Mrs Vanstone's New Year Present To The Bakhtiyaris Poem by Francis Duggan

Amanda Vanstone's promised New Year present to the Bakhtiyari family is deportation
She claims the family are from Pakistan
But Mr Bakhtiyari swears he and his wife and children are Afghans
And he does seem an honest enough man.

In this underpopulated Nation of only twenty million
There surely is room for eight people more
One of the largest Land masses on the Planet
Two thousand miles from north to southern shore.

For the past few years the Bakhtiyaris in and out of detention centres
They have been used by the Australian Government for political gain
For to appease the right wing redneck majority
In a society where empathy is lacking the poor are left to absorb their own pain.

A New Year present by the Minister for Immigration Mrs Vanstone to the Bakhtiyaris
A one way trip out of Australia on a plane
To Pakistan and an uncertain future
The Stateless poor are to lose out again.