Kurds Aweigh

Who’d a thunk it? The excision of all those islands could have just been about the comedic inability of a Mosman Kebab shop owner to organise his way out of a slightly greasy paper bag!

The SMH reports that the 14 Kurdish ‘asylum seekers’ last seen on Melville Island – frantically searching for “refugee” in their Turkish/English dictionaries whilst simultaneously soaking their passports in a rich brew of engine oil – might not have been all that they claimed to be. Six of them are reported to be heading home from Indonesia to their various small businesses in Turkey, quite adamant that their only reason for voyaging upon the Arafura Sea was because kebab jockey Ali Cetin had assured them they could clear 2 grand per week in Oz (GST not included) – provided that they slipped him 20 grand to cover entry costs. No persecution – Turks and Kurds get along fine, one claimed – and no huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Just a bunch of Turkish likely lads who took an illegal punt on a better life in Oz. It’s the kind of aspiration that about 500 million of humankind might harbour, in respect of the industrialized western democracies, on any given day of the week. The other eight remain resolute that they’re legitimate asylum seekers – and everyone is saying that Ali Cetin organised the whole thing

Mr Cetin insists that the fact that he occupied the same Indonesian hotel as the Melville 14, on two separate occasions, that they all come from the same place he does and that one of them – a cabbie named Mehmet Cetin – has exactly the same name as his brother, is alll purely coincidental. He was simply visiting Indonesia for rumpty purposes. It’s plausible. Mrs Cetin has apparently decided that a life in persecution-prone Turkey is eminently preferable to the joys of Kebab manufacture on the lower North Shore and has shot through accordingly. And Ali reckons there’s more to a bloke’s life than kebabs.

Mr Cetin is an Australian citizen having entered the country via the Port Hedland detention centre some years back. He assured the ABC this morning that the Mafia was probably behind the whole thing and insisted that “everyone have good time.” I fear they will.

Incisive comment of the day is surely ABC Radio’s Sally Loane’s:

“If the government hadn’t excised those islands, the guys could have landed and their stories would have been disproved pretty quickly.”

Yep. And chances are that they’d still be here, whiling the appeals process away with appearances on Four Corners, in about 10 years time.