SBS jumps on the Anti-Human-Rights bandwagon

SBS secured the exclusive interview rights to an alleged people smuggler who used to live in Indonesia. Insight and SBS World News quote this 'expert' with statements Mr. Howard would happily comment with 'I told you so'.

According to the alleged trafficker, Australia is seen as a 'soft target', with processing done within 3 to 4 months, a road straight to citizenship and freebies galore. As Australia seems to keep the image of a Human Right respecting nation, although they got told off for the intervention, the permanent chase of the Australian Navy to intervene boat people, denying refugees from war zones with direct involvement of the ADF asylum, this is nothing than sales talk.

Trafficker make their money of the misery of refugees, a fate increased by the growing unwillingness of the 'western', 'civilized' world to grant asylum. The idea to remove misery of a population by starting a war on their territory has failed most of the time, it has failed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. If a government 'cares' enough about people in distant countries, they might as well spend their money to invite them than to send their troops to destroy their lifelyhoods, and prevent them from escaping the war zone.

It's disappointing to see how the quality of SBS deteriorates. State TV in a corporatist state. Feeding the fear of others in the least densely populated industrialised nation on this planet is a shocking turn from journalism as control instance for the current powers towards a propaganda platform.

Information seems to be the biggest enemy of the current government. That's why it's based purely on trust, but not on accountability. Just ask the Black Saturday survivors how many promises this government kept. Ask anyone about the promises for Intervention, Offshore processing, health reform, education reform, tax reform, internet censorship, privatisation of public goods and services, improvement of infrastructure, child care or public transport reliability since privatization.

If a trafficker claims it's Australias open door policy that makes people leave their home we can easily forget about those killed when they were sent home, drowned on the way here, or live in an active warzone. I would vote to give Australia to the Australians, but hardly anyone would suspect that I mean the about 400 Aboriginal people that called their home before the declaration of 'Terra nullis' started an ongoing genocide.