Australia's Hanson calls for cuts in aid to RI
Australia's Hanson calls for cuts in aid to RI
Agencies, Ipswich/Sydney
Far-right firebrand Pauline Hanson wants Australia to cut aid to neighboring Indonesia to force the Muslim nation to do something about the flow of illegal immigrants.
Hanson, running for the upper house Senate for her One Nation party in a Nov. 10 election, blamed Jakarta for allowing thousands of mainly Middle Eastern and Afghan migrants to use Indonesia as a stepping stone to Australia.
"Indonesia's attitude is this is not their problem but they could patrol their waters and watch these boats or we should pull back foreign aid," Hanson said in an interview as she headed to Brisbane airport from her hometown of working-class Ipswich.
"It's not just the cost of providing for them but also security. We don't know who they are or where they come from."
Hanson said a rallying call to Muslims by Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, emphasized the need for caution.
"These boat people come here as Muslims to a Christian country and if we don't address this problem now we'll have problems," said the outspoken politician, 47, whose campaign slogan is "Politically incorrect but correct".
Resentment has mounted in Australia in recent years over rising numbers of illegal immigrants arriving by boat mainly from Indonesia, paying people smuggling gangs for their passage.
Up to 5,000 boatpeople arrive each year, a small number by global comparisons but a jump from a few hundred five years ago.
Conservative Prime Minister John Howard has won strong public support -- but international condemnation -- after starting in late August to stop boats at sea, striking deals with Pacific neighbors Nauru and Papua New Guinea to take the boatpeople.
Howard's stand has helped give him the lead over opposition Labor in polls.
He won further support when the navy fired across the bow of the latest boat with about 200 Iraqis on board, some of whom jumped or allegedly pushed children into the sea, apparently in the hope of being rescued by an Australian navy boat and taken to Australia.
"Anything to stop them from getting in... To throw a child into the sea thinking it will help you get in, it's wrong," Brisbane pensioner Norma Sams, 60, told Reuters.
Hanson said putting more pressure on Indonesia to stop the boats would be a cheaper option than Howard's policy of using the navy to intercept them and building camps offshore, which is estimated to have cost at least A$200 million (US$100 million).
"This is too costly but it's not in the best interests of the Australia people to open the floodgates and allow thousands of these illegal boatpeople into this country," said Hanson, who owned a fish and chip shop before becoming a politician.
One Nation, which rails against Asian immigration and special treatment of Aborigines, caused a global stir in the last election in 1998 when it won one million votes -- or 8.4 percent.
Support for the party has since slumped to about 3 percent because of financial woes and infighting -- and also because Howard and Labor have moved to the right on key Hanson issues such as illegal immigration.
"In days gone by I was called racist and divisive and told I didn't know what I was talking about, but now the prime minister is taking the same stance against illegal immigrants," Hanson said.
Meanwhile, a group of asylum seekers temporarily overcame vehement government opposition to land on Australian soil Thursday ahead of their transfer to Papua New Guinea, Australian officials said in Sydney.
Customs Minister Chris Ellison said the group of 233 mostly Iraqis were being temporarily housed in the sports center on Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.
Officials were not sure how long the asylum seekers would remain, although government opposition to allowing people it has labeled "queue-jumpers" to land at all suggests the sojourn will be brief.
"I envisage their stay on Christmas Island will be a short one," Ellison said.
The latest group of boat people intercepted off Australia's north-west coastline will be flown to Papua New Guinea (PNG) by the Australian military and stay in disused PNG defense force barracks until their refugee applications are assessed, he said.
The group of predominantly Iraqi boat people was rescued in the Indian Ocean by an Australian warship earlier this week after their boat was disabled.
Papua New Guinea's decision to join the island republic of Nauru as a processing center for people seeking asylum in Australia was announced on Wednesday by Australia's conservative prime minister, John Howard.