Bob brown is usually treated with kid gloves by the press corps. This is probably because of the general left-wing bias exhibited by the 4th estate but I suspect that it also has something to do with the fact that Brown is somewhat of a political nincompoop. I have heard him tell some tall tales and fumble atrociously through intErviews...this excerpt from the Media Watchdog illustrates just how incomplete his knowledge of world affairs actually is. The true shame of the Australian press corp is how they eviscerated Pauline Hanson and John Howard yet venerate a buffoon like sideshow Bob.
Has Greens leader Bob Brown ever been subjected to a tough-minded interview by ABC Radio National presenter Fran Kelly? Certainly MWD has no memory of such an occasion. Like many of her colleagues on the public broadcaster, Ms Kelly criticises both the Coalition and Labor – but invariably from the left. Since the Greens are the only genuinely left-wing party in contemporary Australia, Senator Brown and his colleagues are rarely – if ever – subjected to tough minded interviews on the ABC.
On RN Breakfast last Monday, Senator George Brandis (the Coalition’s shadow attorney-general) received a tough interview from Fran Kelly on offshore processing. On Tuesday, however, Senator Bob Brown received the softest interview on the same subject. Fran Kelly even remained mute when Senator Brown made the following (false) claim about asylum seekers during the time of Malcolm Fraser’s Coalition government:
Bob Brown: What would have happened if Malcolm Fraser had said “Turn back the boats” at the time of the Vietnamese people escaping the war in their country and coming to Australia. How much better off is this country because of that Vietnamese influx?
Senator Brown made two historical howlers in a mere 40 words – and Fran Kelly corrected neither. Here they are:
1. Saigon fell to the conquering North Vietnamese Army – which was supplied by the communist dictators in the Soviet Union – on 30 April 1975. Malcolm Fraser was appointed prime minister of Australia on 11 November 1975 and the Coalition, under Mr Fraser’s leadership, won a convincing victory at the December 1975 election.
The Indo-Chinese refugees, mainly Vietnamese but including Cambodians and Laotians, did not come to Australia as a result of “escaping the war in their country”. Not at all – since by 1976 the wars in Indo-China were over and the communists had gained power in all of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
The Vietnamese and others who came to Australia during the time of the Fraser Government were not escaping war – as Senator Brown claims. Rather, they were escaping from the communist dictatorships which had been set up following the communist victories in South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in 1975. In other words, the Indo-Chinese who came to Australia after 1975 were escaping their so-called communist “liberators” – something which Senator Brown does not wish to acknowledge.
2. Very few of the Indo-Chinese refugees who arrived in Australia between 1976 and 1982 came by boat. These are the official figures for unlawful boat arrivals in Australia during the Fraser years – they can be found in official Immigration Department documents and are confirmed, among other places, in Malcolm Fraser and Margaret Simons Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs.
1976 – 111
1977 – 868
1978 – 746
1979 – 304
1980 – 0
1981 – 30
1982 – 0
A total of 2059 asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat during the entire period of the Fraser Government – i.e. around 300 a year. This total is less than a third of the numbers who arrived during one year of the Howard and Rudd governments – i.e. 5516 in 2001 and 6879 in 2010.
Malcolm Fraser’s Coalition government generously accepted tens of thousands of Indo-Chinese asylum seekers. However, the overwhelming majority of these refugees were processed off-shore by the United Nations in such places as Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore and hand-picked by Australian officials. Moreover, all these refugees arrived in Australia by air with valid visas.
Senator Bob Brown should know this. And so should Fran Kelly.
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