We're all boat people, says Hawke - Yahoo!7

We're all boat people, says Hawke - Yahoo!7

Bob For President !
We seem to be dreadfully short of "guts" these days, risk adverse, is the PC term, cowards is more accurate. Seems we replaced merinos with humans, thing is your average Merino Sheep has more brains and guts than the nominal human merino, especially the squatter sub species.



"We're all bloody boat people," he said.

"That's how we found the place."

Mr Hawke said he understood the frustration of many voters at "queue jumpers", but said "we have to look at the other side of the coin".

He said the coalition's approach to the boat people question was "nonsense".

"We cannot turn the boats back," Mr Hawke said.

"These people have got initiative, guts and courage and Australia needs people like that."

He pushed Indonesia as the location for an asylum seeker processing centre, saying it would be "fair enough, as long as the conditions there are humane".

Mr Hawke also spoke about his South Australian-based work with a centre focused on improving relations between the Islamic community and others, saying the real challenge for Australia in his eyes was not to "demonise Muslim people".

The former Labor prime minister repeated his attack on Mr Abbott describing him as "mad as a cut snake" and said Australia needed people like those arriving by boat to claim asylum because they had initiative and courage.