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dreamer_easyThomson accuses Labor of 'pandering to rednecks'
Various Labor MPs angrily criticise the legislation to remove mainland Australia from the "migration zone" for refugees. "It's an absurd proposal that Australia isn't part of Australia," quoth Craig Thomson, neatly summarising the bureaucratic contortions.
But I wish to hell people wouldn't use the term "rednecks". For a start, it's snobbish bigotry. For another, surely we need a more sophisticated understanding of why so many Australians still hold reactionary views about refugees. For example, if people in rural and regional Australia are less friendly to refugees (and I'm not sure that's true), it may be partly because they've had less contact with immigrants than we urbanites.
What's more, Australians from all walks of life have been fed lies and propaganda about refugees for literally decades, while asylum seekers have been kept as far away from the public eye as possible. I remember the Four Corners special which showed the psychological damage done to an eight year old in indefinite detention; there was an outpouring of anger and compassion. Rather than dismissing people as ignorant bumpkins, how do we reach them with the human faces of the story?
Various Labor MPs angrily criticise the legislation to remove mainland Australia from the "migration zone" for refugees. "It's an absurd proposal that Australia isn't part of Australia," quoth Craig Thomson, neatly summarising the bureaucratic contortions.
But I wish to hell people wouldn't use the term "rednecks". For a start, it's snobbish bigotry. For another, surely we need a more sophisticated understanding of why so many Australians still hold reactionary views about refugees. For example, if people in rural and regional Australia are less friendly to refugees (and I'm not sure that's true), it may be partly because they've had less contact with immigrants than we urbanites.
What's more, Australians from all walks of life have been fed lies and propaganda about refugees for literally decades, while asylum seekers have been kept as far away from the public eye as possible. I remember the Four Corners special which showed the psychological damage done to an eight year old in indefinite detention; there was an outpouring of anger and compassion. Rather than dismissing people as ignorant bumpkins, how do we reach them with the human faces of the story?
