It's never too early for the bleeding hearts to blame everybody except themselves

David Marr in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday sniffs a whiff of Tampa:

A DECADE ago the islanders gathered along the cliffs there to applaud Captain Arne Rinnan's attempts to land the 438 men, women and children he had rescued from a sinking ship out in the Indian Ocean. Canberra meddled in that rescue. What followed as more boats arrived was a brawl between Canberra, directing rescues to be refused or delayed, and the navy, insisting on following to the letter the rules of safety of life at sea. Lives were lost then and these fresh deaths raise the possibility that Canberra is once again pressuring its boats to delay rescue.

Ian Rintoul of the Refugee Action Coalition in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:

THE Australian government are to blame for the tragedy. They should be dropping the anti-people smuggling laws so that people feel they can safely contact Australian authorities without any recriminations.

Dennis Atkins in The Courier-Mail yesterday blames you. And the pollies:

WE are all responsible for this event. As long as Australians refuse to say to people who risk the harsh ocean they are welcome -- and there is a majority saying they are not -- these outcomes are inevitable. Ours is a world where hundreds of thousands of people will chance death to find a better life. If they are that determined to come to Australia, we should welcome them and celebrate their bravery. The politicians who whip up the issue have as much to answer for as those who in power refuse to confront the consequences of a failed policy.

It's easy to solve. Labor's immigration spokesman, Con Sciacca, on Lateline on October 23, 2001:

WHAT Kim Beazley clearly said was that this was a human tragedy of enormous proportions. He then went on to say that, if there had not been a failure in government policy in stopping this insidious people-smuggling trade, the fact is that this may not have happened. What we need to do, apart from the coastguard, the cop on the beat for 52 weeks a year, we need to do everything we can to get in a co-operative arrangement with Indonesia which we in the Labor opposition are absolutely confident we can do. This government can't. And he's simply making the point that the key is Indonesia, and that, if we make this arrangement with Indonesia, which was in place until we were in government in '96, then you wouldn't have these circumstances arising.

Ross Gittins in the SMH on Wednesday contemplates North Korean-style self-reliance:

A lot of people think a nation makes its living by selling stuff to the rest of the world. That isn't true. Roughly 80 per cent of the goods and services Australians produce is sold to Australians, not foreigners.

Similarly, roughly 80 per cent of the goods and services Australians buy is bought from Australians. In other words, our economy is 80 per cent self-sufficient. At a pinch, we could make it completely self-sufficient, though this would involve a significant decline in our standard of living because we'd be denying ourselves access to all those things other countries produce better or more cheaply than we could.

Kim Jong-il in on the Juche Idea:

THE people must have independence in thought and politics, economic self-sufficiency, and self-reliance in defense.

Thomas Friedman in The New York Times on Tuesday:

"THE empty chair in Oslo's Town Hall last Friday was not only that of Liu, but of China itself," observed Rowan Callick, a columnist for The Australian. "The world is still waiting for China to play its proper, full role in international affairs. The perversity of such a successful, civilised nation playing a dominant role as a backer -- if sometimes merely by default -- of cruel, failed or failing states is intensely frustrating."

Oddly, the SMH  ran a different column by Friedman yesterday.

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