support period". As well, all aged parent migrants must either take out private health insurance for 10 years or "pay health service charges of $25,000 per person". Yet we spent $100 million on the 4,000 Kosovars Australia brought here with great ceremony a year ago, and when we insisted they go home we gave "a very large number" of the adults $3,000 each as a "reconstruction allowance" and the children $500 each, just to be rid of them. Makes you think, doesn't it...." Read the whole article at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/0005/13/text/review9.html -- ********************************** 'Click' to protect the rainforest: Make the Rainforest Site your homepage! http://www.therainforestsite.com/ ********************************** ------------------------------------------------------ RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." 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