{"id":3341,"date":"2013-04-24T08:14:45","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T22:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/australiansforhonestpolitics.wordpress.com\/?p=3341"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:24:15","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:24:15","slug":"abbott-v-truth-on-illegals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/abbott-v-truth-on-illegals\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbott-v-truth on ‘illegals’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tumblr_mlpd5go9n31sp2ogdo1_1280\"<\/p>\n

By Tony Yegles<\/a><\/p>\n

April 24, 2013<\/p>\n

Leigh Sales won a Walkley Award<\/a> for her interview with Mr Abbott on the 730 Report in August 2012. Part of this interview dealt with the issue of using the term “illegal” when referring to asylum seekers. Below is a quick reminder.<\/p>\n

LEIGH SALES: Why have you referred repeatedly to illegal asylum boats<\/strong> coming to Australia? Do you accept that that’s illegal<\/strong> and that seeking asylum by any means is legal?<\/p>\n

TONY ABBOTT: Most of the people who are coming to Australia by boat have passed through several countries on the way and if they simply wanted asylum they could have claimed that in any of the countries through which they’d passed.<\/p>\n

LEIGH SALES: But I don’t believe that it’s actually illegal<\/strong> to pass through countries on your way to somewhere where you want to have asylum.<\/p>\n

TONY ABBOTT: You try turning up in America without documents, without a visa, without a passport; you’ll be treated as very, very much illegal<\/strong>, Leigh. The other point I make, from recollection at least, is that the very term that the Government has officially used to describe these vessels is “suspected illegal entry vessel”.<\/p>\n

LEIGH SALES: Do you – I’m asking you though, not about the Government. I’m asking: do you accept that it’s legal to come to Australia to seek asylum by any means – boat, plane – that it is actually legal to seek asylum<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

TONY ABBOTT: I think that people should come to Australia through the front door, not through the back door. If people want a migration outcome, they should go through the migration channels.<\/p>\n

LEIGH SALES: That’s an answer to the question if I asked you: how do you think people should seek asylum?, it’s not an answer to the question: is it legal to seek asylum?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jon Faine also took Mr Abbott on about illegals in August last year, when the alternative PM conceded the point<\/a>, but stuck to his script anyway.<\/p>\n

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of\u00a0Human Rights<\/em>\u00a0states that:<\/p>\n

All people have a fundamental human right to seek asylum from persecution.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leigh Sales not only won a Walkley Award but she was also cleared of bias<\/a>\u00a0in that interview by the\u00a0Australian Communications and Media Authority.<\/p>\n

Yet Mr Abbott keep using the term, and in Perth on April 24 he joined his custom’s spokesman Michael Keenan to put it on a billboard<\/p>\n

\"Mr

Mr Abbott & Mr Keenan – April 22 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

This time \u00a0refugee rights advocates<\/a>\u00a0heckled the alternative PM and social media\u00a0started a “billboard meme”<\/p>\n

Here are just a few examples:<\/p>\n

This slideshow requires JavaScript.<\/p>

<\/div>\n

Here are a few more:\u00a0Tony’s Billboards<\/a><\/p>\n

The backlash continued overseas where Mr Abbott’s megaphone diplomacy is seen as\u00a0doing harm with our relations with Indonesia<\/a>,\u00a0which opposes any tow-back plan.<\/p>\n

The final meme which won the viral hit was the fact check graffiti correcting the billboard.<\/p>\n

From this viral meme<\/p>\n

\"tumblr_mlowi2IQz71sp2ogdo1_1280\"<\/p>\n

to this real life fact checking<\/p>\n

\"The

The figures were whited out and turned to zero with ‘no crime to seek asylum’ written on the Liberal Party billboard. ABC: Barry Duxton<\/p><\/div>\n

The Liberal Party replaced its billboard just 24 hours after it was erected.<\/p>\n

The Coalition Customs spokesman Michael Keenan choked with emotion in June 2012 during the Asylum Seeker bill on the Malaysia Solution. He recalled the Christmas Island tragedy of 2010, where about 50 people died.\u00a0It is passing strange that Mr Keenan openly and willingly vilifies asylum seekers by calling them “illegals”.<\/p>\n

\"Choked

Choked with emotion … Michael Keenan. Photo: Andrew Meares<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Words

Words and Actions<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tony Yegles April 24, 2013 Leigh Sales won a Walkley Award for her interview with Mr Abbott on the 730 Report in August 2012. Part of this interview dealt with the issue of using the term “illegal” when referring to asylum seekers. Below is a quick reminder. LEIGH SALES: Why have you referred repeatedly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,66,40],"tags":[2601,197,198,204,215,256,320,2578,470,478,479],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-RT","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}