I have an Opinion piece in today’s Age, History forgotten in hysteria over asylum seekers.  It starts:

THE RECENT media and political panic resulting from another boatload of asylum seekers coming to Australia demonstrates that both parties have forgotten about the nature of their constituencies.

“Boat people” in the 1970s and 1980s are now the well established Vietnamese-Australian communities. “Boat people” include such high achievers such as Khoa Do and Tan Le, both Young Australians of the Year, and Nam Le, the short-story author.

The Liberals have forgotten the legacy of Malcolm Fraser, who supported the family re-unification plan and cynically have even forgotten the Vietnamese people who vote Liberal because of that legacy. Labor has taken the easy way out and is now even claiming that the 90-day limit for mandatory detention may be exceeded because there are too many asylum seekers on Christmas Island.

Read the rest, and comment below if you like.