In tonight’s leaders’ debate, which centred almost totally on immigration, Julia Gillard reiterated her claim that dialogue was progressing with the Timorese government on the establishment of a regional processing centre for asylum seekers. That was before the debate descended into an unedifying discussion of domestic politics in Nauru.
The problem for the government is that this notion of dialogue is not shared by Dili:
Despite the Prime Minister’s repeated assertions of dialogue on the plan, Foreign Minister Zacarias da Costa said discussions had yet to take place.
‘‘Discussion happens when we exchange views, but when only one side presents its views, and the other side is limited to listening, then I don’t call that a discussion,’’ he told The Sunday Age.
The Age reports that the manner in which Canberra has approached Dili has caused “dismay”:
Senior sources in Dili said attempts by the federal government to play down the extent of Timorese resistance to the idea, including a unanimous parliamentary vote against it, have compounded the offence caused by Ms Gillard’s failure to consult Mr Gusmao before her announcement.
I gather Gusmao has been avoiding Australia’s envoys by pretending to be uncontactable in the districts. I rate the chances of a centre in Timor at about 5% – and I can assure you Timorese MPs rate in lower than that.
Honestly. I’m just speechless about the poisonous bile and incompetence that spews through the body politic from Sussex St.
I dont even blame Gillard – isnt someone with a friggin clue supposed to be advising her?
Hey numbskulls – why dont you talk to DFAT first next time? I can assure everyone that our diplomatic team in Dili and on the Timor desk in Canberra is top notch – its clear to me they were not asked how to proceed appropriately with this.
Yes, that’s in the story in The Age, Lefty E.
The Maccaw is deceased.
Right!
Gillard has not been telling the truth, but giving her the benefit of the doubt, we can say that she has been kept misinformed by her advisors. Now that the East Timorese govt has spoken up, Gillard has some ‘splainin’ to do. If she continues to maintain that dialogue is ongoing, then she can be rightly accused of lying. So, Julia, are you incompetent or lying?
Op ed in the Jakarta Post calls Gillard a xenophobe
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/07/13/gillard039s-xenophobic039-agenda-pressure-mounts.html
Not to be sarcastic, but this would never have happened if Kevin Rudd had been foreign minister for as long as Smith has been.
I’m not saying a still-PM Rudd mightn’t have been forced into this against his better judgement if he’d remained in office, as I think this whole mess has come from the Shorten government-within-a-government, the only people who could have maintained him in power.
But there’s no way a strong foreign minister would have allowed this to happen. This is a case of ex-state secretary Stephen Smith overriding whatever talent minister Smith has for his job.
This must be Australia’s most egregious international relations mistake. Excluding the conservatives’ love for those pointless wars-of-choice on continental Eurasia, that is.
You Born Again Liberal Lovers forgot one tiny detail in your rush to attack Gillard.
The govt is curently in Caretaker mode – hence the lack of action on action on Timor
But since you are so blinded by your new found love for Tony Abbott perhaps you should do some light reading.
http://www.dpmc.gov.au/guidelines/docs/caretaker_conventions.pdf
Read and learn bfore you eembarrass yourselves evven further.
Frank: I don’t quite understand you. If the government is in caretaker mode, why is JG making up fictitious tales of “active dialogue” with the E. Timorese? Why not say she’ll pursue talks after the election instead? Or better still, keep mum about it?
To answer silkworm’s question: blatant lying is one of the clearest signs of incompetence. And to answer yours, Frank: I’m worried that this episode will damage the ALP in preferences. Many people – left and right – are pretty well disposed to the East Timorese. They don’t have the contempt for them that seems to be endemic in the Sussex St. brains squad. Nor do they like being lied too.
The point is that Gusmao won’t take calls, and that the Timorese leadership have taken offence.
In any event, had the thing been properly thought out, there would have been a substantive proposal to put to them before any possible effect of a caretaker convention.
Frank @ 8 your conviction that anyone who criticises your team self-evidently loves the other team is an identical mentality to that of the conservatives who for 11 years equated criticism of Howard with being a Labor supporter. It’s a one-dimensional perception of politics that makes anything but mindless cheer-leading impossible.
Frank’s just a bit confused: this balls-up happened before caretaker mode commenced.
In fact the link above to the article in the Jakarta Post leads to the following from Sir John Menadue:
The ALP should be ashamed of itself pandering to the old White Australia and the mythical Western suburbs of Sydney – the latter is a wonderful multicultural mix of the future Australia if you go there. The East Timor move is simply to buy time, the Pacific Solution revisited which is not the Pacific Solution.
Here in Tasmania, we have the offer of King Island, where there are houses available and lots of jobs on offer – and other places in Australia would welcome refugees while they are processed.
Julia should remember the Fraser days when the Vietnamese boat people arrived and a Liberal PM ignored xenophobia to welcome them here – a people now very much part of Australia.