Beazley slams Govt hurricane response

The Federal Opposition Leader says the Government did not act quickly enough to deploy resources from its embassy in Washington to help Australians stranded by Hurricane Katrina. Kim Beazley says the Government should have realised the scale of the disaster in the days immediately after the hurricane, and sent officials to Baton Rouge, where Louisiana state authorities established their emergency head-quarters.

Mr Beazley says it has been a tardy response, and Australians should be questioning why the Government did not call on embassy staff to play a more active role in finding those affected by the disaster.

"We actually have good resources there of people with consular skills and logistics skills, and I think it would have been pretty obvious a few days ago that we had a problem here for 70 or 80 Australian tourists, and that problem required somebody close to the ground," he said. "We should have got people straight away into Baton Rouge."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1452781.htm

The Federal Government says Australian consular officials are still being denied access to stranded Australians in parts of hurricane-devastated New Orleans.
Around 40 Australians are still believed to be trapped, while 29 have been evacuated over the last two days. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bruce Billson, says US authorities are not allowing any consulate officials from any foreign governments into the area.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1452758.htm

doesn't it.
Bush and his entire Administration should be locked up.