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…just $1200 a person. When you think about it, this is probably the equivalent of a two to four-year subscription to a pay-walled media site. In fact, it would get you 2.9 years’ worth of The Australian’s complete news package.

$1200 for 2.9 years of The Australian. BARGAIN.

Elsewhere in the same article, the amusing conflation of “editorial independence” with “owners telling editors what to print”.

I’m so glad a journalist at Rupert’s Folly had the freedom to write something like that.

It’s funny because they didn’t arrive here safely.

I wonder how many more of these we’ll see before somebody has a word with the people photoshopping the iPad ads.

(Via an unfortunate encounter with the Herald Sun in a cafe at lunchtime.)

PS Kudos to the Herald Sun, though, for being the first publication to feature in its advertising the boast “WITH RADAR IMAGES”.

I WOULD NEVER SEND REFUGEES TO A COUNTRY THAT HAS NO REFUGEE PROTECTIONS except when I voted with the rest of the Howard government to do just that.

If you want more than the media’s fatuous “if only they’d put aside politics” politicking and repeated declarations that only offshore processing to avoid our obligations is a realistic option, you’ll have to look online. Such as at The Conversation, where Sharon Pickering describes Six Issues Missing From The Asylum Seeker Debate. (Don’t look for the contribution elsewhere by her namesake Larry – he’s telling gullible people on Facebook that they basically win Sale of the Century when they arrive.)

Among the points Sharon highlights that we’re missing:

• No one is talking about the UNHCR having such a small number of officers processing asylum claims in Indonesia. It is impossible for this tiny cohort to process any reasonable number of applications. According to the International Organisation for Migration, from January 1 to May 31 this year, 24 refugees were resettled from Indonesia to Australia. That’s from a pool of 5732 asylum seekers and refugees.

• No one is talking about the relationship of people smuggling (as an illicit activity) to the licit regulation of entry into Australia. Australia’s universal visa system deems entire groups “high-risk”. For example, those from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Sri Lanka are routinely denied visas that would enable them to arrive legitimately by air. These groups are not considered risky because they represent a significant security threat (for, say, terrorism or serious crime), but because they may engage Australia’s protection obligations. No one is talking about changing these risk profiles and visa issuing practices.
• No one is talking about what happens to those who are prevented from coming to Australia (subject to disruption or deterrence regimes) or whether this is a desirable objective for a nation such as Australia. Preventing or deterring people from coming to Australia does not mean persecution stops. Instead, those being persecuted become some other country’s problem. This surely is an unsustainable contribution to regional (let alone) global relations.
• No one is talking about decoupling the zero-sum game between refugees settled from offshore, and onshore arrival numbers (in which as arrivals increase, offshore resettlement places go down). This is a policy change that could end the mindless pitching of one group of refugees against another.

She has another two, to which I’d add the one I’ve mentioned several times before: STOPPING POLICIES THAT MAKE THE BOATS MORE DANGEROUS.

We tell those running boats that we’re going to destroy their boats, so what do they do? Send unseaworthy disposable ones. We tell them we’ll lock up their crews, so what do they do? Round up villagers with no training who don’t realise what’s going to happen to them.

What could we do instead? Return seaworthy vessels. Return competent crew. Destroy dangerous boats and work with Indonesia to find the people running them (aided by informants from groups running safe boats who are happy to rat on their competitors). Lock up incompetent crew. If safe boats and crews are returning to Indonesia, then the boats will increasingly have experienced crew, and the message of what’s happening to those running dangerous vessels will go straight back to the ports from which the vessels are leaving. Refugees will have a choice, and there will be pressure for the vessels to be safer.

And the upshot would be more people arriving safely.

Which is what I want. It’s what those weeping genuine tears for drowned refugees want too, isn’t it?

Or is their real fear the refugees who aren’t drowning and who are getting here safely? Are they actually glad the journey is dangerous because they want it to be a deterrent?

Because that would explain how they’re voting. But it makes their tears incredibly fake.

The good news story really made her day

Via LGWS

When did that happen? Have they broken out of detention centres and seized Parliament?

ELSEWHERE: The same columnist fears a city “divided by ethnicity” based on figures indicating that in some suburbs 70% of people are from another country originally!11!1!!!

Of course, areas of Melbourne with 70%+ white Anglo-Saxon Australian-born residents aren’t “divided by ethnicity”, and it’s the poor migrants’ fault that they’ve no chance of living in those suburbs. Because they won’t assimilate/find $800k behind the couch.

A handy notification that this butcher is one to avoid

The Government responds, pointing out that lying to customers (even if Tony Abbott has told them to) could (as during the GST introduction by the Liberals) result in prosecution by the ACCC:

”Mr Abbott is recklessly encouraging businesses to increase their prices and to put a sign in their windows – authorised by his small business spokesperson Bruce Billson – blaming the carbon price,” Mr Bradbury said.

”If businesses make false carbon price claims they run the risk of breaching the Competition and Consumer Act and could be exposed to a $1.1 million fine for misleading consumers. Mr Abbott is putting small businesses in the firing line with his reckless negativity.”

Because the “Government’s own figures” Tony Abbott claims to base his scaremongering on completely contradict his lie:

Treasury has estimated the average price rise on meat and seafood in a standard shopping basket of goods as around 10 cents a week.

Similarly, an analysis on a Sydney butcher shop with a revenue of $2.1 million per year has shown that the businesses’ electricity bill of around $22, 000 per year – representing about 1 per cent of turnover – would rise by around 0.1 per cent, or $22.

The analysis found to pass on this cost increase, the butcher would have to increase the price of a $11 packet of mince meat by approximately one cent.

So, should businesses be encouraged to deceive consumers?

The Southbank Jester is outraged by the idea that they shouldn’t, spluttering:

The carbon totalitarians butcher free speech

The Gillard Government, already so hostile to free speech, now threatens to bankrupt butchers who badmouth its carbon tax: [quotes from Age article above]

Throw these thugs out while it’s still safe to speak.

So when Andrew Bolt talks about “free speech”, apparently he means the right of businesses to trick customers with lies.

Something to keep in mind.

Suddenly the editors of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald both quit.

Coincidence? We’d love to tell you, but we can’t. Yet.

UPDATE: An old friend thinks they might be after him, instead.

I’m posting it to Reddit next.

Elsewhere, The Age publishes former Senator Amanda Vanstone comparing refugees who arrive on boats with ants chasing after our precious sugar. Who wouldn’t want to live in Australia, she asks, before demanding we remove the “pull factors” that entice people to want to come here (like not treating them as monstrously as certain other countries in our region).

Also, do you know what’s monstrous about people pretending to care about the lives of refugees but being opposed to making the boats safer because really they’re more worried about the refugees who get here safely? It’s that Malcolm Fraser called their policy “evil and inhumane”. Oh, the “hate-style politics”.

Because, really, isn’t it the lucky Australians living an incredibly fortunate existence whilst demanding we pull up the drawbridge and use dangerous boats as a disincentive for people to come here who are the real victims?