Australia's compassion going west?

Peter Craven, writing in The Age yesterday:

"For the past two years Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone has been attempting to deport to Sweden a man who has spent all but the first 27 days of his life in this country. As a consequence of a recent decision by the High Court, she will be able to do so.

The case is complex and exhibits plenty of alarming and pitiable features. The man in question, Stefan Nystrom, who first fell foul of the law at the age of 10, now faces further charges (including assault with a knife and wrongful imprisonment) and says he wants to be deported to Sweden even though he cannot speak the language and does not know his relatives there."

And:

"One does not have to be a bleeding heart to find the Howard Government's attitude in deporting offenders both sickening and inhumane.

We may be inured to the detention camps and the incarceration of David Hicks, and we may even accept these things as more or less bipartisan responses to a complex situation - though we are, I think, a lesser society for doing so."

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