Sunday 29 June 2014

Hands up all those who will suffer if 4,000 refugees come in on boats over three years - - The Australian Independent Media Network

Hands up all those who will suffer if 4,000 refugees come in on boats over three years

June 28, 2014
Written by:
The AIM Network

“We are 300 kilometres off Christmas Island. There are 37 children and 32 women aboard. A total of 153 people”.

2,900 km from where they started, a boatload of PEOPLE have called Australia, asking for help.

They are asking for refuge, to which they are entitled under the CONVENTION RELATING TO THE STATUS OF REFUGEES which was first proposed in 1951, and acceded to by Australia in 1954.

In 1967, the limits which prevented those from outside Europe and who became refugees before 1951 were removed.

In the 1970s following the defeat of the USA and its allies in
Vietnam, including Australia, we began receiving boatloads of refugees,
fleeing from what had been done to destroy their country, by the
countries of the South East Asian Treaty Organisation , which included
the United States, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, New Zealand,
Thailand, Khmer Republic (later overthrown by Khmer Rouge), Kingdom of
Laos and Republic of China (Taiwan).

On Wednesday this week South Australian premier, Jay Wetherill named Hieu Ban Le as next Governor of that state.

In 1979, we were complaining about the “boaties”. (Well at least some
of us were). Prime Minister of the day, Malcolm Fraser had a model
developed, which has earned some praise recently as 94,000 displaced persons arrived on our shores.

Now they are members of various parliaments, business people,
employers, taxpayers, doctors, lawyers. Now, those “boaties” include a
State Governor. Citizens in fact, of a country which offered them hope,
expecting little in return.

The Department of Immigration estimates that at any one time there are 53,900 visa over stayers in country.

Mining person Gina Rinehart is lobbying the Federal government to
allow her to bring African labourers into the country on 457 visas with a
view to paying them $2 per day. No matter how hard I listen, I find it
very difficult to hear anybody complaining about that and I find myself
wondering why.

Various parts of the mining companies are trying to get more 457
visas allowed for so-called specialised employees, because they are
unable to find enough people in country. Most of the mining companies do
not have training programs. Rather, they prefer to bring people into
overseas who are already trained to take jobs which in the greater
scheme of things there is absolutely no reason they can’t be done by
Australian employees. With the exception of coarse that the mining
companies will actually have to train somebody. And that will come out
of the 88% of the profits from the mining industry which are repatriated
to home countries.

There is a constant call among shareholders of virtually every
company in this country to reduce costs and upgrade their investments.
The first port of call in cost reduction for most of these companies is
reduction of staff. When Tony Abbott talks about creating jobs, he
apparently does not mean in Australia. Most of the jobs created since
Abbott came to power appear to be on call centres in Manila and Mumbai,
whilst ensuring that there is no purpose served in having a motor
vehicle industry here in the country, because our population is too
small to support them.

A Prime Minister for Australia? I don’t think so.

So hands up all those who will suffer if 4,000 refugees come in on boats over three years.

Look mum, no hands.

The above is a guest post by AIMN reader Sir ScotchMistery.

Saturday 28 June 2014

Tamil boat tries terrorist Morrison

Bob Ellis 28 June 2014, 3:00pm 2

International New Australians Politics

The Tamil boat found striken 300 kilometres off Christmas
Island has left the Coalition's refugee policy in complete disarray,
writes Bob Ellis.

A STRICKEN BOAT with 37 children and 32 women on it
off Christmas Island has climaxed Immigration Minister Scott Morrison’s
worst week and may see him soon, or eventually, in gaol awaiting trial
in The Hague.

His policy of kidnap, piracy, bribery, cover-up and facilitating the
torture and death of children has disgusted some of his own back bench
and his foam-flecked madness in Question Time is worrying even Sky
News’s beaming thickos and his fellow worshippers in Shirelive.

Now, after saying children with a 49 percent chance
of crucifixion or beheading in Iraq will be sent back there, he is
facing the ultimate horror — a boat that can’t be sent back because it
is not safe to do so.

It is a boat, moreover, that Sovereign Borders did not notice was on its way for three weeks.

How many other boats did they fail to notice in the last, say, three months — the month they were looking in the wrong ocean
for an object big as a football field, MH370? It is probable people are
getting through all the time – bribed pearling luggers, ferries that
drop in West Irian determined refugees who then walk, or take a taxi, to
Thursday Island and enter Australia in car boots or under tarmacs on
trucks, that way.

S&M’s Big Lie has been blown. There are many ‘successful arrivals’ — successful because he hasn’t noticed any.

He has meanwhile bound himself hand and foot with his rabid fascistic public utterances.

He cannot take these refugees back to India: he does not have the
vessels to do so. He cannot lock up 39 children in Manus or Nauru
because the UN will come crashing down on him. He cannot fly them back
to India because, in a region keen on bride-burning and raping and
hanging young women from trees, the children will be in danger there.

And he will be shown worldwide to be a monster.

He has already protected from imprisonment the murderer of a young architect
and 10 or 20 thugs who cut the throat of one young man and shot and
headbashed 60 others. He has already caused three young men to set themselves on fire. He has already forbidden one of the dead young men’s brother
to come to his funeral in Geelong — because he might be interviewed on
television and blame him for begetting that pointless death.

He has already made frantic thousands on TPVs. He has already
threatened with torture and death those he falsely claims are here
‘illegally’. He has already broadcast unsettling videos whose purpose is to terrorise future immigrants with a good cause to seek refuge here.

He has already disgusted Barack Obama, who grew up in Indonesia, and
would, under these new strictures, even now, if he came here in a boat,
be urged back there in a ‘lifeboat’ at gunpoint.

We may soon see the end of this immigration minister.

He may be given Defence. He may be arraigned at The Hague for what
looks to me like a kind of terrorism, scaring the shit out of innocent
people in their tens of thousands, by promising to gaol, torment and
madden them, or pitchfork them into a war zone aflame with murderous,
medieval fanatics. He may be taken away in a straitjacket. But he is not
long for the position he is in.

And I wish him ill fortune, unsympathetic nurses, bad hospital food, expulsion from his party and prayers for his soul.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Wednesday 25 June 2014

Asylum seekers more likely to be returned under migration changes

Date: June 25, 2014 - 3:44PM

Sarah Whyte

Immigration correspondent

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Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has further toughened rules for asylum seekers in Australia. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

An asylum seeker with a 50/50 chance of torture or serious
harm in their home country could still be sent back there under proposed
changes to the Migration Act.

Under the changes, announced by Immigration Minister Scott
Morrison on Wednesday, asylum seekers are far more likely to be sent
back to countries where they face a serious threat of harm.

Previously, asylum seekers would not be sent back if they
faced a ‘‘real chance’’ of torture or significant harm – portrayed as a
10 per cent chance by the Immigration Department.

Now the amendment has changed that wording to ‘‘more likely
than not’’ to face harm – while dramatically increasing the minimum risk
threshold from 10 per cent to ‘‘greater than 50 per cent’’. This means
that if an asylum seeker faces a 50/50 chance of torture or serious harm
they could still be sent back.

The higher threshold is one of many sweeping changes to the
Migration Act, which will require asylum seekers to provide ‘‘sufficient
evidence’’ for identification to receive a protection visa, and will
not give automatic protection visas to family members of a visa holder.

Mr Morrison defended the changes, saying the government
remains committed to ensuring it abides by its international
obligations, despite substantially increasing the threshold.

‘‘This is an acceptable position which is open to Australia
under international law and reflects the government’s interpretation of
Australia’s obligations,’’ he said.

‘‘This Bill deserves the support of all parties. We need the
tools to ensure public confidence in Australia’s capacity to assess
claims for asylum in the interests of this country, and against the
interests of those who show bad faith. These changes uphold the
importance of integrity in the establishment of identity, and increased
efficiency in our protection processing system,’’ he said.

But human rights lawyers are shocked at the changes, saying they are ‘‘very significant’’.

‘‘These amendments would allow the government to send people
back to their country of origin even if there’s a 50 per cent chance
they’ll be killed or tortured as soon as they get off the plane,’’ said
Daniel Webb, director of the Human Rights Law Centre.

‘‘We shouldn’t even contemplate breaching international law
by returning people to such high risks of serious harm, especially at a
time of unprecedented global need.’’

Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles said the changes were troubling.

“We would be extremely concerned if the government attempts
to use complex legislation to sneak through shifting the goal posts on
what determines refugee status,” he said.

Tuesday 24 June 2014

Peter Greste case: international anger for Egypt's sentencing of al-Jazeera journalists

Date: June 24, 2014 - 5:37AM

Ruth Pollard

Middle East Correspondent

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Al Jazeera journalist and Australian citizen Peter Greste stands inside the defendants' cage in a courtroom during the trial. Photo: AP

Australian journalist Peter Greste jailed for seven years for 'defaming Egypt'

Cairo: Egypt faced international condemnation over the
harsh jail sentences handed down to three al-Jazeera journalists –
including Australian Peter Greste – with human rights groups describing
the verdict as a black day in the country’s unrelenting assault on the
freedom of expression.

Egypt’s relentless pursuit of Greste, Canadian-Egyptian
bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed was
vindictive and politically motivated, Amnesty International said.

The Australian ambassador to Egypt, Dr Ralph King,
right, sits next to Andrew Greste, brother of defendant Peter Greste
during the sentencing hearing. Photo: AP

The prosecution had produced no evidence to back its claims
or to support a conviction, Amnesty said, instead, the three were
“pawns” in the bitter geopolitical dispute between Egypt and Qatar, the
oil-rich Gulf country that finances al-Jazeera.

Qatar has long been perceived as a supporter of the Muslim
Brotherhood, the multi-national religious and political group labelled a
terrorist organisation in Egypt late last year as part of a vicious
government security crackdown on the group and its supporters.

The Qatari government pumped billions of dollars in aid to
support Egypt’s sinking economy during the 11-month term of the Muslim
Brotherhood backed president, Mohamed Mursi.

The fiance of journalist Mohamed Fahmy is consoled by
a friend following the verdicts in the sentencing hearing for
Al-Jazeera journalists. Photo: AP

Once Mursi was forced from power by the Egyptian military,
acting on what it described as a groundswell of public support, the
retribution against the Brotherhood and its backers was swift and
brutal.

“The truth is that Mohamed Fahmy, Peter Greste and Baher
Mohamed are prisoners of conscience who must be released immediately and
unconditionally,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty’s Middle East and
North Africa Program Deputy Director.

As Peter Greste’s stunned family regrouped to plan the next
phase of their campaign to free him from one of Egypt’s most notorious
prisons where he has spent the last six months in a 3mx4m cell with his
colleagues, the censures poured in from world leaders.

Peter Greste (left) and his colleagues Mohamed Fadel
Fahmy and Baher Mohamed listen to the verdict from inside the
defendants' cage. Photo: AFP

Just a day after he visited Egypt to meet with President
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to announced the United States had released $US575m
in military aid that had been frozen since the ousting of President
Mohammed Morsi last July, US Secretary of State John Kerry was scathing
in his criticism of the verdict.

“Today's conviction and chilling, draconian sentences by the
Cairo Criminal Court of three al-Jazeera journalists and fifteen others
in a trial that lacked many fundamental norms of due process, is a
deeply disturbing set-back to Egypt's transition.

“Injustices like these simply cannot stand if Egypt is to
move forward in the way that President al-Sisi and Foreign Minister
[Sameh] Shoukry told me just yesterday that they aspire to see their
country advance.”

Mr Kerry urged the Egyptian government to review all
political sentences and verdicts pronounced during the last few years
and consider all available remedies, including pardons.

But despite his strong words there was no indication that the
newly-unfrozen military aid would have any human rights conditions
attached.

The UK Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed Egypt's
Ambassador would be summoned to the Foreign Office over the sentencing,
which he described as "unacceptable".

The Dutch took similar action, with Foreign Affairs Minister
Frans Timmermans confirming the Netherlands had summoned the Egyptian
Ambassador.

Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the government
was "bitterly disappointed with the outcome" - it is understood the
Egyptian Ambassador to Australia would be meeting with the Department of
Foreign Affairs and Trade on Tuesday.

"The Australian government is shocked at the verdict in the
Peter Greste case. We are deeply dismayed by the fact that a sentence
has been imposed and we are appalled by the severity of it."

Egypt's foreign ministry appeared to reject the wave of
international criticism, putting out a statement on Monday evening
claiming the country's judiciary "enjoys full independence, and the new
constitution provides safeguards to ensure media freedom and to
guarantee due process in judicial proceedings".

"The defendants in this case were arrested in accordance with
warrants issued by the relevant investigative body, the Office of the
Public Prosecutor; due process was adhered to with all of the
defendants," the ministry said, noting the journalists still had the
right to appeal.

But the ministry's statement fell on deaf ears.

Greste and Fahmy were sentenced to seven years in prison,
while Mohamed received a 10-year term. Out of six others on trial
alongside journalists, two were acquitted and four were sentenced to
seven years.

The court also sentenced a number of other journalists to
10-year sentences in absentia, including al-Jazeera journalists Sue
Turton and Dominic Kane, both from the UK and the Dutch journalist Rena
Netjes, who has no association with Jazeera.

Egypt’s prosecutor general claimed the journalists had used
unlicensed equipment to broadcast false information to defame and
destabilise Egypt. Fahmy and Mohamed were further accused of being
members of the Muslim Brotherhood. All deny the charges, as do the
others who were charged and tried in absentia.

Outside the court, Greste’s brothers Andrew and Michael
struggled to make sense of the guilty verdict and the harsh sentences –
both have been in court over the last six months and like all observers
did not see any evidence presented that backed the prosecution’s claims.

“Gutted,” Andrew Greste said when asked how he was feeling
outside the court at Tora Prison in Cairo. “All those words really don’t
do my emotions justice.

Vowing that the family would fight on against the conviction,
Andrew said the Egyptian authorities assured his family the trial would
be fair and the justice system independent.

“It definitely wasn't an outcome we were expecting … we have
had a family representative at each of the court session and I find it
very difficult to understand how we get a decision like that.”

“[Peter] is not going to give up,” Andrew said. “Obviously he
is going to be shattered as well as I am sure it was not an outcome he
was expecting.”

The family is considering both a legal appeal to Egypt’s
Court of Cassation and an appeal for clemency or a pardon from President
al-Sisi.

The United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also condemned the Jazeera verdicts.

Along with Saturday’s confirmation by an Egyptian court of
the death penalty for 183 Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters
convicted in an earlier mass trial, the journalists’ sentences are the
latest in a string of prosecutions and proceedings that have been “rife
with procedural irregularities and in breach of international human
rights law,” Ms Pillay said.

“It is not a crime to carry a camera, or to try to report
various points of views about events,” Ms Pillay said. “It is not a
crime to criticise the authorities, or to interview people who hold
unpopular views.

“Journalists and civil society members should not be
arrested, prosecuted, beaten up or sacked for reporting on sensitive
issues. They should not be shot for trying to report or film things we,
the public, have a right to know are happening.”

Monday 23 June 2014

Refugee Week does little to restore hope for asylum seekers

Lyn Bender 23 June 2014, 1:00pm 15

Last week was Refugee Week, however Lyn Bender sees little to celebrate in Australia’s ongoing bipartisan persecution of desperate vulnerable people fleeing persecution.

HIP HIP HOORAY we just had Refugee Day!

Actually, an entire week ‒ last week ‒ was set aside to honour refugees.

To hear Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Immigration Minister Scott
Morrison crow, you would think it defined a grand moment in Australia’s
history — however Refugee Week 2014 does not mark a high point in
Australia’s treatment of refugees.

Abbott has pronounced the ‘stop the boats policy’, to be a humanitarian success. He has now dubbed it “stop the deaths at sea” and “we have stopped the boats” breaking his three word slogan rule and expanding to a five word pronouncement.

Scott Morrison had declared the theme of ‘Restoring Hope’ was a fitting occasion on which to celebrate Australia’s generous humanitarian program:

“This government's successful border protection policies that are
stopping the boats and preventing deaths at sea is resulting in a human
dividend with a further 20 000 Special Humanitarian Programme places
being made available, out to 2017-18.”

But these are places for the good refugees; the ones that wait patiently.

Unlike Sri Lankan refugee Leo Seemanpillai, whose 20 years of waiting in an Indian refugee camp was not deemed long enough.

The following are some of the events, leading up to, and distinguishing this year’s, restoring hope themed, refugee week:

1. We have had the funeral of refugee Leo Seemanpillai,
whose self-immolation should have drawn horrified recriminatory
attention from all the mainstream newspapers. Instead it has mostly been
presented as a sad story rather than the human rights outrage it truly
is. Leo ‒ on a bridging VISA ‒ was tormented by fears and threats of being deported to Sri Lanka. These threats were not imaginary but part of declared policy.

2. Massive insult to injury was added by the Government’s refusal to allow a single member of Leo Seemanpillai’s immediate family to attend their son and brother’s funeral.

It was reported that Leo’s brother ‒ despite having a passport ‒ was refused a visa. Because he was unemployed, he was deemed a risk of wanting to remain in Australia.

Senate motion of condolence for Leo Seemanpillai

A letter, from The Australian High Commission in Chennai, informed Leo’s brother:

‘You are unemployed, you have no savings, no assets, and you are
unskilled; as such, you are in a state of financial disadvantage.’

And:

‘You have stated that your purpose in visiting Australia is to
attend your brother’s funeral. I do not doubt the sincerity of your
desire to pay your last respects to your late brother, however I
consider that the assessment above that you do not genuinely intend
temporary stay in Australia outweighs his consideration.’

3. But in better news, the High Court has ruled that another of Morrison’s mean tricks ‒ the cap on protection visas ‒ is invalid. The restriction on granting permanent protection, to those arriving by boat has been struck down as not complying with Australian law.

4. More grim, however, was the High Court pronouncing the off shore detention at Manus Constitutional and therefore legal, despite its flagrant disregard for the the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. This means Abbott can now proclaim the Constitutional ‘legality’ of the Manus deterrence hellhole.

5. Despite a bloody civil war in progress and Australia sending troops to protect our embassy, Scott Morrison has refused to rule out returning Iraqi refugees to their homeland, stating they had agreed to return ‘voluntarily.’

Sounds more like an offer they couldn’t refuse and, in fact, it is a mafia style offer.

Fairfax reports that Iraqi asylum seekers are being offered up to $10,000 to ‘accept’ a return trip from the Manus or Nauru hell into the hell of an escalating war zone. Tony Abbott has declared the situation in Iraq to be a humanitarian and security risk, stating that the insurrection has inflicted ''…maximum violence and terror” on Iraqis and treated surrendering soldiers and police with ''extraordinary brutality''.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, meanwhile, is urging Australians to leave Iraq as soon as they can?

Passports cancelled for Australians in Iraq uprising

Yet it is seemingly quite all right to send Iraqi’s back to this unsafe environment?

This highlights the insanity of the political stance regarding boat people embraced by both sides of politics.

The Howard Government welcomed the clarion call to war with Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003,
presumably to free the oppressed. But now we don’t want any of them
crossing our sovereign borders, do we? When these victims of oppression
and war actually arrive on our shores, there is no welcoming embrace.
Instead asylum seekers have been imprisoned and reviled [incorrectly] as
‘illegals’, coming in through the ‘back door’.

6. And the ultimate piece of non-resistance is the Labor caucus has affirmed its support for offshore processing though with less cruelty.
In other words, the punishment that involves isolated and traumatic
conditions, indefinite detention, slow, nonexistent, or unjust
processing [depending on whim] … should be softened, just a tad.

Slapping the current government with a feather, the ALP caucus has declared.

‘The Abbott government should ensure that detention facilities
provide safe, dignified and humane conditions for asylum seekers in
accordance with obligations under the refugee convention and in
accordancewith relevant human rights standards.’

World refugee numbers, including internally displaced persons, have hit the highest number since World War II — over 50 million, half of whom are children. Yet Australia is pushing all boat arrivals back, often into zones overwhelmed by refugee flows, especially in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Italy’s mission ‘Mare Nostrum’
(Latin for ‘Our Sea’) has intentionally rescued over 50,000 refugees
and sees this as a European responsibility. It is pushing for a regional
rescue response.

The ALP shadow minister for immigration and border protection, Richard Marles, has sought to contort his stance
on refugees. He has ludicrously tried to conflate the notions of
compassion and avoidance of deaths at sea with the heinously conceived
deterrence policy.

Richard Marles on ALP support for offshore detention (NPC 27/5/14)

Let’s be clear: cruelty to stop cruelty is an oxymoron.

But offshore processing is the ALP’s in vitro fertilized child of the infamous John Howard Pacific
Solution. Both main parties have overlooked the scathing criticism in a
report by Amnesty that states that Manus Island refugee detention
facility breaches fundamental human rights. The report, titled ‘Still Breaking People’, states that nothing has been done to address its concerns in a previous report called ‘Breaking People’.

With the record of homicide, violence,
mental illness and suicide resulting from Australia’s cruel punishment
of refugees, the epithet of hypocritical seems far too mild to apply to
this policy.

The refugee week theme of ‘restoration of hope’ is as bizarre as the
claims being made about Operation Sovereign Borders being a life saving,
compassionate, deterrence policy.

The testimony we should heed about the impact of this foul policy is that of asylum seekers, such as this from a Young Kurdish Iraqi couple:

‘We arrived in Australia but have found only a life like what we
had. Our opportunity, our hopes, our goals we were looking for seem to
be gone, to be dead. All hope is dead in our heart. Why have we been
bought to Manus Island? It feels like we are at the end of the world. We
are thinking this is not life, death is better than existing like
this.’

Or this, by an Iranian woman:

‘This experience was more traumatic for us than the boat trip we
undertook to reach Australia. Then, our life was in the hands of nature.
But here in Australia, where we expected just treatment, our lives were
in the hands of people who made a choice to treat us in this cruel and
demeaning way. This is very hard for us to understand. I was thinking
all the time I didn't want to bring my daughter to this. This is why I
left Iran.'

Aren’t these refugee’s horror experiences exactly what Abbott and Morrison want their demonic deterrence policy to achieve?

So that they can declare:

‘Mission accomplished. Hope killed.’

Read more firsthand accounts of refugees experience in Manus in ‘Open letter to Australia from Manus Island detainees’. Follow Lyn Bender on Twitter @Lynestel.

Manus whistleblower: "They're people, just like us"

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

A Lesson in Displacement at the Bureau of Worldly Advice - - The Australian Independent Media Network

A Lesson in Displacement at the Bureau of Worldly Advice

June 23, 2014
Written by:
The AIM Network

Refugees are people. Let’s treat them as such. Loz Lawrey
shares a recent experience with some refugees and despairs at the
treatment this country affords them, while all these people are trying
to do is give something to this country.

My sister-in-law Dagmara knows about displacement. As a little girl
she left Poland with her mother in the 1980′s, a time when hundreds of
thousands of Poles emigrated looking for jobs and a better life abroad.
She feels empathy for people who find themselves forced to travel
halfway around the world to escape war, social dysfunction or simply to
seek a better life.

Dagmara is an artist and often uses installations and viewer
participation in her work. Her latest creation is “The Bureau of Worldly
Advice” at the Melbourne Town Hall. Held over a week, this event has
attracted great interest and participation and has been, for some, a
life-changing experience.

From the Swanston St pavement I see an office window with
official-looking signage which declares it to be the Bureau of Worldly
Advice. The front doors are open. This bureau looks just as one would
expect an office in the Melbourne Town Hall to look: sober and clerical.

But there’s a twist. A young woman in a suit, dancing on the spot,
spruiks a bold and brassy invitation to passers-by to come in for some
“worldly advice”. Her antics attract curious smiles. Now and then, the
invitation is accepted.

Those who enter find themselves in a spacious office containing
several large desks, at which consultants from around the globe dispense
“advice” to those who seek it. Stories are told, experiences shared and
questions answered. There is effervescent laughter and the occasional
tear.

These “consultants” are asylum seekers living in the limbo of
Australia’s assessment process, their status as residents undetermined,
their ability to move forward with their lives on hold. Yet they are
here today in a spirit of affirmation, determined to focus on the
positive aspects of finding themselves in this strange country at the
mercy of an indifferent bureaucracy.

I sit down with Basir and Afifah (names changed), a couple in their
early forties who have escaped the conflict and humanitarian disaster in
Syria. They have so much to tell me that I struggle to take it all in.
Each statement provokes several questions I haven’t time to ask. I am
stunned at the lengths to which this couple go to preserve their sanity
in an insane situation.

Since their visa status prevents them from working and earning, they
spend their days as volunteers, giving their time and energy to our
society which (for now) keeps them at arm’s length.

Basir and Afifah have been meeting and talking with new people all
week. I am stunned by their openness, yet can sense how close to the
surface are their most raw emotions. I realise that being here talking
to me is part of their survival strategy, something they’re doing to
stay grounded and in the moment.

Half an hour flies by and my consultation is over. I feel strangely
emotional. I found myself apologising to Basir and Afifah for the
treatment they continue to receive from my country’s government. They
would not hear of it, determined as they are not to wallow in
self-despair. They have seen what despair can do, so they tread the fine
line that feeds the soul and avoids the repetitive mantras of
hopelessness. By giving, they receive.

I am confronted, intrigued and ashamed. I scribble in the comments
book before leaving. I feel like a spoilt, complacent child who has
everything yet appreciates nothing. The simple bringing together of
people from diverse backgrounds in one room has proved to be a powerful
artistic statement.

The beholder becomes a participant. A conversation is begun, then
ended all too soon. I am reminded of my own travels, of experiences and
encounters in far-off lands, of the learning and understanding that
flows from opening up to others.

Conversations like these break down barriers and lift us above our differences, reminding us that we are one humanity.

Perhaps all that we need in this world are more conversations like these.

Saturday 21 June 2014

High Court rules against Scott Morrison's refugee protection visa cap

Date: June 20, 2014

Michael Gordon

Political editor, The Age

View more articles from Michael Gordon

Number of displaced people worldwide exceeds 50 million: UN report

The High Court has issued a stunning rebuke to the Abbott
government's border protection policy, striking down its decision to
refuse to give refugees who arrive by boat permanent protection visas.

In two unanimous decisions, with implications for thousands
of boats arrivals, the full court ruled that Immigration Minister Scott
Morrison's decision to impose a cap on the number of places in
Australia's refugee intake for boat arrivals was invalid.

David Manne led the legal team that took action against the government's cap on refugee intake. Photo: Paul Rovere

The government's determination to deny permanent protection
visas will now rest with the Senate, where the Palmer United Party will
control the balance of power from next month.

The party's leader, Clive Palmer, has spoken out strongly in
support of refugees, but told Fairfax Media the party would study the
High Court judgment and any decision on allowing temporary protection
visas would be made by his party room.

Mr Morrison re-imposed the refugee intake cap in March after
the Senate voted down his attempt to re-introduce temporary protection
visas (TPVs) for boat arrivals, declaring that the Coalition would "not
give an inch when it comes to protecting our borders".

He vowed then to take "every step necessary to ensure that
people who arrive illegally by boat are not rewarded with permanent
visas". Mr Morrison, who has presided as minister over six months
without a boat arrival, was travelling when the judgment was handed down
and was unavailable for comment.

His March decision effectively imposed a freeze on the grant
of permanent protection visas to about 1400 asylum seekers who had
already been found to be refugees and has implications for many
thousands more whose claims have not yet been decided.

"This is a very significant victory for the rule of law being
brought to bear on the plight of refugees in our country," said lawyer
David Manne, who led the legal team representing an Ethiopian teenager
who arrived in Australia without a visa last year, after stowing away on
a cargo ship.

A second decision upheld a challenge on behalf of a Pakistani national who arrived by boat at Christmas Island in 2012.

In both cases, the court ordered Mr Morrison as minister to
consider and determine the asylum seekers' applications for a protection
visa according the law as it stands.

Labor and the Greens welcomed the decision, with Labor's
immigration spokesman, Richard Marles, saying: "Putting a freeze on the
issuing of protection visas just because the Senate rejected the
government's TPVs was always an act of petulance which caused great
misery."

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young described the ruling as "a
win for fairness and decency", saying: "The court has ruled that the
Abbott government's cruelty for cruelty sake is illegal. This decision
will allow refugees to start rebuilding their lives here in Australia."

Sister Brigid Arthur, who acted as "litigation guardian" for
the Ethiopian boy, said it was "very good that he will now have some
certainty about his future".

Mr Manne, who also led the legal team that successfully
challenged the Labor government's "Malaysian solution", said the latest
decision had "potentially major implications" for thousands of refugees
who arrived by boat.

"The law of Australia is that there is only one protection
visa, and that's a permanent protection visa for refugees. What this
means is that the government must get on with the grant of a visa which
our client is entitled to as a refugee," he said.

He said the life of the boy had been in limbo since Mr Morrison imposed the freeze.

In their written judgment, justices Hayne and Kiefel said
they had taken into account the consequences for the detention of those
who came unlawfully and the time limits for determining protection
visas.

An Open Letter to Bill Shorten - - The Australian Independent Media Network

An Open Letter to Bill Shorten - - The Australian Independent Media Network

An Open Letter to Bill Shorten

June 20, 2014
Written by:
Kay Rollison

**Photo courtesy of billshorten.com.au**

Dear Bill

I’m finally moved to write to you because of three decisions the
Labor Party has made this week that seem to me to be totally at variance
with what Labor says it stands for. I recently heard you speak about
the need for renewal in the Labor Party, and this doesn’t seem to me to
be the way to go about it.

Forgive me if I’ve got any of this wrong; I’ve only got the
mainstream media to go on. But from what I can tell, the Labor caucus
has this week voted in favour of continued off-shore processing of
asylum seekers– continuing the shame of Manus Island and Naru, supported
the continuation of the school chaplaincy program, and agreed to the
creation of Abbott’s Green Army.

There are many reasons why people like me oppose off-shore
processing. I would hope you understand what those reasons are, but just
to remind you, it’s because the policy is cruel and inhuman and in
breach of Australia’s international obligations. It also happens to be
far more expensive than other reasonable alternatives. I hope you’ve
read Julian Burnside’s thoughtful article about other possible policy responses. Here’s some of my suggestions.
But perhaps even more important, it undermines Labor’s whole argument
that it always puts the good of the community ahead of selfish and
bigoted interests. Labor can’t show moral leadership on anything while
it continues with this degraded and degrading policy.

I understand that the caucus is nervous about the electoral success
of ‘stop the boats’. It is also reasonable to be concerned about the
deaths at sea that are a result of people smuggling. I don’t expect you
to come up with a new policy tomorrow. But I’d like to see you start the
process. Admit that the New Guinea solution isn’t a solution at all.
Talk to stake holders. Set up a consultation process. Get the best
advice – consistent with Labor principles. Forget about the focus
groups. For goodness sake, show that you care. You want to lead
Australia? Start doing it by having a bit of moral courage on this
issue.

Free, compulsory and secular. That’s the battle that’s been fought
for public education in Australia in the past, and should still be one
Labor is committed to. OK, so it’s not free – there are some costs met
by parents – but Labor is rightly engaged in fighting for proper funding
for public education through the Gonski reforms. Compulsory? No
argument about that. And why not secular? It could be said that state
aid to private schools – increased dramatically under the Howard
government, and shielded from cuts in Hockey’s first budget – makes a
mockery of the principle of separation of church and state. But why make
things worse by supporting a program that aims specifically to support
the ‘spiritual’ wellbeing of students as well as their social and
emotional wellbeing? I know that the High Court’s decision finding the
program illegal is about the funding model, not the principle of
separation of church and state. But that’s no reason for not welcoming
the decision and suggesting it’s time for rethinking the whole program.
It’s not as if there was even any electoral damage to be done; it’s
hardly a popular program. Again, get some advice. Listen to some
experts. Look at where the resource could better be spent. And stand up
for principle.

The third area I believe the party is supporting – and where I
question their doing so – is the creation of Abbott’s 15,000 strong
‘Green Army’ of unemployed 17-24 year olds. Nine participants and one
supervisor will work for 20-26 weeks on projects that will be proposed
by the community. Even though touted by Greg Hunt as ‘an environmental
and training program’, this is essentially a ‘work for the dole’ scheme,
and Labor has supported these in the past; think Whitlam’s RED scheme.
But surely these programs have been reviewed? Do they really work either
as sustainable conservation projects or in upskilling the participants
in ways that help them find real jobs? In this case it is reported by Bernard Keane in Crikey that ‘participants would be paid as little as half the minimum wage for working up to 30 hours a week. OH&S and other workplace protections would not be available because participants would be exempted from the Work Health and Safety Act 2011, the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988, and, most importantly, the Fair Work Act.’ Is
this really something you think Labor should be supporting?
Participants will actually be employed by ‘Service Providers’ – private
sector bodies selected through a request for tender process – no doubt a
nice little earner for someone. What controls will there be to ensure
that appropriate training – the only justification for the scheme – will
actually take place? What about occupational health and safety? Pink
batts, anyone? Then there’s the whole question of what sort of projects
will be funded. Maybe there will be some good things done for heritage,
weed control, public amenity and the like, but let’s not pretend a
scattering of local projects can really contribute to a coherent plan
for conservation and biodiversity, let alone act as a response to climate change.

But isn’t the Green Army supposed to be planting Tony Abbott’s 20
million trees? I’ve never read anything better on the tree planting
scheme than the list of questions
Ad Astra proposed in a post on The Political Sword in February 2013. As
far as I know, none of them has been answered. Could you perhaps make
it your aim to ask Tony Abbott these questions:

From where will the trees be sourced? What sort of trees?
How large an area will be needed to plant them?
As you have stated that semi-arable land would be used, since all
the existing arable land is needed for farming food and fibre, where
will you find the large amount of land you will need?
How will you transport the [Green Army] to semi-arable locations, house them, and provision them?
How long will it take to plant 20 million trees?
Once planted, how will the trees be watered and nurtured until
growth is well established in their semi-arable locations? At what
ongoing cost?

Bill, would you really want to be involved in this?

I’m not suggesting that the ALP make policy decisions by vote of its
members. But it needs some process of consultation beyond a caucus vote.
I understand that day to day decisions need to be taken quickly, and
that there are policy documents in place to guide such decisions. But
equally I’m tired of having to listen to the party getting it wrong,
sometimes disastrously so. Why can’t Labor collect and act on the best
possible advice? After all, we have a wonderful example before us of a
government that despises expertise, and relies wholly on its favourite
vested interests for policy guidance. Show how different you are. Mean
something by renewal. It’s not enough to know that we have the worst
government Australia has ever seen; we need a principled, vital and
informed alternative. And that’s your challenge Bill. You can’t imagine
how much I want you to succeed.

More from Kay Rollison:

Book Review: The Cuckoo’s Calling, by Robert Galbraith

Framing the budget

Book Review: The Black Box, by Michael Connelly

Queuing Up

ASYLUM SEEKERS, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

Sunday 29 June 2014