There is a big story the media is missing and it must only be matter of time before a Murdoch tabloid splashes it on its front page.
ABC News reported on February 19 that three queue-jumping boat people had escaped from a camp in Darwin. But the left-wing Bolshevik Gillard- and/or- Rudd-loving national broadcaster is hiding the true story!
They refuse to tell struggling middle-income Australians how the escapees then marched overland to Sydney, broke into an ANZ board meeting and killed the execs, then, in disguises bought from people smuggler scum, called a press conference to announce the sacking of 1000 hard working Aussies while also raising interest rates for Aussie home owners!
All because they hate our way of life and are plotting to steal it.
The story is about as reasonable as Gemma Jones’ February 17 “expose” in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph on the “boatload of goodies” allegedly being “given” to the minority of asylum seekers allowed to live in the community.
In a move Jones assures us “will anger” middle-income workers, some asylum seekers are being housed in suburbs near you and given a whole array of furniture, kitchen utensils, whitegoods, plasma TVs and even — and this seems to really piss Jones off — food baskets with bread and milk and god knows what else.
And fair enough, given the high quality of Aussie TV, there is a strong chance letting asylum seekers watch it will cause an unprecedented flood of refugees descending on our nation.
The Murdoch press will be reduced to screeching: "If we don't stop these boats, experts warn that next year's winner of Australia's Next Top Excess Master Home Renovator Wants A Farmer to Marry My Boy could be called Mohammad!"
(There are humanitarian reasons for denying asylum seekers TV. With access to Australian free-to-air channels, a refugee family could end up exposed to Karl Stefanovic and I am sure we can all agree they've suffered enough.)
The whole package, fully funded by the hard-working Aussie taxpayer, can cost nearly 10 grand per family. As opposed to the more than $137,000 a joint parliamentary inquiry found it cost to keep a person for a year in detention — taxpayers’ money that goes to multinational security corporation Serco.
Of course, asylum seekers are not actually given any home or goods. They just get to briefly stay in a furnished house while their claims are processed.
As they are not allowed to work, it is either that or the street, which would only lead to an angry expose on how bludging foreigners are taking park benches as struggling Aussie homeless people sleep on the ground.
But facts make little difference because the hysterical “debate” jumped the shark long ago.
The exact moment could probably be pinpointed to a 2010 appearance by Liberal leader Tony Abbott on the ABC’s Q&A. Asked how Jesus would respond to desperate refugees, the proud Christian responded: “Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.”
Presumably for Jesus, that place is back in Afghanistan being bombed by the West. Or tortured in Iran. Or facing genocide in Sri Lanka. A place for everyone and everyone in their place being one of Jesus’s more famous sayings.
Abbott sought to justify his argument by pointing out: “Don’t forget, Jesus drove the traders from the temple as well.”
I have wracked my brain trying to figure out what possible relevance this has to whether we welcome desperate people fleeing oppression. I can’t work it out, but if it would ease Abbott’s mind, I am sure we could arrange for asylum seekers to sign statutory declarations pledging, under no circumstances, to set up money-changing practices in any of Australia’s religious institutions.
It really makes you wonder what version of the New Testament Abbot has been reading. Perhaps in Abbott's copy, when Jesus preaches “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth”, he goes on to add: “Unless they are queue-jumping bastards on boats, in which case they can rot in hell!”
Presumably in Abbott’s Bible, rather than help the injured Jew on the side of the road, the Good Samaritan kicks him and shouts: “Fuck off back to Jerusalem, Jericho’s full!”
The Murdoch press bleats about asylum seekers having roofs over their heads while big corporations get billions of dollars in handouts.
Alcoa provides a fine example of corporate morality. Despite making a US$611 million profit last year, the aluminium company is threatening to help destroy the Geelong community by sacking 600 workers.
The company has been handed about $200 million a year in subsidies from the Victorian government, Friends of the Earth estimated in 2009.
No one knows for sure how much or where the taxpayers’ money goes, because while a tabloid journo gets to rake over the much smaller amounts spent housing refugees, the corporate giants’ books are closed.
Such things are not for us ordinary folk to concern ourselves with. We have much more pressing questions, such as how much the cheese graters those asylum seekers get to use is setting us back.
