Abbotts failed policy?
Was it 3 last week?
Isn't this an invitation for more to try coming?
There could be more arrivals that we don't know about too.......
Has the government lost control of our borders?
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Accepted Solutions
more boats , and despite the pre election granstanding more.. far more debt. raise the debt ceiling sky high. why would you do that ? because you plan bigger deficits thats why 
a lot of people are feeling conned and duped right now..
War crime allegations dominate 'extraordinary' CHOGM in Sri Lanka
Posted 4 hours 50 minutes ago
"Does anyone specifically have a question that's not on Sri Lanka or human rights?" the media spokesman for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting implored journalists at a press conference held by host president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The normally diplomatic Richard Uku had just unwittingly summed up a CHOGM that can only be described as extraordinary for all the wrong reasons.
Mr Rajapaksa had strong reasons for hosting the event.
Civil war lasting 25 years had sidelined his regime on the international stage and robbed his country of foreign investment.
It was hoped hosting CHOGM would be a source of domestic pride and a path to international bridge-building.
Yet Sri Lanka was always a controversial choice to host the talks.
CHOGM, as we are constantly reminded, is an organisation bound by common values, democracy and respect for human rights foremost among them.
There is mounting evidence the methods Mr Rajapaksa's army used to end Sri Lanka's 25-year-old civil war in 2009 may amount to war crimes: The shelling of "no fire" zones inhabited by civilians, and reports systemic **bleep** and torture were used to demoralise the Tamil Tiger insurgency.
Most CHOGM attendees, including Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, have refrained as far as possible from embarrassing Mr Rajapaksa over questions about his regime's human rights record.
As the outgoing CHOGM chair, Mr Abbott told his fellow leaders at the event’s opening ceremony "we are here to praise as much as judge" the host country.
Mr Abbott told journalists that though Australia deplores torture wherever it is used, "we accept that sometimes in difficult circumstances difficult things happen".
Cameron puts pressure on Sri Lanka
Much of the talk at CHOGM focussed on Sri Lanka's positives, especially its promising post-conflict economic prospects.
But British prime minister David Cameron broke ranks to observe, "we do that not by gliding over the difficult issues, the human rights issues, journalistic freedom issues, reconciliation".
Within minutes of the opening ceremony's conclusion, Mr Cameron and an entourage of British journalists flew to the troubled Jaffna region in Sri Lanka's north.
Upon his return to Colombo Mr Cameron spoke powerfully of his meeting with Tamil journalists subject to official harassment and the accounts he heard of disappeared members of the Jaffna community.
Crucially, he called on Mr Rajapaksa to quickly and credibly investigate claims of war crimes allegedly committed by the Sri Lankan army in 2009.
Having delivered a robust character assessment of Mr Rajapaksa's government, Mr Cameron departed Sri Lanka a day before the official conclusion of CHOGM talks.
The host president was left reeling in his wake.
The image of Mr Cameron baking in the northern Sri Lankan sun with Jaffna's repressed and traumatised Tamil community, while Mr Rajapaksa chaired droll meetings in florescent-lit, air-conditioned briefing rooms in the capital, will define this CHOGM.
The president's only recourse was to attack.
"People in glass houses should not throw stones," he shot back at Mr Cameron's brutal public airing of Sri Lanka's dirty diplomatic laundry.
But the British prime minister has little to fear from such jibes.
His flaying of Mr Rajapaksa will burnish his reputation as a defender of democratic ideals and confident international statesman at virtually no domestic political cost.
The equation for Mr Abbott is more complicated.
Mr Rajapaksa praised the Australian prime minister's measured comments on the human rights issue.
"I must thank the Australian prime minister for taking that stand," he said.
"It’s a very practical stand."
Today Mr Abbott will donate two navy ships to Sri Lanka as part of a deal to promote enhanced cooperation on people smuggling.
The deal, and his softer line on human rights , conveys the impression Mr Abbott's singular purpose in attending CHOGM was to advance his domestic political agenda despite the meeting's sensitive nature.
Public praise from MR Rajapaksa, whose regime is displaying ever increasing symptoms of tyranny, risks damaging Mr Abbott's budding global reputation.
Comparisons between his approach to CHOGM and Mr Cameron's will be uncomfortable for a prime minister still finding his place on at the international table.
