Friday, June 03, 2011

The modern middle passage

There are two big foreign affairs stories here in Australia this week. The first is that Australia is banning the export of cattle to certain Indonesian slaughterhouses because the conditions are inhumane.

The second is that Australia will transport immigrant children caught sailing towards Australia to Malaysia. There's a word for transporting people across oceans against their will to countries which refuse to recognize their human rights. And it isn't "humane". Let's just hope they don't use the idle cattle boats to do it.

p.s. It's a good thing Jessica Watson isn't still at sea.

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