Tudge talks immigration in Drysdale

IMMIGRATION and human rights were on the agenda inside and outside a meeting in Drysdale last week hosted by Corangamite federal member Sarah Henderson, Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Alan Tudge and Liberal candidate for Bellarine Brian McKiterick.

About 20 people attended the Bellarine Community Forum at the Springdale Neighbourhood Centre, while about half as many protestors from pro-refugee groups and the union movement set up banners and flags outside.

Ostensibly about community safety, population growth, and infrastructure, the meeting saw the trio field questions from the audience on a wide range of issues, many of them about immigration.

Mr Tudge said Australia had been a “tremendously successful multicultural nation built on immigration”.

“The reason we have been so successful, I think, is because we’ve controlled the process, and we’ve insisted that when people come to our shores, we’ve asked people to integrate.”

Mr Tudge was formerly the Minister for Human Services, and was challenged by an Ocean Grove woman who described Centrelink’s “robo-debt” program as a “scam”.

“I don’t think it’s right, on the basis of independent reports, to say that the system is flawed,” Mr Tudge said, which led to the woman storming out.

Ms Henderson was dismissive about a question about what the federal government was doing for Julian Assange, saying “I don’t equate his work to journalism – I think in journalism, you’ve got to exercise a great deal of care and responsibility in what you publish”.

None of the Liberal members were in favour of a proposal that drugs should be decriminalised, and Mr Tudge equivocated to the suggestion that “our young are lacking in patriotism”.

Talking state politics, Mr McKiterick raised his 39-year career as a police officer and said “the escalation of crime in recent years has been a significant issue for the community and the perception of community safety”, and that a Liberal-National government would introduce more than 20 policies about crime and crime prevention.