Asylum seekers: The border protection debate

Hansonism’s back – and we’re not just talking about Pauline appearing as a sometime wannabe journo for Today Tonight. Her ideas are still spreading like the clap.

Remember this?

I and most Australians want our immigration policy radically reviewed and that of multiculturalism abolished. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course, I will be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country.

Continue reading "Australia, you have nothing to fear but fear itself" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column where we take a look at codswallop and propaganda, logical failures and brain farts. The big news today is the Government’s plan to pay families to look after asylum seekers.

Last year, to ease pressure on detention centres, the Government started releasing more people into the community on bridging visas – but there’s still not enough room.

So now they’re going to use the Australian Homestay Network - a network of households who have already signed up to look after international students. The Government will cover the costs of room and board – about $140 per asylum seeker per week.

Continue reading "ICB: House the homeless before asylum seekers?" »

Last Friday the Parliamentary Inquiry into Australia’s Detention Network finally released its report. The three most important recommendations – a time limit on detention, transparency around ASIO decisions, and an independent guardian for unaccompanied children – are also the most controversial.

Elmo doesn’t think the three recommendations are that controversial

Unfortunately, this controversy is entirely fabricated and not at all based in reality.

Enshrining these recommendations in Australian law would a) bring us closer to treating refugees the way a humane country should, b) save Australia tens of millions of dollars in detention costs and c) stop us destroying the mental health of thousands of people, 90 per cent of whom will end up as Australian citizens.

Continue reading "Three sensible ways to fix a silly immigration system" »

Australia’s treatment of asylum seeker children and our successful program placing minors in community accommodation was misrepresented and maligned in the inaccurate piece by Sophie Peer on The Punch yesterday.

In October 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and I announced a program to move the majority of asylum seeker children into community accommodation by the middle of 2011.

At that time there were around 700 children in immigration detention facilities and, despite the marked increase in boat arrivals that followed, we met that commitment and today continue to move children and vulnerable people into the community as quickly as possible.

Continue reading "Counterpunch: our asylum kids policy is working well" »

Imagine an Australian child is orphaned overseas. The local Government appoints him a legal guardian. The first thing the guardian does is take the boy to jail-like conditions in a remote location where he will stay indefinitely.

Would our headlines call this barbaric? Would there be outcry: children shouldn’t be treated this way? Surely he needs a comforting environment, surely there’s a better place for the boy than a detention centre? Why does he need to be so far from people who speak his language, people who could give him some support? Doesn’t he need a carer, maybe a counselor more than a guard?

It would no doubt be a scandal.

Continue reading "Locking up children is not making us safer" »

I’ve just returned from two weeks visiting some of Australia’s most remote detention facilities. In eight different centres across Christmas Island, Curtin, Perth and Darwin I met with hundreds of asylum seekers caught up in Australia’s policy of indefinite detention.

If people in Australia were able to replicate my harrowing trip and come to any conclusion other than detention is a cruel, expensive and unnecessary farce of a policy, I would be shocked. Unfortunately, one of the problems with these centres being so remote is that most Australians will never get this opportunity.

So let me tell you what I saw.

Continue reading "A harrowing look inside Australia’s detention centres" »

It just sounds so damn unfair doesn’t it – free TVs!!!!!

But those up in arms about the “welcome packs” of household essentials being used to fit out community housing for asylum seekers this morning are ignoring a few basic truths. Truths that include: a) it’s cheaper to house asylum seekers in the community than in our overcrowded detention centres and b) those awaiting rulings on their refugee claims are not allowed to work to buy essentials for life themselves.

The list of basics, which includes everything from a bed to a colander, has been designed to ease the passage of the approximately 1600 asylum seekers who currently live in community detention.

Continue reading "We need to help asylum seekers help themselves" »

It’s the third week of January and we’re facing a long year in politics. With no federal election due until 2013 we could be in for a 12-month bout of deja vu, as ALP leadership speculation rumbles on, people keep giving Tony Abbott lots of free advice (because 54/46 two-party preferred is not impressive enough polling), and boatloads of asylum seekers keep setting off from Java.

So nothing’s changed. Well, that would be too easy. Actually, as 2012 dawns the political landscape has become a bit skewwhiff.

Robert Manne started it all just before Christmas, when he wrote a piece in The Monthly admitting what a lot of lefties had already started to think, but hadn’t yet been game to say - that while they hated John Howard’s Pacific Solution, it did, indeed, stop the boats. And with no boats there were no drownings, and upon reflection, that was a pretty good result.

Continue reading "Whose side are you on? An upside-down start to 2012" »

The grace period for not politicising human tragedy is less than 24 hours. Both major parties are in full swing - misinforming the public, drumming up fear and spinning themselves out of any actual policy action.

The fact remains that Australia does not have an ‘asylum problem’ but we do have a problem with our policy response. Receiving less than 1 per cent of the world’s asylum claims in a year is not a problem. People dying at sea is most definitely a problem, unfortunately not one unique to Australia or to Indonesia.

The public debate around Labor vs. Coalition policy proposals can be likened to the saying: “When the finger points at the moon, the idiot looks at the finger.”

Continue reading "Take more asylum seekers to ensure fewer boats" »

Mark Latham is notoriously harsh and personal in his choice of language. It was one of the things which made him unelectable as prime minister and which saw him shred every friendship he ever had upon making his furious exit from parliamentary life.

At the same time Latham can also make sense. His analysis may often be brutal and poorly-timed but it is often also right. He was 100 per cent right when he said on Sunday that the people who advocate the onshore processing of asylum seekers, on compassionate and humanitarian grounds, are creating a situation where desperate people will risk their lives at the hands of people smugglers in the dangerous hope of making it to the Australian mainland.

Of course Latham could have easily avoided insinuating that the likes of Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young and the Labor Party’s Left Faction had effectively killed the 200-odd men, women and children whose bodies were still being picked out of the sea off the coast of Java.

Continue reading "Killed with kindness: onshore processing is a deadly policy" »

It’s almost exactly a year since the Christmas Island tragedy, when dozens of asylum seekers died on Australia’s doorstep.

In an event which everyone predicted - but which no one managed to prevent - more boats came and sank. Now, there has been a tragedy on an even larger scale, with hundreds of asylum seekers feared dead after yet another overloaded, unsafe boat sank, killing people who were desperate for a better life.

Christmas Island, and the spectre of another mass drowning, should have been the crisis that broke the political impasse. But it didn’t. There is an eerie sense of rigid paralysis in our politics when it comes to this issue.

Continue reading "A year after Christmas Island, another tragedy at sea" »

What happened
In a kooky swapsie deal, Australia and Malaysia entered into a “cooperative transfer agreement” on asylum seekers, only to have the deal trounced by the High Court.

Under the Malaysia Solution the next 800 asylum seekers to arrive in Australia would be shipped off to Malaysia to join the ‘queue’ there. In return Australia would take an extra 4000 refugees from Malaysia.

Refugee advocates were chuffed that we’d take extra refugees but dismayed at the idea of sending asylum seekers to Malaysia, where they were reportedly badly treated. Critics said it was both inhumane and ineffective, and many were pre-occupied by the maths of 800 for 4000.

Continue reading "Biggest moments of 2011 #17 No laksa for you!" »

There’s nothing like a leaky boat full of traumatised asylum seekers to spark fear and loathing in Australia.

Why is that?

Today’s news reveals that there are 13 times as many visa overstayers in Australia as there are asylum seekers in detention, but people arriving by planes – who are mostly Chinese, American, British or Malaysian - just don’t trigger the same gut reaction.

Continue reading "Stop the planes!" »

Before the body count was even finalised politicians used the latest asylum seeker tragedy to regurgitate their entrenched positions on border control.

At least seven people – including children - are dead. More are missing and thought to be dead, trapped in their boat which capsized off the coast of Java.

Seventy people, from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan were on board. Forty or 48 had been rescued, depending on your news source. Authorities believe the boat was heading for Australia. See news.com.au for the latest information. Last night while the numbers were still murky, political imperatives were crystal clear.

Continue reading "Parties were politicking while people were still trapped" »

The conservative radio personality Alan Jones is regarded as the most powerful broadcaster in the country. So his appearance at Canberra’s National Press Club this week would have sparked interest even if his last foray to the capital had not been so embarrassing.

Then, the self-appointed champion of an ageing wedge of disgruntled Australians, was caught in what he would define (if committed by Julia Gillard) as a lie - even if it was merely an ill-informed claim rather too confidently put.

At the time, you may recall, he had railed to a smallish crowd of malcontents known as the ``Convoy of No-Confidence’’ gathered in front of Parliament House, that there would have been thousands more present if they hadn’t been stopped at the ACT border.

Continue reading "Take-no-prisoners approach could bite Abbott on the…" »

This week’s Q and A program featured Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, who has been an instrumental figure in drawing attention to the federal and Northern Territory Governments policies which are effectively stripping traditional Indigenous communities - ‘homelands’ - of funds.

Aboriginal peoples’ rights to traditional lands, culture, informed consent and adequate housing are being undermined.

Last week, Salil Shetty, the Secretary General of Amnesty International and I had the honour and privilege of spending time with Rosalie and the people of the Utopia Homelands on a fact finding mission. This was the first time I had travelled to Utopia in two years. I was struck by the fact that very little had changed.

Continue reading "Utopia and a Third World in the First World" »

Last week’s default to onshore asylum seeker processing is not a story of government incompetence. It isn’t even a story of partisan gridlock. At its heart this is about of our collective failure to grasp what it means to live in an interconnected world. We are yet to leave our foreign policy training wheels.

My most visceral reaction to this announcement was a feeling that we’ve lost control over our ability to shape events in the national interest. The political stalemate highlights not only the Gillard Government’s current lack of an authentic asylum seeker policy, but also a broader paradigm that suggests our leaders don’t control the big decisions anymore.

But we lost control long before last week. In the 10 years of the Howard Government, there were over 13,000 asylum seeker arrivals; in the course of the Rudd/Gillard Governments, there have been no more than 5,000. The perception of asylum seeker control in the Howard era was just that – a perception of control.

Continue reading "We’re all at sea without a strong regional vision" »

A government goes to the polls, wins, and then within months breaks one of its core election promises. How does the politician who made the promise justify the breach of faith?

“Obviously, when circumstances change, governments do change their opinions, and that is actually the responsible course of action.”

If Julia Gillard said that, the zealots who see themselves as the vanguard of Tony Abbott’s “people’s revolt” would be off their faces. Coalition MPs would be apoplectic.

Continue reading "Tony Abbott is just as trustworthy as Julia Gillard" »

Don’t laugh - but Julia Gillard is staking her leadership on her abilities as a salesperson.

The prime minister is gambling that she can sell voters on the idea that all asylum seeker boat arrivals from now on are Tony Abbott’s fault.

She thinks she can be more successful at this than Abbott will be in trying to foist the blame on to her and the Government every time another group of boat people disembarks on Christmas Island.

Continue reading "Gillard’s dreaming and Abbott’s scheming" »

I love living in the Territory. I enjoy our laid-back way of life, our sense of community and relaxed attitude toward blinkers and pyrotechnics. I’ve even grown quite fond of the crocs.

But some of the comments I’ve heard recently regarding asylum seekers are a whole other type of croc. A crock of shit.

Seeking asylum is not illegal. There is no queue. And yes, your taxpayer money is being wasted - by offshore processing and mandatory detention.

Continue reading "“Stop the boats” is a pathetic bogan slogan" »

The Government has an asylum seeker policy it can’t implement and by later today it might not even have that.

It has reached a legal and political impasse in its management of boat people, and the Opposition appears set to make that into a crisis by upending what until recently had been bipartisan policy.

For the first time in 10 years Australia might be taking on shore all the people who arrive in our waters looking for refuge.

Continue reading "Abbott joins Gillard between a rock and a hard place" »

In yet another extraordinary exclusive, The Punch has unearthed a transcript of Prime Minister JULIA GILLARD and Immigration Minister CHRIS BOWEN’s secret meeting with Opposition Leader TONY ABBOTT asking him to pass new asylum seeker laws…

JULIA: Thank you for coming everybody. It’s wonderful to finally have a spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship on this difficult and sensitive issue.

TONY: Just out of curiosity, was that a guillotine above the door?

JULIA: Not at all Tony. Now if you could just stand a little bit to your left…

Continue reading "A desperate plea from the PM to the Opposition Leader" »

By now, you’ve probably heard about Happy Feet, the ailing emperor penguin who was found near New Zealand a few months back. After rehab, Happy Feet was released this week, only to go missing somewhere in southern waters.

Some say he was gobbled by an orca. We think he might’ve been munched by a huge manatee, even though said mammals reside only in the northern hemisphere. Hey, never let the truth get in the way of a good headline.

Dead or alive, Happy Feet has captivated everyone. This is not unusual. Animal stories are always popular in any form of media, especially online. And if you think about it, that says something gently profound about our own humanity.

Continue reading "Oh, the huge manatee!" »

Welcome to the return of I Call Bullshit, a regular Punch column on all things that reek of magical thinking and mistruths, pseudoscience and spin.

So, riots, eh? Australia’s just a tinderbox of simmering tensions, waiting to explode into unconstrained groupthink violence, with much gnashing of teeth and smashing of Harvey Norman windows. If you believe everything you hear, you’d think that a flood of boatpeople will immediately flood detention centres then flood into the community causing floods of riots. Flood’s such a good word, isn’t it?

People would not be able to help themselves; all those men and women and children fleeing persecution would force their hand, and they would have to start stealing televisions.  Be afraid. Grab the lifejackets!

Continue reading "ICB: Grab the lifejackets, there’s a flood on the way" »

A straightforward decision by the High Court: the government’s “Malaysian solution” was illegal. But that simple decision is surrounded by a kaleidoscope of complexities, conundrums and challenges. Julia Gillard has to find a way through the maze, and come out of it with a policy which will not cause key elements of her support base to rebel against her.

The maze is complex indeed. The Greens are demanding that all asylum seekers be vetted in Australia. This would be a massive “pull” factor, which goes against the oft-stated aim of the government to stop the boats.

But with the Greens holding a balance of power in the Senate, and one Green, Adam Bandt, holding the tenure of the government with his single vote in the House, there will have to be some real ducking and weaving.

Continue reading "Gillard is up the creek in dire need of a paddle" »

There is a certain evil logic behind Tony Abbott’s offer to work side-by-side with Julia Gillard to fix the asylum seeker issue. Due to the vagaries of minority government plenty of other members of this shambolic parliament have had a go at playing prime minister, so it’s only fair that Abbott joins the Windsors and the Bandts, the Oakeshotts and the Wilkies, in determining government policy.

Abbott’s offer to work with Gillard is excellent politics in its cheapest form. By extending an invitation to Gillard to support the amendment of the Migration Act to allow offshore processing, Abbott looks like the very model of civilised bipartisanship. In reality it’s a political ploy aimed at drawing even greater attention to the fact that the Gillard Government has failed, again, on border protection.

None of the options Julia Gillard has at her disposal to resolve the asylum seeker problem are politically palatable. Nor are they politically sellable, not in a climate where, according to Newspoll, just 12 per cent of Australians say that Labor is doing a good job on border protection, and are twice as likely to support the Coalition as the party which could best deal with the issue.

Continue reading "If Julia buys bipartisan Tony she’ll buy anything" »

The power of the Roman Empire can be traced back to one key factor: The Romans did not fear death. This was not so much a state of mind or philosophical outlook on life. It was, simply, the law.

This was a society in which making a good speech in the Senate, winning a major victory on the battlefield or even just being Emperor, were all grounds for a swift and unexpected execution.

If the leading men of Rome had permitted themselves to have even the slightest fear of dying no one would have gotten anything done, since the consequence of doing pretty much anything was to be stabbed in the neck by an old friend.

Continue reading "The ALP should seek liberation in its annihilation" »

The Government’s choice now is to bring asylum seekers onto the mainland – maybe even into the suburbs – or find a fresh way to park them somewhere off-shore.

That choice is simple, but the politics and legalities are wretchedly complex as Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott deal with last week’s High Court ruling.

And it now seems increasingly likely that the ultimate decision, and in fact Government and Coalition policy, will have to be made by the High Court.

Continue reading "Both sides courting disaster over asylum seeker policy" »

The Gillard Government’s legal miscalculation of its Malaysian enterprise will amplify Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s consistent theme that it is an administration which simply can’t get anything right.

It isn’t the first instance of clumsy handling of the asylum seeker debate and the political imperatives which are driving national attention on what is, essentially, a minor matter.

Against solid advice - including that of Kevin Rudd - the Government tried to get a detention centre deal with East Timor but had to limp away embarrassed from negotiations which were always destined to fail.

Continue reading "Dropped Malaysian deal will create many ripples" »

The taut grimace on Chris Bowen’s babyish countenance said it all.

This was as tough a task as the widely respected Immigration Minister had confronted in politics. He admitted as much.

The High Court, the body with which one cannot quibble and from which there is no remedy, no higher court of appeal - even for a federal government - had cut down his Malaysian people-swap in the most cavalier fashion.

Continue reading "Malaysia ruling sweet music for some, dirge for others" »

In ruling the so-called ‘Malaysia Solution’ invalid, the High Court has delivered a spectacular blow to the beleaguered Gillard government in one of its most vulnerable policy areas – asylum seekers.

After an election in which the Opposition almost knocked off a first-term government on a platform that contained a promise to “stop the boats”, the Immigration Minister Chris Bowen was tasked with devising a credible solution to the problem of unlawful arrivals by non-citizens.

The desperate need for new thinking from the government was only underscored by the tragic loss of life when a vessel carrying asylum seekers was wrecked off Christmas Island in December.

Continue reading "Why the Malaysia solution was as useless as old rendang" »

Asylum seekers are back on top of the news cycle again. It’s almost like those heady days when MV Tampa was anchored threateningly off Christmas Island. This time round there is a delightful little twist.

Rather than anxiously imagining the horrible wretches that threaten to penetrate our sovereign territory, viewers are instead invited to ponder the imagination - or lack thereof - amongst a representative sample of middle Australians who suffer from refugee anxiety.

The most interesting aspect of this undertaking is that Go Back To Where You Came From resembles an Escher engraving. All those years ago, the Howard government recognised that boat-borne asylum seekers could be used to stage an extremely successful political pantomime. It had pirate-like people smugglers, captured cargo ships, illegal immigrants, the Navy, the Army: a great ensemble by any measure.

Continue reading "The more we talk about it, the less we face up to it" »

When Tony Abbott is scrambling for something new to say he can occasionally come up with pretty dubious statements. One outstanding example last week was his warning that the mining industry was fighting for survival.

This was a singular view of the fate of that billionaires’ collective. However, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has come to Mr Abbott’s rescue. She is prepared to offer the calculators of Treasury so that the Opposition will no longer have to struggle to find something fresh to say.

Mr Abbott will be able to speak about his own, fully-costed policies.

Continue reading "Abbott’s been freewheelin’ with the truth" »

The government’s failure to “stop the boats” is an albatross around its neck and the issue is driving the political agenda. Their asylum seeker problem is two-fold. Scores are dying trying to reach Australia by boat and the government is losing support by its failure to stop those who don’t. However, the solution to both problems is simple - a blanket ban on accepting boat people as refugees.

Australia and Malaysia have tentatively agreed to exchange 800 boat people for 4000 confirmed refugees. The underlying assumption is that asylum seekers will be deterred from making to voyage to Australia by the prospect of ending up in Malaysia. Although the Greens have spit the dummy over Malaysia’s human rights record, the inhospitality of partner countries is the very reason these agreements may deter some boat people from coming.

Yet the Malaysian agreement doesn’t go far enough to fully deter asylum seekers and entering Australia will be a lottery with enticing odds. You don’t need to have an abacus to calculate that if arrival trends continue - 6535 people having arrived in Australia by boat last year - the vast majority will have an opportunity to stay in Australia. 

Continue reading "Stop groupthink: A blanket ban will stop the boats" »

Hot on the heels of its successful documentary about asylum seekers, Go Back to Where You Came From, SBS will soon be broadcasting the sequel.

Entitled Go Back to Suburbia You Stinking Racist Bogan, this innovative program will shatter the myths surrounding low-income Australians in marginal seats and their attitudes towards asylum seekers.

In a ground-breaking journalistic exercise five university-educated reporters who live in the inner city will be given a packed lunch and a GPS and deployed to suburbs such as Penrith, Frankston, Logan, Rockingham and Salisbury, where they will meet “real people” and get “the real stories” behind the brick veneers.

Continue reading "Next up: Go back to suburbia you stinking racist bogan" »

Roderick Schneider was one of six participants in the ground-breaking SBS show Go Back To Where You Came From, the first episode of which screened last night. In a Punch exclusive, he shares some of his thoughts on the experience of completing an asylum seeker’s journey in reverse:

When setting out on the refugee journey in reverse for SBS’s “Go Back To Where You Came From”, all we were told was that we would be following the path of refugees who come to Australia.

I anticipated exposure to extreme poverty and people who had been subject to persecution in their home country while on the journey. What I didn’t anticipate was the undertone of the questions asked of me when I returned.

First, there was a comment made (and it’s been made repeatedly since) that as the documentary is on SBS it will merely be “preaching to the choir”. The premise of this statement is that SBS viewers are all better educated on refugee issues, and people who only watch commercial television are ignorant. It’s ironic that people who generalise that others are ignorant do so based on something as insubstantial as a person’s preferred television channel.

Continue reading "A tough stance on refugees doesn’t make me a racist" »

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the general public finds itself dismayed and outraged about our live export industry, which transports our happy, healthy cows to deepest darkest Asia to meet a cruel and violent death, at the same time as our government is preparing to transport our refugees to the very same region and it’s only the Greens and the usual bleeding-heart refo activists that are arcing up.

This week, we heard Senator Sarah Hanson-Young hopes to thwart the Government’s plan to send refugees to Malaysia – where refugee treatment includes the occasional caning – by introducing an amendment to the Migration Act that will oblige Julia Gillard to seek the Parliament’s permission before sending refugees to a third country.

The opposition will support Hanson-Young out of sheer contrarianism rather than concern for human rights. But she’ll take her support where she can get it, since the tens of thousands who signed online petitions and wrote to their local members begging them to save our cows don’t seem to have much compassion left over for the human cargo.

Continue reading "Meat to please you, not so pleased to meet you" »

As a chartered aircraft carries Tony Abbott into Nauru this weekend he will have asylum seekers on his mind, but his first glimpse of the island should remind him of another type of refugee.

It could be that in 20 to 30 years the 10,000 folk of Nauru (maximum height above sea level: 65 m) will be climate change refugees looking for somewhere dry to live.

As the Opposition Leader lands seeking a pledge that under an Abbott government Nauru would again be available as a processing centre for boat people detained on the western flank of the Australian continent, the locals might be preparing a few demands of their own.

Continue reading "Pacific solution: Abbott may live to Nauru the day" »

Yesterday, it was revealed in The Australian that since the government announced its Malaysian solution six boats have arrived in Australia carrying 274 asylum seekers. With the Malaysian’s reluctance to backdate the agreement, each and everyone one of those 274 asylum seekers are likely to be processed in Australia.

How extraordinary, considering that if Gillard ever gets this shonky deal with Malaysia signed, only 800 asylum seekers who come to Australia illegally are going to be deported to Malaysia! The quid pro quo in the bargain is that Australia will resettle 4000 of Malaysia’s refugees over four years and will pay the Malaysian government an as-yet-undisclosed amount of money.

Last year 6879 asylum seekers tried to come to Australia illegally by boat. That’s almost 19 people every day. If that rate were to continue and the next 800 illegal arrivals were deported to Malaysia then in 43 days’ time Australia will have used up the Prime Minister’s quota and all other illegal arrivals after that would still have to be processed in Australia.

Continue reading "Close the border and stop this shonky Malaysia deal" »

Look, I didn’t want to interfere but it seems the Government just can’t do it without me, so here it is. Please pass on to your local spin doctor.

1. Stick to your guns

Honestly kids, I just can’t say this enough: People would much prefer an honest person saying something they disagree with than a liar telling them what they want to hear. The ALP’s policy is for a more humane approach to asylum seekers and abiding by our international obligations under the UN charter.

Continue reading "Solving the asylum seeker problem in three easy steps" »

Talkback radio, that eternally squawking companion, last week carried the more disturbing sound of a grown man weeping.

As the gruff voice melted into tears, I imagined he must be talking about the poor cows we’d seen on Four Corners, half beheaded and in infinite pain. Or the uncertain fate of the asylum seeker children.

Nup. He was upset about Port Adelaide. SA’s poor, crippled football team. It seems we all only have a finite amount of caring in us; we have to limit how much we care and what for, or we would fall apart. Some of us pour all our caring into sport, or plants, or train timetables, and have nothing left afterwards.

Continue reading "Who ate all the compassion pie?" »

“She deserves to be here,” sobbed Dani, with her big puppy dog eyes and glossy black hair.

What a tragedy. Cleo, one of the most popular chefs in the Masterchef kitchen, had ignored the rules to prepare both her toffee dish and her chocolate ganache at the same time. Her elimination was inevitable. Her dream was over.

And we all sniffled too, as the ever-stoic Cleo departed the Masterchef kitchen and returned home to her miniature poodles. Ad break. News headlines. Oprah.

Continue reading "Save your empathy for real people with real problems" »

What is the Malaysian Solution?
The “Malaysian solution” refers to a policy recently announced by the Gillard Government whereby up to 800 asylum seekers trying to enter Australia will be sent to the back of the queue in Malaysia. In exchange, Malaysia will send 4000 genuine refugees to Australia over a four year period.

Is there a queue?
The notion of a queue has been criticised as an oversimplification. The number of displaced persons is vastly higher than the available resettlement places and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that operates the scheme does not have a presence in some of the most dangerous locations. Nevertheless, it is hoped that being sent to the back of a queue that doesn’t exist will act as an added deterrent.

I’ve heard that the refugees we get from South East Asia aren’t genuine
In fact they are on of the few things you can get in South East Asia that is. Curiously, thousands of Australians travel to South East Asia especially to get fake DVDs, fake designer jeans and fake sunglasses but when it comes to refugees we are sticklers for authenticity.

Continue reading "A busy person’s guide to the Malaysian Solution" »

This week in federal politics might in later years be seen as decisive to the elevation of the next Prime Minister of Australia.

That’s because the Government will have to deal publicly and intensely with the two principal issues shaping its fate – border protection and carbon pricing.

The Opposition will launch a demand for a wide-ranging inquiry into the cost and administration of detention facilities and of asylum seeker management generally, starting with the no-holds-barred premise that the centres are now places of “havoc, chaos and riots”.

Continue reading "Will the next Australian PM please stand up?" »

So, apparently we Aussies are one of the most tolerant nations in the world when it comes to migrants and ethnic minorities. That’s according to the OECD’s latest Society At A Glance.

Pardon me, but it’s been hard to tell lately.

The barrage of bigotry that has passed for public discourse on multiculturalism, asylum seekers, Islam and pretty much any issue touching on brown-skinned newcomers has been exhausting and depressing.

Continue reading "Today’s ‘threat’ is tomorrow’s model citizen" »

Human rights abuses happen everywhere, including Australia. Amnesty International has today released a report on human rights, which is critical of Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and Aboriginal people. Claire Mallinson discusses the report’s findings and takes a look at the effect of digital media on the fight for human rights.

When Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released after 15 years under house arrest late last year, one of the first things she commented on was how she had missed the digital revolution.

That may be so, but the digital revolution did not miss her. When she stepped out on to the balcony of her home she was greeted by a sea of supporters, mobiles phones held aloft and eager thumbs pressing buttons. Within seconds her picture could be seen on web sites, the internet and 24-hour news channels around the world.

Continue reading "Human rights at home and away" »

The Federal Government now has a clear policy direction on asylum seekers: Confuse them so much they go elsewhere.

What the Government needs is a decisive way to stop desperate people getting into boats bound for Australia while maintaining our UN and human rights obligations to accept asylum seekers.

What they’ve got is a fear-induced policy spasm that tries to keep both sides (the turn-back-the-boaters and the open-armers) happy, but succeeds in pleasing neither.

Continue reading "The Government’s asylum seeker policies are all at sea" »

Clear the waffle and you find the Government and the Opposition now have a bipartisan position on dealing with asylum seekers who arrive by boat.

It’s quite simple: Put them in the closest to squalor we dare endorse, and hope that the nastiness of the accommodation deters other refugee hopefuls.

And it is an unmistakable message: Our Hell hole could be worse than the Hell hole you are now living in. Or at least, it might not be worth the risk and expense of setting out by boat to find out.

Continue reading "Australia. It’s really horrible. Don’t come here." »

Christmas Island, Curtin, Northern Immigration Detention Centre in Darwin, Maribyrnong, Perth, Phosphate Hill, Scherger and Villawood Detention Centre…

These are the welcoming arms of Australia for the few desperate individuals who make it into Australian waters seeking asylum. They are detention centres that could become “home” for indefinite periods of months or even years.

In the early hours of the morning Villawood Detention Centre was set alight, and protestors climbed up onto the roof of the centre.

Continue reading "Mandatory detention conditions fuel the fire" »

In this week’s ICB, The Punch calls bullshit on Shadow Immigration Minister and regular Punch contributor Scott Morrison, for citing a thing called the Social Cohesion Index at yesterday’s National Press Club address to show that Australia is going down the gurgler under Labor.

There are any number of indicators which Morrison might’ve chosen to bolster that increasingly popular thesis. Yet he chose an obscure, little known indicator, and if you ask us, there’s a sneaky reason why he did it.

Morrison, in short, was dog whistling. In a speech littered with references to asylum seekers, the Member for Cook thundered “it is a real concern that social cohesion in Australia has declined by 8.6% since the Labor government was elected. His inference was clear: All those illegal immigrants are tearing us apart.

Continue reading "ICB: The stats that show we’re ripping apart" »

A growing population is not the result of over-zealous politicians and bureaucrats or big business trying to expand their market.

It is a result of Australians being healthier, living longer, and having more children. It is because people from around the world want to come here to work, travel, live and study.

Population growth is neither an impending disaster nor something we should blindly strive for—it is simply happening as a result of our economic progress and the collective desires of millions of people.

Continue reading "Population growth is not all about immigration" »

“Everyone has been accounted for…..we think.”

The chaotic events on Christmas Island last week were the clearest sign of dysfunction in Australia’s immigration detention system in close to a decade.

Had it not been for the recent devastation in Japan, images of rioting, tear gas, fires and general pandemonium on Christmas Island would have led every bulletin and been on the front page of every paper in the land. That they were not has bought the Government some breathing room, unfortunately, their response thus far appears to be largely in keeping with the ham-fisted ineptitude that has characterised their time in office.

Continue reading "Christmas Island is now a symbol of policy failure" »

There is a central immigration question which never gets answered: Should Australians be asked to live next to people who have sewn their lips together with wire as a protest?

Or put another way: Should they have to share a community with people who, a few months previously, had fought police and destroyed public facilities?

Whether they should or not is still unanswered. But the fact is, they do.

Continue reading "Gillard’s hands are tied as rioters voice their protest" »

Australia’s immigration detention system is at breaking point.

Events on Christmas Island over recent weeks are a clear expression of the frustration and despair felt by asylum seekers, some of whom have spent over two years behind bars in remote, overcrowded centres, waiting for their claims to be processed.

The escalation of turmoil follows months of increasing unrest in detention centres around the country. Incidents of self-harm, including hunger strikes and attempted suicide, have been steadily rising.

Continue reading "Christmas Island proof the whole system is broken" »

While the enormity of the Japanese earthquake disaster has pushed the importance of other news to one side, there has in the last week been growing troubles at our immigration detention centres which at another time would be front page news.

Last night there was another riot at the Christmas Island detention centre, involving 250 asylum seekers who armed themselves with improvised weapons, threw rocks at police and set tents and sheds alight, forcing another 280 detainees to be moved for their own safety.

The Australian Federal Police have taken over security for Christmas Island which now, while already being packed, has now been further damaged according to the Department of Immigration. The death of a 20-year-old Afghan detainee at the Scherger centre in Queensland overnight has also been reported.

Continue reading "Christmas Island slowly drifting out of control" »

You’ve heard a lot about the asylum policy debate in the media. The Government announces a new policy. The opposition denounces any new policy. Talk back radio goes back and forth about the best way to deal with this issue. If all this noise about asylum seekers makes you almost believe there is thought put into how to develop best practice approaches, think again. You’ve been conned.

For those of you who have seen The Usual Suspects, asylum seekers are Kaiser Sozé. A made up bogey-man criminal used to distract you from what is really going on.

It’s all just a political marketing campaign from both parties aimed at marginal seat voters. They use the boatpeople debate to define their party’s image. ‘Cruel to be kind’ for the Coalition, with ‘tough but humane’ for Labor. The reality is, when you analyse policies from both parties from a purely rationalist public policy angle, they both fail the test.

Continue reading "Both parties are all at sea on asylum seekers" »

The wretchedness of grief on display at the burial of two asylum seekers who perished at Christmas island, and the swift point scoring by Opposition spokesman on immigration Scott Morrison rebuking the government for flying grieving relatives to the event, illustrate the extent to which Australia’s refugee policy is driven by desperation. 

On the one hand, there’s the desperation of people fleeing for a better life, with all the tragedy that it entails. Then there’s the frantic effort of local people to save lives as the calamity unfolded on the shores of Christmas Island last year. Few could have been unmoved by the accounts of Christmas Islanders who helplessly watched the disaster evolve and who spoke emotionally of its lasting impact.

Desperation also drives the politics of refugee policy, something made patently obvious again this week.  After pausing for a nano-second during the Christmas Island calamity, the toxic political narrative seems set to lunge along its usual course.

Continue reading "Desperation is driving the asylum seeker debate" »

TUESDAY 08/02/11

8:00am

Enjoying bacon and egg roll for breakfast. Bernardi bursts in. Enquires if I’m certain that the bacon was not butchered using barbaric 6th century methods in the name of Allah? Can never be too careful when it comes to Halal bacon.

Pretty sure Bernardi has never said “Hello” or “How are you” to me.

Bernardi suggests I stay alert and alarmed. The Islamists are infiltrating sandwiches throughout the Western world.

Continue reading "Diary of a Liberal Frontbencher: Holy war" »

Whatever flapping around there might be in public as the Liberals sort out their lines on boat people funerals, the activity beneath the surface is a lot more manic.

The ``insensitive’’—his word—comments by Scott Morrison and the implied rejection by colleague Joe Hockey on Tuesday picked the stitches from some old Liberal Party wounds.

It’s not a matter of policy debate. The Opposition will be united in questioning the $300,000 charter bill for getting the 21 mourners from Christmas Island to Sydney.

Continue reading "Ugly asylum seeker spat sparks Liberal tensions" »

Apologising is tough work. Most of us are hard wired to defend our actions, even when deep down inside we know we were wrong.

There are certainly historical precedents that show politicians are reluctant - to the point of childish stubbornness - when it comes to saying sorry.

So here’s to Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison, who this morning apologised for his “insensitive” comments questioning whether we should foot the bill for families to attend the funerals of those who died in the Christmas Island boat tragedy.

Continue reading "When sorry seems to be the hardest word" »

This is the third in a series of essays adapted from the Centre for Policy Development book, More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. The Labor Government has set itself up for failure by upholding the view that asylum seeking is a national security threat, writes Kate Gauthier.

It is said that any civilised society can be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable people. Asylum seekers, vilified by the media and feared by the public, make an excellent target for unscrupulous public figures who seek to gain power or position through a culture of fear.

In order to appear tough on asylum seekers – tough on the victims of human rights abuses – successive governments and political parties have enacted or proposed policies that severely curtail the rights of people fleeing war, persecution and torture.

The argument in favour of taking a punitive approach is that it discourages onshore asylum seeking. This is shown to be false by two issues.

Continue reading "Big ideas: a sensible policy solution on asylum seekers" »

In case you missed the news, there was a mass breakout at the Inverbrackie detention centre yesterday.

The controversial site, home to asylum seeker families, has been the source of local fears. Many are concerned about espionage, terrorism, and plummeting property prices.

The escape, however, shows that what they should really be worried about is plum pickers.

Continue reading "Government forced to defend detention security breach" »

Primary school education should include introducing each and every child to the following:

- A broad range of races and cultures, particularly Aboriginal people (young and old, from the city and the desert).
- People with disabilities.
- Men and women from each major religion, some of the minor religions, and some people without religion.
- Gay people of each gender and maybe someone inbetween.

Continue reading "Kids should be exposed to people from all walks of life" »

Just to start: here’s a small taste of current commentary online in Australia: “This disaster was the ‘smoking gun’ of the ALP’s failed ‘border protection policies’ and now the claws are out!” says John.

Then there’s Caz “… let’s ALL imagine that we have come out of a war torn country, (that our soldiers are attempting to fix, by the way) and have made it safely to Indonesia where our lives are not in danger and our children are being fed and receiving medical attention…....OK, you with me so far?” 

And Caz continues… “As a mother I wouldn’t care if I stayed in the camps for the rest of my life, there is no way I would risk my children’s lives on one of those boats.”

Continue reading "The myths and reality of seeking asylum" »

Julia Gillard certainly got it right by returning from holidays to take charge, but things tailed away after that.

First, there was her botched announcement of an all-party committee to jointly gather the facts about the Christmas Island tragedy. She had phoned Tony Abbott in Tokyo to float the idea, reporters were told. Yet within hours the Opposition claimed the idea had not even been raised with Mr Abbott in the call.

So what was the point? Was it just a way of diverting pressure for an independent inquiry? If so it was an egregious error. If the deaths of at least 30 people because of systemic failure is not cause for an independent inquiry, what is?

Continue reading "Labor’s moral and political failure on boats" »

This time last year, almost to the day, I was standing on the jetty at Christmas Island’s Flying Fish Cove.

It was dawn, on a perfectly still morning, and the sea was flat. Moored just inside the harbour was the infamous Australian Customs boat, the Oceanic Viking, waiting to disembark a number of asylum seekers from a vessel they had intercepted.

The images and footage of this week’s tragedy on Christmas Island showed a scene that could not have been more different from that calm morning in December last year.

Continue reading "A year ago on Christmas Island" »

The heartbreaking boat crash off Christmas Island is the tragic climax of the confused and contradictory approach to asylum seekers that is now strangling the Labor Party. This confusion was perfectly crystalised in a small item buried in the Federal Budget in May this year.

In an obvious attempt to throw a blanket on the issue, the Rudd Government had just announced a freeze on processing Afghani asylum claims, signalling it expected to shortly reclassify the war-torn Middle-East country as safe to return to.

Yet before any final decision had been made the Government quietly inserted $5.8 million to pay for two immigration officers to go to Kabul to repatriate deported asylum seekers.

Continue reading "How Labor wedged itself into a bad policy on boat people" »

Julia Gillard is not just between a rock and a hard place in the aftermath of the Christmas Island tragedy - she’s wedged between an angry Left and a rabid Right.

It was hardly unexpected that Andrew Bolt and his gang quickly trotted out the “blood on her hands” mantra after dozens of asylum-seekers met their awful deaths yesterday, but they’ve been joined by a loud chorus of refugee advocates claiming the atrocity could have been prevented with a softer government policy.

The only people not attacking the Prime Minister today are the Opposition, who’ve remained for the past 24 hours particularly civil towards Gillard and her Immigration Minister Chris Bowen. And Gillard’s announcement this afternoon of a standing group including the Opposition and representatives from the Greens to examine the fact of the boat’s sinking could well prolong that cease-fire beyond the usual limits.

Continue reading "The day both extremes almost met in the middle" »

Dr Waleed Alkhazrajy fled his native Iraq 15 years ago. Saddam Hussein’s regime had ordered him to cut off the ears of army deserters or brand their foreheads with a cross. He chose not to, which meant he had to leave or face torture or death.

Now an anaesthetist in Adelaide, he told The Punch what life was like on that boat.

Continue reading "An asylum seeker’s story: journey to Australia" »

Today’s horror below the cliffs of Christmas Island will produce a heated political debate over asylum seeker policy. It has been deferred for now, but it is inevitable.

The only uncontested point will be the fact that those on the wrecked boat believed that reaching land would give them a good chance of getting permanent refuge.

But it is not automatically correct to then argue that the Federal Government was responsible for the deaths because it didn’t eliminate the prospect of asylum.

Continue reading "Who’ll blink first and score points off Christmas Island" »

Sitting in the Norrkoping campus of the Linkoping University, Sweden, southwest of Stockholm, I am overwhelmed with a sense of wonder that the sun has begun setting at 1 pm. It will be dark by 3.30.

Though a clear, sunny day, snow is forecast for this evening and there is a type of cold that would make most Australians shiver.

In the corridors here, one of the central topics of conversation amongst staff and students is the rise of the far right, anti-immigration party – the Sweden Democrats – that received 5.7 percent of the votes and gained 20 seats in Parliament. Their motto, “responsible immigration policies” for Sweden is, according to one of my colleagues here, a euphemism for limiting Muslim migrants.

Continue reading "Multiculturalism hasn’t failed, it’s been suffocated" »

Are the people of Inverbrackie racists?  Are South Australians who complain about a lack of consultation in the decision to house 400 asylum-seekers in the Adelaide Hills actually closet rednecks who simply don’t like foreigners turning up unannounced on our shores?

Some of them might be. But overwhelmingly, most of them are not. Whatever you think of Mike Rann, you would be hard pressed to accuse the Premier of racism in questioning the less-than-transparent process by which Inverbrackie was chosen as the venue for a detention centre.

There are plenty of other South Australians with similar concerns, and to suggest that they’re all pitchfork-wielding hillbillies does them a disservice.

Continue reading "Inverbrackie: so much for the new era of transparency" »

Nauru has been struggling to get a good run in the press of late.  Tales of business largesse, overseas trips, and big deals make juicy copy, leaving scant oxygen for any other news about Nauru. Coupled with the reporting on the detention centre which characterised Nauru as a bleak island in the middle of the Pacific, the Australian public could be forgiven for having a dim view of the place.

And yet such a view would not appreciate the deep history and friendship which has existed between Nauru and Australia since Nauru’s independence and before.

Originally known as Pleasant Island for its natural environment and the friendliness of its people Nauru is one of two nations (the other being Papua New Guinea) which has a history of Australian administration pre-independence. This history alone means Australia has a particular role of friendship to play in modern Nauru.

Continue reading "Nauru: we should treat our neighbour with more respect" »

Judging by Julia Gillard’s confident counter-maneuvers in Question Time yesterday against a barrage from the Opposition on asylum seekers, you could be forgiven for thinking the issue is starting to go the Government’s way.

After all, if Julie Bishop can’t tell the difference between Nauru and Vanuatu, as Gillard delighted in detailing, the PM must have the upper hand.

But in fact the Government is copping it from both the left and the right as boats keep arriving and the detention centres overflow.

Continue reading "Under attack on both fronts on asylum seekers" »

The last thing Adelaide Hills residents would have expected to hear this week was that their community would be home to Labor’s newest detention centre.

The ambush announcement by the Prime Minister on Monday to turn the defence housing site at Inverbrackie near Woodside in South Australia into a detention centre has caused enormous concern amongst local residents. 

Now, I know there are people out there who consider themselves morally superior to me.  So to them I make this point very clear to begin with - my issue is not with asylum seekers; my issue is with this Labor Government and the decisions it has made.

Continue reading "Labor detention centres coming to a town near you" »

Faced with the unexpected arrival of about 400 refugees in her town, I doubt she’d say “There goes the neighbourhood”.

She wouldn’t worry that the presence of asylum seekers would cause a dip in property prices, or complain that the kids (most of whom will be under five) will shoplift.

She wouldn’t argue that we should make male asylum seekers take the place of Australia’s own soldiers at war. And she wouldn’t say that we should demean refugees and make them suffer in order to deter more people from coming.

Continue reading "What would Mary do? Tips from a hometown hero" »

The Prime Minister made a major mistake on Monday when she said “I don’t think it’s the Australian way to have kids behind razor-wire.”

Whether it’s as a deterrent or something else, this has in fact, been the Australian way since the early 1990s. The announcement that more families and children will be moved out of detention centres was accompanied by another, that two new centre will be constructed near Adelaide and Perth.

The rhetoric of nationalism and security were once again set upon asylum-seekers.

Continue reading "The real reason you’re scared of boat people" »

Julia Gillard’s “more detention” announcement is no solution for asylum seekers.

The Labor government has announced that children and families are to be released from detention. If you thought so, look again. The announcement is a shameful sleight of hand.

A closer look shows that the government’s announcement falls a long way short of actually releasing children and families. Those that are
“released”, will live in the community under “residence determinations” with possible curfews and other restrictive conditions set by the Minister.

Continue reading "This is no solution for asylum seekers - it’s a con job" »

On Monday Chris Bowen, Australia’s Minister for Immigration, flew out to East Timor, Indonesia and Malaysia to push for the development of a so-called ‘regional framework’ for addressing refugee issues, and more specifically to progress the idea of a regional processing centre for asylum seekers in East Timor.

The day before he left, Minister Bowen told Laurie Oakes that the trip was about more than just regional processing centre and that he is working towards the development of “an entire regional framework” to deal with the refugee issue.

In the same interview, he also made the point that “it makes sense for all of us, all of our regional neighbours to work together in reaching a solution to what is essentially an international and regional problem.”

Continue reading "How Labor roped Timor into asylum seeker vote-grabbing" »

Nauru has the greatest airline in the world. It’s called Our Airline. The leased-from-Taiwan 737-300 looks a little dated, not having those upturned wing tips which denote a modern plane, but the smiles of the Nauruan flight attendants are warm and welcoming.

There are plenty of spare seats (flying in and flying out) and they offer long-flight sedation in the form of brimming plastic cups of red wine. One of the flight attendants even has her own baby on board, a homey touch.

This airline used to be called Air Nauru. Then, in 2005, the last of its more contemporary 737-400 series jets was repossessed as the country fell into a heap. Clearly, the older plane’s navigational equipment is up to scratch. You’d need it to find this pin-drop island in the middle of the night.

Continue reading "Nauru, unemployment 90%, is ready for business" »

One in four Australians experiences some form of racism. (“The People of Australia”, AMAC, April 2010).

83% of Australians agree that there is racial prejudice in Australia (“Challenging Racism, The anti-racism research project”, Prof Kevin Dunn et al, October 2008).

In his discussion of different kinds of racism, Prof. Kevin Dunn includes amongst them that which protects “privilege” usually as perceived by the White establishment.  The “quality of life” arguments of the current political debates around population are dangerously close to the privilege arguments of racism.  Words such as conformity to “Australian” ways of life are being aired bravely.  As Dunn points out, assimilationist positions are inherently anti-multicultural.

Continue reading "No holds barred for racism in Australian politics" »

There’s a rather odd immigration debate taking place in this election, characterised appropriately enough, by today’s immigration debate between Tony Burke and Scott Morrison. 

Minister for (*sustainable) Population Tony Burke began his address talking about all those things that Labor have been stressing in the population debate: sustainability on region by region, arguing that the Coalition are all over the place with their policy and refusing to be pushed into naming a goal population figure: “A sustainable Australia involves a level of detail that will not be solved by finding a glib magic number,” Mr Bourke told the National Press Club today.

Then Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison got up and made his pitch on immigration: it involved talking about boat people almost the entire time. At one point exciting a group of student don John Howard masks and start screaming at Morrison.

Continue reading "The two speed immigration debate" »

Earlier this month, I published an opinion piece on The Punch. It talked about Abdul, a refugee from Afghanistan, who I met on Christmas Island.

There were 159 comments on my piece. Julia Gillard encouraged people to have an open, frank debate. I reckon an open, frank debate means calling bigotry when you see it, and some of the comments made on my blog, like this one:

…every leaking fishing boat [is] loaded with people who are unprocessed on issues like health, criminal element, terrorist infiltration or the blatant open fact of illegal entry…

....simply peddled fear and prejudice. But many readers had real questions.

Continue reading "A systematic rebuttal of the myths about asylum seekers" »

The queasy feeling in my stomach as I flew into Sydney after five weeks in Europe had little to do with the turbulence and even less to do with the 764 unopened emails that found their way into my inbox between London and Singapore. Rather, the source of the unease was that I was landing at the beginning of an election cycle. Most of us suspect that this election is going to be short on substance and will provide us with little vision for our future.

As someone who consumes political commentary, I have grown increasingly disillusioned by both a government and opposition who swing from the banal to the ridiculous. For many of us, this election is less about voting for who inspires us, and more about who is least likely to offer an absurd policy vision.

My sense of dread has not eased as we enter the second week of the election cycle marked by a leaders debate that was focussed on the bland. The question is whether this is likely to continue?  Here are five policy areas that may well provide a guide: will we see real policy discussion or be served up glib one-liners?

Continue reading "This campaign is enough to turn off even political junkies" »

Perhaps the lack of bold vision for Australia in the election campaign thus far can be understood by looking at what happened to Kevin Rudd. He was the last mainstream political leader to stand before the country making bold promises about the future, and look where he ended up.

John Howard may have been victim of a tired electorate looking for a change in 2007, but he was also hobbled by the thousand pin-pricks sustained in attacks by left-wingers on a range of issues.

The “Howard haters” were angry about the Iraq war, reconciliation, asylum seekers, and climate change. Rudd said he would do something about all of these. In what is now one of the great political parables about the dangers of overpromising, Rudd’s efforts in some of these areas would ultimately prove his undoing.

Continue reading "Whither the loud lefties?" »

It’s the electorate where the Howard era began in triumph and ended in farce.

The electorate where “Trackie Dackie” Jackie Kelly was elected not once but twice in 1996, scoring a thumping by-election victory after being dudded out of office on a constitutional technicality. The electorate where Kelly’s dentist husband was implicated when a group of Liberal Party activists were photographed in the dead of night in 2007 distributing stooged, misspelt pamphlets reading “Alu Akbar” on behalf of a fictitious local Muslim group claiming Labor support for the construction of a mosque.

Lindsay, on the westernmost edge of Sydney at the foot of the Blue Mountains, was named after the artist, writer and bon vivant Norman Lindsay, who these days would probably be regarded as a weirdo in this proudly suburban, no bullshit seat where the biggest source of local entertainment is the Penrith Panthers Leagues Club, a venue so preposterously big that it can be seen from space.

Continue reading "Election 2010: Meet the Kingmakers" »

Gillard’s certainly been galloping, but she’s not polling too far ahead.

The mad pre-election scramble for support has begun and the latest wild grab for ammunition has taken the form of a controversial refugee policy. Gillard played up to her rapidly forming image as one of the few straight talking, honest pollies when she said she wanted a “frank, open discussion” about Australia’s borders. She then proceeded to make decisions with insufficient Cabinet consultation, and indeed neglected to inform the Prime Minister of the country on which she planned to dump the sea-bound asylum seekers.

That, off the back of caving in to the big mining companies, confirming a belief in but lack of commitment to resolving climate change and a remarkable lack of progression when it comes to gay marriage, lead up to the election polls released today.

Continue reading "New-look Labor is a free advert for the Greens" »

Julia Gillard has kept Labor in a winning position - but unsurprisingly, Labor has shed votes to the Greens after the new PM did a passable impersonation of a couple of notable recent conservatives on the border protection question. You can read Phil Coorey on the latest SMH-Nielsen poll here, an interesting take from Mal Farr in The Daily Telegraph on how Kevin Rudd might have handled the so-called Dili solution here,  and Peter Van Onselen on how both Labor and the Coalition have bungled the issue here. Below is my take on Gillard’s last week in which asylum seekers dominated.

There was something laughable about the ham-fisted symbolism of it all – our new Prime Minister Julia Gillard selecting western Sydney MP David Bradbury as her First Mate for a naval exercise off the coast of Darwin last week so they could be photographed scouring the Arafura Sea for pesky queue-jumpers.

According to Google Maps, Bradbury’s marginal seat of Lindsay is 3932km from Darwin. It contains two water features, the Nepean River and the Penrith Aquatic Centre, neither of which are navigable from the Top End.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: she will decide who comes here" »

When Julia Gillard stepped to the microphone at the Lowy Institute on Tuesday morning she was hoping to neutralise border protection as an election issue. Instead she had the opposite effect.

East Timor’s President Jose Ramos-Horta was on Lateline last night showing how it’s done. His performance in sensible diplomacy and measured thinking made Gillard’s 24 hours of backdowns, rewrites and plan B’s look terribly amateur.

And instead of taking heat out of the issue, Gillard has handed Tony Abbott the ammunition he’s been desperately looking for since her elevation at the end of last month. Here’s how it’s played out so far.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: the 2-day border protection plan" »

Something appears to have gone awry with our new Prime Minister Julia Gillard. By all accounts, those who know the PM hold her in high regard as a pleasant and personable woman. However, she seems to have forgotten her manners, given her bullish behaviour towards our northern neighbours in East Timor.

The diplomatic gaffe now unfolding from Ms Gillard’s Pacific East Timor Solution reflects Kevin Rudd’s own arrogant approach to foreign affairs.

The Labor Government 1.0 saw Mr Rudd announce his idea for an Asia Pacific Community, to our incredulous neighbours, a plan which never got off the ground thanks largely in part to Rudd’s failure to consult with Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and other ASEAN nations. It was trademark Rudd – no consultation on policy because Rudd knew best.

Continue reading "Gillard’s bad diplomacy is enough to drive you Xananas" »

Update 4.50pm: The Prime Minister appears to have got herself into serious hot water over her plan for a regional processing centre, just telling Brisbane radio 4BC that she never said where it was going to be. You can listen to the interview here. The Australian is also reporting East Timor’s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has requested Gillard hold off calling him until her plan is more mature.

Julia Gillard took to the high seas yesterday in a bid to sell her new Dili Solution on boat people, but it was her voyage on HMAS Lateline last night that may have left her feeling a little green about the gills.

A slightly disheveled-looking PM was grilled by Tony Jones over the details of her plan for a “regional processing centre” for boat people and put in a less than glossy performance.

Under pressure from Jones over her failure to deal with East Timor’s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao before announcing her bold plan, Gillard uncharacteristically fell back on bureucratic speak, putting words like “tasked” and “auspiced” on high rotation. (“Auspiced” - good grief).

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Gillard’s boat springs a leak" »

Yesterday, after rampant speculation, Prime Minister Gillard announced the Australian Government’s new approach to asylum seekers.

This speech could have been used for yet another disappointing political point scoring exercise, but Amnesty International was hoping that the Prime Minister would use this opportunity to reframe the debate and remind Australians that seeking asylum is not a crime but a basic human right.

At 11:03 Julia Gillard started well by announcing an end to inflammatory politics about asylum seekers.

Continue reading "Gillard talked the talk on refugees, walks with a limp" »

Two things are crystal clear from yesterday’s policy shoot-out at the OK Corrale over asylum seekers.

One, that an election is now perilously close and could be called within days. The rate at which Julia Gillard is crossing off the problem areas suggests she wants to go to Yarralumla very soon.

And two, that Ms Gillard and Tony Abbott believe that election can be won or lost on this policy alone.

Continue reading "Leaders aim right to stop the boats that leak votes" »

Tony Abbott said yesterday that if he was Prime Minister he would introduce a policy that sends asylum seekers “back” if they arrive without identity documents.

When I heard this, my stomach turned.  Like every other lawyer who provides advice to asylum seekers, I know this approach ignores the realities of obtaining identity documents in countries where persecution is rife.

Sensibly, Julia Gillard rejected “turning boats back”, saying that it would set Australian customs and defence officials up for sabotage. She also pointed out “the practical reality that there is nowhere to turn boats back to.” But for me what gets lost in the asylum seeker debate is the fact that we are dealing with unique people, with unique stories to tell.

Continue reading "Why are we so afraid of people seeking asylum?" »

The groundwork for Julia Gillard’s speech today began four days ago when she started talking about fear (sorry, concern) that was understandable in the electorate (sorry, among people) about boats “looming on the horizon”.

Labor MPs too had legitimate concerns when they saw an election looming and had no convincing way of addressing voters’ worries about the boats.

The substance of Gillard’s announcements today was aimed at dealing with that. What we got was a promise that Sri Lankan asylum seekers will probably all be returned home, and an idea - let’s call it the Dili Proposal for now - to create a “regional processing centre” for people arriving by boat.

Continue reading "The Dili Proposal" »

Julia Gillard is expected to announce her people smuggling policy today, after a Cabinet meeting yesterday to determine just how un-PC the Government could afford to get on the issue. Tony Burke had the fun task last night of going on Q and A without giving away what might be in the announcement, a piece of rhetorical gymnastics he performed admirably.

But Tony Abbott might have blinked first - with this morning’s Daily Telegraph reporting his new “get tougher” stance on boat people would include a presumption against refugee status for anyone believed to have destroyed their own documentation.

According to Simon Benson: “The power to rubber-stamp applications will also be removed from assessors at Christmas Island, with the minister for immigration under a Coalition government granted the right to intervene in any case to refuse entry through the courts.”

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: and then a jump to the riiiiiight" »

If reports in this morning’s Australian are true - that Julia Gillard is intending to send asylum seekers back to their country of origin - then Australians should be very concerned that their Prime Minister and her government are so ignorant of international legal convention.

Put bluntly, to return asylum seekers to a location where they will more than likely face death or severe injury is a gross breach of the 1951 Refugees Convention to which Australia is a signatory. 

The report says: “hundreds of Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum-seekers are likely to be sent home under Julia Gillard’s tough policy agenda to deter boatpeople.”  Ms Gillard will apparently seek assurances from the governments of those countries that persons who are not judged to be asylum seekers by Australia will not be persecuted when they are sent back home.  From a diplomatic perspective, such assurances are a sick joke given the fact that Afghanistan’s Karzai government in Kabul is hopelessly corrupt and dishonest and has no control over the security of the country.

Continue reading "Doesn’t Julia Gillard know the law on asylum seekers?" »

Another sunny Sunday afternoon - another announcement of the interception of boat-load of asylum seekers off Christmas Island. Yesterday’s news came about lunch time, in the form of a press release from the Minister for Home affairs (did you know we had one of those?).

“Initial indications are that 34 passengers and two crew were on board the vessel. While their nationality is yet to be confirmed, if these asylum seekers are Sri Lankans or Afghans, the processing suspension introduced by the Government on 9 April 2010 will apply.”

Just in time for Julia Gillard to announce her policy on boat people, which she is expected to do tomorrow in a speech to the Lowy Institute. In a move that got lefties atwitter this weekend, Gillard prefaced this week’s announcement with a declaration the time for political correctness on the issue was over.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: those boats just keep on coming" »

Update: Today’s Newspoll results, as reported by The Australian, show Labor’s primary vote has leapt seven percentage points from 35 per cent after three days of Julia Gillard’s leadership.

During question time last week whenever the opposition attacked Kevin Rudd over asylum seekers Labor MPs would blow on invisible dog whistles. In retrospect that just looked like an early practice session for the Government’s new band.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s decision to abolish Kevin Rudd’s plan for a big Australia has as much to with concerns with over asylum seekers as it does over population.

Up until this point the Opposition had been cynically and successfully able to merge peoples concerns over asylum seekers and a Big Australia policy. Gillard knows this and yesterday’s announcement was all about whistling a new tune of her own.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Julia now whistling her own tune" »

I’m guessing that former prime minister Malcolm Fraser and Western Australian woman Jo Ruprecht wouldn’t agree on much when it comes to federal politics.

At the launch of Refugee Week in Sydney yesterday, Mr Fraser joined forces with the vocal minority once more, calling for greater compassion towards asylum seekers, and attacking both sides of politics for their race “to see who can be the toughest” in their pre-election rhetoric.

Unfortunately for Mr Fraser and the good folk at the Refugee Council of Australia, it seems the public view is very much running one way when it comes to the asylum seeker debate.

Continue reading "The friction where asylum seekers meet unwilling hosts" »