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The Forum > Article Comments > Repairing Australia's damaged reputation > Comments

Repairing Australia's damaged reputation : Comments

By Tony Kevin, published 15/4/2008

Kevin Rudd needs to know that Australia has a big repair job to do at the UN.

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Just for your information. I don't vote Liberal or Labor and never will. So in the end it makes no difference whether your comments are justified or not. I'm all for Greens policy and that means tax, tax, tax! Especially you people who want to push the economy to its limits and at both ends of the scale. By all means you are entitled to win votes for the next election but you won't win mine.
Posted by Richard_, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 11:04:42 AM
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As the holder of an Australian passport (and not a Labor supporter, by the way) I used to be proud of my nationality. Like many others, I now feel ashamed. Mr Howard debased Australia's standing and reputation in the world.

But the international community is forgiving and understands how party politics can affect any nation. I don't believe our standing in the world is irreparably tarnished. Fortunately, the most recent actions we take are the ones that are in the public mind.

As for the UN, for sure it is a monstrous bureaucracy. It has to be. And world governance is not in its hands, so much as it is in organisations like the Word Trade Organisation - and militarily in the US.

Accepting the UNs limitations, it's still best to belong and be a positive force and to work with the nations of the world than to stand apart and arrogantly frustrate mankind's best efforts. The UN has the impossible job of trying to pick up the pieces when nation states fail. Its job is made all the harder by the bullies in the world.

Here's to hoping that international relations is one area where Mr Rudd can excel.
Posted by gecko, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 11:43:56 AM
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For all the flaws that the UN has, it is still better to be a part of it than not to be, isn’t it? It is better to be in there trying to improve it rather than letting it languish.

Rudd’s desire for Australia to be on the UN Security Council is admirable.

Tony Kevin is critical of Howard’s policy on asylum seekers. But detention (rather than free movement in open society) of asylum seekers, processing (rather than their wholescale rejection) and the acceptance of those found to be refugees (accommodated in this country or in others), should be seen as a good policy balance between our national security in the face of a potentially huge rate of influx of asylum seekers in and after 2001, and the humanitarian treatment of all involved.

A policy of weak border protection, where we would have no or limited control over those who would come here, would fly totally in the face of good UN policy, surely. A country with poor border protection or poor management of its immigration and population growth would not deserve a place on the Security Council.

But Australia needs to radically improve its efforts in other ways to justify its place. Especially in dealing with refugees, by way increasing its international aid effort. It immediately needs to raise official development assistance funding to at least the UN recommended minimum of 0.7% of GDP for developed countries (Rudd has committed us to increasing our paltry 0.3% to 0.5% by 2015!)

Rudd also needs to commit to the acceptance of more refugees, while at the same time setting an example for the world about population stabilisation and sustainability. He can easily do this by reducing our immigration rate to net zero and doubling the refugee intake within it. That is, to about 25 000 per annum within a total intake of 30 000.

When Australia develops much-improved policies on global refugee and sustainability issues, it will deserve a place on the UN Security Council.
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 2:03:43 PM
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Ludwig I almost agree with you but again you are treating refugees like migrants or chess pieces to be pushed around as we see fit when the reality is completely different as we have seen first hand in recent years.

When Israel were bombing the bejesus out of most of Lebanon in 2006 the refugees fleeing, including 25,000 Australians, did not have time to wait in nice lines, to gather their papers, to ask permission to leave. They ran for their lives with the IAF, led by an Australian, bombing ambulances, cars with raised white flags and so on. Refugees by definition are not migrants wanting to move from one safe place to another which is why they have an entire convention based around their needs.

Locking them up is forbidden under that convention, yet Australia now has a law that says we can lock them up for the term of their natural lives if they cannot be deported, which of course makes them refugees.

Our other program is nothing more than an expensive hoax designed to appease DIMA's need for control. It has nothing to do with the refugee determination system and is based only on who is best for us.

People who are in camps are not having any fun but they are not imprisoned, they have protection already and under 1D of the convention are not entitled by law to any further protection unless that protection is withdrawn as happened to millions of Afghans and Iraqis in Pakistan and Iran in 1999-2001.

As for the US and Israel, they are rogue states who both act entirely outside of the law and the UN haters are deranged.

The UN is only all of us.
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 2:34:10 PM
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Given how much Messrs. Kevin and Loewenstein (and their ilk) hate Australians, white people, Christians, and Jews so much, perhaps they should migrate to "Palestine" and in a spasm of solidarity with their subalterns-most-worthy simply "Strap On" and stop lecturing the rest of us.
Posted by John Greenfield, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 2:42:44 PM
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In fact we should be proud that the rest of the world has followed Australia's lead in dealing with border security.
Posted by John Greenfield, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 2:47:47 PM
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