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Reputation scrubbed

FOLLOWING the news for the last two or three weeks has been an interesting experience.
Especially the Abbott Government’s response concerning the arrival of two boat loads of asylum seekers.
Apparently we are – via a barrage of spin, half-truths, untruths and denial – to believe that these boats and the people on them do not exist at all, despite many indications to the contrary.
If so, why?
If this is to protect policy and political credibility, or for more unsavoury reasons, it matters little.
Either way it is wrong, sickeningly so.
These are real people, most running from a variety of repressive and adverse government and situations religious, racial and political etc.
Some are literally running for their lives.
The method being used, including processing and transferring these people at sea and returning them, has been condemned by the United Nations and Amnesty International among others.
This policy and its implementation could be described as “rub-a-dub-dub-a-government-in-a-tub”. But Mr Abbott and Co cannot remove the stain on Australia’s reputation “no-matter-how-hard-they-scrub”.
This is a disgrace by any standard, even ones as low as this government’s.
Thanks for trashing my country’s reputation – you were not elected to do this.
Geoff Cain,
Endeavour Hills.

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