CPD founder and Board Director John Menadue condemns the Opposition’s current stance on asylum seekers. Either using one-liners or  simply recycling failed policy plans of the past, such as Nauru, is not a credible refugee policy solution. Menadue states that the Howard government’s Nauru ‘solution’ cost $1 billion over 5 years, and didn’t actually stem the flow of asylum seekers coming to Australia, but rather shifted them from boats to air.

The Coalition has said that ‘the more boats that come the better’. This cynicism has been reflected in two recent statements by Scott Morrison. The first was to criticise the meagre Government support for vulnerable asylum seekers in the community and second, by suggesting that asylum seekers were bringing infectious diseases to Australia. Surely we are a better country than this.

Read the full article in Eureka Street here

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