Leader of Australia’s Liberal Party (which is its lamestream conservative party, in spite of its name), currently the minority in Parliament, wants to bring back “temporary visas” for masses of refugees on boats (usually south or southeast Asian) that like to show up on Australia’s shores every once in awhile. Prime Minster Kevin Rudd, leader of the majority Australian Labour Party, noted that 90% of such “temporary visa” holding boat refugees that got their visas under similar plans enacted by Rudd’s predecessor, PM John Howard of the Liberal Party, got permanent visas. And I’m sure most of them will become citizens, if they haven’t already.
How’s that for a turnabout — the liberal (small “l”) PM is against mass immigration, the “conservative” party is for it. The irony is that John Howard got his nuts out of the vise several times when his political career seemed over by turning away such boat refugees. It was all an election season gimmick. I suspect that Kevin Rudd’s newfound “conservatism” is the same kind of gimmick; elections in Australia are next year.
