The day I arrived in Australia, the top item on every news station, radio program and newspaper was the desperate search for a boat loaded with asylum seekers that had sunk off the coast of Java, after leaving from Indonesia. As of Friday morning, only 55 people had been rescued from the ocean, out of the 150 men, women and children believed to be on the boat. The boat made the first distress call on Wednesday morning. The Indonesian search and rescue authority, Basarnas, initially responded ...
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I learned just how divisive is the migrant ships issue in Australia before I even arrived in the country. I was in a bar in Vancouver, the Speakeasy on Granville, busy with travellers and regulars on a Sunday night. While waiting for my friend to arrive, I started to chat with a pair of backpackers. One was from Brisbane, the other an Italian who had spent a year in Australia and a year in New Zealand, which resulted in a very peculiar and unplaceable accent. They asked why I was going to Aus...
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