"Stop the boats!" Australian conservative's version of our repubs' "Secure the borders!"

[pampango]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Australia-Election-Immigration-Is-Key-Issue-In-The-Closest-Election-For-Years-With-Vote-On-Saturday/Article/201008315698385?lpos=World_News_Second_Home_Page_Feature_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15698385_Australia_Election%3A_Immigration_Is_Key_Issue_In_The_Closest_Election_For_Years_With_Vote_On_Saturday

Another poll suggests one of the key issues in the campaign is immigration, with 69% saying the country is taking in too many newcomers. Mr Rudd (the previous Labour prime minister) had favoured what he called a "Big Australia", with the current population of 22 million growing to more than 35 million by the middle of the century.

Although the country is huge, most of the centre is inhospitable, with the vast majority living along the coast. Every year the population rises by more than 2%, with a net annual influx of 300,000 people. In per capita terms, that's more than four times higher than migration levels to the UK or the US. Both parties have pledged to halve that figure.

Most people living in the country illegally are European or American visitors who overstay their visas, but in an election campaign it is simpler to blame the refugees who try to get into the country by boat, even though they make up only 1% of the total. Mr Abbott has promised he will "stop the boats".

"There is a world of difference between people who arrive with documents by air and then overstay their visas and people who arrive unsafely, with no documents by boat," he said.

Abbott neglects to mention that there is one other big difference between the vast majority of "illegals" who are Americans and Europeans and the 1% who are Asians arriving by boat.

[SoCalDem]

1. It's all the same, from country to country, isn't it?

The odd thing is that some "boat people" who arrive in Australia are probably Island people whose nations are disappearing beneath the sea.....and like our southern neighbors who look "different" & don;t know English, they are easy to differentiate.. We don't exactly hunt down Canadians, do we?

Australians have a checkered past with their Aboriginal people, as we have with our Native Americans & descendants of slavery, and the passage of time has not made the official policy much more palatable in either case.

[Angry Dragon]

2. Both the people running for Prime Minister

are not native born
One is from Wales and the other from Scotland I think