“Operation Sovereign Borders” is what the Abbott government calls its witch hunt for refugees who arrives by boat. Its purpose, as judged by the actions taken, appears to be to make people’s lives as miserable as possible and apply that as a deterrent.

Since people are fleeing from very miserable situations and certain death for them and their family, you can imagine that this approach aims for new lows in how to treat fellow human beings who are in need of our help and protection. How can we possibly make things worse than where they flee from? Well I’m sure we can, but I wouldn’t want to.

Anyway, from the new propaganda department at Australian Customs comes this “gem”, made available on its website. It’s stated aim is to present “the truth” – that is indeed the case, it accurately describes this government’s enacted policy of creating misery and proves that its specific focus is to exploit this misery for PR purposes. I believe this is foul, and I will continue to speak out on the topic.

Here is the link to the newsroom item:

http://newsroom.customs.gov.au/channels/transcripts-operation-sovereign-borders/photos/a-storyboard-on-people-smuggling

and the PDF of the full storyboard:

http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/Storyboard-Afghanistan.pdf

So that’s customs.gov.au. The immigration department does its bit at

http://www.immi.gov.au/Live/Pages/refugees/no-way.aspx