Keane calls it

Bernard Keane is the mainstay writer at crikey.com.au. His output is prodigious. In a single day he will usually have two or three pieces of a decent length and with insightful analysis to boot.

As you may be aware the refugee issue has arisen again in the wake of the sheer tragedy that occured when ninety people (perhaps more) drowned after their vessel capsized. 

It seems now the Coalition—who are not the party of government but whose NO! crap nonetheless manages to spoil attempts at actual governance—will not budge on their demands that refugee provisions they had in place when in power be restored to what they were; temporary protection visas, Nauru, the lot. Even though the ALP, through gritted teeth, has offered to put the so-called "Pacific Solution" back on the table as part of the dealing process. 

So what does this Coalition intransigence mean? Likely it means more brown people are going to drown. But that doesn't matter to Tony Abbott. It matters it seems to some in the coalition ranks but not to their lord and master, the former trainee Catholic priest (1).

Anyway, as I said, Bernard Keane calls it.

There are some words one is loathe to reach for in politics. Voters may not think it, but rare is the politician at the federal level who isn't there, even in this benighted age, because she or he genuinely wants to do good by Australia. They may be utterly confused, ignorant or lazily unaware about how to maximise the national interest, but they still pursue it. As a consequence, daring to pass moral judgement on politicians can be hazardous and unfair. One may charge them with cynicism or opportunism, yes, but that is more a judgement on their tactics than on their morality.

But, having paid close or not-so-close attention to federal politics since the early 1980s, I can't do anything but conclude that the Coalition's current stance on asylum seekers is the clearest example of outright evil that I've ever seen from a political party at the federal level.

See the rest of Keane's post at Crikey.

(1) Who apparently left the seminary because he was too disillusioned with all the gays being there...