Border surveillance “effective”: just not by the dictionary definition
Another boat load of asylum seekers has been intercepted of the West Australian coast, and Federal Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus is delighted:
Mr Debus said the successful interception demonstrated the effectiveness of Border Protection Command’s surveillance.
“Our surveillance is strong and targeted and officers from Customs and Border Protection and the Royal Australian Navy are working together to protect Australia from unauthorised arrivals.
Great, three groups of people monitoring our borders and swooping on the people they spot coming near. I would therefore assume that one of these groups spotted the illegal boat…
An oil rig tender vessel had tipped off the Customs and Border Protection hotline about the vessel.
The sighting was then confirmed by a Customs and Border Protection Command Dash 8 aircraft.
Three groups of people, getting paid a bucketload of taxpayer dollars, and it’s an oil rig tender vessel which spots the illegal boat? If this is what Mr. Debus calls effective, perhaps he should check his dictionary:
ef·fec·tive
adj.
1.
a. Having an intended or expected effect.
Perhaps it is effective…if Mr. Debus expects boat to be spotted by third parties rather than the people who are being paid to conduct the surveillance.
It’s no wonder that the boats are flooding in to Australian territory with people like Bob Debus in charge of our border security.
(Apparently using the words “flood” and “boat” in the same sentence makes me part of the “nutjobosphere”…that’s fine by me, because it doesn’t change the fact that I’m right!)
Samuel
9 comments April 25th, 2009 at 08:15pm