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The Daily Telegraph Wrong About Asylum Seekers
RCOA chief executive officer Paul Power said people looking to The Daily Telegraph for information were being misled by a classic beat-up in the tradition of the paper’s disgraced former UK stablemate, the News of the World.
“The simple fact of the matter is that some asylum seekers are being detained in furnished houses, as an alternative to locking up children and their families for months or years in secure detention centres,” Mr Power said.
“It is simply untrue to suggest, as The Daily Telegraph has done, that the asylum seekers ‘receive’ the furnishings in the houses where they are being detained, as these furnishings remain in the place of detention when the families are moved out when their detention ends.
“Australia’s community detention system began under the Howard Government in 2005, as a response to community outrage about the indefinite detention of asylum seeker children.
“This article is tabloid journalism at its worst, with what appears in print bearing little resemblance to reality. Readers of The Daily Telegraph should feel angry that they are being deceived.
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