Labour’s equal opportunities officer in migrants’ pushback rant

 The Labour Party's equal opportunities officer Rachel Tua launched into a Facebook tirade against asylum seekers, in her outrage over a young man who was hospitalised after being assaulted by two foreigners.

Tua, a Labour candidate and Mosta local councillor, acts as Labour's equal opportunities officer but her credentials appeared to have been dented in her Facebook outburst, where she said that Malta "ought to adopt the same course of action" as Australia - which practices pushbacks of migrants to Pacific islands.

Australia received 17,000 asylum seekers in 2012, and effected pushbacks to Papua New Guinea holding centres.

"Not only do they illegally invade us, but are now conducting acts of thefts and violence upon our citizens," Tua said in a reaction to news that a 17-year-old had been beaten up during an aggravated theft by a Somali national and a Palestinian accomplice, according to news reports.

"We are far too small a size [sic] to be in a position to entertain accommodation for illegal immigrants and furthermore if they have no respect for the citizens of Malta, who on earth should we respect them... our people come first and foremost. Such acts are zero tolerance."

Thefts and assaults are common crimes in Malta, but not exclusively limited to foreign nationals. Yesterday, a mother and son were handed a suspended sentence after assaulting and robbing an Eritrean migrant who was lured with promises of sexual favours.

Tua, a lawyer by profession, is a director on the Lotteries and Gaming Authority, the national gaming regulator.

The Labour government has so far adopted a hawkish stance on immigration, demanding that EU member states enter into a mandatory burden sharing system to relocate asylum seekers away from Malta, and at one point even considering the pushback of asylum seekers to Libya.

The reaction to criticism from European commissioner for home affairs Cecilia Malmström, has led to negative outbursts on Facebook: only recently Labour candidate Alfred Grima had to apologise for comments he passed on his Facebook wall in wishing that Malmström gets kidnapped, after he bookmarked a news item in which a Swedish politician was wounded in a Somali kidnap attempt.