Visa Vie
Why opposition leader, Kim Beazley, has proposed a visa issuance signing statement should be incomprehensible, but really only highlights that under his leadership, many of the differences between the ALP and the Liberals have been eroded, unfortunately by making the ALP more rightwing than left-. While it is entirely reasonable to require entrants to this (or any other) country to agree to abide by its laws, it’s a different matter to have them explicitly sign up to abide by its “values.” How do you define these? What is “mateship” or “a fair go”? What other values are to be included? Values aren’t the same as ethics, morals, or laws. They’re more aspirational. If the ALP can legislate the conditions of “a fair go,” then fair enough, I suppose, but I still think it’s silly, at best, and another failed attempt by Mr. Beazley to co-opt the dog-whistle politics of the PM to benefit his own party, one that’s supposedly more committed than Mr. Howard’s is to precisely such values as he wants immigrants to sign up for, even if such signing statements serve an opposite principle. (Besides, there are clear indications we don’t value our values as much as we used to, anyway.)