Aminata Conteh with Mia after their interview. Her story will move you.
Tonight we meet two people with two inspiring stories. Both are refugees. Aminata Conteh came to Australia after she was kidnapped in her Sierra Leone village and held hostage for months. It wasn’t safe for her and she was rescued, luckily, by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees after spending time in a refugee camp.
She arrived in Australia with only her sister and started her life from scratch.
And then there is Abdul Karim Hakmet, the man who fled Afghanistan when the brutal Taliban began exerting more control in his village in 2000. They whipped women for showing ankle flesh and closed schools. He fled through Pakistan but there was no help to be had. He moved on to Indonesia and found passage on a hopelessly overcrowded boat before being intercepted by Australian patrols and taken to Curtin detention centre.
Their stories will at once break the heart and then mend it again. And it’ll throw the refugee debate in a whole new light.
Here’s the full show:
Let’s meet the panel:
Sam de Brito, Sarah MacDonald, Simon Thomsen and Jane Caro
Sam de Brito: Author of Hello Darkness and The Lost Boys and columnist with Fairfax, he’s the man we love having back. And tonight he brings an interview with former Scary Spice Mel B about motherhood … and those Jenny Craig ads.
Jane Caro: Jane is a staple in the advertising industry and has been a copywriter for 30 years. She’s passionate about public education and talks tonight about an alarming gap in schools. She is the author of Just a Girl.
Sarah MacDonald: Sarah is the author of Holy Cow, broadcaster with ABC radio and all ’round ace woman. She’s funny, friendly and chatting about THAT story of the woman brought to court for leaving her child home alone.
Simon Thomsen: The food critic with plenty to say joins us again this evening. Simon’s tastes extend beyond his job as critic for the Daily Telegraph and will tonight be talking about the dance of intrigue between media and politicians.
And we’re joined by special guest Simon Sheikh, the National Director of GetUp to talk about the politics of the refugee debate.
Comments
56 Comments so far
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Great show, but didn’t enjoy Jane as a panelist. Just too overwhelming.
I also agree with Mia on the Mel B thing, but I think that Sam was awful in his interview with her. If Mel B is ‘fat’ what does that make him? Obese?
Tired of him discussing women’s weight when he is clearly not in shape himself.
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Mia and panel – thank you so much for discussing this issue on the show. I was captivated the entire time, and was so relieved that intelligent, compassionate human beings could discuss this issue in a humane and reasonable light! It’s the first time I’ve watched the show, and I’ll be tuning in from now on
However I felt so ashamed of our country, and our chosen leaders. And this has only been exacerbated by those commenters below who felt the need to slam the show. The show didn’t provide a balanced perspective? Well we deal with a completely unfeeling, inhumane stance on refugees being thrown at us every day from our politicians, and certain media personalities. It’s sickening, and having it repeated on the show, when it’s already everywhere in our country, is the last thing I want to watch.
Thank god for those holding high profile positions who haven’t forgotten what it is to be human!
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Off the topic of everything but I just wanted to say – Mia, I thought you looked great in this episode. I loved the top, very sexy!
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It was a bit booby!
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But thank you. :$
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Agreed!!
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To be honest, I found the segment on refugees long and very preachy.
Sure, you can speak to the converted. But having someone on the panel to push the government line on the issue would have been beneficial. After all you can obtain more converts to a cause by allowing them to hear something that they disagree with rather than just the usual line that sets the heads of the believers a-nodding.
I can’t believe that with all of the resources available to SKY News that an ubknown, outside of their own electorate, government or opposition backbencher couldn’t be found to address the matter, thus getting their fifteen minutes of fame. What ? No community leaders not aligned to the left available either ?
The moment that Simon Sheik’s name comes up aanywhere, I always tend to smell the scent of a barrow being pushed. He didn’t disappoint. The five heads nodding in agreement with every utterance from the Guru of GetUp! was a little comical. When you only present one side of the argument you don’t present the full argument, and nothing like the full argument was heard.
After watching the sement I felt that the TV show could do with a name change. But I realised that SKY could run two shows titled “Agenda”.
Please give us balance. I fully understand that my request will not be popular, but balance allows those yet to decide on an issue a genuine opportunity to make up their minds.
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Loved the show this week, as always! Jane Caro was fantastic- love her on Gruen as well.
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Jane Caro loves the sound of her own voice. Every time she spoke over the top of someone else I found myself asking her to mind her manners.
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I’m all for a variety of views in a panel discussion as well. I’ve been trying to think this morning of people you could ask who fall more on the right side of centre:
The Sydney Institute – it’s a conservative think tank
Bob Katter – I know he’s a unique one but he does seem to do a lot of media
Rotary – lots of retired business men with fairly conservative politics. Maybe they’d talk about their key projects like eliminating polio.
Piers Akerman & Miranda Devine – I know they’re tied to other media organizations but if Richard Glover & Sam de Brito can appear maybe they could too?
That’s it until I think of more…
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I don’t ascribe to her views either but she knows how to argue her case & would make for interesting viewing, I think. Mia & co have asked for suggestions in the past, just trying it out! I find it hard to think of conservatives that a) aren’t already tied to other media companies b) aren’t politicians.
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There is truly nothing like reading the words of a great Poet Laureate.
This is nothing like reading the words of a great Poet Laureate.
But you do get a special gold star for having a go and coming sixth. Congratulations, Andrew.
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Jane’s comment about the person at the Perth airport reminded me of when I tried having this discussion with a family member. This particular person is quite wrapped up in her Christian belief and is possibly also quite naiive and gullable, and she was mortified about ALL the boat people coming here and changing our society with their barbaric ways of life.
She did not accept the statistics, she did not want to hear about it being minorities that are causing problems, she was petrified of her future and the future of her fellow Christians who’s way of life is under threat because of the (in particular) Muslim refugrees.
People like this person are the ones we really need to target in order to change people’s perception. I would love to hear suggestions as to how!
Being from Perth, I wonder if this part of Australia is particularly ignorant about the details of the debate?
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During the telling of this story, Sam lost me completely with his “why didn’t you shove a box cutter in her hand luggage” comment. How lame !
Let me guess. He wasn’t being serious ?
Almost on par with a comment from Marieke Hardy relating to a friend of ners being within arms length of former opposition leader, Brendan Nelson. “Why didn’t you try to glass him”.
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Being from Perth? Yes we are all ignorant racist red necks who are completely in the dark on this issue… For god’s Sake! The patronising superior attitude that we have to put up with from “the east” is just ridiculous sometimes. This woman was at an airport, who knows where she lives, she might have been from Brisbane or Hobart. Here in WA we have the same broad spread of opinions that you’ll find anywhere in Australia. Given that boat arrivals tend to occur in WA (Christmas island etc) I’d say most West Australians are across the asylum issue.
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Right, so I clearly didn’t explain myself very well. I live in Peth too, and wasn’t coming down on WA in any way, I was just wondering if statistically there is a difference. I know many open accepting people, but am also seeing the friends of my ‘family member’ with their views. They’re certainly not rednecks, but very ill informed (self inflicted)middleaged people.
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Mia, I love your Fox News panel show, your columns in the Sun Herald, your books and your website. I’m a big fan and have been following you for years. But after watching last night’s show, I feel obliged to share some feedback. When you are presenting a panel discussion, featuring news, politics, social issues and culture, I think it is imperative you have a mix of voices – even if you don’t agree with them. I don’t want to hear a panel of people trying to outdo each other as to who can feel the more outraged on an issue, who can take the highest morale road, or self-congratulation between panel members for the same. I don’t necessarily disagree with your collective point of view on refugees. But it WAS a collective point of view. Which is, well, all of the above, and more than a little self-righteous. I want to hear people with different points of view in a non-adversarial, non-confrontational, non-sensationalist conversation, particularly on such complex social and political issues as refugees. I want to make up my own mind, not feel like I am being force-fed the “right” view that all “good people” should have. This was the first time I had this reaction to your show – in my opinion, this one was a real clanger. Mamamia TV may well be a voice-piece for your opinion, and those who share it – and that works a lot of the time – but I think there is gap your show could fill brilliantly if you were just a little bit more open-minded and adventurous with your guests, particularly when discussing the big issues. Otherwise it’s really hard to take your show seriously. And I hate saying that.
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I completely agree, I enjoy your books, this site and the show and share a lot of your views but this weeks show wasn’t a panel discussion, it was a one sided presentation of the collective viewpoint. I believe we should show humanity and compassion to refugees and encourage others to do so but I don’t believe the way to do this is to ignore all of the concerns from the other side of the debate, I just felt this was a missed opportunity for an open discussion and made the personal stories less powerful.
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Are you serious? Respectfully, all we EVER hear is the ‘other’ side of this debate.
Day in, day out politicians and media demonise and preach fear about people seeking asylum.
By having 5 people around a table that offer an affirming view, doesnt make the argument unbalanced…in fact it doesnt even begin to redress the imbalanced, hysterical ‘debate’ played out every day in print media and TV.
Bravo Mamamia for not being afriad tostandup as a groupand say ‘ we dont like how this is handled here’.
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Yes, I am serious. You don’t convert people to any way of thinking by ignoring their concerns, you need to address them with a solution. I believe refugees should be welcomed into Australia, I Also agree that no one would make that journey by boat unless they were desperate for asylum. In saying that, if we are going to openly welcome refugees I believe we have a responsibilty to them to provide healthcare, education, job training, housing and mental healthcare that is suitable for the trauma they have experienced. Some would argue, particularly in the area of housing and mental health, that we have a long way to go to get this infrastructure right. I believe that focusing on solutions around infrastructure would convert a lot of Australians to welcoming refugees. This is the opportunity the show missed. I believe the number of Australians who believe point blank that asylum seekers should be turned away are a vocal minority, in my view, most people have empathy but can’t see solutions as to how we support refugees long term to become contributing members of society.
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Great episode Mia & panel, it made me proud that there are people out there – in the media especially that aren’t letting this humanitarian issue slide. I’m ashamed of our politicians. Quite frankly I don’t want to vote for either of them.
Yesterday I got a letter in the mail from my real estate saying that my apartment is going up for sale which means I need to vacate in less than 60 days. I was annoyed – I even swore a few times but today I realised you know what
I have a roof over my head
I have a steady job
I can walk up the road to buy my groceries/go to the pub/see my friends without a man having to escort me
I don’t live in fear for my safety
I have family who will take me in temporarily if need be
The main thing is I have CHOICES… these refugees don’t have a choice – they are fleeing countries where they aren’t safe and fear persecution.
It’s about time that we stopped playing russian roulette with these people’s lives because if Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott were desperate to save their lives and the lives of their family, they’d be the first ones jumping on a boat.
It’s about bloody time they admitted that.
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So sorry about your apartment.
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What a wonderful episode Mia. I have met Aminata a few times before and she is such an incredible women. Her story is so powerful and we need to hear more from actual refugees.
Keep up the excellent work!
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Well done Mia on another great show and thanks to you and your panel for bringing perspective to the refugee debate. How the haters below can still carry on about the ‘dangers’ of refugees is beyond me, but obviously their empathy went down with the Tampa. Perhaps one day they will read some facts instead of the drivel fed to them by sections of the Australian mainstream media.
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Jane, you are my hero. I agree with everything you said in your statement regarding disadvantaged schools (although as always the media deals in averages and the article in question isn’t an exception).
My son attends one of these disadvantaged schools in Western Sydney and has just scored in the top 15% in the country in the NAPLAN YR 3 Reading and Comprehension and extremely well in Spelling and Language Conventions. I am very proud of him, the school and his teachers. The problem is not in the teaching, our teachers are extraordinary. They have always taken him and encouraged him to achieve to the very best of his ability and they have given him the resources to do so.
We have a government preschool attached to our school. My tiny son who went to the preschool at 3 and then to the primary school at 4 and having scored phenomenal scores in NAPLAN is a living example of what this school can achieve with the limited resources they have.
We are devastated at the moment because further to the article mentioned on the program, I draw your attention to the latest money grabbing ploy perpetrated by the NSW state government.
Effective from January 2012 daily fees payable expected from our preschool parents will rise from the current figure of $8 (voluntary) to $30 (compulsory). We feel that the current increase to $30 Per Day is unfair, as schools with similar socio economic populations in our Local Government Area are not being subjected to such marked fee increases. We call upon the New South Wales state government to justify itself to the parents in our school community directly. Many of these parents voted for the present Liberal state government believing that unfair government tariffs such as this one would not be imposed.
The preschool at Seven Hill West Public School was set up by the former state government in response to a need seen within our community. The report conducted at the time found that our school was an area of great need. A lack of academic and social achievement based on the low income earning potential of parents in the school community was uncovered. It was found that improving these outcomes would be directly related to the access that young children had to the preschool experience. The preschool was established and outcomes at the school continue to improve.
To truly understand our anguish it is important to examine the composition of the population in our school. The student population as at 03/10 was 353 students. Preschool (involving 40 students) to Year Six, five support cases catering to 52 students including two Autism Spectrum Disorder and Early School Support Program. Eight Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. 54% of students come from a Non English Speaking background.
Preschool fees are currently injected straight back into our preschool and will now be submitted to the NSW state government. Our school would be unlikely to benefit from them at all. We find this part of the proposal particularly abhorrent. We rely on this injection of funds to provide infrastructure refurbishments, vital educational programs and enriching excursions for the children. We would be extremely disappointed if we lost these entitlements.
It is a well-known fact that children who attend preschool prior to starting school are better prepared socially, developmentally and academically than children who don’t. The imposition of these extraordinary fees will severely handicap NSW public school children. Are you truly prepared to accept these consequences because history will reveal that you have neglected our youngest children.
A far-reaching problem that arises from such marked socio economic changes in our preschool population is that students who will be attending Seven Hills West Public School will no longer benefit from attending the preschool. Our preschool population will comprise only students whose parents can afford the privilege. Our government school system is a low fee paying system designed to educate the wider population and not to be elitist. This is the very core value of the government education system. Once again, our government school system will be compromised.
This government came to power promising to be a friend to Western Sydney. I understand the need to cover shortfalls. I implore them not to disadvantage the most innocent members of our community, our preschoolers.
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I love a yummy mummy. Lucky husband!
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Comments on here from bigoted fools who obviously lack all compassion for their fellow human beings has made me physically sick. Well done Mia and your team for showing that refugees are people and deserve to be treated with dignity. I’m so sick of hearing the right wing slop main stream media dishes up.
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Wow – don’t know whats going on with all the hate messages down bellow, some people disgust me :S
I though this was a great piece on refugees though.
As an aside some of you may have heard of QC Julian Burnside – he is a HUGE refugee advocate and an awesome awesome man if you haven’t you should google him
.
This made me think of a global heath conference I was at, where we were lucky enough to have him as a speaker. He said he could gage the success of his campaigns by the amount of hate mail he received. On any given day he would receive TONNES of hate mail – as logical as I HATE YOU I HOPE YOU F****** DIE etc…. and he said email was great because you could even reply to the “anonymous” people, he said he always considered these “lovely” people as having self selected them selves for conversion
(queue thunderous applause 
)
He then would proceed to outline his arguments rationally and clearly to them again in a very calm and kind manner – 9/10 people replied “oh i didn’t realise that – I apologise ” or at worst “ok – apologies – I still disagree with you but I can see your points”. Nothing more diffusing then saying. “Oh hi , thank you for your kind message, allow to take a moment to explain to you my point of view”
I LOLED for a good 10 minutes.
Seriously though – Great piece by mamamia and a great man.
Australian refugee policy needs a good kick up the bu**. Just ONCE i wish politicians would do the right thing morally and not focus on populist bs ideas. (and yes I know this is unlikely ever to happen – but i can only dream that one day a political party will bite the bulllet and take a reasonable amount of refugees (a megazillion load more than we do now!) in and be able to say 10 – 15 yrs later – “see – not so bad after all!” even if they were voted out of parliament afterward (because a lot of the public have been shi*t scared by a bullocks fear of “boat people”) eventually they would be remembered in history forever more for great policy and making a great australia unlike the great fools running around in canberra today who will be remembered for nothing other than tomfoolery and the carbon tax.
Also while im wishing I wish the UN would kick our government but*s as signatory of the refugee convention and the convention of human rights we REALLY need to step up.
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I saw Julian Burnside on ABC News Breakfast a few weeks ago, and he put it so simply & so clearly. Apparently almost all (some very high percentage) of asylum seekers who arrive by boat are found to be refugees and the plane arrivals who seek asylum are less likely to be found as refugees – so why are we punishing the people most likely to be refugees?
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God I love this show. Thank-you once again. It just goes from strength to strength.
Simon Sheikh. Wow. I’ve been a Get Up member for a few years now but have never seen him interviewed before your show last week. How great i he? Simon Sheikh for PM!
Now I have a question about the political refugee debate. Where does the Government go from here? What a shame that they have consistently taken such a negative stance. Why did they not seize the High Court ruling against the so called Malaysia Solution as an opportunity for positivity on this issue? They have been so outspoken about their love for off-shore processing that to soften their stance now will be very difficult politically. How I wish Gillard had not been so critical of the High Court, but instead embraced the decision as an opportunity to invest efforts in expanding the existing community based programmes.
Where can they go from here?
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Simon Sheik for PM ?
I’d vote for Bob Katter first……and I’d never vote for Bob Katter !
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My email to the Prime Minister goes:
Dear Prime Minister
You have shown much strength by initiating the carbon tax legislation.
You have my vote but will lose it if you do not show the same political strength regarding the acceptance of asylum seekers into Australia on humanitarian grounds.
You will keep my vote if:
1. You show the strength of your personal nature and admit that being caught up in the political rhetoric regarding asylum seekers has been an unhelpful position to adopt.
2. You take positive and immediate action to start processing asylum seekers onshore and in the community. Whatever it takes, start now.
If you lose the next election by continuing to treat people as political footballs, you will have deserved to lose, despite any valuable moves to improve life for the many blessed and fortunate Australians who live here now and in the future.
If you want to look back on your prime ministership with pride as an old lady, you need to act on this now.
Kind regards…
I think Julia is probably getting sick of me or now has my email address in her contacts book … as if … hehehe
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Good on you Susan…. you’ve made me want to write to the PM too.
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Thanks Rose … you go girl!
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What did the PM email back ?
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I can’t tell you Bradley … I’d have to shoot you
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Jess – I agree with you – just so much hate. It seems to me that whenever a newspaper article or tv show appears showing sympathy for refugees the same hate-filled comments appear – I’m sure it is collusion. It does make me ashamed of many fellow Australians – after all Captain Phillip’s First Fleet were the original “boat people”!!!!!!!!! And in our arrogance we took Australia as our own.
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So much hate on here tonight from non- regular contributors. Ugh.
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Well regarding refugees and boat people….That was the biggest load of left-wing-bullshit-content-smother nonsense I have ever witnessed on a modern Australian broadcast service. What a complete contrivance and promulagation of hand-wringing marxisant bleeding-heart faux-guilt sanctimonious left wing propaganda masquerading as current affair(?) narrative.
A mutual all-in wanking session with a panel conveniently construed with no opposing view points to counter the moral tut-tutting chutzpah of those who believe everybody that arrives in a boat are angels beyond criticism or cynical opportunistic motives.
Yes Mia when the figurative ‘house is on fire and the doors are locked’ some people choose to get out the window and run to the nearest port, traverse through multiple countries and pay a smuggler $10,000 to get to the welfare pot. Others choose to stay in the house, rescue the elderly and the children, attempt to save the house and the adjacent houses and fight for what they believe in.
They aint got 10,000 bucks lying around. They think not of themselves but what they can do instead of fleeing. These type are the salt of the earth, unlike those who can afford to turn their backs and pay the ferry-men.
I know which type Australia need. Not those traversing through multiple sovereign safe-haven countries and then putting their children on a leaky boat and then trashing our quota intake at the expense of those who can’t afford to walk more than a few steps due to starvation such as those who really need our help (African horn!). WTF mamamia?
What so diminishes your collective cognitive ability to recognise that most Australians probably have it right – that their collective intelligence, that you so readily dismiss because they dare to differ from your left-wing view point, far exceeds the intellectual pin-heads on your panel.
As for the fart from Get-Up (known left wing organisation), I think he was attempting to blame all current sentiment to boat people on the Liberal party. FFS! Can someone tell him that when he was too young to spell ‘I-have-an-agenda-to-push’, it was the Labor party, pre-Howard, that introduced off-shore processing.
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’10,000 bucks lying around,’ … I’m reasonably sure it’s not that simple. More likely they sold everything to ‘pay the ferryman’. I would.
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My favourite part was where you clearly used big words you didn’t quite know the meaning to, in order to sound smarter than you actually are. Smooth move.
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‘Traversing through multiple sovereign safe-haven countries and then putting their children on a leaky boat’ … you make it sound like a trailer for The Amazing Race.
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I think perhaps you’re the “type” that Australia doesn’t need. How wonderful it would be if we could rid the country of toxic people like you.
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re blaming “current sentiment to boat people on the Liberal party. FFS! Can someone tell him that when he was too young to spell ‘I-have-an-agenda-to-push’, it was the Labor party, pre-Howard, that introduced off-shore processing.”
Really? I’ve been at immigration for 16 years. No it wasn’t. Labor started mandatory detention but not offshore processing. You sir are clearly a product of all the bs fed to you over the Howard years. Of course the Liberal party under Howard are to blame for appealing to the bottom. I remember in the 90s when the ideas of Hanson were initially knocked back by Ruddock as being too extreme. No way would we have TPVs for example, fair go, if you’re a refugee, you’re a refugee. Eventually he adopted ALL of them (but no doubt at the behest of the little dictator) and somewhere along the way forgot who he was and seems to now believe in all of them. But I remember him before Howard bastardised him. They’ve got to you too because you can’t actually consider the issues obviously when some raises a different point of view as you’ve been so conditioned to believe the lies..
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My family on both sides have been here since the begining of this wonderful and beauiful country and i agree with everything you 100% and so do many many others. Look at what just happened in Libya, they are inspiring they stayed and won.
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are you aboriginal then JK? I’m guessing not .
Your logic has so many many holes in it I don’t even know where to begin :S
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There were and are hundreds of thousands of Libyan refugees. Would you stay with your family and fight? Could you?
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Would have liked you to ask Abdul if he considered turning up at Tarin Kowt and offering to help the NATO forces “save” for want of a better word HIS country. Does he not consider it worth dying for? does he think NATO should continue their efforts? Further, did he have papers to enter Indonesia and did he have them on the boat when rescued? We need to know the story behind the story Mia.
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First time viewer tonight (switched on at half time in the soccer) and missed the second half of the game. Congratulations on the best panel discussion of the refugee ‘issues’ that I have seen in a long, long time, and this 60 something retired federal law enforcement operative will be watching your program each week from here on. Well done (and said) to all involved!
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One last comment for you fools at Sky Channel to consider. There are NO African asylum seekers on the boats from Indonesia. None. Nada. There are also no Libyans, Syrians, Somalians, Sudanese, etc, etc, etc. No. They are all Afghans and Irans, And they are making fools of us. Are you, and the pathetic panel you cobbled together tonight, really so blind as to ignore the ’45 million’ real refugees (good quote Sam, I’ll treasure this extreme exaggeration for some time to come yet) in favour of economic refugees from only two countries. You can drop the talk about Iraq. It is all Afghanistan and Iran on the boats, I can assure you. Welcome to a border that has been compromised.
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Are you kidding? they showed several different refugee experiences by interviewing a refugee from Sierra Leone, and a refugee from Afghanistan. Your argument is flawed.
On your point about Afghan/Iranian refugees being ‘economic’ – a heap of the Afghan refugees that come to this country are Hazara, which (as discussed by the panel) is an ethnic group that is regularly persecuted in Afghanistan, and have experienced even greater harassment since the Taliban regime. Even if they leave Afghanistan for Pakistan, their lives are still in danger – Hazara people are subject to targeted killing in Pakistan, and are classed as ‘untouchables’ in Iran. They’re not ‘economic’ refugees.
Which brings me to my final point against your tirade, the specific location from which you come from is not relevant – what’s relevant is if you are a person in need and meet the refugee criteria as outlined by the UN refugee convention. You could be from Africa or the Middle East, it doesn’t matter – you go through the same process. A refugee is a refugee – no matter where they come from.
As an employee of the Department of Immigration, you should know this better than anyone.
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Did you know we’ve sent 9 people back to Afghanistan to their deaths in recent years!? Yea no such thing as a real Afghan fearing persecution/death.
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Where do I start? I have never heard such a load of left-wing, pseudo intellectual and psuedo-compassionate garbage in my life. I work for the Dept of Immigration and have an intimate knowledge of the intricacies of the ‘real’ asylum seeker cohort. Having these opinionated, progressive loonies – led by Simon Sheikh, the PM’s coffee boy and all-round climate change extremist – express their ignorant and stupid views on Foxtel is really pathetic. I feel almost sick listening to the ignorance, stupidity and brainwashed arrogance of this underwhelming panel. Little mention of Malaysia – numerous hits on Howard – so predictable. I feel sick thinking that there is a proportion of the population sitting there, watching this program and nodding their heads like those dolls in the back of bogan cars, agreeing with the idiocy and lack of information perpetrated by this panel.
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You must have switched on at the wrong time Ali, your favourite right wing extremists were on The Contrarians and O’Reilly earlier. Oh and good luck with your DoI career, I’m sure your balanced and impartial views go well with your responsibilities under the Federal employment arrangements that you ‘apparently’ work under…
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Ali, I work for immigration too and I’m not sure how you get the idea that the views of people on this panel were so extreme or out of bounds. But perhaps working for immigration has nothing to do with it, and it’s a matter of ideology. I thought there were many insightful and intelligent points raised by the panel that you will never see in the ‘mainstream’. example, you can’t stop the boats, some, boats will always come. You should know this, perhaps. In the mid 2000s when the Liberals claim there were NO boats, we know that is rubbish. There were boats, there has always been boats. Yhey were just not counted unless they hit the mainland, as we had ‘offshore excised places’ any boats intercepted near xmas island or anywhere other than the mainland equalled ‘NO Boats’ as far as the stats go. A great swindle and lie perpetrated on the idiotic public that sadly most believe. Much like queue myth. Much like the ‘they skip other safe countries’ myth (that you/we know damn well aren’t signatories to the 1951 UN refugees convention and therefore you can’t claim protection and you most likely live in detention forever).
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I can’t wait for you to give Sarah Hanson-Young another run on the panel. I’d just love to hear questions about her collusion with the ombudsman during a recent Senate estimates committee hearing and how the Greens believe that no wrong-doing occurred. That would be a bit of a zinger.
Pity that you wasted Simon Sheik’s appearance last week. You could have posed the questions relating to the politics of the refugee debate there and then rather than having him sit around like a bowl of custard for most of the program. I believe that the issue has been current for some time.
Sam will be brilliant, as usual, on tonights show.