Well, how many of you watched the special Q&A program which followed the documentary of those unfortunate people who were stopped by the Howard Government of entering Australia.
The lies that were told at the (then) highest level of government made me ashamed to be Australian. John Howard is a lying, slippery, so-called Christian, who totally denied access to some poor unfortunate people, by saying that all of these boat people were terrorists, and we didn't want "them" (are not these people human and be called people?), in Australia.
The Navy in this documentary were the fall guys, and the things witnessed by the crews aboard the naval ships, were gagged from talking about the dreadful things (lied about by Howard) they witnessed.
Shame on you Mr. Howard, you are not fit to be an Australian.
We are all descendants from boat people, including our Indegenous Australians, so what makes us so different?. I always thought that Australians were welcoming and ready to give newcomers a fair go., but thanks to Howard and his cohorts of the day, we have made miserable people even more desperate. SHAME ON THE HOWARD GOVERNMENT, AND SHAME ON THE LIBERAL PARTY TODAY FOR TRYING TO EMULATE MR HOWARDS DIRTY TRICKS.

Noisy, here’s a different perspective, which I’ve expressed on this forum umpteen times (I wish it was easy to look up old posts so that I could just direct you to a few of them). But here I go again…

At the time of the Tampa incident in August 2001, there were strong indications that a lot of boats were going to be heading our way. The word had got out that Australia was a soft touch.

Something decisive needed to be done. Howard did it, and I reckon he did a pretty damn good job of it. He found the right balance between treating those who had arrived humanely while implementing a deterrence factor to cut the number of future arrivals right down.

That was a very difficult juggling act. If he’d been seen to be even slightly more accommodating towards arrivals than he was, then boats would have just kept coming.

If boats had kept coming, tough action would have had to have been taken sooner or later.

If action had been taken a bit later than it was, a whole more people would have been caught in the middle, both in detention centres and in limbo somewhere en route to Australia.

Howard accommodated the vast majority of onshore asylum seekers that arrived in the early 90s while at the same time practically solving the onshore asylum seeker issue.

I wonder what would have happened if Beazley had been PM in 2001. I can envisage a long period of dilly-dallying while the number of boats arriving increased greatly and the whole business turned into a huge mess, with ultimately many more people being put in detention, many more being forcibly sent home and many more dying at sea.

Sorry Noisy, but I think you are just totally off-track with your comments about Howard.

SHAME on Rudd and his kruddy mob of cronies for re-opening this whole sorry saga… and on Gillard for dithering, given that the way forward really is obvious, as demonstrated by Howard.

For me that incident highlighted the fact that the Liberal Party has abolutely no moral basis and would do anything to gain and retain power.

Since the end of the White Australia Policy there has been a mutual agreement between political parties never to play the race card but Howard played the oldest trick in the book - manufacture a national crisis and then put himself forward as the only solution.

He rode on the back of the anti-Asian sentiment he allowed to fester a few years earlier and used the whole process to leech votes away from the ALP.

The ALP in return must also share the blame for being too cowardly and not taking the proper moral stance. Sure it probably would have cost them that election but things could have been different a few year later.

It also shows how easy it to let the racist geni out of the bottle.

We may like to think of ourselves as tolerant but remember that during the 60's referendum that granted aborigines the vote and counted them as human beings rather than fauna - about 10% were opposed.

Translated to today would mean that there are now a couple of million people in this country still thinking that way (and worse).

The real significance of infomercials like the ABC’s “Stop the Boats”, and before it SBS’s “Go Back To Where You Came From “ is that
they expose (and discredit) their producers to be lobby groups with one-eyed agendas -- little different to campaigners like Getup.

Both programs played hard with the line that the “asylum seeker” were poor unfortunates who were only seeking a fair go.
Little could be further from the truth. Any one who has done even a little background research will find that most are far from the innocent naives they are made out to be.

And importantly, being *poor* does not qualify one for “protection” under the Refugee Convention’-- which after all, was what they were seeking to exploit!

Dear Noisy Scrub Bird,

Thanks for this thread. I also watched both the film and "Q and A," that followed. It was very dis-heartening to learn the facts of the "children overboard" affair. Even more upsetting was the fact that so many officials were silenced and unable to speak until now.
To me it only showed how careful we have to be when we elect politicians who make decisions on our behalf. It's a sad part of our country's history - and hopefully will never happen again - but if
Mr Abbott is elected - we have no guarantee that a repeat of the atrocious Howard years won't come back. Watch the Libs reaction to
Sunday's detailed announcement on the carbon tax. Based on media announcements the Bill has already a majority support in Parliament, yet the same fear-mongering continues - and will after Sunday, I have no doubt. Because Mr Abbott wants to be PM - no matter at what cost -
the same as Howard did - all those years ago. Nothing has changed with the Libs. And yes, it doesn't make one feel proud to the calibre of some of our politicians. I live in a Liberal Electorate - and hopefully we'll get rid of the dead wood in the next election.

Dear Lexi,
Thankyou for your comments,I am bemused at some of the comments, when we think that Australia is/was founded on boat people, that is what has made our population so diverse. Again, I blame the press for a lot of rumour and scaremongering, but if the average Australian can see through all of the negative comments delivered by the media, they might remember that these desperate people are human beings, and not the animals that some people portray them as being.
I am a migrant from the UK, I have been here since 1959 (aged 14) and have never been back, I fell in love with Australia the minute our boat started to sail up Sydney Harbour. Australia has been very kind to me, but one thing really stands out and signals me, that is, the total lack of compassion that a lot of Australians express these days., are they really saying that "this country is good enough for me but we don't want people from other cultures here?", if so, then shame on them too.