Turnbull to refine Howard asylum seeker policy

30 October 2009 | 12:46:14 PM | Source: AAP

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Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull (AAP)

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull says the coalition's asylum seeker policy would be a refined version of the Howard government policy.

Mr Turnbull told Fairfax Radio the Rudd government needed to initiate a public inquiry to inform debate about how to deal with the latest round of boat arrivals.

Such an inquiry would also inform the coalition's policy, which had been effective in the past, he said on Friday.

"We know that the previous policies of the Howard government certainly worked in the sense that there were for many years very few, little or no arrivals," Mr Turnbull said.

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Comment | Add yours

'Informed debate'

"So they worked.

"Putting them all back in place exactly as they were - would that be effective, or are there refinements and changes that would be more effective?

"That's something we've got to look at and we're very keen to have an informed debate about that."

The opposition leader said a Turnbull government would "put in place policies that will over time stop this surge in boats".

"Our policy is our record - we've done it before and we'll do it again," he said.

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Your Comments

30 Oct 2009 17:53 AEST

Vox Liberalis

From: NSW

The End Justifies The Means

The problem is that they look so human that we risk losing them in a crowd. I agree with the Liberals here, we could decree that all asylum seekers wear a yellow star sewn onto their clothing so that we can easily identify who to direct our hatred towards.

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