An ideologically driven Rudd has ended the 'pacific solution' by placing a poor nation in poverty. Nauru, home to asylum seekers who had destroyed their own ID and purchased pirate tickets to come to Australia is no longer going to be a place where these detainees can be processed. Instead, they are to be freed to wander the globe, stateless, homeless and poor. The 1000 Nauru people who supported them are to lose their first world jobs. The island, which looks beautiful, is to be left to its own devices.
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A Somali woman who stabbed some pilots in a small aircraft, demanded to come to Australia. She must have heard that we have a new government, offering opportunity to lost souls.
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Centerlink personnel are feeling lost. They have been told they will be downsized as a cost cutting measure. Maybe, through mass sackings, the ALP can put a lid on inflation.
Hijacker demanded to go to Australia
ReplyDeleteBy Xavier La Canna
A WOMAN in New Zealand has been charged with hijacking after she stabbed two pilots and threatened to blow up a small plane unless she was flown to Australia, police said.
The 19-seat Jetstream J32 aircraft, operated by Air National for Air New Zealand, was flying from the southern provincial town of Blenheim to Christchurch when the mid-air drama unfolded, prompting the pilots to issue a mayday call.
Christchurch police commander Superintendent Dave Cliff said the 33-year-old woman, a Blenheim resident originally from Somalia who was not immediately identified, claimed there were bombs aboard the aircraft.
Knife
In a statement, police said the woman approached the cockpit about 10 minutes after the flight took off, holding a knife.
"The suspect is alleged to have made demands to go to Australia. The pilots suggested they return to Blenheim and the suspect refused this request,'' police said.
One of the pilots received a wound to his hand, requiring surgery.
Two of the passengers attempted to calm the woman but she repelled them, with one of them suffering a cut hand.
"The suspect is alleged to have threatened them and told them she had a bomb,'' police said.
Aircraft controls
The woman continued to hold the knife while standing directly behind the pilots during the flight and tried to handle the aircraft's controls as the plane began approaching Christchurch Airport.
After the plane landed in Christchurch, the alleged hijacker asked the pilots to open an emergency door, which they refused to do.
Pilot wrestled
While passengers disembarked through a rear door on the plane, the woman wrestled with the pilot on the floor.
The co-pilot received a cut on his foot while trying to help his colleague, but he was able to disarm the woman and throw her knife outside the plane.
The woman was taken into police custody when the plane landed in Christchurch at about 8am (0600 AEDT), 20 minutes after the pilots sent the distress call.
Police later found another knife in the woman's shoes.
The woman was charged with hijacking, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and two counts of injuring with intent to injure.
She is due to appear in court tomorrow.
In New Zealand hijacking carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
The other six passengers on board - four New Zealanders, an Australian and an Indian national - were evacuated safely. One suffered a minor hand injury in the incident, Cliff said.
The New Zealand Press Association reported that "three or four people'' were taken from the airport by ambulance.
Flights suspended
Flights to and from Christchurch were suspended for more than two hours while the aircraft was searched, but police said no bomb was found.
Air New Zealand said it would review its security systems.
"Today's incident, although a one-off, has naturally given us cause to conduct a thorough review of our safety and security systems and processes on regional domestic flights,'' Bruce Parton, general manager for short-haul airlines, said.
Passengers taking domestic flights out of Blenheim airport are not subject to security checks, and hand luggage is not scanned.
Howard's 'cynical' Pacific Solution over
ReplyDeletefrom the biased news.com.au site
SIX-and-a-half years and close to $300 million later, the Howard government's Pacific Solution has been set adrift.
Our Airline flight 351 carrying 21 Sri Lankan asylum seekers from Nauru landed in Brisbane at 1.30pm (AEST) today, effectively marking the end of the controversial policy.
The group, now approved as refugees, have been held on Nauru since March last year and were the last occupants of the detention centre built by Australia in the tiny Pacific island nation.
They are expected to make their homes in Cairns, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne.
"Cynical, costly"
The controversial policy of keeping asylum seekers in foreign camps was designed to stop them being processed in Australia.
New Immigration Minister Chris Evans welcomed the end of the policy.
"The Pacific solution was a cynical, costly and ultimately unsuccessful exercise introduced on the eve of a federal election (in 2001) by the Howard government,'' Senator Evans said.
He said the department had spent $289 million between September 2001 and June 2007 to run the Nauru and Manus centres.
Mental hardship
Mark Getchell, from the International Organisation for Migration, which ran the Nauru facility, said there were now no asylum seekers left on Nauru.
"It is the end of an era,'' Mr Getchell said.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) welcomed the end of the policy.
"Many bona fide refugees caught by the policy spent long periods of isolation, mental hardship and uncertainty - and prolonged separation from their families,'' UNHCR's Richard Towle said.
"This ... goes a long way to show Australia as a humane society and in keeping with its international obligations.''
Tampa
The Pacific Solution was formulated after the Norwegian freighter Tampa reached Australia's Christmas Island in August 2001 carrying more than 400 mainly Afghan asylum seekers it had rescued at sea.
Then prime minister John Howard refused to let the group enter Australia, and went into a November election campaigning strongly on the issue.
Offshore processing centres were set up on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, the world's smallest republic.
The Manus Island detention centre has been mothballed since the last asylum seeker left in 2004.
More than 1300 people were held at the Nauru facility, of whom 543 were found to be genuine refugees.
"Resilient and strong"
Robert Lachowicz, the coordinator of the Brisbane-based Refugee and Immigration Legal Service which has worked with Nauru detainees, said resettlement was extremely difficult.
"There are some good support services in Australia, but still there is the mental anguish you have suffered because of the detention and the difficulties you had that made you flee in the first place,'' Mr Lachowicz said.
"You've got the uncertainty of your new life, usually a new culture and new laws.
"And you've got often another long wait to try and bring your close family over to join you if you are here on a permanent protection visa.
"But most of them are extremely resilient and strong.''
The Australian Government is to hold talks with the Nauru and Papua New Guinea governments about the future of the Nauru and Manus facilities and possible aid and development programs.