John Howard,you've done the right thing ... but ...

I think John Howard has done the right thing with the Aid Package for Indonesia ...
But it's not $1 million. It's less than that but it's a great start.

And he has skewered Mark Latham in the process.

But as Anne Summer's notes:

"Although we are close to Asia and many of us travel there, we have not always been so big-hearted. We are, after all, the same people who in October 2001 averted our eyes when the SIEV-X, a creaky boat overladen with asylum seekers from Indonesia and bound for Australia, sank and 353 people, mostly woman and children, drowned. And we continue to tolerate those who do make it to our shores being locked up in detention centres for indefinite periods. While some are busy collecting for tsunami victims in Sri Lanka we should not overlook the fact that there are Sri Lankans detained at Baxter who cannot even get their visa applications processed.

I am sure we all feel great pride in the fact that our country heads the list of donor nations with our unparalleled billion-dollar rescue package for Indonesia, but in the same week that the Prime Minister, John Howard, announced this aid, the Finance Minister, Nick Minchin, confirmed a 50 per cent blow-out in the cost of the detention centre being constructed at Christmas Island.

We are spending $336 million on an 800-bed centre in this remote outpost even though, Minchin said in a press release, there has not been an unauthorised boat arrival at Christmas Island since December 2001."