View Full Version : wheres the video Johnny?
BUBBALOUIS
8 Nov 2001, 06:32
remember the outcry by Liberal 'leaders' when they claimed the boat people threw there kids overboard? Remember John Howard inflaming the debate by saying, how can we let 'these' sort of people in? Remember Reith and Ruddock sledging and slamming the refugees over this supposed incident? Well its been over a month now, the good folk of Christmas Island are saying that it was a lie, the Navy are running for cover and the mysterious tape that Reith says proves the incident is now either misplaced, not of good quality or plain lost! Reith now says he hasnt seen the tape! Dont you think you should see the tape before slandering people Peter? John Howard is a disgrace, this Government is a disgrace and they should be ashamed at playing with peoples lives that cant defend themselves!
Interesting now that the opinion polls seem to be swinging in Labor's favour that the Libs have dragged out the boat people debate again. And they expect us to believe they are not playing the race card. Pfffft!
Bubba, that video is very indecisive and grainy, very hard see exactly what is happening on it.
At least that is what Peter Reith claims and why wouldn't we believe anything he said!:rolleyes:
BUBBALOUIS
8 Nov 2001, 07:00
Originally posted by Bee
Interesting now that the opinion polls seem to be swinging in Labor's favour that the Libs have dragged out the boat people debate again. And they expect us to believe they are not playing the race card. Pfffft!
Bubba, that video is very indecisive and grainy, very hard see exactly what is happening on it.
At least that is what Peter Reith claims and why wouldn't we believe anything he said!:rolleyes:
Its amazing isnt it Bee, the video is indecisive, the photo they released could have been from when the boat sunk .......... now Howard was quoted as saying yesterday he couldnt 'rule out' there isnt terrorists on board these boats ...... hateful,shameful man ......
Maybe he lost the Video when he misplaced his phone card?
Pessimistic
8 Nov 2001, 08:02
And they seem to be trying to blame the navy for the 'confusion'
Shame
3 days and counting...
Shinboners
8 Nov 2001, 09:47
After listening to the ABC last night (they were analysing the voting patterns around the country), here is a slightly different spin on the video and the reasons for releasing it.
There is a strong anti-Liberal swing in Victoria, and the Liberals have pretty much conceded a loss of seats here. However, they can still win the election if they pick up seats in Queensland, and by pandering to the anti-refugee sentiment up there, they could win seats, thus cancelling out any ALP gains.
The thing is that we see the video as confirmation of the heartlessness of the government and the way they've dealt with the refugees (it's been enough to ensure that I won't be voting for the Liberals in this election). However, in Queensland and rural Australia, it could be enough to confirm in the mind of the voters there that the refugees will cause problems here ("if they treat their children like that, how could they ever respect this country?"), leading them to conclude that Howard has done the right thing and thus, solidifying his vote.
It doesn't matter how grainy the video is, people will want to read into it what they want to read.
Dogs_R_Us
8 Nov 2001, 09:56
Get real, people. A video is not going to prove or disprove anything. How did those people/children get into the water? Why were they wearing lifejackets, when no asylum seekers before or since have been supplied with them? They said the boat was sinking, but only a few children were in the water, not the whole boatload. The boat sank 36 hrs later, having been scuttled by the crew. The whole thing was a set-up to get sympathy and try to make the govt look bad. The govt would have looked worse if they'd left them in the water.
The lefties on the island are mischief-makers.
All you people who are allegedly so compassionate, do you think we should be encouraging people to take such risks to get to Australia? Who knows how many boats have sunk already? I call it inhumane NOT to discourage it.
The reason Beazley is supporting Howard on the border protection issue is that he knows the REALITY of the problem, not the FANTASY that is being promoted by elements in the media, groups, etc.
magpie_joffa
8 Nov 2001, 10:41
Good stuff bubba
If these claims are true HOWARD MUST STEP DOWN OR BE SACKED.
This is incredible and will be the greatest lie of all time, apparantly the only reasons for the refugees being in the water is because there boat sank.
And they were not thrown overboard as claimed by the moronic howard government.
Yeah what a great government...what else have they covered up,
Howard you have misled the australian people in the highest extreme. you have lied to us once again, only this time the lie is pathetic and desperate.
YOUR ON NOTICE YOU HYPOCRITE
3 DAYS LEFT.
Originally posted by Dogs_R_Us
Get real, people. A video is not going to prove or disprove anything. How did those people/children get into the water? Why were they wearing lifejackets, when no asylum seekers before or since have been supplied with them? They said the boat was sinking, but only a few children were in the water, not the whole boatload. The boat sank 36 hrs later, having been scuttled by the crew. The whole thing was a set-up to get sympathy and try to make the govt look bad. The govt would have looked worse if they'd left them in the water.
The lefties on the island are mischief-makers.
All you people who are allegedly so compassionate, do you think we should be encouraging people to take such risks to get to Australia? Who knows how many boats have sunk already? I call it inhumane NOT to discourage it.
The reason Beazley is supporting Howard on the border protection issue is that he knows the REALITY of the problem, not the FANTASY that is being promoted by elements in the media, groups, etc.
Why would the people on the Island be lefties?
I saw a special report on SUNDAY about the people smugllers in Indonesia
They interviewed some surviviors who said they WOULD DO IT AGAIN just to get to Australia
Many of these people have been declared as REFUGEES by the United Nations, but no country will take them.
Australia has only taken 19 refugees from Indonesia in the past year and that's offical ones, not queue jumpers.
So I think this shows that their situation is so bad that nothing will stop them from trying to get here as in Indonesia the kids are not allowed to go to school - what sort of future is that???
One guy the interviewed was a dentist another a doctor.
These are teh terrorists Howard (and Beazley) is keeping out
Clearly a humanitarian solution is the only answer and not just border protection.
Jsut because other countries won't take people is no excuse for us
Howard and Beazley both stand condemmed on this issue.
Lets see some real leadership and an attempt to broker an International human solution to these problems!
Why can't we be world leaders in that?
Pessimistic
8 Nov 2001, 11:43
Many 'western' countries would not take Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany before the war. In a way, this is the same thing.
Is howard the one who is using the boat people as a elections issue? Seems to me that boat people issue is being continually raised as an election issue by the press and a lot of you guys here.
Anyway, if we accept every boat load who arrive and claim to seek asylum then the illegal people trade is encouraged. More people will die in transit and we spend a whole lot of money on a handful of individuals. Meanwhile, while back at the Afghanistan/Pakistan border countless thousands are suffering.
How about we stop accepting boat people outright. Take all that money we put into detention centres (plus a bit more) and send help to the refugee camps. Support them thru the war then help them rebuild afterwards.
Dogs_R_Us
8 Nov 2001, 12:37
Originally posted by RacerX
Is howard the one who is using the boat people as a elections issue? Seems to me that boat people issue is being continually raised as an election issue by the press and a lot of you guys here.
Anyway, if we accept every boat load who arrive and claim to seek asylum then the illegal people trade is encouraged. More people will die in transit and we spend a whole lot of money on a handful of individuals. Meanwhile, while back at the Afghanistan/Pakistan border countless thousands are suffering.
How about we stop accepting boat people outright. Take all that money we put into detention centres (plus a bit more) and send help to the refugee camps. Support them thru the war then help them rebuild afterwards.
I absolutely agree with you RacerX. This is what the govt is trying to do - stop the boats coming, putting lives at risk, and disadvantaging people who can't afford the boats and therefore get pushed further and further back in the queues.
Word has got to be passed around the transit camps that anyone getting on the boats will not end up in Australia, whatever they are being told by the people smugglers. These criminals, who will not give up this lucrative trade easily, are doing everything in their power to subvert our laws, and using desperate people as their means to do it. And many well-meaning Australians are supporting them!
Our compassion is being manipulated by others for their own ends, which does not include the welfare of the asylum seekers.
Pessimistic
8 Nov 2001, 12:43
Originally posted by Dogs_R_Us
I absolutely agree with you RacerX. This is what the govt is trying to do - stop the boats coming, putting lives at risk, and disadvantaging people who can't afford the boats and therefore get pushed further and further back in the queues.
Word has got to be passed around the transit camps that anyone getting on the boats will not end up in Australia, whatever they are being told by the people smugglers. These criminals, who will not give up this lucrative trade easily, are doing everything in their power to subvert our laws, and using desperate people as their means to do it. And many well-meaning Australians are supporting them!
Our compassion is being manipulated by others for their own ends, which does not include the welfare of the asylum seekers.
But a lot of us suspect that those being sent to pacific nations (including NZ) will end up here anyway, especially as they can't be sent back to a war zone.
Originally posted by RacerX
Is howard the one who is using the boat people as a elections issue? Seems to me that boat people issue is being continually raised as an election issue by the press and a lot of you guys here.
Anyway, if we accept every boat load who arrive and claim to seek asylum then the illegal people trade is encouraged. More people will die in transit and we spend a whole lot of money on a handful of individuals. Meanwhile, while back at the Afghanistan/Pakistan border countless thousands are suffering.
How about we stop accepting boat people outright. Take all that money we put into detention centres (plus a bit more) and send help to the refugee camps. Support them thru the war then help them rebuild afterwards.
And to date we have only spent $200m to take them to Naura, Papua New Guinea, New Zeland and any other Pacific nation. Give me a break. Again, Howard raised this by commencing with the Tampa, yet letting in the approx. 200 or so boats over the past 5 years. Howard is a racist and scaremonger!!!
And of course, we are going to be helping the refugee crisis in the future by bombing the crap out of their country. Yes, I know it is not Aussie planes involved however we are implicated by our agreeance with the US. Not that I disagree with what the US has done but we must be sympathetic to the current crisis.
What upsets me is:
This government wont let them in and without video evidence the whole issue looks very dodgy,
and even if we refuse them entry and send them to another country, ie: Papa New Guinea, our government ends up paying for them there!!?!? ( i heard that on the news)
Therefore, it seems to me that if we have to pay to build facilities and house them in another country then we might as well let them in
Sydneyfan
8 Nov 2001, 20:39
You're time is up, John. He who plays with the truth, plays with fire!
You're becoming unstuck and your true character is being revealed for all to see. Devoid of Integrity, Cunning, Ruthless, Power hungry, Strewd, Incapable of Compassion, and Manipulative.
How many of us are truly approaching this election with open minds? It seems we've all taken our party lines and run with them.
Now, I've never really liked the Liberal Party, and most of my posts have reflected that. In hindsight, maybe I should have given Fraser a better hearing. He comes across as a very liberal Liberal nowadays. Howard is small-minded and insular. In a way he's kinda proud of that. And he appeals to people who fear the world beyond our shores and those who yearn for a world that was simpler. That world doesn't exist any more, and Howard is a man out of his time. But I can see the appeal.
In truth, maybe Costello would be a better leader than Howard. I liked his stand on the Republic, he doesn't seem afraid to speak his mind even when it differs to Howard's ideas, and he would at least lead instead of being poll-driven. He stepped back from the refugee issue, I noticed, while Reith couldn't wait to stick his oar in.
So I don't like the Labor approach that a vote for Howard is a vote for Costello. I don't like their constant harping on the GST, either. These are just plays on popular sentiments and fears, and help to cloud the real issues, the ones we should be voting on.
But what I find unconscionable is the blitheness with which the Liberals turned the election into a race issue. Orchestrated or not, the Tampa issue was never a 'crisis' except for those poor sods on board the Tampa. To suggest that it is goes beyond politics into the dark regions of the soul. In a situation where we might have hoped for leadership, statesmanship and coolness, we were given hype, scaremongering and blatant right-wing vote-gathering. Whatever your opinion of the boat people, that sort of behaviour from our leaders is despicable.
And don't get me wrong, the Labor Party were no better. In all the talk about "queue jumpers", "illegal immigrants" and "refugee crises", we can easily forget that we're dealing with real people, people with intolerable lives, enduring hardships we will never comprehend much less experience, who are doing all they can (including risking their lives, and those of their families) to try to find a better life against the odds. They aren't pictures, or statistics, they live and breathe just as we do. Our politicians know this even better than we do, and that they can twist a situation like this for little more than political gain makes me sick. Both parties are to blame; I only rate the Liberals as worse because they led the charge.
And if this video doesn't give the incontrovertible evidence that Reith and Howard claimed it did at the time (they are now back-pedalling furiously, safe in the knowledge that their political work has been done with the election so close), I don't know how anyone with a conscience can bring themsleves to vote for such cynical, heartless animals.
This isn't a plea for us to take the refugees in. It's just anger that their only value to politicians is as a lever to raise their own popularity.
London Dave
8 Nov 2001, 23:30
An oasis in a desert of petty bickering...fantastic thoughts RogerC
I am pissed off with all parties, I am from the section of the community that no political parties give a toss about, the single, working class person, we end up paying for everyone, because we don't have kids, mortgages & enjoy the social life, we get no tax relief, have to pay extra for alcohol, petrol, rent, ciggies etc & yet we are the ones, that get absolutely nothing back.
Might start a political party to look after the single people of this country.:mad:
Originally posted by mantis
I am pissed off with all parties, I am from the section of the community that no political parties give a toss about, the single, working class person, we end up paying for everyone, because we don't have kids, mortgages & enjoy the social life, we get no tax relief, have to pay extra for alcohol, petrol, rent, ciggies etc & yet we are the ones, that get absolutely nothing back.
Might start a political party to look after the single people of this country.:mad:
Well, I would join that party.