Grim

I agree I have not heard much in the way of 'equality of opportunity' as being associated particularly with the coalition.

GY

I happen to agree with Grim, I am not "ganging up" with him. I found your article to be contentious in many areas, still do.

I find the expression 'talking past each other' to seem particularly apt with respect to what has been this rather unbelievable A-grade online stoush. I have never been 'on the field' before during such an event. Unbelievable!

So I thought I had better re-read the article yet again (which I have now done several times) lest I, too, be guilty of talking past someone. As a consequence, one question has firmed up as being of potential significance. Graham Young stated in the article that *only about 10 per cent of people nominated it ["asylum-seekers"] as a top-of-mind "most important issue". (This is from a weighted sample of 599.)*. Was this response by around 10% of the sample the largest single-issue response elicited by the survey? If not, what other issue (or issues) elicited larger responses?

While waiting for an answer, given what has transpired in the battle over languagerules (and yes, I am trying to mimic in English a German compound word from the Nazi era which I cannot call to mind), I feel compelled to observe that the issue was described as being that of 'asylum-seekers' in the very first sentence of the Article. So far all quite politically correct, to those of us to whom PC might matter.

Given that Graham Young seems to be, if anything, MINIMIZING the importance of the asylum-seeker issue as a determinant of voting intention, his question as to why, DESPITE this, that "... when it ceases to be novel, [politicians] keep returning to [the issue of asylum-seekers].", becomes all that more intriguing.



Could it be that politicians, on the one hand bound by the bi-partisan deal that IMMIGRATION shall not be allowed to become an issue upon which community concern will be effectively represented in Parliament, see the issue of asylum-seekers as a means of escape from this 'deal'? And that Coalition politicians have so far escaped from it more effectively than Labor politicians to the latter's potential electoral disadvantage in what is a community-based, rather than politician-based, concern?

Forrest

1. Are the numbers of boat-people so large they present a danger to Australian autonomy?

A: No

2. Are the majority of boat-people found to be of dubious character?

A: No

3. Does the media play a significant part in promoting an inaccurate picture of the above?

A: Yes

4. Does Labor appear to lose in the public's eyes on the issue of refugees?

A: Yes

5. Does it benefit the Libs to play on Labor's PERCEIVED mismanagement of refugees?

A: Yes

6. Is the language surrounding boat-refugees a prime example of Orwellian doublespeak?

A: Yes. I present as my example Graham Young's article along with those of shock journalists like Andrew Bolt and the language used by the far-right members of Australian politics.

7. Should boat-refugees be an election issue?

A: No. There are far more urgent issues that require immediate action, such as a sustainable economy, infrastructure, population, environment, education, health and investment into new technologies.

Hi Forrest. Good to see someone actually reading the article. For most people the important issues are to do with the economy (Liberal voters) or health and education (Labor and Greens). I guess one problem with those issues is that they are hard to talk about because they are pretty abstract, whereas asylum seekers arriving in Northern Australia isn't abstract.

I don't think that the asylum seeker issue has anything to do with immigration. Both sides have pursued immigration policies that have favoured a racial mix, although the Liberals have tended more towards skilled migration and Labor towards family reunions, but that is a tendency, not an invariable.

Grim, the two forms of equality are one of the classic dividers between the left and right of politics so I'm surprised you've never thought of it before. To give a trivial example, it's the reason that the ALP is comfortable with positive discrimination to get more female politicians into parliament while the Liberals won't adopt the same practice.

As for the relative success of Liberal and Labor you just have to look at the last 110 years of government to see that non-Labor has been much more successful than Labor, and that latterly, when Labor has been successful, it has tended to be centrist Labor, as under the Hawke Keating government which was not particularly ideological.

Well it looks like the election issue will be resolved before the end of August

Your choice

On the one hand the Liberals, who produced the successful Pacific Solution which stopped the illegal smuggling boats (along with a decade of economic and social stability and budget surplus)

On the other hand the Socialists who have produced

A couple of celebrity talk-fests (remember them - all wind and no substance)

The Henry review (where 2% adopted and 98% ignored - what a waste)
and the 2 % included the divisive "resources (cherry-picking) rape tax"
The East Timor humiliation and standoff
The School Halls scandal
The Insulation fires, deaths and scandal
The Dimulous packages (bribes)
Pointless spending on Middle class/income welfare
Greater regulation of everything
ETS backflip - and 300 civil servants doing nothing
Internet Censorship backflip
NBN Plan - well we are spending on a CEO so he must have a plan - not much substance

and doubtless they could top that list of incompetence and mediocrity

Socialism found its "high-point" in the poverty of the 1930

Unfortunately their thinking is frozen on those years

but they could drag the economy backward to those times, given another term in office.

as an election issue the range of socialist government failures is so comprehensive that their Immigration failure is just one of many to choose from.

But it the incumbent governments abject failure, in replacing a policy which achieved its goals, to replace it with a policy which encouraged the problem of illegal smuggler boats, should not be ignored or forgotten when casting ones vote for the next federal government

Personally, I prefer to move forward, instead of back to the high point of socialist psuedo-philosophy and failure

In a previous post Severin spoke of me making her laugh and then she writes

'Does it benefit the Libs to play on Labor's PERCEIVED mismanagement of refugees?'

'Perceived'. If any there was a case of denial you have just read it. These boats are not coming in according to Severin. They are like gw (just in your imagination)