https://theconversation.com/julian-burnside-what-sort-of-country-are-we-48162
By our response to boat people since August 2001, we may have redefined our national character.
This article is based on the 2015 Hamer Oration, delivered by Julian Burnside on September 28, 2015.
This article “Denmark is the Happiest Country” (Huffington Post, Oct 2013) is from a while ago, but quite worthwhile particularly in the current federal political context in Australia.
Relevant aspects are personal welfare as well as the overall social and political climate, and economic prosperity. It’s a pretty complete package.
The article notes that people feeling well cared for is a key factor, and that’s obviously not about seeing more police on the streets or politicians making scary announcements about terrorism. It’s also about caring for those around us. That’s a local social aspect, as well as an international issue (how to respond to a refugee crisis).
Other matters of importance are equality (in every respect), education, healthcare.
Worth a read. Of course, those who most need to learn these things are the people who don’t think there’s anything wrong with what they’re currently doing. But still.
“Operation Sovereign Borders” is what the Abbott government calls its witch hunt for refugees who arrives by boat. Its purpose, as judged by the actions taken, appears to be to make people’s lives as miserable as possible and apply that as a deterrent.
Since people are fleeing from very miserable situations and certain death for them and their family, you can imagine that this approach aims for new lows in how to treat fellow human beings who are in need of our help and protection. How can we possibly make things worse than where they flee from? Well I’m sure we can, but I wouldn’t want to.
Anyway, from the new propaganda department at Australian Customs comes this “gem”, made available on its website. It’s stated aim is to present “the truth” – that is indeed the case, it accurately describes this government’s enacted policy of creating misery and proves that its specific focus is to exploit this misery for PR purposes. I believe this is foul, and I will continue to speak out on the topic.
Here is the link to the newsroom item:
and the PDF of the full storyboard:
http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/Storyboard-Afghanistan.pdf
So that’s customs.gov.au. The immigration department does its bit at
http://www.immi.gov.au/Live/Pages/refugees/no-way.aspx
They and their families were en route to Christmas Island. They were rescued by the Norwegian container ship the Tampa. Lawyers fought for them in the Australian court. Politicians argued to keep them out of the country.
Two weeks after their rescue, as planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, these faceless, nameless boat-people turned from troublesome “queue jumpers” into potential terrorists.
But New Zealand took the children and their families when Australia would not.
The Tampa affair was the start of Australia’s debate over asylum seekers arriving by boat.
For 12 years, the argument has grumbled with each new batch of boats, getting louder again as another federal election looms.
Full story at http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/the-tampa-children-reflect-on-their-rescue-12-years-on/story-fni0fiyv-1226708300676
Asylum Seeker Attempts Suicide On Nauru (New Matilda)
An Iranian asylum seeker attempted suicide two days ago on Nauru, reportedly after being told of long waits for processing under the Gillard Government’s “no advantage” rule.
Nauru Asylum Seekers Protest Delays (New Matilda)
More than 200 asylum seekers on Nauru held a three-hour peaceful protest meeting yesterday calling on the Gillard Government to close down the camp and start immediately processing asylum seeker applications.
Dear Government & Minister Bowen – given your successful attempt at simulating the Howard government’s “Pacific Solution” is now yielding the expected identical results of misery and despair, will you now please cease destroying people’s lives as well as wasting our time and money in this endeavour and instead return Australia to behave in a decent humanitarian way?
It was not really up to you to provide a practical demonstration of how Tony Abbott’s ideas on asylum seeks are nonsensical and dangerous.
People seek asylum in Australia because their home country is not safe. These people deserve care and protection. Detaining them for years, reducing them to mental wrecks, is senseless. The human cost and the loss to our society is huge. Even if a humane process were to inadvertantly let in some “non genuine” applicants, the net balance would still be far on the positive side.
If you are actually worried about “the boats” which as we know only make up a tiny fraction of the total influx of asylum seekers, and more specifically get rid of the people smuggling related to this, then let’s have Australia pick up asylum seekers from various countries in the region. Either by plane or ship – even a fancy cruise ship would be more economical than Nauru or other off-shore processing.