The lower house of Australia’s Parliament passed sweeping changes in immigration policy on Wednesday that are meant to discourag

admin2015-03-25  37

问题     The lower house of Australia’s Parliament passed sweeping changes in immigration policy on Wednesday that are meant to discouragedeter asylum seekers who try to reach the country by the thousands each year on rickety, overcrowded ships and boats.
    In a major reversal, the measures would reopen a chain of offshore detention centers that human rights groups have criticized as inhumane and possibly illegal. The Labor government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard largely abandoned use of the detention centers when it came to power in 2007.
    The measures passed the lower house with the backing of both the governing party and the opposition coalition, with only two lawmakers voting against them, and the upper house is expected to approve them this week. But the debate was emotional and contentious, descending at times into a shouting match.
    "This is not the end of the efforts to deal with what is the very, very, very, very pernicious trade of people smuggling, which trades on people’s lives and gives people the expectation that in return for very significant sums of money they can be brought to Australia for passage," Chris Bowen, the immigration minister, told the lower house.
    Though the opposition coalition voted for the measure, it seemed determined to score as many political points as possible from Labor’s change of course. Many Labor members left the floor in protest as their rivals excoriated the government. The opposition leader, Tony Abbott, demanded a formal apology from Ms. Gillard for Labor’s previous policy, which he said encouraged risky attempts to reach Australia.
    "After, tragically, almost 1,000 deaths at sea and after $4.7 billion has been blown because of the government’s border protection failures, the prime minister has finally seen the sense of what the opposition has been proposing all along," Mr. Abbott said, adding, " This government’s failures gave the people smugglers a business model. "
    Australia has tried for years to find a policy that will deter would-be immigrants from trying to make the 220-mile crossing from Java to Christmas Island, a remote spot in the Indian Ocean that is Australia’s closest point to Indonesia. More than 600 migrants bound for Australia have died in accidents at sea since 2009.
    Domestic and international human rights groups have condemned the practice of detaining the asylum seekers for long periods in camps overseas while their cases are processed, saying that the practice is cruel and violates Australia’s obligations under the United Nations refugee convention.
    David Manne, a prominent human rights lawyer who succeeded in blocking a proposal last year to process migrants in Malaysia, called the new legislation the product of "interminable political jousting to see who has the harshest policies for dealing with these people. " "Really, all that deterrence policies like this do is sweep vulnerable people from our doorstep to dangers elsewhere," he said before the vote in Parliament.
It can be inferred from the passage that the opposition coalition

选项 A、believed that the government’s new policy made sense.
B、doubted the real effect of the government’s new immigration policy.
C、accused the Labor government of failing in dealing with people smuggling.
D、were forced to vote for the government’s new immigration policy.

答案C

解析 推理判断题。根据题干关键词the opposition coalition定位至第五段前两句。第一句说虽然反对派投票支持了总统的新移民政策,但却想方设法从中谋取政治资本,因此,他们指责政府在处理移民问题时是非常失败的。[C]与原文意思相符,故为答案。[A]“反对党认为政府的法案合理”明显与文章意思不符,故排除;反对党对政府的指责非常明确,而不仅仅是怀疑政府的这项法案的真实效果,故排除[B];文中并没有说明反对党是不得已才投了赞成票,故排除[D]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/BgFRFFFM
0

最新回复(0)