Paul Cotton responds to Alex Oliver's post on the Foreign Minister's handling of the Pippi Bean affair:
Surely the whole Pippi Bean affair came about when the media constantly referred to her as an 'aid worker'. She was not an 'aid worker', she was in international public servant working for the International Organisation of Migration. It was IOM's job to help her and I understand they did as well as all the other do-gooders who came into the act. To the Australian public an 'aid worker' is someone working for the Australian government, probably for AusAid. That was not the case in this instance.
If this goes on DFAT will become an international search and rescue organisation and nothing else.