A flea in the government’s ear

As delighted as I am at the High Court’s scuttling of the so-called ‘Malaysia solution’ to Australia’s perceived boat-people problem, I’m also dismayed by the fact that the Gillard government still seems sunk in confusion.

The ruling by the court was plain enough: because “Malaysia is not a party to the Refugees Convention or its protocol,” the human rights of people sent there cannot be assured, and thus it is against both Australian and international law to send people there against their will.

I’m personally inclined to put the case less politely than this, in citing as a precedent the old proverb that “if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”

The Gillard government has long been aware, or should have been, that the Umno/BN government of Malaysia is an absolute dog when it comes to human rights for not just refugees but its own citizens.

So it’s laughable to see Immigration Minister Chris Bowen scratching his head in bewilderment at the High Court decision denying him the right to go through with a dodgy deal he has done with this corrupt and outright criminal regime.

And ludicrous that he’s still muttering his mantra of “breaking the people-traffickers’ business model” given his now thwarted plan to swap people with a pack of the very political mongrels in Malaysia, Indonesia and elsewhere who permit and even support people-smuggling for their own and their cronies’ gain.

In any case, Bowen and his colleagues in the current Australian government, like the opposition under the similarly addled Tony Abbott with its pathetic ‘Pacific solution’, should be focusing their attentions on assisting people fleeing oppressive regimes, not using these helpless victims to punish the vermin who prey on them.

And if they can’t do better than pander to prejudices of Australia’s bigot-fringe voters, the performing fleas of talk-back radio and the maggots of the Murdoch media, they should hop out of the way of progress and let the Greens have a go.

- Dean Johns Ad Lib