Democracy?

The undercurrent politics at play during the Senate inquiry into the children overboard affair, suggest that many of the Senators on the committee see it as little more than a political power game. To date Government Senators have used the forum to address wider issues relating to asylum seekers and boat people, and to divert attention from the main issue of the communication processes in the upper levels of the public service and inside Ministers' offices. Although there have been some glimmers of hope in the progress of the inquiry, it is clear that the Government's strategy throughout the inquiry has been to demonstrate that asylum seekers were involved in violent confrontations with the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), and were in the business of moral blackmail.