Dear Mr.Rudd,
I am disappointed. You once had the, admittedly dubious, honour of being my favourite politician (Barry Jones having long since retired). You played a central role in one of the most moving moments I have ever encountered from our politicians. Your apology to the stolen generations was and is the proudest I have ever been of one of our politicians. As a nation, many of us were caught up in the excitement of Kevin07, and there was an air of expectation as you showed a more compassionate and caring leadership than we had experienced for some time. Apart from the apology to the stolen generation, there was the dismantling of the Pacific Solution and a more caring approach to asylum seekers and the potential for real change in relation to climate change. You handled the onset of the GFC quite well, if perhaps a bit generously. Australia seemed to be going in a good direction led by a politician who had convictions and seemed to be able to act on them.
However, yesterday the only conviction on show seemed to be that a "lurch to the right" would get you votes. Your policy announcement made me more ashamed to be an Australian than anything I can remember. Australia's recent history with asylum seekers has been disgraceful. The policy you announced makes it look tame. Rather than accepting our responsibility as citizens of the world, we are going to pass our responsibility off to another country, one that an ill afford to help. A country in which the majority of people live in extreme poverty, and we are going to expect them to carry the cost our rejection of human need. Asylum seekers have be vilified, dehumanised and used for political purposes for too long. This is the last straw. Bring back the compassion. Where is the Kevin Rudd of 2007-2008? The conviction politician of yesteryear seems to have disappeared. Are you such a political animal that you would reverse your position, abandoning compassion for cruelty just to keep power?
The upshot of yesterday is that I want to make it as difficult as possible for you to implement this hideous policy. I realise that I have little power. However I do have a vote. Consequently I will not be voting Labor at the next election, unless the policy changes dramatically. With the Liberal policy almost as bad, I have been forced to explore other options. I have resisted voting Green for many years as I question some of their policies. However I can see that even with the areas I do not agree with their platform, their policies stem from a compassion for those impacted by their policies. Occasionally I might feel that their compassion is misdirected or that their response is not ideal, but I would rather support people who err on the side of compassion than the fear politics and dehumanisation we have seen from Labor and the Coalition in the past 10-15 years (with the brief exception of the early years of your first Prime Ministership). So I will be supporting the local Greens candidate Adam Bandt over the other parties, and encouraging others to do so. I will also be thinking about my senate vote to try to minimise the chance that my vote will effectively go to Labor, and maximise the chance that a minor party can work against this policy in the Senate.
I have never been very politically active. Now I plan to be more so thanks to your latest policy.
Yours Sincerely
S. Rhys Spiller
a.k.a Recess75
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