Here is a consise history lesson for my non-Australian readers, if you are Australian and don't know this you should learn more about your country. In the 1890's concern was rising over the number of chinese that were entering Australia in search of gold. Australia instituted the "White Australia Policy". The purpose of this was to limit people entering Australia who were not of western European descent. It lasted until 1970 when it was finally dismantled.

The initial intend was to ensure that, amongst other things, immigrants to Australia could speak English and had English values. Accordingly part of the entrance test was an oral examination. Conveniently the legislation did not specify English for the test so, if your skin was a bit too yellow, or too brown, then they would ask you to do the test in, say, Swahili, if you passed they would then ask you to do it in Bengali, and so on until they found a language you couldn't speak. Then they declared you to have failed and you were expelled.

Two days ago a boat load of Turkish Kurds arrived in Northern Australia by leaky boat. Both the foriegn minister and the immigration minister stated unequivocally that "The passengers of the Minasa Bone did not claim asylum in Australia" This is in spite of the fact that we can be reasonably certain that at least one of them was begging a Turkish interpreter, in Turkish, to be allowed to stay.

Either two ministers of the crown lied to the Australian public or the Turkish Kurds failed to use Swahili when they were asking for asylum (or both).

Of course this sort of inhumane behaviour is necessary to stem the tide of illegal immigrants that is swamping Australia. What is the count again, oh, that's right 14 people in 2 years.

The Liberal party in the past embodied justice and compassion you can read about how they have changed here. Unfortunately the Labor opposition is of the same mind on this one meaning that the only real alternative is an informal vote.