On more than one occasion, frustrated men standing before a pollie they despise have taken to a unique manoeuvre: when left with nought but the clothes on their back, hurling a shoe in the general direction of a politician isn’t, oddly, uncommon practice.
George W Bush has been victim to it. So has John Howard. And so have dozens of others – meticulously recorded on Wikipedia’s greatest page.
Because we aren’t all blessed enough to be bloody MacGyver. Sometimes, when people have seen politicians who boil their blood, there hasn’t been time for innovation. Footwear has had to do.
Freshest casualty of the phenomenon is Australia’s Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, who reportedly fell victim to a pair of rogue shoes, hurled by a 33-year-old man—since arrested for public nuisance—according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The incident went down this morning at the Annerley Football Club in Brisbane, at a welcome ceremony for refugees.
“We live in a democracy and not everyone agrees with our strong border protection policies. It was a silly action, but I managed to catch one out of two,” Peter Dutton said in a statement on Sunday afternoon, according to SMH.
But dodging shoes is one thing; Dutton can only wish that dodging criticism from the United Nations on Australia’s immigration policy would be as much of a cinch.
Today, SMH reports that the UN have interviewed asylum seekers in Indonesia to corroborate allegations against the Australian government that came to light this week, claiming people smugglers were paid by Australian officials to turn their boats around.
Like Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Peter Dutton has refused to confirm or deny the reports, saying any comment on immigration operations has always been a breach of protocol.
“The government will always do the right thing by the Australian people, we will act within the law, we will act within our international obligations. But from day one we have not commented on specific operations. We provide details at a time which is operationally appropriate but we don’t comment outside of that.”
On Thursday, The Project’s Waleed Aly directly called on Tony Abbott to officially comment on the allegations. “What are we going to do about these very serious allegations, Prime Minister?” Waleed Aly asked, “You don’t get to do this in a democracy.”
Waleed explores the allegations against the government about paying people smugglers #TellUsTony #TheProjectTV #auspol
Posted by The Project on Friday, 12 June 2015
via SMH.
Lead image by Stefan Postles via Getty.
