Boat People

Today I am finishing off the refurbishing of our unit in downtown Orelia. The carpets are to be laid this Friday. Orelia is part of what was originally known as Kwinana.

We both taught at Kwinana High School in the late 1960s and believe me when I say it was a tough school to work at. Kwinana HS has been rebuilt and named Gillmore College....I believe it has the highest rate of student absenteeism in the state. Nice looking building though!

Kwinana promised employment in the nearby industrial area, but employment gradually slowed down and many locals are unemployed and a malaise has settled over the youth of the area.

Both sides of politics in the Federal Parliament are still saying that they want to stop the refugees arriving by boat because it is very dangerous and people could, and have, drowned. They,of course, cannot publicly say that they just want to stop the boats.

The government’s deal with Malaysia to accept 4,000 largely Cambodian /Burmese refugees deemed to be genuine refugees with a swap for 800 of our boat people currently locked up in detention centres has stalled because of a court ruling. I would think that South East Asian refugees would be more acceptable to most Australians than Middle East refugees because of their track record of assimilation and that their religious beliefs and practices do not cause conflict.