Border protection

On one level, I can understand the bitterness of Port Augusta Mayor Joy Baluch, who said that she “didn’t give a damn” about 60 refugee children who wanted to play soccer in the city:

… her most vitriolic attack was directed at the former Liberal federal government, which she said spent about $150 million on running the now-mothballed Baxter Detention Centre.

“That’s now a dirt patch and the $1.2 million oval that was in the last days of Baxter opened by (former immigration minister) Amanda Vanstone is now used as a landing pad for helicopters,” she said.

“We could have done with that $1.2 million. We’ve had to do somersaults, stand on our hands, do anything to try to get grants.”

My first reaction to Ms Baluch’s comments was, how hard-hearted not to allow the kids to play soccer. But then I thought about it. Of course it’s hard to see resources given to total outsiders by the powers-that-be when your own people don’t have enough resources and find it incredibly difficult to get help from the government. It breeds resentment of exactly the type we see in Ms Baluch’s comments.

Frankly, I’d rather those “border protection” resources be put into making decent housing for Indigenous people (still not delivered, from what I understand). So I wonder if we should look at our processes for granting visas to people outside Australia and make it square more with the process for people who set foot on Australian soil. What do others think? Is this a crazy idea, or a good way of circumventing the whole issue?