Gerrity you goose!

http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/pr-article/gerritys-hypocricy-on-asylum-seekers/
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2010/07/11/158101_tasmania-news.html

One of the first sensible ideas i have ever heard from Kevin Harkins. Harkins called for a feasibility study into housing asylum seekers in Tasmania while their claims are assessed. He also wants them to be encouraged to settle in the area if they are successful.

And what do we get from the West Coast's throwback yokel mayors?...

West Coast Mayor Daryl Gerrity - "Sarah Island is still empty, so is Port Arthur," ."The area hadn't traditionally attracted a lot of settlers from warmer climates. "I don't think the climate here would suit them, it's a bit cool around here," Cr Gerrity said. "It would be too dramatic. Even Harkins doesn't come here, so why would he send someone else? "It's pie in the sky, just a way to get a headline. There's just not the climate or the industry or the land." And he said the area was ill-equipped to deal with the population it had now. (From The Mercury - see above link)

Waratah-Wynyard Mayor Kevin Hyland - "I would have thought we'd need to have some more industry here to have some jobs for them to come to," he said. "It's all very well to create residential areas or whatever you want to do to get people here and to house them, but you've got to have some long-term strategies in place to make it sustainable, I would have thought. "He needs to take a cold shower and come and talk to a few people who live in the North-West before he goes making those outlandish statements." (From The Mercury - see above link)