The night of Wednesday 26^th of June was full of surprises. We got an old/new Prime Minister in Kevin Rudd, found out that our first female Prime Minister was quitting politics, and learned what the Foreign Minister Bob Carr thinks of refugees and our international obligations to protect them. Not much as it turns out. Bob Carr went on the ABC on that ‘historic’ night, to state that:

The people who express noble sentiments on refugee rights have got to recognise that under our noses the nature of this problem has changed… they’re not people fleeing persecution – they’re coming from majority religious or ethnic groups in the countries they’re fleeing – they’re coming here as economic migrants.

The same sentiments were reiterated by Bob Carr in Indonesia recently. This is an incredibly worrying turn for the worse in our approach and commitment to our international obligations. There…