Terrorism tackled up front

AUSTRALIA could face a diplomatic backlash over new terror measures which force foreign visitors from a handful of nations to undergo increased security screening.
Under a $69 million program, citizens from 10 nations will be fingerprinted and have their faces scanned as part of rigorous biometric checks on travellers seeking visas to Australia.
Applicants will be photographed and fingerprinted in their home country before a visa is issued.
The government has not yet named the countries on the list, but security sources say it includes Indonesia, India, Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan.

 
Maybe it's just a cynical political exercise by a PM who is trying to shift focus away from other embarassing issues and looking at increasing support for a coming election, but I must applaud his new policy on terrorism.
We have to wonder about how effective a policy it will be, and I mean effective in getting votes rather than combating terrorism because finally a politician has had the balls to confront an issue that all other politicians around the world have been pussy footing around because they're afraid of upsetting Muslims.
Australia has always been cautious in their foreign policy especially cautious when it comes to avoiding any offence to those 200 million Indonesians who are just a hop-skip-jump away from us across the ocean and Australians number a mere 23 million.
I wouldn't be surprised if this policy gets watered down or even abandoned in the near future by a government that can't stand the heat.

Finally, I wonder what kind of diplomatic backlash Australia might fear from Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and India? Maybe fewer illegal immigrants perhaps?