Wednesday, June 8, 2011

TAMPERING WITH TAMPA

Quoting an ABC interview , the June 8 edition of the NT News ,P3, ran the following intro : TERRITORY politician Marion Scrymgour has backed away from her former claims that the federal intervention was a “black kids tamper.”


Ms Scrymgour was actually referring to the shabby MV Tampa affair of August 2001. On that occasion the Howard government refused the Norwegian vessel MV Tampa, carrying 438 rescued Afghans from a distressed fishing vessel in international waters, to enter Australian waters. This triggered an Australian political controversy in the lead up to a federal election, which saw Howard reelected . Ms Scrymgour was equating the Federal government’s intervention in Aboriginal communities as one more pre- election stunt-another Tampa.