Tony Blabbott is not only a clown, and an idiot, domestically; He is becoming known also as one, on the world stage. 

And this comment by this top Asian politician, is a direct threat to Australia, if Blabbott’s boat policy is adopted. 

Australia can ill afford this idiot’s continued presence as a leader of anything, never mind, the Australian people! 
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Coalition boat plan attacked

Date  October 24, 2012

Daniel Flitton

A packed asylum-seeker boat in distress earlier this year. Photo: Reuters

SOUTH-EAST Asia’s top diplomat has rejected as  ‘‘counterproductive’’ the Liberal  policy to tow back asylum seeker boats to Indonesia, warning the plan could jeopardise Australia’s ties with its neighbours.

But Surin Pitsuwan, head of the 10-nation association that covers south-east Asia, has cast doubts whether an Abbott government would   actually carry out its threat to force asylum seekers to return to Indonesia.

‘‘It will be counterproductive,’’ he told The Age. ‘‘Just to impose certain decisions on the neighbours at the risk of losing many … other issues on the international agenda. I don’t think it’s worth it.’’

In what is the sharpest critique to date from a senior figure in the region, Dr Surin also said countries understood that the Opposition Leader was primarily targeting an audience at home.

Dr Surin is the secretary-general of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), a group of 10 nations that includes Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, all grappling with the explosion of asylum seekers crossing their territory en route to Australia.

‘‘Rhetoric, political rhetoric, you have to take [Abbott’s comments] as such,’’ he said. ‘‘I think South-East Asia or ASEAN is really mature enough to appreciate that some of them are internal rhetoric for internal consumption, for internal political communication.’’

The Coalition’s pledge to turn back boats — when safe — is the most controversial of its border protection plan.

Dr Surin, who meets Prime Minister Julia Gillard today, said Australia did not have a record of pushing problems back on south-east Asia.

He said only a regional approach — not ‘‘by divorcing, by turning your back to us’’ — could solve the challenge from people smugglers and other cross-border crimes, such as drug trafficking.

Dr Surin said: ‘‘You will have to think about others. A lot of this cannot be resolved by one party alone.’’

Mr Abbott scored a rare diplomatic coup last week, meeting  Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta.

But Labor seized on Indonesian remarks afterwards revealing Mr Abbott did not directly raise the tow-back policy with Mr Yudhoyono, accusing the Opposition Leader of talking tough at home but lacking guts while abroad.

Dr Surin, a former foreign minister of Thailand, is coming to the end of a five-year term as ASEAN secretary-general.

He said the region’s ties with Australia had grown stronger, and Australia could now  more comfortably claim to be an Asian nation than it could in the 1970s.

‘‘Australia came from a background of being rather distant and divorced from east Asia, from Asia in general. The perception earlier on before ASEAN … was that it is a European country that happens to be in the East, and orientation, sentiments, emotional attachments always have gone to the West. But things have changed,’’ he said.

He praised Australia’s efforts in engaging with diplomatic institutions in the region  and helping countries work together to tackle problems.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/coalition-boat-plan-attacked-20121023-283k5.html#ixzz2A81pBRWg