And the bidding has begun

Well the election campaign is starting to heat up, you can tell, because the opposition is actually starting to release policies instead of just doing the usual "We oppose it cos we can!".

You can also tell the election campaign is starting to get real when the parties start to get into the "I'm tougher than the other guy is" competitions.

This started earlier this year when the Government in it's poll driven wisdom decided to make Asylum seekers a real issue at the election by "suspending" the processing of Asylum seekers from either Afghanistan or Sri Lanka, purportedly based on "information received" that apparently led them to believe that everything was fine now and that the ponies and unicorns were looking after everyone. 

Of course the Opposition had to respond, they couldn't let the Government own their ground like that, so today Tony Abbott announced that, indeed, he could be a tougher person than Rudd. 

To summarise:

• Pacific solution to return
• Will turn the boats back (cos it's better if they drown in Indonesian waters?)
• The return of Temporary Protection Visas
• Refugees on TPV's will need to work for their support payments (slightly less than AusStudy). This is a nice double "get tough" touch for Abbott. Tough on refugees and tough on dole bludgers at the same time.

So basically we're going to return to the days where people were held in detention camps, run by the lowest bidder, on pacific islands you could spit across, until their claims are assessed and they are proven to be genuine. Once that happens of course they're going to be treated as second class people under the TPV's.

So now that the Opposition has upped the ante, will the Government wake up or will they continue the game of "Liberal Light"?