Politics
Out of context: Reply #24355
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"As intended, Howard’s immigration plan drastically reduced the boats making it to Australian shores. In 2002 one asylum-seeker reached Australia, and in the next five years, 57 people each year did. Then in 2007, Australia had a change in government.
The center-left Labor Party won the election, and Kevin Rudd, the new prime minister, kept his campaign promise to do away with the offshore-processing camps. It would not last long. In 2009, 60 boats arrived in Australia with 2,726 asylum-seekers; the next year it was 134 boats with 6,555 people; then 69 boats with 4,565. And with those rising numbers came rising refugee deaths as leaky boats or wooden vessels shattered against the rocks in the choppy waters. The Liberals, now in opposition, blamed Rudd’s policy for the increased migration, for the deaths, and for supporting the human-smuggler economy. Rudd resisted critics, but soon found himself losing a party leadership vote to Julia Gillard, who succeeded him as prime minister."