get lucky

I can't usually get Channel 10 where I live, but last night I was flicking channels and happened to tune in to Big Brother just in time to witness evictee Merlin Luck's political stunt (he taped his mouth shut and held a sign saying 'free the refugees'). I managed to get Channel 10 again in time for the 5 o'clock news today, and got Amanda Vanstone's glib response:

"He's misinformed. There are no refugees in detention centres."

That's odd. Here's Vanstone last month, for example, responding to criticism from the UNHCR:

"As I announced in December, we had agreed with the UNHCR because of changed conditions in Afghanistan that we would reassess the Afghani caseload. That is both on Nauru and in the detention centres. We will be making some announcements about the progress of those assessments, but I think we can be certain that a significant proportion of the reassessments will now be refugees."

While we wait for Vanstone to make up her mind about what to call Australia's asylum seekers (I gather she would rather call them 'queue jumpers' or 'illegals'), can I just say, onya Merlin. Who knows, maybe he did it for the kudos, but good for him for daring to hijack commercial television to get the message across to other kids.