Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Somewhere between treated like kings and locked up in the desert

Andrew Bolt reckons the treatment of illegal immigrants isn't all that bad, writing 14 words linking to a piece in The Age that attaches dollar figures to the government's largess. This riles Crikey's resident Bolt obsessive, and erstwhile Asian Correspondent contributor Jeremy Sear, who writes a lengthy emotion laden post lamenting the treatment accorded the uninvited:



Picture the life of an asylum seeker presently locked up in the desert by the Government indefinitely, without charge.



Sear later demands to know why asylum seekers are being locked up "in the desert".


Maybe i missed something somewhere but I can't recall the current government locking up any asylum seekers in the desert. According to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship the currently operating detention centres are located at:



  • Villawood (established in Sydney in 1976)

  • Maribyrnong (established in Melbourne in 1966)

  • Perth (established in 1981)

  • Christmas Island (established in 2001)

  • Northern (established in Darwin in 2001).


None of these facilities are in the desert so it looks like Sear is wrong. No-one familiar with Sear, Pure Poison and Crikey will be at all surprised.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Nic said...

From the link:
"But this politics of envy by Bolt, this attempt to misleadingly imply that all this money being spent to keep asylum seekers away from us is somehow being spent to give them cushy lives, and that it thereby tempts them over here – well, that’s both dishonest and stupid".

The statistics would say otherwise.

Strange he's also railing against Bolt for complaining that refugees are housed in a four star Queensland hotel at the same time complaining that they are locked up in a 'desert'. If they are in Queensland, then they aren't exactly in a 'desert', obviously. So who's dishonest and stupid?

5:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Aren't they re-opening Curtin?

8:08 AM  
Anonymous Dan Lewis said...

The real torture faced by locked up immigrants is having to meet Marilyn Shepherd from time to time.

9:38 AM  
Anonymous Asia said...

Wow. Thanks for letting us all in on this fascinating story. What a crucial issue this is for Asia. We all hope there are many more Jeremy Sear updates to come.

10:43 AM  

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