Sri Lankan Tamils — Sharman Stone kicks a political football

Shadow Minister for Immigration, Sharman Stone, has today suggested bringing an unknown number of Tamils from Sri Lanka to Australia in the same way the Howard government brought 4000 Kosovars in 1999. This was a disastrous policy made on the run for political reasons.

While former Prime Minister Howard greeted the Kosovars on arrival with hugs and flags, he was noticeably absent 11 months later when they were forced in tears into buses, then shoved on planes and sent home.

John Howard took people out of their home country for 11 months and then sent them back to nothing. While they were gone their houses and land were taken and their businesses destroyed.

Ms Stone may not know the history of this political exercise, but people in Albury well remember the day the Australian Army walked out of the camp and ACM guards walked in and locked the place down. In one day the camp changed from a happy, friendly place into a detention centre with privately contracted guards. The Australian soldiers had been trusted, but the ACM guards were sent to in to get the people out.

Six years later 500 people, who refused to go home, were in desert detention centres and in the community in great distress. Some young
people were jailed and charged with escape and then deported.

Ms Stone is now suggesting this horrible experiment should be repeated in an attempt to differentiate Coalition policy from the government's.

Ms Stone has demonstrated a total lack of understanding of the needs of refugees for safety and security.

To remove people from their home country, then dump them back a few months later is no solution.

When people are in fear for their lives they need permanent solutions, not half-baked political grandstanding.

Pamela Curr
Campaign Co-ordinator
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre