Where are we now?
At the second Eureka Street dinner on 30 November 2001, the guest speaker, Robert Manne, answered the question. (extract)
'The nature of the moral ignominy into which the bipartisan, tough-guy consensus had led was revealed not long after the Great Debate. During the campaign a boat with 400 or so asylum seekers on its way to Australia sank. Three hundred and fifty-three people drowned. There was on board an Iraqi woman, Sondos, with her three young daughters. Her husband, Ahmed, was in Australia. Although he had been accepted as a genuine refugee, under the barbarous system of temporary visas instituted by Philip Ruddock he was aware that he could never lawfully be reunited with his wife and daughters. Despite this, Ahmed had advised his wife, who had made her way to Indonesia, against coming to Australia. He thought the journey from Indonesia too dangerous. She disobeyed. Sondos was on the boat that sank. Miraculously she survived. Her three children drowned. I will never allow myself to forget what happened next. Sondos was not allowed to come to Australia. Ahmed was informed that if he visited his grieving wife in Indonesia he would not be permitted to return. Interviewed on this matter on successive nights on ABC TV, Mr Howard defended these actions and Mr Beazley concurred. I cannot recall a more abject incident in the life of Australian politics.
The Liberal Party, shortly after, held its launch. Among the ministers in attendance Ruddock received the most rapturous applause. With Howard's pledge that Australia would decide who would be allowed to enter this country and the circumstances under which they came, the audience erupted in delight. Liberal Party headquarters took the hint. It was this sentence which dominated their advertising during the final week of the campaign.'
- For Robert Manne's full article, please see Eureka
Street January-February 2002 print edition, available by subscription
and at bookshops and newsagents.
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