So reports Andrew Bartlett:
Debate on the Migration Amendment (Abolishing Detention Debt) Bill will continue today. Senator Xenophon has stated he supports the Bill, as do Labor and the Greens. The Coalition Senators will oppose it – assuming none of them support the original recommendation of their Coalition colleagues on the Joint Standing Committee on Migration and cross the floor.
Which leaves the fate of the Bill with Senator Fielding. I had the understanding that he would also be supporting it, but his contribution to the Senate debate yesterday has left me unsure quite what he thinks about the whole issue, let alone the Bill. The Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, also seemed rather perplexed by Senator Fielding’s depiction of the issue, judging by the numerous injections he made. Presumably all will become clear later today when debate on the matter resumes and a final Senate vote is taken.
Maybe Fielding could pay attention to what his own church does to help refugees.
That said, Fielding only has this power because of the conservatives’ determination to own the entire damn legacy of the Howard government, every nasty, mean-spirited, piece of it.
UPDATE: It passed, with Fielding voting for it, and Judith Troeth crossing the floor. Thanks to Andrew in comments for passing this on, and congratulations to Troeth, particularly, for showing some guts to do the right thing.
Fielding is so mentally discombobulating that he causes hard drug abuse? Yes probably.
Sadly Fielding will be remembered from this day hence as the man who can’t spell fiscal. But that he is even pausing to consider which way he will vote on this is disgraceful. But it is par for the course for this man who is possibly one of the most pliant of useful idiots who yearns for the limelight as proof of his relevancy. No-one professing any sort of compassion could disagree with the ideas in this bill. And yet he is sniffing around the rear ends of the worst sort of people in the Liberal party on this issue. It is a shame turnbull doesn’t pull his mob into line and tell them to vote for it. I wonder how people like Marise Payne are going to vote when push comes to shove.
It makes you want to weep.
It was reported on ABC radio that at least one member of the Coalition in the Senate will support a change.
According to the good senator we have monetary policy and “physical” policy…and this somehow relates to Goldilocks and the three bears.
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for sense from this man.
Oh god, he’s such an idiot I feel dumber just thinking about it. Labor, you reap your just rewards for getting this guy in the senate, at the expense of humanity you cold bastards.
inTERjections?
Re Joe2 @ 2
Judith Troeth (Liberal Senator from Victoria) spoke in the Senate when debate resumed this afternoon, saying she would support the legislation. Fielding moved an amendment, which wasn’t supported by anyone else.
On the final vote a division was called, with Judith Troeth crossing the floor and Fielding ending up voting for it as well. It passed with 34 in favour and 30 against.
Hooray! Thanks, Andrew.
All we need now is for Racial Discrimination Act to be reinstated.
So the Coalition actually called for a division this time? That was brave of them.
The first step to reclaiming our soul as a nation
In future today will be seen as the day we began to wipe away the stain and effluence, that was liberal ideology, from our national identity.
Troeth has always been relatively human(e) for a Liberal senator, although she did support Serfchoices.
That is a great outcome. Eat The Rich, I heard Fielding talking about physical policy this morning – couldn’t believe it. It’s up there with his ‘2 rocks and a hard place’ line. Classic.
Bernard Keane @ Crikey is calling Fielding hopeless and saying the dyslexic senator is out of his depth. How did he get through a Monash MBA? I can see how a dyslexic can pass Engineering at RMIT but completing an MBA? It’s about time universities reintroduced standards so that when someone graduates from an MBA or whatever you can feel confident that they can read and write reports to a greater skill level than a year 10 high school girl – because they are paid so much more!
wonderful news that it passed – hats off to Judith Troeth for having the conviction and guts to cross the floor when it mattered. Kudos to the other Senators already supporting the amendments as well, of course.
Fielding is so embarrassing it’s hard to conceptualise.
As no one else has gone for the obvious gag…
“Senator Fielding said he had managed to complete his studies with hard wrok, commitment and the help of Dog.”
Uh, dyslexia and stupidity don’t go hand-in-hand. Are we grown up enough to separate legitimate learning difficulties from simple stupidity, or will this just be thread for trashing those not lucky enough to be wired up ‘normally’?
Fair point, Grumphy.
If Fielding is dyslexic, that doesn’t make him a embarrassing dill.
Not having a friggin’ clue on any public policy issue of importance makes him an embarrassing dill.
You know, Lyndon LaRouche and the CEC refer to the ’science of physical economy’…
There is very touching description of how things went in the Senate via this link..
http://www.theage.com.au/national/senate-passes-legislation-abolishing-asylum-seeker-debt-20090908-ffg4.html
Just when you think surely the ALP has run out of welcome mats for people smugglers, they manage to weave yet another. That must be the left’s border security strategy – deter smuggling by making it too attractive to be believed.
What is it about the right and heartless bastardry?
Just when you think surely the ALP has run out of welcome mats for people smugglers, they manage to weave yet another. That must be the left’s border security strategy – deter smuggling by making it too attractive to be believed.
Oooh, so it was the people smugglers who were charged the detention fees of legitimate asylum seekers, not the refugees themselves. Thank goodness you cleared that up.
no idea joe2 – probably lower than a snake’s duodenum to borrow a phrase
Nice one Criag Mc (C**t) spelling is correct. What I really like about my country is how the “left” are still prepared to be violent…towards people like you. BTW you’re not a ‘ranga’ by chance?
Not to mention rank stupidity.
People smuggler: Hay yoose go to Australia and youze getz free 5 star accommodation at Le Stella De Detention. Youse no have to pay.
Asylum seeker/illegal entrant/queue jumper: Take me there pleese. I want ze free accommodation. Is there a catch?
PS: No, zee government is ze socialist and crazy. Zay have zee welcome mat for youse all.
Well, we’re getting rid of all the Howard evil – very very slowly.
@19. Perhaps if the Western bombing of these countries ceased we might also see a reduction in the number of people risking the journey here in leaky boats..?
Craig, I believe they’ve moved onto coasters and free pencil cases.
Excuse my french, but seriously, what do you give a fuck about a few hundred refugees oer a year compared to the vast numbers of illegal visa overstayers, etc.? Can we start locking them up, instead?
Ooohhhh, right. It’s only the powerless and dispossessed that we fuck over. Don’t know why I forgot.
There is a certain Orwellian comedy about a bill for $235,014.28 for services rendered being presented to someone who’d been jailed very much against their will.
Personally, I’d want to see a breakdown of how those costs were attributed.
‘People smuggler: Hay yoose go to Australia and youze getz free 5 star accommodation at Le Stella De Detention. Youse no have to pay.’
People smugglers have always told stories like that to refugees. Even under Howard people were told Australia would give them free houses.
Because amazingly – refugees from war zones and tyrannical regimes don’t follow Australian politics as closely as blog commenters.
What makes Australia attractive to refugees is that it is a prosperous first world nation. To truly ‘deter’ them we need to stop looking better than the Taliban.
Poor Craig Mc, I heard he’s living in a skip behind Maccas ’cause of all that cash he lost on McCain. Still it’s nice to see that he’s consistently stupid.
Troeth crossed the floor, so Fieldingaling was irrelevant in the end. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/08/2679939.htm
Paul Burns @ 25 – It was Keating who introduced both mandatory detention of refugees and charging them for the cost of detention. I guess there are many Labor supporter would like that part of history to be forgotten.
I think you’ll find it was Hawke that started charging detainees for the cost of detention, not Keating, but point taken. Up until now we were the only country in the world to do so.
The big difference between the Keating and the Howard detention regimes, for those who have forgotten history, was the time taken to process. Under Keating, genuine refugees were processed and released within months. Under Howard, the “processing” time was extended indefinitely for all boat arrivals, and this was where the ultimate cruelty lay. Men, women and children locked up for YEARS without any hope of EVER being released…which the incidentally made the imposition of pro rata charges even more disgusting…
ABC news tonight falsely claimed that Troeth’s crossing the floor was unnecessary because Fielding voted for the bill!
On the contrary Grace, processing was quite swift.
The only extended detentions were for those who were rejected & continually appealed the rejection. Don’t we feel so warm for paying to have these fellers all lawyered up? (Don’t those pieces of slime who kept appealing on their behalf need a lesson in which hand feeds them)
Any difficulty in processing due to “lost” documents doesn’t have my sympathy. There was always the option of not “losing” the documentation. These illegals/asylum seekers/refugees weren’t without resources, they were after all able to raise the circa USD$10,000 for a passage on a leaky boat.
[These illegals/asylum seekers/refugees weren’t without resources, they were after all able to raise the circa USD$10,000 for a passage on a leaky boat.]
of course
FILTHY LUCRE
the real cause of any fibs outrage.
If they are not getting their paws on that lovely dosh,why should anyone else have money.especially those jibber jabbers.
its unaustralian i tells ya
Sigh, all those evil manipulative women and children deliberately losing their papers when fleeing war zones.
Just a little more history. Over 90 percent of Howard’s boat people were eventually found to be genuine refugees, after years of waiting in agony for their cases to be properly processed, and after Immigration was finally told to get on with the job, when public revulsion became impossible to ignore, and official and non-official inquiries revealed that bureaucratic policy settings under successive Liberal Ministers were apparently deliberately designed to incarcerate boat people indefinitely for political ends.
One more fact, for those who have forgotten history. The High Court found, in a black letter reading of the law, that the Howard Government had the constitutional power to detain boat people indefinitely. And so it was all legal and above board, to our everlasting shame.
Its always fun to watch the confusion creep across Coalition supporters faces when they discover its actually cheaper for refugees to get to Australia than to Europe – primarily because its so much more dangerous. Thats the determining factor on route for many.
Resources of course are *totally irrelevant* to the issue of whether you have been persecuted by your own state – except insofar as dictatorships tend to fear educated classes more. With this in mind, possessing some financial means is not remotely incompatible with refugee status – in fact, there is a weak positive correlation with possession of above average means. Dictators dont fear illiterate huddled impoverished masses – they fear the people who might educate and organise them into an opposition.
Not that actual analysis will impact upon the militant ignorance of some overfed, complacent twits, but just sayin’!
Steve the “slime” that kept appealing can hold their heads high compared to those who sent people back to summary execution.
Another beam of El Rodente’s Rat Box crumbles.
Most heartening to witness Senator Troeth’s moral courage given that the Lord’s of Tory deemed it a non-conscience vote.
Stick uo your hand if you’d like to travel back in time to Saddam’s or the Taliban’s regime and go apply for a passport and/or exit visa. Dont forget to explain that you need it so you can leave the country with “proper documentation”, owing to you being an opponent of the regime intending to seek asylum.
Oh, and tell em to process it quickly, since you are currently fleeing the political police who imprisoned your brother without charge last week. I’m sure they’ll be most understanding of your plight.
…so much for ‘proper documentation’, folks. Next?
LeftyE, have you got a reference for that that you can post?
It’s not that I think it’s unlikely (I think it’s very likely that there is a strong correlation with possession of above average means, average means in many countrries that refugees come from being not a great distance above destitution in our terms) it’s just that since you’ve quoted it as fact you should be able to provide the evidence for it. Or otherwise say that it’s just your opinion but we should expect us to accept that your opinion is a fact.
A salient fact for those twits above is that the scheme was financially irresponsible as well as morally indefensible. So, just think of all those taxpayers dollars being thrown away for no reason. You should have been outraged!
Congratulations to Senator Judith Troeth. A small number of Liberal MPs have been relatively humane on refugee issues. Russell Broadbent, the superb Petrou, Judi Moylan, Judith Troeth.
Sure Greg. Its my own conclusion (as opposed to opinion), based on data accumulated while writing a book – which required me to interview 70+ arrivals later found to be refugees by DIMIA itself, between 2002-2004. A disproportionate number of the Iraqis were higky trained professionals – no real surprise as Saddam targeted those groups, especially among Shi’a. I would be the first to note that it held less compellingly true for Afghans. Hence the word ‘weak’.
Suffice to say, if ANYTHING, having had $10,000 is a ‘positive’ factor in identifying a genuine refugee (…from Iraq, at least). A weak one though. Obviously the impoverished are also persecuted. My point is it is most definitely *not* some factor which casts doubt on a claim.
Never forget the ALP gave us fielding – Newhman and Jacinta Collins did the deal
Ah Lefty E,
Are you not aware that Noam Chomsky cast doubt on this methodology in suggesting that Ponchaud’s book on Kampuchea should be treated with caution, since its prime data (apart from Khmer Rouge official broadcasts) were interviews with *refugees*?
Clearly you simply cannot trust what refugees say. Especially what they say about the regime they fled. It simply will not do.
Lefty E, I look at the issue in the same way as you do. If you are an educated professional then you are going to be more vulnerable to a reactionary or criminal regime and at the same time better resourced to flee from it. Hence my point about a strong correlation being likely.
But let us keep the discussion within what we can speak of from our experience and not make claims with a specific meaning -”correlation”- for which we do not have the evidence.
<blockquoteA salient fact for those twits above is that the scheme was financially irresponsible
Adrian, loath as I am to agree with you on anything, on this point I think tthat with a bit of digging around you will be proved right. How much a night were the asylum seekers charged for their accommodation? And how much less per night would it have cost to put them up in the motel down the road?
GregM loath as I am to respond to anything you post, this may prove illuminating:
As the Explanatory Memorandum to the bill notes:
The bill further states:
Well Greg, 70 interviewees is considered quite a reasonable sample in my game, and occupational category was data I in fact collected. My assessment based on that evidence is that your hunch would be right re Iraqis (strong), and somewhat less strong re Afghans – owing to different patterns of prevailing educational levels, and the less sophisticated, militia-based communal nature of Taliban persecution.
It true i didn’t run it through SPSS and do a chi-square at the time – and if thats your point, then I concede it on technicalities. But I can assure you the qualitative data makes me more than moderately confident I would have
Adrian, to come up with that $54.3 million debt, how much a night were they charged?
Probably enough to put them up in a Five Star hotel, I suspect. It is one thing to charge them with their accommodation. It is another to charge them for their imprisonment.
Take a boo Gerry and Bob!
“Gerry Hand was the immigration minister who, in 1992, introduced the controversial policy of mandatory detention for illegal arrivals and asylum seekers”. He began this appallingly cruel fee, at the same time, that has cost more to collect than the small amount gathered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Hand
GregM @ 53 – According to SBS they were charged $140/person/day which I’d guess is pretty representative of the real cost given the centers are basically jails. However some families stayed for a long time which is how they incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Given the vast majority of people claiming asylum would be unable to pay anyway I don’t really understand why it was introduced in the first place unless Hawke/Keating did it for purely popularity reasons.
“I don’t really understand why it was introduced in the first place unless Hawke/Keating did it for purely popularity reasons.”
Chris, this old editorial from Green Left may give you a clue.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/1992/63/2856
@joe2: Fair point, but I just wish you were able to make it without linking to Green Left Weekly. That rag and the tunnel-visioned ideologues who hawk it are what give The Left a bad name in this country. I oughta know; I used to be one of them. At the end of the day, it’s just another tabloid.
Why the game of Soggy Sao over what a scoundrel Senator Fielding is?
News Bulletin kids: Fielding voted with the government.
Lacquered,
if you have the time and inclination, I reckon quite a few readers here would be interested in hearing why you became disenchanted with “GLW”. In the spirit of improvement-through-critique.
cheerio.
For once, I agree with you, Steve. Fielding is a twit and hardly worth the bother. Though he does serve as a useful reminder of how clever(or not) all those ALP backroom preference deal fiddles can be.
On the other hand it is important to note the stand of Troeth, and of those few earlier Libs prepared to make a stand against that shameful policy. Adrian was right that regardless of the immorality of that detention policy, it could never be justified economically. (Howard might argue that it was worth it if it helped keep them in office.)
I haven’t yet seen the costs for the damages done to the Australian citizen held at Baxter, or the other one who was given the bum’s rush to the Philippines. One hopes that that macho culture will disappear from Immigration. The public service is diminished by it.
I’d like to see Australia eventually remembered for something beyond the infamy of its prisons, but at the moment, Woomera and Baxter seem to have joined that sorry line from Norfolk Island and Port Arthur to Grafton and J-Ward. And I try not to even think about Nauru.
Dunno if this has been said already, but I really don’t think those coalition senators and MPs deserve any respect for crossing the floor. They did it at the lowest ebb of their party under a weak leader. Had they done it under Howard instead of caving everytime he threatened them/handed them a really pathetic compromise, this bill wouldn’t even be under discussion.
Cowards, all 5 of them, and suitably undeserving of plaudits for crossing the floor now to undo what they did all those years ago.
Do not be too hard on him SATP. For Steve Fielding it was just a game of musical chairs and when the sounds stopped, he ended up sitting in the nearest seat. As it happened he voted with the government.
Lacquered Studio @57, maybe so, but it is an interesting snapshot of how that editor saw the Hawke government ramp up fear of refugees, and while they were at it, whip up an unemployed bash, for a few votes. It is good to remember that Howard, while he managed to make an art form of the technique, did not invent it.
I think you will find, SATP, that those lawyers are “fed” by their own commercial activities on behalf of paying clients. Their first duty is as an officer of the court. Their recognised role is to represent the individual in legal disputes with other individuals or the State.
I’m not aware that racist Queensland publicans hold any special place in the judicial system. Feel free to place your lessons where the sun don’t shine, therefore.
Sean, if you know of any racist Qld publicans, feel free to mention one, and your basis for saying so. My tip? you’ll now go really silent on this particular topic.
You neatly skip around who is paying for appeal after consecutive appeal. There are no shortage of citizens prepared to act against the interests of their nation. Once upon a time they used to be shot or otherwise pulled into line. Now we can afford to indulge them.
This improvement of our national circumstances in no way confers an upgrade of status to those people. Their contribution remains such that were they to stop breathing, the country would be better off.
@Ambigulous: I do have the inclination and will try to make the time today.
@joe2: It is a good editorial on the issue. I’ve just got general gripes with GLW, Socialist Alliance…and Resistance especially. As I’ve said, I’ll try to explain why later.
“There are no shortage of citizens prepared to act against the interests of their nation. Once upon a time they used to be shot or otherwise pulled into line.”
Ah, if only the New Guard were still around…
Actually, I think cutting them down with machine guns the way they did in 1890 is much more effective.
Steve, that really is uncouth and uncalled for, even by your low standards. I wish we had a flagging option on posts.
I wasn’t going to say anymore because arguing with ignorant imbeciles gets tiresome very quickly, but don’t go thinking you’ve cowed me into submission Steve. I was referring to you.
Sweet I get to quote Robespierre again.
Steve at the Pub: objectively pro-Terror.
Sean, you call me racist? You have no basis for that statement. This shows you for a fool and/or an imbecile. Do you often hit the keyboard without stopping to think, or was this a first?
PatrickG: Back in your box, my standards are NOT low, I am as worthy in my opinions, experience & beliefs as the next man.
Chav & Paul @ 66/67: I’m much more a fan of imperial cavalry charges, galloping down a broad avenue with glinting sabres. (Don’t need to stop & reload a sabre you see)
Actually long, straight avenues with the high and strong points held by the enemy make terrible battlefields for cavalry, Steve, as any Crimean veteran could tell you. Cavalry are for rolling up flanks and free maneouvring around behind or beside the enemy to attack, or for breaking up large crowds of people in open space ie. at Peterloo; it’s the artillery you want when there are long clear lanes of fire and the enemy has barricaded itself in at one end.
/warnerd
Apologies. I wasn’t thinking straight. It was a Gatling gun. And, Steve, it was very effective agains unarmed unionists.
Billie @ 12, it surprises me not a whit that Fielding has an MBA. I am surprised that you see an MBA as anything but a badge of incompetence.
I am much more surprised he got through an engineering degree at RMIT without learning how to think like an engineer. (No, it’s not his religion — I’ve met plenty of Christian engineers who are definitely engineers!)
Could Judith’s conduct represent the small beginnings of the Liberal growing a social conscience? Howard would never have tolerated such dissension from the ranks. Good on her I say! More at “Liberal with a Conscience” here: http://guttertrash.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/a-liberal-with-a-conscience/#comment-4655
Extreme thread derailment here, but you should know, Haiku Haussman, that it’s a bit of a myth that Paris’ distinctive boulevards were constructed with a military/repressive purpose in mind. Yes, they were very helpful in facilitating troop movements through the city during the time of the Paris Commune, but they weren’t designed with artillery fields of fire or cavalry charges in mind, but rather the more prosaic objective of improved traffic flow through, historically, one of Europe’s largest and most congested medieval cities. The process of creating the broad roads called boulevards* began under the Bourbon kings, notably – your favourite and mine – Le Roi Soleil**, as they tore down Paris’ redundant (merci, Vauban***) walls and replaced them with some of the first ring roads. “Baron” Haussman continued the process, punching broad roads into and across the city’s centre.
* from the Dutch bolwerk, from which we get “bulwark”.
** OK, wrong Louis for the clip but, you know, feckit.
*** genuine genius.
…Actually I did know that, and that the Commune’s barricades weren’t broken down with boulevarde-artillery but by the Versailles forces levelling buildings around all of the defenders’ strongpoints. But, you know.
A man can dream of nineteenth century MOUT can’t he?
allons enfants de la patrie…
Keep watching the gares, Haiku…but keep some tissues handy.
Shorter SATP: Appeals are only for
(a) People who swill beer at my pub(b) People who think as I do. (cf: enemies of the state!)Shorter shorter (“the essential”) SATP: Ein Oktoberfest, Ein Volksgerichtshof,* Ein firing squad.
(*Peoples court)
(Shorter shorter shorter SATP: I reserve the right to myself to declare what are the interests of the nation.)
Baron Hausmann (or current nome-de-plume) I was in a much more Czarist mindset with my cavalry charge down the boulevard , but after reading your posts realise that I could easily detour away from impaling Russian serfs to fit in a bit of French.
Paul, Having carried a ticket much of my working life, I have wish list of organisers et al that I would cheerfully subject to a cavalry charge, and again a 2nd time just to make sure.
Er.. When charging down the boulevard at sefs, I prefer them to not have muskets (don’t want to be the one who brought sabres to a gunfight)
Peter Kemp: Studies have shown that firing squads are most effective at preventing recidivism.
Extending the Oktoberfest segment of you suggested judicial system would make the legal process more user friendly (eliminating the Volksgerichtshof) and proceeding direct from there to the firing squad stage would innoculate the participants from any unease, and give the accused a better chance.
sg @ 62
The Liberal dissenters may not have gone as far as you wished but they did defy John Howard and did cross the floor when he was PM. For example, on detention of children. It was around the time Mr Co$tello $pat the Dummy, so many would have missed it.
injections?
Wow … Family First does drugs in Senate. Must be one of those Senate privileges fandangoes …
see post No 1, Fran, Sean has been there done that
Asylums-seekers get way more political coverage than their relatively small numbers and relatively minor injustices warrant. Even so, the record shows that 90% of asylum-seekers were genuine refugees.
So I’m glad that some of them don’t have to cool their heels in detention indefinitely. Nor pay for the privilege.
But I guess Left-liberals need some issue to feel morally superior to the Howard administration, now that the several atrocities of the cultural policies they conceived and unleashed are now so thoroughly on the nose. (Another day, another riot in Auburn. Although now at least the remote indigenes have some accountable supervision.
One interesting aspect of Troeth crossing the floor hasn’t yet been noted here – it demonstrates that the disunity in the Coalition can cut both ways and means that Steve Fielding actually becomes less relevant.
If the Government can see its way to introducing more bills on which they can credibly present moral authority, they will be able to get them through.
There is certainly an aspect of “tim would say that” here, but consider what this might mean for the CPRS if (and it’s a big if) the Government decided to actually agree to the regular offers of negotiation from the Greens.
Interesting point, Tim.
But do you really think there’s any likelihood of a Coalition senator voting for the kind of CPRS that would be the likely outcome of a Greens/Labor deal?
As far as I know, most of the Liberal party rank and file don’t understand the science (and thus the need for action) very well at all.
Hey, for that matter, Robert, most of Labor rank and file don’t understand it, either. the point being that it’s at least as likely that a Lib would cross the floor on it as it is that the Labor Govt would be willing to do it.
Let’s now blame it on Fielding being a sceptic or the Greens not negotiating is the point. It could happen if the Government actually wanted it to.
The point Troeth made, after crossing the floor, was that she could do it, when a conscience vote was not involved, because her retirement was imminent and it would make little difference to her career. I thought better of her until she said that, given the mental pain those costs would have had on asylum seekers.
joe2, I heard Troeth talking about it on the radio, but didn’t take what she said in quite the same way. I thought she was pointing out what prevents other people from crossing the floor. But you might be right
I agreee with joe2. Troeth effectively said that the only reason she crossed the floor was because it would not affect her career any more. So much for principle. She then disloyally and unnecessarily dumped on those few of her party colleagues, who might also have been tempted to cross, by helpfully explaining that their political ambitions had trumped their morality and compassion. No doubt true, but I bet nobody is thanking her for pointing it out.