The Australian
A CAMBODIAN-BORN Victorian MP has condemned Gillard's new asylum policy, telling one a constituent it makes him ashamed to be a member of the ALP.
Hong Lim, a Chinese-Cambodian Labor MP who fled Pol Pot's regime in the 1970s, made the comments in a letter to local constituent Erika Stahr, a 60-year member of the ALP.
She wrote to her local MP saying she was turning her back on a party that had turned its back on the boatpeople.
Mr Lim replied: "I am at a loss to know what to say to people, let alone what to do.
"I hang my head in shame as a leader of the Cambodian community, as a member of the ALP, as an MP, as an Australian . . . as a human being, to see political expediency being played out so cruelly and so unconscionably even among our party!"
The response was sent not just to Ms Stahr's home at Clayton in Melbourne's southeast, but to all Labor MPs in the state lower house. It was posted at 5.17am on July 7, the morning after the Prime Minister announced her East Timor solution for the boatpeople.
By yesterday, Mr Lim was not just hanging his head, but keeping it down. He said the letter was meant for internal party use and was "indeed a very personal view".
But the frank correspondence shows the challenge facing Ms Gillard as she continues to walk both sides of road.
While Ms Gillard's plan for offshore processing of asylum-seekers may be well-received in western Sydney seats the ALP is fearful of losing, it may sink like a leaky boat in her political backyard of Melbourne.
The PM must deal with the political equation. But the pain is felt by Labor supporters such as 80-year-old Ms Stahr, head of the Indo-China Refugee Association, and now considering a vote for the Greens. She said she was impressed with Mr Lim's response.
"I know he cares a lot."
Hong Lim, a Chinese-Cambodian Labor MP who fled Pol Pot's regime in the 1970s, made the comments in a letter to local constituent Erika Stahr, a 60-year member of the ALP.
She wrote to her local MP saying she was turning her back on a party that had turned its back on the boatpeople.
Mr Lim replied: "I am at a loss to know what to say to people, let alone what to do.
"I hang my head in shame as a leader of the Cambodian community, as a member of the ALP, as an MP, as an Australian . . . as a human being, to see political expediency being played out so cruelly and so unconscionably even among our party!"
The response was sent not just to Ms Stahr's home at Clayton in Melbourne's southeast, but to all Labor MPs in the state lower house. It was posted at 5.17am on July 7, the morning after the Prime Minister announced her East Timor solution for the boatpeople.
By yesterday, Mr Lim was not just hanging his head, but keeping it down. He said the letter was meant for internal party use and was "indeed a very personal view".
But the frank correspondence shows the challenge facing Ms Gillard as she continues to walk both sides of road.
While Ms Gillard's plan for offshore processing of asylum-seekers may be well-received in western Sydney seats the ALP is fearful of losing, it may sink like a leaky boat in her political backyard of Melbourne.
The PM must deal with the political equation. But the pain is felt by Labor supporters such as 80-year-old Ms Stahr, head of the Indo-China Refugee Association, and now considering a vote for the Greens. She said she was impressed with Mr Lim's response.
"I know he cares a lot."
5 comments:
Now it is globalisation,MP must be aware of that.
There is NO rigid policy for ALP anymore.It is a fine line for ALP to achieve win-win target,and to maintain the lead.
There are differences of refugees that need to integrate into australian society and response to the interest of australians as well.
Even most former migrants don't support the boatpeople who jump queue. The boatpeople, mostly, are economic migrants. Remember those Cambodian boatpeople in the late 1980s and earlier 1990s who jumped off at Port Hedlands ? They were wearing brightily shinning jewellery all over their bodies, weeping begging for asylum. They didn't know how to be refugees as they claimed to be.
The best thing to do is to make sure that we have a good policy to protect everyone, in doing so is for them to stay within their own country and help to develop it own nation rather than fled their own and be someone's nation or allowing them to be used by others anyway. So, khmer needs to be smarter by keeping our own people intake, at the same time we are giving our own citizen the value of life. Again, if khmer don't love khmer no one in the world will.
Down Under is the SACRED LAND of mercy.
2 hundred yrs ago where Down Under were the jails without wall of the convicts from England....the white immigrants and the refugees from every corner of the world.
And again in this new era Down Under is going the new jails around the Island is called " Australia ."
Welcome to Australia,Mate !
I have mercy for genuine refugees but not the fake ones.
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