Fed: Trish Worth criticised for asylum seeker comments

AAP General News (Australia)
08-31-2004
Fed: Trish Worth criticised for asylum seeker comments

CANBERRA, Aug 31 AAP - The leaders of the Australian Greens and Australian Democrats
today criticised Liberal MP Trish Worth for linking checks on asylum seekers to quarantine
rules for pets.

Ms Worth, who holds the seat of Adelaide by a margin of just 0.6 per cent, drew gasps
and jeers from the audience when she made the comments at a public forum on asylum seekers.

Called on to justify the government's policy of mandatory detention, the parliamentary
secretary told the crowd she hated the thought of anyone being held in detention.

But she said there were some practical reasons for doing so.

"I mean, if you bring a dog into this country or a cat from some countries ...." she
said, before being drowned out by a rumble of interjections from the audience.

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said Ms Worth had made a big mistake.

"I think Trish Worth has tripped up here," he told reporters.

"It just is a mistake to be talking about pets and animals in the same place as you're
talking about refugees and human beings and people who are trying desperately to make
out better in life.

"A big mistake."

Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett said he hoped this election campaign would not be
marred by defamatory comments about refugees, like those involved in the children overboard
affair during the 2001 poll.

"The whole suggestion that refugees are any sort of threat whether it's a security
threat, whether it's a quarantine threat, a health threat is just a disgrace," he told
reporters.

"There is nobody who is more closely scrutinised -- as to their past, their present,
their future, their health, their background everything looked into -- than asylum seekers.

"And they suffer more than anyone else and to have their suffering compounded by abuse
of any sort is simply unacceptable."

Independent senator Meg Lees described Ms Worth's comments as unfortunate.

"I know the point that she was trying to make but I don't think that is quite the analogy,
quite the way in which to make those points," Senator Lees told reporters.

"Yes, it is necessary to check where people come from, and obviously to do health checks,
but that only takes a couple of weeks and we're not talking about a couple of weeks, we're
talking about people stuck year after year after year."

AAP bt/sw/drp/sco

KEYWORD: POLL04 WORTH REACT

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