Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Scott Morrison, is the only minister who is not answerable to anyone for his decisions, with the exception of the decision to take us into war, which can be made by the Prime Minister alone.
New legislation passed this week gives Morrison unprecedented, unchallengeable and secret powers to determine the futures of those who come to Australia seeking sanctuary from homelands that are no longer hospitable to them. This includes the practice of refoulement, the ability to return asylum seekers to situations that are hostile and in some instances deadly without first determining if they are at risk, a practice that is inconsistent with international refugee law: Section 197 gives the government express permission to engage in refoulement irrespective of whether there has been an assessment of Australian obligations to that person.
Morrison is not required to determine in advance what risks an asylum seeker will face in being returned to the country they’ve fled, therefore, he has the power to send human beings to endure torture and death, and nobody will ever know he’s done it.
Within his area of responsibilities, Morrison is now a dictator. In the midst of a government determined to be as small a government as possible there is a department with a dictator at its head, whose control over some human beings is absolute.
In principle giving any politician, or any human being for that matter absolute power over anything, cannot be good. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Why is it necessary?
Of course, it isn’t necessary in any way other than the political. It serves the government’s purposes to cloak the fates of asylum seekers and refugees in secrecy. It doe not make our borders any more secure, it does not prevent us from being attacked by terrorists. What Morrison’s new dictatorship does do is fly in the face of the tenets of our liberal democracy, specifically its opposition to: suspicion of concentrated forms of power, whether by individuals, groups or governments.
There is no reason why the people of this country should be kept in the dark about our government’s decisions as to the fate of asylum seekers and refugees, or any other decision our government takes, unless it is a matter of security. No matter how hard the Abbott government has worked to frame waterborne asylums seekers as a threat to our sovereign borders against which we are waging a war, they are not a threat and this is not a war.
The passing of the latest legislation finalises the relentless campaign conducted by both major parties to “stop the boats.” It has taken the matter of asylum seekers arriving by boat out of the public conversation. While this will come as relief to many politicians, the rest of us should be very afraid that in our treasured liberal democracy we have a minister who answers to nobody, and will conduct his nefarious business in absolute secrecy. This cannot be good for anyone.
No Place For Sheep 
The legislation is profoundly wrong and an affront to decency.
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Disgusting.
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It is a modernised version of nacht und nebel (“night and fog”) which the Nazis used to disappear enemies of the Reich. See refs on your favourite search engine.
Morrison is another of the holier than thou God is on my side types that seem to infest our politics lately.
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
“If God is on my side (and he is) how can I be wrong?”
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“The best lack all conviction.”
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It’s what disturbs me about them also, this curious idea they have that they are sole repositories of wisdom and virtue. They clatter and blunder about like bulls in a china shop.
I note Marilyn’s comment re the coherency of a series of laws intended by politicians to avoid facing up to the issue.
I think they can be regarded as slapsuits. They are not intended to “last” but to hold up processes; they are obfuscatory.
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Trouble for Morrison is that none of it will stand up in the high court because while each and every minister has tried this on they have been beaten back by the high court and this racist fuckwit will be too.
Gillard tried all this and couldn’t get away with it, nor will Morrison.
But our moron MSM didn’t notice or care what he was up to.
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I hope you’re right, Marlilyn, but if nobody knows what he’s doing how will it ever get to court?
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I think tis legislation was specifically designed to circumvent the High Court due to his losses to date.
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Yes, I agree
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It is not possible under article 75(5) of the high court for any parliament to delete them for any person in Australia, all ministers have tried it against refugees and all have failed.
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