The well publicised and well often forgot six point plan put forward by the coalition in this year’s pre-election spin has come under fire, as a boat carrying 63 asylum seekers found South of Java has been admitted to Christmas Island after an impasse with Indonesia.
The coalition’s unrelenting veneer surrounding its three word slogan has crumbled slightly; stopping “the boats”, it seems, isn’t as simple as shouting the catchphrase everyplace and wishing really hard for it to magic Australia’s most contested problem away. Today, The Age goes as far to say “Abbott’s Boat Policy Fails Test”, while Mr Abbott remained stringent, saying in Perth, “We will have disappointments, but we will succeed,” according to news.com.au.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison allegedly broke the three day long stalemate with Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, after Natalegawa refused, according to The Age, to accept the vessel unless its passengers were at serious life risk. Scott Morrison described the acceptance of the boat into Australia as “in the best interests of the safety of the passengers and crew”, and claimed that the passengers would be transferred from Christmas Island to Nauru or Manus Island.
Morrison told media yesterday that the negotiation and broken impasse was under “review” with Indonesia, however, The Age reports that Agus Barnas, an Indonesian spokesperson for Djoko Suyanto said, ”As far as I’m concerned, there is no review of the government of Indonesia’s position/standpoint on the refugees who wish to go to Australia.” Barnas added, ”We don’t want Indonesia to be a dumping ground, but we don’t want Australia to accuse us of not doing anything. We want to respect Australia. At least for the time being, we will not accept them.”
The news comes after a string of poor press for the coalition has trickled in during the last few days; the proposed repeal of the racial discrimination act stirred outrage, the cutting of the AusAID program was met with disapproval and the government was criticised for choosing not to send its environment minister Greg Hunt to the UN Climate change conference in Warsaw next week.
At least Tone didn’t literally run from this one, this time.
Via The Age.
Title image by William West via Getty.
