Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Where's Rudd On Human Rights?

The Greens have just called (again) for the USA to close Gitmo, challenging Kevin Rudd to support their call. Don't hold your breath, folks.

When Rudd was in Malaysia recently, he refused to meet with opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who has just been released on bail following another politically-motivated arrest (the first was a full decade ago). Anwar slammed Rudd's decision, and now the shit is set to hit the fan. Malaysian investors are getting nervous. And the Malaysian people will not forget Australia's lack of help, nor our hypocrisy.

Then there's the human rights appeasement of China, of course, which seems to be Rudd's #1 priority. Oh but that's a sports issue, isn't it? Rudd won't meet the Dalai Lama any more either.

Meanwhile, the Greens are calling yesterday's Green paper on carbon emissions "something John Howard would be really proud of":
"The whole point of an emissions trading system is to change the investment signals - and yet instead of that, they want to compensate the coal generators in case there is any change in investment signal."
After 11 years of Howard, it's still all about the money. And human rights be damned.