Illegals may be a hot topic this election
It remains to be seen if the issue of illegal arrivals will make it to the top of the issue list this election, but it is clear that Julia Gillard’s attempt to neutralise the issue before calling the election has failed miserably.
The obvious point is that she is proposing to roll out the form governments solution; The previous coalition government managed to completely stop the flow of illegals being smuggled into Australia by transporting the arrivals to 3rd party countries and processing their claims for asylum there. This saved lives and was widely popular, but the incoming deputy PM Julia Gillard was happy to throw that solution away and simply wait for the flood to resume.
A secondary but worthy point is that Julia Gillard has acted pretty arrogantly, naming East Timor as the site for her new offshore processing facility, without even ringing the East Timorese leader beforehand to float the idea. The backpeddling after that stuff up as epic to watch, and I think we need to really put the spotlight on the new PM and make sure she explains in great detail what her plans really are.
Even then, can we be sure she’ll follow through if elected?