Australia Halts Refugee Ship (Another One)

The Manoora is on her way to Papua New Guinea
Australia's navy has intercepted a boat carrying more than 200 asylum seekers off its north-west coast.

" At no stage did this latest vessel reach Australian territorial waters. As a result questions of application for asylum status do not arise

The migrants were taken off their boat on Friday night and put on the HMAS Manoora, the Australian troop ship already carrying more than 400 mainly Afghan asylum seekers involved in a diplomatic stand-off near Christmas Island.

Prime Minister John Howard said he would introduce legislation to tighten Australia's migration laws.

If approved, people would have reach the Australian mainland rather than outlying islands before they can apply for refugee status.

Mr Howard said the latest boat was intercepted in international waters after it refused to stop.

"At no stage did this latest vessel reach Australian territorial waters. As a result questions of application for asylum status do not arise," he said.

It was spotted by a coastal patrol aircraft and stopped off Ashmore Island, a small Australian territory in the Timor Sea, closer to Indonesia than Australia.

"Following warnings to turn around... the vessel was subsequently boarded as a stateless vessel without a flag," the prime minister said.

The Manoora is continuing to Papua New Guinea, where it is expected in the capital Port Moresby early next week.

Mr Howard said the new legislation would affect people reaching Christmas Island and Ashmore Island.

He said the two places would be taken out of the Australian migration zone so that anyone arriving there would no longer be able to apply for refugee status.

Mr Howard's hard line against the 400 Afghan refugees won him widespread public backing in Australia, which is expected to hold elections later this year.

Mr Howard said Australia asked Indonesia to stop the boat while it was in Indonesian waters, but the request was turned down.

On Friday, a delegation of Australian ministers failed to reach agreement in Jakarta on dealing with boats of asylum seekers, which Australia describes as people smuggling.

The original asylum seekers on board the Manoora were put there after a Norwegian freighter which had picked them up was refused permission to land them at Christmas Island.

Mr Howard instead brokered a deal whereby they will be taken from Papua New Guinea to New Zealand and Nauru, where their asylum claims will be assessed.

Australia civil rights groups are still hoping to have his decision ruled illegal so the asylum seekers can be processed in Australia.

It is not clear if the new refugees will be included in the original deal. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said her country, which volunteered to take 150 of the original asylum seekers, would not take any more.

"We will not be taking any more than we have indicated," a spokesman told Reuters news agency.

"we could learn a lot from them (Australians)"

Only some, sweetheart. The media/academic/religious axis has its knickers in a twist over this one, which you can see if you go to the Sydney Morning Herald (smh.com.au) and check out he "Web Diary" column.

There you'll find all the predictable slurs against a very decent race of people -- ie, we're racist, wouldn't turn europeans back, hate muslims, etc. etc. Exactly, in other words, what anyone who raises a skeptical eyebrow about multiculturalism is apt to get on this side of the Pacific, too.

Surprise! Surprise! The elites, who are normally allowed to hector and abuse with impugnity, have hit the wall on this one.

Average Australians -- including the millions of migrants who waited their turn, obeyed the law and came through the front door -- are furious about these illegals and their psalm-singing, holier-than-thou apologists.

What average Australians see is what the elite's multicultural policies have done to the country. Once upon a time, migrants were called "new Australians" and were welcomed into our midst on the supposition that they would embrace our culture and our values. They didn't have to play cricket (though doing so morally uplifted those who took it up!) but they did have to be Australian first and Italian/greek/turkish/indian second. The idea, like the America of old, was that the allegiance was to the country that took you in, not the culture of the one you left behind.

About 20 years ago, the leftist Labor party took note of the evolving, politicaly correct U.S. example and figured it could lock up "the ethnic vote," which they did by funding a racial grievance industry, emphasizing identity politics for new arrivals, and encouraging ghettoization.

The result: In Sydney's Western Suburbs gangs of teenage Lebanese rapists have been abducting and abusing women and then teling them they deserve it "because You're Australian."

The average Australian -- including the original "wogs" who assimilated -- sees the society being split into aggrieved enclaves and don't like it one bit. Even more galling, they can't stand being lectured by their alleged enlightened betters. That's why support for turning back the illegals' boats is running at 75 percent amongst the general population, and about 1 percent with the chatterers.

The elite's response is the same old simplistic slur: "Yah, boo, sucks! You just don't like little brown people." In American terms it would be the same as saying you belong to the KKK if you disapprove of Willie Horton.

The pity is that the alleged conservatives in PM John Howard's government aren't conservatives at all. They're high-tax statitists who push gun control, censorship and refuse to cut restrict government invention to any meaningful degree.

But on this one, they're right -- a reminder that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

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