Wilson Tuckey, racist extraordinaire
Jun. 24th, 2009 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crazyjaneYup, definitely need an 'I'm pissed off' icon.
I'm watching Parliament on APAC. (Yeah, I know, geek.) The current debate is over an amendment to our Immigration Act. If passed, this amendment would abolish the current practice of charging asylum seekers the cost of their detention. Yes, you read that right. At the moment, an asylum seeker who arrives in this country via so-called 'illegal' means, is charged $125.40 per day for the privilege of being detained in a remote location, given subsistence housing and food, and subjected to psychological deprivation - all this after risking their lives and selling everything they own for a spot on a leaky boat run by people smugglers. These debts can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a family.
Wilson Tuckey, Coalition headkicker, rose to signal that the Coalition intended to vote against the bill. Here's a summary of some highlights of his astonishingly offensive speech.
Those who risk their lives on boats are not legitimate asylum seekers. They are - in his words - 'queue-jumpers' who take opportunities away from 'real' asylum seekers who are well-behaved and wait their turn.
We should be careful who we allow to come into the country. While 'not wishing to say anything about a person's faith' (his words again), we should look at all the Iraqi Christians who are currently waiting in refugee camps for re-settlement in one of the UN's member countries. These people are well-educated. Often they're doctors. Why, he knows some in his own electorate! Apparently they were so highly thought of in their own country that they were protected from harm by an unspoken order of the government. They speak English, can get good, high-paying jobs, and - best of all - wouldn't incur a debt because they 'wait their turn'. Just think of what an asset these people could be for our country.
By contrast, there are so many uneducated Muslims who are 'queue-jumpers', who don't speak English and incur these debts. Take this example of a Muslim child who died recently. That family didn't speak English and had never used a telephone, and travelled 'when they shouldn't have' because the child was sick. They were photographed by the media in front of their 'brand new unit'! Clearly, this shows that 'these people' are untrustworthy, dumb and dangerous. We have to stop these people coming to our country and take good, hard-working Christians instead.
Besides ... if we don't try to lumber 'queue-jumpers' with these debts, how will we pay back the money that the government borrowed to get us out of recession? We need to lock them up. We need to charge them money for this. It'd be downright un-Australian not to do that.
...
Bah. Urgh. Pardon me while I go wash my hand. Even typing that disgusting, lying, racist drivel makes me feel dirty.
Parliamentary privilege protects Tuckey from having to face any consequences for what he said. No one can call him legally to account. Maybe - just maybe - someone in the media will pick up on what he said and castigate him that way, but I doubt it. With 'Utegate' (or, 'Email Overboard', thank you Loki) in the news, this will be buried.
It shouldn't be buried. It's absolutely unacceptable that a representative of our government should be able to lie, to incite racial and religious hatred, and just get away with it.
I'm watching Parliament on APAC. (Yeah, I know, geek.) The current debate is over an amendment to our Immigration Act. If passed, this amendment would abolish the current practice of charging asylum seekers the cost of their detention. Yes, you read that right. At the moment, an asylum seeker who arrives in this country via so-called 'illegal' means, is charged $125.40 per day for the privilege of being detained in a remote location, given subsistence housing and food, and subjected to psychological deprivation - all this after risking their lives and selling everything they own for a spot on a leaky boat run by people smugglers. These debts can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a family.
Wilson Tuckey, Coalition headkicker, rose to signal that the Coalition intended to vote against the bill. Here's a summary of some highlights of his astonishingly offensive speech.
Those who risk their lives on boats are not legitimate asylum seekers. They are - in his words - 'queue-jumpers' who take opportunities away from 'real' asylum seekers who are well-behaved and wait their turn.
We should be careful who we allow to come into the country. While 'not wishing to say anything about a person's faith' (his words again), we should look at all the Iraqi Christians who are currently waiting in refugee camps for re-settlement in one of the UN's member countries. These people are well-educated. Often they're doctors. Why, he knows some in his own electorate! Apparently they were so highly thought of in their own country that they were protected from harm by an unspoken order of the government. They speak English, can get good, high-paying jobs, and - best of all - wouldn't incur a debt because they 'wait their turn'. Just think of what an asset these people could be for our country.
By contrast, there are so many uneducated Muslims who are 'queue-jumpers', who don't speak English and incur these debts. Take this example of a Muslim child who died recently. That family didn't speak English and had never used a telephone, and travelled 'when they shouldn't have' because the child was sick. They were photographed by the media in front of their 'brand new unit'! Clearly, this shows that 'these people' are untrustworthy, dumb and dangerous. We have to stop these people coming to our country and take good, hard-working Christians instead.
Besides ... if we don't try to lumber 'queue-jumpers' with these debts, how will we pay back the money that the government borrowed to get us out of recession? We need to lock them up. We need to charge them money for this. It'd be downright un-Australian not to do that.
...
Bah. Urgh. Pardon me while I go wash my hand. Even typing that disgusting, lying, racist drivel makes me feel dirty.
Parliamentary privilege protects Tuckey from having to face any consequences for what he said. No one can call him legally to account. Maybe - just maybe - someone in the media will pick up on what he said and castigate him that way, but I doubt it. With 'Utegate' (or, 'Email Overboard', thank you Loki) in the news, this will be buried.
It shouldn't be buried. It's absolutely unacceptable that a representative of our government should be able to lie, to incite racial and religious hatred, and just get away with it.
