Julian McGauran changes horses
The announcement today by long-serving National Party Senator Julian McGuaran that he was defecting to the Liberals certainly took me by surprise. It’s hard to know if it will directly affect the dynamic of the Senate very much, as the Coalition still has the same numbers. However, it will presumably increase the tensions between the Liberals and Nationals, and it may make some of the remaining Nationals – and Barnaby Joyce in particular – more likely to vote separately. After all, Barnaby copped a heap of flack just for expressing his concerns about the approach the government was taking on a few issues, while Julian gets up and walks out on the whole party! It may also cost the Nationals a spot in the wider Ministry, although that would require someone who is currently serving to be demoted, and no National has been spotlighted yet.
It’s hard to assess if there are deeper reasons that haven’t been made public. Senator McGuaran said he was doing this because there is “no longer any real policy difference between the Liberals and the Nationals in Victoria”. He also made some comments about this being an appropriate time given “the grounds of the Cabinet reshuffle and the aligning of several careers, some being promoted and some resigning.”
I’m not sure what that’s meant to mean, but I simply cannot believe that he would have been offered a Ministry. There would be huge resentment amongst many Libs as well as Nats if that happened, although I suppose some of the current Parliamentary Secretaries don’t set the world on fire, and if he got one of those spots in place of a National Party person, it wouldn’t irritate too many people (except the guy he replaced of course). There’s only National MP who is a Parliamentary Secretary – Senator Sandy MacDonald. He only received this position recently and some Libs certainly thought it was one position too many for the Nats, so it might be worth watching that spot.
None of this is much of my business and I‘ll work with whoever gets chosen for these positions, but I will repeat my hope that National MP John Cobb is allowed to stay as Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Minister, for continuity reasons if nothing else.
It’s not really for me to pass judgement on other parties, but I do have to say that the Nationals are entitled to feel miffed. Julian McGauran has already served over 15 years in the Senate thanks to the support of the National Party, including over 6 years in the position of party Whip in the Senate. It will be over 20 years by the time his current term expires. They have stuck by him, even though (without getting too personal) it’s fair to say he hasn’t been seen as a star performer for them.
No matter how bad things get with your party, I really think it is poor form to leave and take your seat with you, when you only gained the seat in the first place due to the support of that party – unless the majority of your party members want you to make such a move or something like that, which doesn’t seem to apply in this case.
ELSEHWHERE: This issue is attracting a bit of commentary around Australia’s politcal blogs – Comments at Duckpond , The Road to Surfdom, Larvatus Prodeo, Stoush.net, wsacaucus.org, Modia Minotaur, Daily Flute and Ambit Gambit.
24 Comments, Comment or Ping
dodgyville
Just reading around the ozplogosphere … the Nationals ain’t got no friends.
PS. Michelle Grattan is a strange person.
Jan 24th, 2006
Marilyn Shepherd
A very interesting reshuffle with Vanstone losing half her job but gaining Andrew Robb – maybe he is being groomed to take over from her. Aborigines in a new portfolio with community services is a good idea and Brough is not too bad.
Entsch retiring next time is good news. Nelson can pretend he is Horatio Hornblower and play with the soldiers and salute the Aussie flag as part of his job. Wow!! He will be in heaven.
Julie Bishop is a chance to bring some sanity back into education, Abetz being demoted from Special Minister of State to Agriculture means we won’t have to hear that appalling voice so much – maybe Howard got tired of it too.
But Abetz might have to take some flak over the AWB and others.
Turnbull under Howard’s nose working on Water is good – I get his newsletters for some reason and he is at least genuinely interested in water issues. Andrew, no SMOS in the senate anymore – that will be odd.
Santoro is a hard one to pick because he has constantly hammered the ABC, even dared to suggest they were biased because they were kind to the poor bloody Bakhtiyari kids and their beseiged mum.
Sharman Stone to Workforce is a great choice. Dutton didn’t have a clue except to sound belligerent. Billson to vets affairs – vets affairs no longer needs it’s own ministry as far as I am concerned as most of the vets are dead except for the Vietnam vets and the government doesn’t give a stuff about them.
All in all not a bad reshuffle – what do you think Andrew?
Jan 24th, 2006
Andrew Bartlett
I wouldn’t agree that Vets doesn’t need its own Ministry, although it’s fair enough to say that the Government doesn’t appear to give a stuff about them. There may not be as many Vets as there were following World war II, but there are still enough younger ones from Iraq I & II, Afghanistan, East Timor and various other peace keeping and other missions. Just because there haven’t been many deaths doesn’t mean there aren’t casualties down the track.
I’m absolutely astonished that Santo Santoro has got a Ministry, and also pleased that Brendan Nelson is out of education – it’s hard to imagine that anyone else could be as big a disaster as he was (although it’s a bit scary to think of what wackiness he may try to inflict on defence as part of his apparent need to ‘make a mark’.).
Indigenous Affairs should be a Ministry of its own. Mal Brough may be fine, but the issues in this area are so important and past efforts have clearly failed so badly that I believe there should be a Minister who is focused solely on this, rather than having to deal with it as an after thought.
Jan 24th, 2006
Major Anya
It is arrogant of McGauran to assume he can just take the seat with him.
It’s a fact that Australians generally vote for the party and not the person, so it’s a National Party seat.
Reeks of the old days in Queensland. Speaking of which, how, ummm, nice to see Santo with a ministry. Should keep him distracted from other things, I guess. How nice to see that Marilyn still cannot comment without mentioning the Bakhtiyari family.
Jan 24th, 2006
Marilyn Shepherd
Major Anya, the Bakhtiyari family are real people you know, not just cardboard cutouts. I will keep mentioning them until Vanstone is forced to admit DIMA screwed up their case.
Andrew I absolutely agree with Indigenous Affairs needing their own ministry, trouble is I can’t think of anyone at all in this government I believe would handle the portfolio with any degree of sensitivity considering how much Ruddock and Vanstone have degraded the issue.
It shames all of us I believe and don’t know how it can be corrected now.
Jan 24th, 2006
dodgyville
I came across this in the Warrnambool Standard newspaper today while doing some non-political research for work. It was freakily relevant, so I jotted it down.
`Asked to nominate a politican [other than his brother] he admired, [Julian] McGauran chose 60s National Party leader Jack McEwan who he said had always put the party’s interests ahead of his own.
“Black Jack in Canberra is still one of those revered characters. He stood up to the Liberal Party and Labor Party because he only had one thing in mind and what I mean by that is if he had to take it over the cliff for his party, he would,” he said.’
- Warrnambool Standard, 1/5/1989, p. 9
Jan 24th, 2006
Her Radicalness
I’ve blogged my thoughts on the issue here.
I’m quite surprised that the system allows voting above the line, but doesn’t respect its own principles at the other end of the game. If someone is able to be elected overwhelmingly due to party votes, should they be considered an individual? Or should they be considered a party seat?
Jan 24th, 2006
Not my Real Name
Hi Andrew
For those of us who don’t know, can you please explain (maybe in a separate post) what it is exactly a Parliamentary Secretary does?
I understand they are MPs, but what do they do??
Cheers and keep up the good work!
Jan 25th, 2006
Marilyn Shepherd
I think parliamentary secretaries assist the incompetent ministers like Vanstone try to keep track of what they are doing. A reliable source says I am not too cynical to suggest that Robb is being groomed to take over when Howard kicks out Vanstone finally.
The thing that all the Howard hugging toadies seem to never mention is that the good people of Bennelong might be sick to death of him disgracing us by October next year and chuck him out on his ear – he didn’t make 50% of the vote last time around you know.
The AWB scandal has to fall directly at Howard’s feet for a start and that must force him to resign.
He cannot rant and rave about the corruption when Australia has been the biggest corrupter by a factor of 5 and it looks like AWB are inventing evidence now to cover it all up.
Now for the other bloggers who find my defence of the Bakhtiyari family offensive.
Here is a fact for you all to ponder. On March 22, 2001 DIMA were aware that Roqia and the children were Afghan citizens and that her husband was in Sydney. However, some mental giant decided the husband of a sick woman Roqia helped on the boat was a Pakistani national and her brother in law so therefore her husband was a Pakistani national.
They were so certain of that they took almost 2 years to mention it, over 2 years to cancel his visa and another 2 years to realise they had absolutely no evidence that he was a Pakistani.
So Roqia spent 4 years locked up, had to watch her young kids lose their minds, be seperated from her husband for all those years, have a baby under armed guard and be treated like a mass murderer in illegal detention because DIMIA couldn’t prove a lie.
DIMIA wasted $6 million of taxpayers money and when Amanda claimed that the Pakistani government proved they were Pakistani citizens please someone tell me how on earth a pashtun person in a photo that the RRT rejected as early as August 2003, could be mistaken for an Hazara Afghan in the first place when the name on it was Asghar Ali, it was dated 1975 and never signed and then verification came in December 2003 that Asghar Ali was a Pakistani national he was born in 1971 not 1957 or 1959 as DIMIA claimed?
That is why I persist. The senators on the committee and DIMIA know it was all a lie and locking up an innocent woman for all those years because of an erroneous belief that her husband was a different person.
That needs to be understood by those bloggers who still slander this poor girl who was given to a stranger when she was just 15 years old and the country was at war.
Jan 25th, 2006
David
Andrew.
Another interesting day in Canberra politics and the Nationals continue to make noise. Whilst I appreciate your comments, we are in for another interesting parliamentary session/s and the outcome remains to be seen.
There would alot of members within the National Party that wouldn’t be happy seeing the demise of Deanne Kelly even though, she retains a parliamentary secretary position. Perhaps this is one way of gagging her from speaking more about the loss of being Minister for Veterans Affairs.
With veterans being a “pet” interest of mine, I thank you for your comments re this important portfolio and the Howard led, Coalition Government isn’t really interested in resolving ongoing problems facing our ex-service community. Further to my comments on this portfolio, the Democrat’s veteran’s policy is worthy of consideration and even the issue sheet from the last election.
Unfortunately, anomalies remain with the veterans law and as I could provide more comment, the appointment of a new Defence Minister (Brendan Nelson) will also be interesting to follow.
What next for the Nationals? I note from news reports today that Bruce Scott isn’t happy and comments from Mr Lindsay up in North Queensland about the lack of representation in his area and northern Australia.
One could also comment about the decision of the Prime Minister and in responding to a question relating to the role of a parliamentary secretary, I note this from the aph.gov.au website.
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/BD/1999-2000/2000bd110.htm
Bills Digest No. 110 1999-2000
Ministers of State and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 1999.
Ministers of State and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 1999
Date Introduced: 9 December 1999
House: House of Representatives
Portfolio: Finance and Administration
Commencement: On proclamation, but no later than 6 months after Royal Assent.
Purpose
The Bill gives effect to a recommendation of the Remuneration Tribunal to alter the status of Parliamentary Secretaries, treating them as ‘officers’, for the purposes of section 64 of the Constitution.
The Parliamentary Secretaries Act 1980 is repealed.
The Ministers of State Act 1952 is amended to increase the maximum size of the federal Ministry from 30 to 42. Up to 12 of the 42 may be designated ‘Parliamentary Secretaries’ and the maximum number of Ministers remains at 30.
The Bill has the effect of increasing the entitlements of Parliamentary Secretaries and allowing them to receive a salary rather than the present ‘capped’ expenses of office allowance.
Background
The Parliamentary Secretaries Act 1980 provides for the Prime Minister to appoint members of both Houses of Parliament as Parliamentary Secretaries to Ministers of State.
The Howard Government presently comprises 30 Ministers of State and 12 Parliamentary Secretaries.
Jan 25th, 2006
Lucy
I think the McGauran defection and De-Anne Kelly demotion are the first two quite clever steps taken by the Libs towards the longish-term goal of provoking the Nationals into breaking away from the coalition, which the Libs probably want now that they have the numbers to be in government independently.
Jan 25th, 2006
Marilyn Shepherd
Actually Lucy they desperately need the last 4 Nats seats in the senate or they lose it. That is the last thing Howard wants.
As for the number of ministers I thought Howard was supposed to be for smaller government yet his gets bigger and bigger as the years go by.
Andrew I sent you some documents I was given today – travel documents expiring on 21 January 2005 – 19 days after arrival in Pakistan. They are unsigned, the photos of the kids are taken off newspaper reports and for some peculiar reason they are in Urdu, French and English.
I have other qon from an SA senator if you want them. They say about 4 different ways that Roqia B was only deemed to be a Pakistani because of her relationship to Ali.
The documents also state clearly they are not a confirmation of Pakistan citizenship so the question is why the Pak embassy would issue them, as they claim that Roqia was born at the same address as Ali in Quetta which would make her his sister or something. Bizarre behaviour.
Also a confirmation that a certain journalist lied about the Afghan confirmation and sent to Amanda on 27 December 2004 stating Roqia is an Afghan.
Please read them and contact me soon.
Jan 26th, 2006
Floss
Call me a conspiracy theorist but I still reckon this is part of a broader agenda centered round the leadership tussle between Howard and Costello.
Try as I might I can’t see what the point of McGauran’s move is or what he achieves with it – unless to undermine the unity and cohesion of the Coalition and with the wobbling we’ve seen over the past few days it’s certainly achieved that.
Given the Coalition’s reasonably strong hold on Government and a lesser but still in control hold on the Senate, the only reason a National or Liberal would have to undermine the Coalition is to destabilize Howard.
I’ve heard that McGauran is a Costello supporter – in that case I think he probably has been offered a ministry – not by Howard but by Costello – further down the track if and when he becomes Prime Minister. Howard according to some news reports has retaliated by reshuffling his cabinet to marginalize Costello supporters.
It seems to me the battle for the liberal leadership is moving and growing. The problem for the party when things get to this level between the ‘combatants’ is that it becomes virtually impossible to stop it – or to stop the media from finding out about it.
As well the people involved tend to become so entrenched in their positions that they can focus only on their personal power objective – and can’t see the fight for that is diminishing the collective power the party has.
The Liberals may be controlling it better than others have in the past but sooner or later something will give way. I hope its sooner.
Jan 26th, 2006
David
Andrew.
Adding to my previous posting, it is interesting to read news reports where Peter Lindsay is suggesting that other Nationals will leave the party.
Whilst the comments from readers are interesting, I note that Labor’s Graham Edwards (according to ABC News) is to retire at the next election. Noting your ongoing interests in veterans issues, he will be missed from the federal parliament seeing he’s the only ex-service person left. I note that he will continue to assist our veterans after he leaves the parliament.
As someone who has had contact with Graham in recent years, it is good to see him continuing though in a private capacity.
Jan 26th, 2006
Geoff
Yes Major Anya, Marilyn is obsessed. I hope she doesn’t mind others commenting on her comments then. Because I’m sure there’s a wealth of information that disagrees with her reality.
Mind you,even I knew that his accent was Pakistani the first time I heard it… a point born out at work in a discussion with my workmates from Afganistan.
Here are some excerpts…
Ruddock attacks public asylum play
July 24 2002
He denied there was any likelihood an error had been made in relation to Mr Baktiari’s case, and in particular, the department’s belief he was from Pakistan, not Afghanistan as claimed.
“The linguistic analysis we had undertaken confirmed that his voice patterns reflected many of the patterns that are evident around those people who have lived a substantial period of their life in Quetta (Pakistan),” he said.
Mr Ruddock said Mr Baktiari’s claim of belonging to the Hazara race was not proof he was Afghani, as Hazara people lived in many nations around the world.
AAP
Daily Times
Monday, August 26, 2002
Afghan asylum seeker turns out a Pakistani
SYDNEY: The Australian government Sunday confirmed media reports that one of its best known asylum seekers, Ali Baktiari, came from Pakistan not Afghanistan as he had claimed.
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said 700 of the 4,000 asylum seekers with temporary protection visas claiming to be from Afghanistan are also now under investigation.
“In relation to some 40 people we have obtained very firm evidence in the form of original documents from Pakistan, registration documents, as to their identity, and a number of visas have already been cancelled,” Ruddock told ABC television.
“In relation to Mr Baktiari, we have been undertaking further inquiries in Pakistan which confirm to our mind the findings of the media inquiries.” —AFP
Baktiari’s deception will only harm the cause of asylum seekers in detention
By Ken Parish – posted Friday, 30 August 200
Ali Baktiari ’s belated confession that he is really from Pakistan after all (not to mention his claim that he had told DIMIA this all along – they must have just misunderstood him because of the language difficulty) would not have come as a surprise to readers of The Australian, whose reporter in Afghanistan had been unable to find anyone in his home village(s) who’d ever heard of him.
It came as even less of a surprise to me, because I began hearing over 12 months ago, from contacts in DIMIA, that they were receiving complaints from the local Afghan community to the effect that a significant minority of “Afghan” refugees granted protection visas were actually Pakistanis. That news in itself should have been predictable, because I knew that the acceptance rate as genuine refugees for Afghan asylum seekers up to that time had been an almost unbelievable 80 per cent or so (compared with the overall success rate of around 30 per cent).
On the other hand, it was heartwarming to see our beloved Prime Minister sinking the slipper into “bleeding heart” refugee advocates by reassuring Australians that he “did not derive pleasure from the news” (I wonder who he thinks he’s kidding).
Now, before you go typecasting me as just another right-wing blogger beating up on an obvious soft target, let me first make a claim for a modicum of bleeding-heart virtue myself. I have acted for quite a few asylum seekers over the last decade, every one of them on a pro bono basis. However, frankly, that makes me even angrier about the Ali Baktiaris of this world. Public support for Australia’s continuing commitment to the 1951 Refugee Convention is already fragile enough without a revelation of this sort of scam. Moreover, according to Ruddock’s office, another 700 of the 4,000 Afghans already granted protection visas are also under investigation for suspected Pakistani origins.
The ones I really feel sorry for are the five Baktiari children, whose parents knowingly subjected them to more than a year of traumatic detention at Woomera to further their fraudulent scheme. Of course, the Howard government is also complicit; I’m not a supporter of mandatory detention of children by any stretch, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the primary responsibility for the plight of detained children of bogus refugees lies with their parents.
Almost all the asylum seekers currently in mainland detention are in that category. No asylum seekers have arrived in Australian waters, and been detained in Australia, since before “Tampa” in August last year. That time period means that all (or almost all) current mainland detainees have been found not to be refugees, have then lost again on a full independent RRT merits review, and are now at some stage of exhausting their judicial review rights. The Muin and Lie decisions by the High Court a couple of weeks ago will prolong the review process by a year or more, but it is safe to assume that only a tiny proportion of the failed applicants will ever get a visa.
A sad and almost unappreciated irony of the whole Baktiari saga was when misguided (but conceivably well meaning) refugee activists took the two escaped Baktiari boys to the British consulate in Melbourne to seek asylum. What few people (and obviously no-one in the media) apparently knew was that Britain’s acceptance rate of Afghan asylum seekers has never exceeded 30 per cent. If they couldn’t successfully negotiate the relatively generous Australian system, they had Buckley’s chance of getting into Britain.
Moreover, most other European countries are even less generous. Australia’s overall acceptance rate for onshore asylum seekers hovers around 30 per cent over the long term. Most European nations consider themselves excessively generous if they approve 12 per cent. Many of them have a so-called “white list” system which either conclusively deems asylum seekers from a long list of designated countries as not being at risk, or subjects them to perfunctory processing with a strong presumption against genuineness. These are the people who were lecturing the Howard government about breaching human rights standards. The reality is that, leaving aside the appalling mandatory detention system, figures show that Australia’s approach to asylum seekers, even under Howard and Ruddock, is more compassionate than any other country with the exception of Canada.
Finding a workable alternative to mandatory detention is by no means easy. Britain does not detain most asylum seekers, and the Home Office was recently forced to admit that the result is that around 2/3 of unsuccessful applicants simply disappear into the illegal economy before they can be deported. There is no reason to believe that Australia’s experience would be any different if we had a similar system. On the other hand, there are more than 70,000 illegal overstayers at large in Australia at any given moment, a fact which has never given rise to any public fear and loathing at all. It might have something to do with the fact that most of them are Americans and Poms with pale skin.
In a broader sense, the Baktiari story is replicated throughout the western world. All western countries are experiencing “compassion fatigue”, and politicians everywhere are reacting to adverse opinion polls with standard “law and order”-type responses. The Refugee Convention itself is under question. Its architects didn’t foresee a seemingly permanent worldwide refugee and displaced population of around 35 million people. Nor did they anticipate the emergence of people smuggling gangs moving an astounding 1 million people each year for an annual income of more than $10 billion. It’s almost as profitable as heroin, and a hell of a lot safer for the traffickers! Solutions to this crisis of compassion won’t be easy, but it’s certainly worth puzzling about it. We should never lose sight of the fact that very many asylum seekers really do face trauma, torture and death. They’re not all Ali Baktiaris. That, however, is a subject for another day.
Ken Parish is a Northern Territory Barrister who teaches Law at Northern Territory University. He is no longer associated with any political party, describing himself as a committed sceptic; a Lockean liberal with conservative instincts; fairly “dry” on economic issues but a little “damp” on some social ones.
****
Baktiari Fiasco Beyond a Joke 2002-08-25 23:47
After leading journalists and Australian Immigration Authorities on a wild goose chase around Afghanistan looking for his ever-changing home village, celebrity asylum-seeker Ali Baktiari finally admitted that he had lied about his past, and admitted that he had spent ’several years’ in Pakistan.
Just like seasoned politicians, his support groups ‘refined’ their earlier position on their version of the truth. Effectively saying that it was acceptable for asylum-seekers to lie in order to ensure a successful refugee claim.
Many Australians will feel quite betrayed by this. Initially the asylum-seeker support groups tried to stir up outrage in the community because of the contradictory position that the Immigration Department seemed to be taking. Ali Baktiari was classified as a refugee from Afghanistan, but his wife and children were classified as being from Pakistan.
Gleefully, the left joined in the chants of ‘liar Ruddock, liar!’ and presumably believed that enough repetitions made a truth – that the children overboard fiasco had permanently tarred the Howard/Ruddock position so that they could simply make up their own facts. However, this was not to be.
Few people would have predicted the events of September-11, or the resultant Taliban overthrow. In 2000, claiming to be a victim of Taliban persecution would have been a Pakistani plumber’s best chance of emigrating to Australia. After the collapse of the Taliban became inevitable, so was exposure of the lie.
And slowly, bit by bit, the lie was exposed. First as lack of knowledge about local currencies, then doubts expressed about accents and language and customs, then witnesses in Quetta (Pakistan), and then finally by journalists who went to the village that the Baktiaris claimed to be from.
But the left never saw this coming. They didn’t see that drawing attention to the plight of this asylum-seeker would result in his certain downfall. They didn’t understand that making it newsworthy would ensure the free press would investigate it themselves. Like a religious prayer, or witch’s spell – which gains more potency with repetition, presumably they believed that by repeating the lie often enough it would be believed. And they chose to put their credibility behind a case which was suspicious at best, and at worst an obvious fraud.
The Australian public now consists of three groups.
Those who have had their suspicions about asylum-seekers confirmed.
Those who feel betrayed by those who have asked for their help under false pretenses.
Those who feel that fraud, cheating and lying are acceptable if they are for personal gain.
There is nothing quite like the coldness from someone who has had their generosity and trust betrayed. Ali Baktiari, and some 700 other ’suspect’ cases may like to consider this on their trip home.
Australians are a generous people, but they don’t like being lied to.
****
Divisive lies that harden the heart
December 30, 2004
Sympathy for asylum seekers should be withheld from cheats, writes Miranda Devine.
You wouldn’t want to be the person who puts the Bakhtiaris on the plane to Pakistan. But now the family’s appeal processes have been exhausted, the Government is making moves in that direction.
“It has been established that Australia does not owe the family refugee protection,” the Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, said in a statement. “It is beyond doubt [they] are Pakistani nationals and can go there safely at any time … Their claims for refugee status have been tested and retested, including through 20 separate legal actions … The family has received more than a fair go and should now accept the outcome.”
The family’s supporters remain adamant they are Afghan refugees. But unless Vanstone and her department really are liars or incompetent, and the Refugee Review Tribunal and several courts are all wrong, the evidence says the Bakhtiaris are not refugees, as defined by the United Nations convention, but a plumber and his family from Pakistan hoping to make a better life in Australia.
smh.
Afghan asylum boys’ father admits lying – report
Friday, August 23, 2002 : 11:40:15 AM
The father of two Afghan boys who walked into the British consulate in Melbourne and asked for asylum has admitted he has not lived in his homeland for many years it was reported today.
Ali Baktiari was granted political asylum in Australia after telling the government he had fled persecution in Afghanistan.
His sons, Alamdar, 13, and Montazar, 12, appealed to British diplomats after escaping from the notorious Woomera detention camp, where Baktiari’s wife and two daughters are also being held.
Britain refused to grant them asylum, and turned them over to Australian authorities who returned them to the Outback camp.
The Age newspaper today said their father admitted in an interview that he actually came to Australia from Pakistan.
The government said their father’s admission meant he was likely to be stripped of his refugee visa.
Baktiari was quoted as saying he spent two years in the Pakistani city of Quetta before paying people smugglers thousands of pounds to get him to Australia.
He added that it had been many years since he left Afghanistan, the Age said.
Had the Australian government known, it would probably have rejected his application, saying he should have sought asylum in the first country he arrived in after fleeing Afghanistan.
Our view is that we were seriously misled by him,Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said. And in a situation like that cancellation of the visa is certainly a likely outcome.
Refugee activist Cyrus Sarang said today that Baktiari now claims he does not remember telling the newspaper that he came to Australia from Pakistan.
But Prime Minister John Howard said Baktiari’s admission proved the Australian government was right to reject visas for his family.
I don’t derive any sort of pleasure out of the government being apparently proven correct on this situation, Howard said today.
I would just invite people who have been so ready to brand the government as heartless and so ready to criticise the system … to have a look at this material and just accept that we are not people who are behaving unreasonably,he said.
Jan 27th, 2006
Ken
The Marilyn and Geoff show rolls along bearing no relevacne at all to the actual topic of the blog. Sounds like the script for a great movei – fight all day and great in the sack!!!
Jan 31st, 2006
Geoff
Gee kkkKen, you coud always ask Marilyn to stick to the topic instead of turning everything into Refugees… do you think that would work?
Jan 31st, 2006
Ken
Methinks the lady has a fixation, compassion is a great quality we all need more of it, but i recall an old saying about wood and trees
Jan 31st, 2006