Immigration Minister Peter Dutton seems to be of the opinion that because people fleeing their home countries pay “people smugglers” for passage to Australia, it is perfectly acceptable for them to be subjected to every imaginable kind of suffering. He includes children in this belief.
Dutton’s world view is mirrored by politicians such as Adam Giles in the Northern Territory, who share the narcissistic sense of entitlement that regards any perceived offence against them and their laws however mundane, however explicable, as a crime deserving of extreme punishment guaranteed to destroy the spirit.
In short, if you offend me I’ll destroy you. The crime here is offending these men, and both Giles and Dutton are profoundly offended by recalcitrant indigenous youth in the first, and waterborne asylum seekers in the second. You can see their indignation seeping out of every shining pore. They are incapable of seeing context: they can only perceive offence.
This overblown sense of offence and indignation, coupled with a sociopathic inability to imagine the conditions of lives other than their own, is the breeding ground for an extreme cruelty that ought never to be coupled with power, but unfortunately all too frequently is.
The manner in which successive immigration ministers, including those from the ALP, have treated waterborne asylum seekers beggars belief. They have been able to do this because enough Australians share the same narcissistic sense of entitlement and belief that being offended, personally, collectively and nationalistically, is a crime for which, unlike real crimes, punishment must be unrestrained and infinite. So kids in Don Dale don’t ever deserve a chance at life. So waterborne asylum seekers and refugees don’t ever deserve a chance at life. They’ve both offended white Australia in a variety of ways, and so they must die, metaphorically and sometimes literally.
It isn’t even so much what they’ve done. It’s the fact that they had the bloody gall to do it in the first place.
When outrages such as Don Dale and the Nauru files erupt, a lot of people get on social media to claim: “We’re better than this.”
Well, here’s the thing. We are not better than this. We’ve been torturing indigenous people since invasion day and we’re still doing it. We’ve been torturing waterborne asylum seekers for almost two decades, and we’re still doing it. We’re still voting in politicians who’ll continue the barbaric practices we don’t really want to know about as long as we feel we’re “being kept safe” from boats, or thieving black kids.
There are no innocent bystanders in these situations. We all know what’s happening. We’ve always known about our off-shore concentration camps. Keeping your mouth shut is enabling torture. These crimes are perpetrated by the powerful on the powerless because “good” people keep their mouths shut. Well, here’s another thing. You aren’t a “good”person if you keep your mouth shut. You’re an enabler of torment and torture.
As Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs pointed out yesterday, the only way anything will change in our treatment of asylum seekers is through public pressure. The government knows this as well, which is why they don’t allow anyone to see the camps and the suffering people in them. This is what every government intent on the torment and torture of a particular group do: they herd them into facilities where no one can hear their screams.
And when we do finally hear their screams, as we have since the Don Dale revelations, Adam Giles blames those who bring their screams to our ears, and Peter Dutton blames the victims for screaming.
Think about that. I mean, really, really think about the mind sets of Giles and Dutton and those who support them, who shoot the messengers, and blame the victims for the suffering they inflict upon them.
Then get on social media and say “we’re better than this.” We aren’t. We could be, but we aren’t.
No Place For Sheep 
This is in response to Dutton and Sales last night?
It would have been a good post when written in Europe in the early thirties also.
Here is something that fits well with this:
http://theaimn.com/conservatives-product-direct-instruction/
And yes I know, I am tainted too.
LikeLike
Spot on! The practice of being ‘officially offended’ disgusts me as a democrat (albeit one from the opposite side of the paddock 🙂 ) and the bastard bipartisan bullying of boat people makes me sick.
Ditto the inability (apparently) of the Australian political class and the community more broadly to comprehend the moral poverty of the national approach to our continent’s original inhabitants.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Richard,
If you are as hungry for good news from Oz as I am, you have to be content with our Medal count from Rio. 🙂
Pity the sports don’t quite do it for me…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well said, Richard. I don’t know where we go next in this country
LikeLiked by 1 person
Down,down,deeper and down.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Every citizen is a participant in some way.Apathy,support for policy,denial, and many more reasons going to how we enable or refuse to disable the Duttons and Morrisons et al.For over 200 years we have honed the art of race hate,genocide and all the while politicians have perfected the art of harnessing our fears and race hate triggers.This is ‘build a wall’ and ‘Guantanamo Bay’ ,Australian style.
Marilyn is probably an indicator of how rare the voices and actions against our aiding and abetting of inhumanity are.
I agree I see no increase in compassion for other humans or nature from the bulk of human kind.I see the opposite.Feeding bears explosives ?Hunting dogs for foreigners to eat?Torturing kids?Gassing people fleeing war?
Refusing refuge to victims of wars we practise war crimes in?
Nope we certainly aren’t better than this.
We care more about Pokemon, than base cruelty, perpetrated on innocents.
We missed the boat when we let ‘growth’ become king and let ourselves populate to the point of no return.Man eat man world, is here to stay.
LikeLike
Jennifer, top post, you are so right, we are WORSE, I just watched the devil Dutton on 7.30. He says he wants people treated with respect…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Helvi. I saw Dutton and could hardly sit still. Appalling man
LikeLike
Agree Helvityni, a post that needed to be written.
When Dutton says he wants people treated with respect he only means people like him. Other people, different people, who have had the gall to be vulnerable are only deserving of contempt.
I see this contempt for the ‘other’ everywhere, every day… anyone who dares to differ is to be at the very least, ridiculed or at worst incarcerated.
We have seen all this before, we never learn.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And amongst a droplet of outrage …the silence of the so called christians is deafening.
‘Those christians’ who effectively drive the policy set own this outcome more than any other group.
Especially the pathetic media hypocrites , those backdoor mates of govt, who constantly ask that ppl back off on Pell…..
They’re just ‘divine’ aren’t they?
LikeLiked by 1 person
…almost as divine as Devine.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Absolutely appalled and disgusted by Peter Dutton’s comments. Malcolm Turnbull needs to advise/force him to resign immediately. Nothing less is acceptable.
LikeLiked by 1 person
sam, Mal was angry, VERY angry, they ALL were angry about with the Census debacle…the heads were going to roll, many heads…
Where is his anger now ? He must be agreeing with D’s views. (I can’t even bear to spell his name).
LikeLiked by 1 person
The first head that should roll re Census is Turnbull’s
LikeLiked by 1 person
He won’t do that. Dutton is the only one of Abbott’s men in cabinet. There’d be a catastrophe, which I wouldn’t mind but they would.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’d think it would also be bloody hard to find anyone else who’d want the job. It’s a poisoned chalice. Nobody survives it with their reputation intact.
Cory Bernardi would be perfect!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nope,there’s only one man for the job.
The Fixer.
Story Bernardi would be better in Julie Bishops job.
LOL
LikeLike
He’d consider it beneath him.
LikeLike
Oh, I dunno. He might develop a taste for Armani and Louboutin shoes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Um er, I like Armani because it means you don’t have to spend ages shopping to find something reliably satisfying. They’re like the clothes equivalent of Mercedes Benz!
But I have to say… if Cory B wanted to develop his taste then I’d be very happy to experiment and search for the G-spot between his buttocks and expand his horizons/-;
LikeLiked by 2 people
Oh christ I lurch from images of Mirabella & Rinehart in conjugal bliss to Sam offering sexual favours to Coy Bernardi.
It’s only 7am and it’s Saturday as well.
LikeLike
Wankers, aren’t they.
LikeLike
Morrison?
But you are right. Dutton is the hard right’s factional appointment to the inner workings, which is why Turnbull cannot move to sack him. This sort of faction fighting is death to a major party, as was demonstrated during the ALP years.
Not that different to a blogging community, where and when interests, personalities and conflicting agendas compete, as animus sets in.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Slightly different outcome in the blogosphere.
People can choose to go all ‘Lord of the Flies’ online.Not so free in detention where your captors are breaking every legal,moral,ethical and spiritual tenet.
Those poor buggers have tried walking away from death and torture once and look where it got them.
Trapped in a nightmare darker than hell.
Is this govt ad its co-opted partner (twin) not creating the impetus or propaganda for terrorists ?
Labor has swallowed its own tongue in its rush to swallow the ‘opposite member’ .One upon a time ‘enough is enough’ was the war cry of the ALP.
Now it’s> “anything you can do, we can do the same..”
Labor sold its soul and the last vestige of hope for those innocent victims of a faux legitimate war,,merely to lose two elections in a row.
That’s a long lonely walk back to morality,Bill.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah, but in the blogging community you aren’t going to commit atrocities, PW.
And we always get through the shite: I’ve only ever had to ban two people & that was at the rest of the community’s insistence. 🌹
LikeLike
“In short, if you offend me I’ll destroy you. The crime here is offending these men, and both Giles and Dutton are profoundly offended by recalcitrant indigenous youth in the first, and waterborne asylum seekers in the second. You can see their indignation seeping out of every shining pore. They are incapable of seeing context: they can only perceive offence.
Jennifer, I’m going to register a dissenting voice here, at least on the asylum seeker question in which I’ve had more than a decade of hands-on experience at a high level in a prominent NGO’s refugee campaign. (I admit I have no expertise whatsoever in NT indigenous youth affairs).
I don’t think Dutton and his fellow Coalition politicians are genuinely offended by the arrival of waterborne asylum seekers and/or the fact that they have paid someone to convey them and/or the idea that they have jumped some imaginary queue.
I think Dutton and his Coalition mates, and all of his predecessors in the Immigration portfolio (Ruddock, Vanstone, Andrews, Morrison), and all those in any position of authority within the LNP hierarchy, including Liberal Prime Ministers Howard, Abbott and Turnbull, and a conga-line of other Coalition front-benchers, are guilty of FEIGNED offence, largely prompted by venality.
Feigned, not genuine. Big difference. I suggest they don’t do what they do, and say what they say, because of some genuine offence taken, they do it to preserve their own positions and their parliamentary salaries and pensions.
If anything, it’s worse than you suggest. Venality outranks genuine outrage. I’ll expand on this in a subsequent comment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Arthur, that seems far more plausible to me than any suggestion that Dutton et al care even slightly about refugees. It’s an effective tool to obtain power, that’s all. The scary thing is that we can see right now in the USA one likely endpoint of that strategy – they will discover they have paved the way for someone like Pauline Hanson or Tony Abbott to take over their party.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well said, Arthur, and I agree feigned offence is even worse. They are doing what they believe will keep them in power and they actually don’t give a toss either way?
Sickening.
LikeLike
Hence the Chaser’s brilliantly apt series “The Hollow Men”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Following on from my previous comment.
This problem started, as you probably know, with the Hawke (Labor!) government in 1989, under Immigration Minister Robert Ray, the first to lock people up for having the damn gall to turn up and claim asylum under the UN Refugee Convention we signed in 1954.
The problem got worse under Keating in 1992 (with Gerry Hand as Immigration Minister), when retrospective legislation was passed to legalise the incarceration which had previously been illegal.
The problem took a significantly different, and quite alarming, turn in the late 1990s, when the Coalition government under John Howard realised that they could milk this issue to create alarm and outrage for political advantage.
This process reached its apogee in 2001, where several developments (Tampa, 9/11, and their self-manufactured but subsequently falsified “Children Overboard”) provided the Coalition an electoral advantage it has never subsequently failed to cultivate and harvest. Alarm the population, then tell them your political party “keeps you safe” – that’s the way to get yourself back into government.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Arthur,
Both major parties are scared to change their asylum seeker policies; they stand united on this one issue.
They are scared that with softer asylum seeker policies they will not get voted in power.
Is the majority of Oz population anti asylum seekers ?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes indeed Helvi.This is ‘their (our) stolen bounty’ and sharing is a no-no.Unless of course its ;
Rich foreigners with a flapping cheque book skulking around the back door,
a super power looking to park your nuclear Armadeddon fleet,
or a foreign miner with magnate mates hell bent on destroying every inch of ecology they can for coal,or worse.
The loudest sounds of collective applause in this nation revolve around ‘we decide who comes here’ etc, and ‘aboriginal people only have themselves to blame why don’t they just wake up one day with functionality and performance and attitude as per the demands of racist bullies.
It does not take much to get their attention either.There are any number of dog whistlers, with a multitude of melodies,and the audience is well up for the tune.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, Hypo, money makes all the difference, it even helps our governments to momentarily turn colour and race blind when it comes to people looking for a safe haven in Oz.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t think we are, Helvi, I fear the majority don’t care.
LikeLike
I believe it was Roxon and Gillard who entered into the foul agreements with Nauru and PNG.
Now Labor insist that was only envisaged as a short term solution: refugees would be resettled in a third country.
This is despicably disingenuous, imo.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I feel as though it is disingenuous of really anyone who voted for either of the major parties to pretend that human rights, humanity, climate change, equal marriage, housing affordability, tertiary education, public health and education sectors, gender equality are of significant concern to them.
Greens achieved only 10.2% of the vote. Is this the upper limit of Australians who feel that it’s not just about the economy, stupid?
LikeLiked by 1 person
The answer is likely to be an emphatic yes. The only escape clause would be the tradition of waiting for someone else to act/sacrifice or jump.
I gave up on any return to morality or sanity years ago.
The population have become entitled.Our policies reflect the continuation of a colonial despotic rule and we import like minded bigots while we ‘stop the boats’, which is a gutless way of saying ethnic cleanse.
Labor are worse than the Libs, because they had two things.Choice to be opportunistic ghouls, and any other policy.I also note that people on social media condemning Labor , really hate dragging themselves to saying the world Gillard yet enjoy kicking Rudd in the balls over far more trivial things.
More blame deflection by the Labor faithful.
The factions who enabled Gillard still run Labor.They are equally as evil as Morrison and Dutton,or more so.Gillard was their hero.
In fact Gillards greatest policy achievements were all someone else and a direct result of having a hung parliament with two thinking independents.
Funny how amateur Labor historians have completely rewritten the truth on these things.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It would appear so, Di.
LikeLike
Especially when they signed 15 year and 20 year leases.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes, that does kind of dump them in it, Marilyn.
LikeLike
What would you expect, a weekly tenancy?
LikeLike
So here we are in 2016.
Coalition politicians continue to blather their position on boat-borne arrivals. The latest instance was Dutton on 7:30 the other night. Without exception they push the border security angle, which all of us know is utterly irrelevant in the context of refugee arrivals, but most Australians have been so conditioned to believe asylum seekers are a threat that they lap it up.
The Coalition, for at least 17 years now, and certainly since 2001, have seen this issue as an electoral advantage, a stick with which they can serially, and seemingly interminably, bash the Labor Party. So they keep on rolling it out, every chance they get. Why wouldn’t they?
Just look at the Labor Party’s response. Every time they speak on this matter, they try (pathetically) to match the Coalition’s position, to make themselves indistinguishable from the Coalition, because they know they’re on a perennial loser here. Then they go and hide, because they know that whenever this issue emerges, they lose votes. Why wouldn’t they do what they do, which is to try, ineffectually, to look exactly like their opponents?
Both sides’ primary aim is not to represent their electorates, but to be in government and stay in government. Neither side cares whether you live or die.
They are all about themselves.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Last two paragraphs, Arthur. Truth.
LikeLike
“As Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs pointed out yesterday, the only way anything will change in our treatment of asylum seekers is through public pressure.”
Here, I express another dissenting opinion. Gillian Triggs knows, as well as I or anyone else, that any major change in our treatment of asylum seekers will be as a result of COURT action.
These court actions will, for the foreseeable future, be in the High Court of Australia, but in years to come, some of them might just be in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands.
I’m an old guy, and I may not survive to see the ICC trials of Morrison, Dutton, Abbott, Turnbull et al. But I urge all people younger than me to maintain the rage. Don’t stop your activism.
One day we will win this. We WILL win this struggle. I don’t suggest for one moment that people should stop demonstrating in the streets. I do suggest that if you have any way of supporting court actions against atrocities against refugees, you should make that your priority, No other way of defeating this scourge is accountable
LikeLiked by 1 person
I suppose Triggs is referring to public pressure for a royal commission out of which hopefully will come court action.
As you may have pointed out, Arthur, and certainly others have, RCs are largely toothless and in this instance, as the events are occurring in another sovereign state, who knows how they could end up in our courts?
I guess Triggs, like me, is hoping to keep these events in the public eye, because at this point it seems the only thing we can do is bear witness.
LikeLike
…and now Gina Rinehart has hired Sophie Mirabella.
Next they’ll start breeding clones of themselves…. Gawd help us:
http://junkee.com/gina-rinehart-just-hired-sophie-mirabella-seriously/82428
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have no idea what Soph’s view is of same-sex marriage, but I somehow feel that, if she was once opposed, she might now consider it a Very Good Thing. Especially because she’s 15 years younger than rhinoheartless.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m afraid the image of Mirabella & Rinehart as a couple has temporarily undone me.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The issue is all too easy for governments and people to avoid. In 2016 there must be a better way to handle these issues, one that doesn’t involve the seemingly permanent detention of vulnerable people.
All detainees should be processed on the mainland, for a start. Offshore detention has become abhorrent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When the vice prez of Trumpslovakia visited a few weeks back he reinforced our ‘errand bo’ status and locked us into perpetual regional conflict status.Most Asian countries have little time for the way we behave, so maybe having a target on our backs is in our best interest?
For whatever reason neutrality is seen as cowardice in our obsequious cowtowing to the US.
Our die is cast as children of wars> forever.It grinds our psyche and deadens our hearts to the ‘different’.This uniform myth justifies our post European invasion racism and drives our suspicion of others.
And yet over-stayers and illegal immigrants [by plane] litter the shit job work-sites and rich suburbs and everywhere else across the country.
Man Monis came by plane,was endorsed (given citizenship) by Howard and Abbotts govt, even though he rang more alarm bells in Iran and here than any terrorist operative.The guy basically stalked security and was seen as a comic character.Circus Oz.
If there was a pariah Olympics we’d shit it in.
If there was a hypocrite games we’d blitz it.
There’s no sign of change,More of the same and worse is the likely outcome.
Look at Syria..if you can.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hypo, is there any chance you could become a Blake Babies (<3) fan??
Song for every occasion etc etc…
LikeLike
Why of course.
Normally I just play the Carpenters on continuous loop but….
What’s not to like.Popsy melodies,a band name that sounds like a white Apartheid South Afrikaaner trying to describe miniature slaves,and band members with names like>
Strohm, Freda Love (born Freda Boner), Hatfield, with Dando, Mayer, White, DeLuca.
Freda Boner,great porn name.
Plus the word acerbic arouses me,no end.
Do I detect part 2 of your question coming soon>
Samjan?
LikeLike
Notatall. I was just testing you out matey, but if you’re that defeated by cynicism then I suppose that’s all we need to know to know there’s nothing else to ask.
LikeLike
I asked after listening and checking out their discography and song list.
Some of those titles reflective of topics and conversations around here.
There was a reason.I have no problem admitting being cynical my friend.
It makes it easier to duck.
LikeLike
I can’t look at Syria any more. There are too many little brown- eyed boys waiting bomb injured mums to come back from the hospital to what’s left of home; mums who will never come back, the hospital too was bombed.
LikeLike
Sounds like the RWNJ of the Libs are making tactical moves.First Abetz, now Abbott shit stirring again.Another ‘look over there moment’, to hide the rape and torture outcomes,or a genuine bid while the census cock up iron is hot?
Who knows Brandis might have to take one for the team and release his diary.LOL.So redacted it looks like a blackboard.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is the diary that details his secret meetings with Pell during the RC into child abuse I think?
LikeLike
No doubt that page is in a vault under the Popes bed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The blueprint has done a full circle.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-14/german-far-right-leader-wants-to-send-refugees-to-islands/7732478
LikeLike
Hypo, maybe it’s because Germany (and Sweden) have taken more than their fair share of asylum seekers, so maybe they are thinking that far-away islands like Australia and NZ could lighten their burden ,and take some.
When are those hand-picked (13 000) Syrians going to arrive?
LikeLike
Helvi,
Ironically have Sweden or Germany or Australia have ever bothered to ask what ‘generates’ refugees?(Rhetorical)
As long as countries addicted to growth and in denial of the’ impossible task of sustainable capitalism’,keep churning out, and churning over human beings as commodities which either swell or deplete the share return, the darkness can only spread.
“fair share”?
Now that’s a beauty.
Putting Iraq and Afghanistan aside for a minute Syria was totally avoidable had the west not caved on Assad.They did that because of their total f/up in the other two places.It is and always has been about the wealth generated by the misery of war, the growth and price of weaponry,and all the $$$ it delivers to a selected few.
Most of the so called opponents in these global conflicts share the same arsehole.
LikeLike
Hypo, dead right.
At the moment an engaged in a unfriending stoush with US friends, over the cornered Assange’s Hillary dump..all Assange’s fault of cause, that cowardly sexual criminal..
I can’t see any resolution of the refugee issue, the US bankrupted itself in the Middle East and let needed $trillions trickle off shore because of its rigged political system and the milions of peoples existences who they, Europe and and Israel have fucked up are doomed to lives of misery because of it.
LikeLike
and meanwhile our govt/s paint all refugees as ‘economic opportunists’.
(The morons in power here have no idea what the concept ‘connection’ or ‘homeland’ mean.As demonstrated by their serial treatment of indigenous ppl and the subsequent genocide by stealth operations under sequential regimes)
No surprise that there’s no moral or ethical points on the LNPALP compass with reality defying logic like that.
Helvi made the point further back.If this situation was a boxing match, the winner would be the one who leads with a big wad of $$$)
Hope?
(This is wide mouthed frog territory)
LikeLike
Hopefully Labor will proceed with its attempt to get the government to do an open inquiry into detention centres.
Now is the right time.
LikeLike
Hope you’re right PW.
Last time I looked ,the collective electoral /political testicles of Labor looked as follows.(I have posted them bellow,to right of arrow magnified 10K times, to make them visible to the naked eye.)
> :
LikeLike
You amaze me. You know full well that labor has been kept out of government for most of this century because they are scapegoated by the right for even a hint of lessening of the border protection rubbish.
You prefer a one party state run by Abbottists and Murdoch?
Who will help the refugees then?
LikeLike
And do something about your bloody punctuation.
LikeLike
Well PW you don’t amaze me.Predictable response for those defending Labor on this.
You are aware that Julia dear was a captive of Labors right?
And spent her life bent over or on her knees to please them?
Newsflash.(albeit 3 or 4 terms of govt old) There are as many evil ‘right’ pricks in Labor.Hence St Julias excising of our own soil to make it impossible for asylum, ,rather than difficult.
Labor went there,then they turned right and have been going full steam ahead on this issue ever since.
Punctuate this>
LikeLike
You blather much, know nothing.
LikeLike
NZ chips in>
http://www.news.com.au/national/nz-opposition-foreign-affairs-spokesman-david-shearer-blasts-australias-treatment-of-asylum-seekers-on-nauru/news-story/0ab77b53c2bae2e798fffc7d569af207
LikeLike
“You blather much, know nothing.”
Another mirror ^ deprived hypocrite .
Superiority complexes and persecution complexes everywhere..
You continue to take offence on Labors behalf.I used to support them once.
But That was back when polciy drove polls, not the opposite as is the case now.
But your view that ‘electorally’ it is either LNP or ALP shows how limited your own perception is..Labor could reform,but won’t.Labor supporters could hinge support on that premise but don’t.
Supporters could walk away.It would take one whole electoral cycle to break the back of Labors foul and rancid LNP mimicry,but the sheeples are too busy following the lead of hollow vessels.
So as a famous scholar recently said, PW, fuck off, y’self.
LikeLike
Liberal and Labor politicians respond to Australian voters. Aussies will NOT vote in governments if they are soft on asylum seekers.
At the moment the Greens have softer policies, their vote went down.
Pauline rose from the ashes, why, look at her policies…
Aussies did not like the Italians, Greeks, Yugoslavs, Lebanese, only the blond Nordics had an easier run…
Now it’s all about Muslims, all of them bad, if you ask Pauline.
LikeLike
I’m not disputing anything there Helvi.It is how we got here that matters, a lot.In the absence of rescue, the truth needs to hang around for the survivors of our maelstrom.
What I have tried to point out for what seems like a millennia is Labors failure to show leadership when it counted.They are a reactive party.They never used to be.Hanson got a leg up because Labor have been lost in the wilderness.In fact dead in the water.There is no ALP as per their core ethos.
Whose fault?
Factions, voters and those who did not demand reform.Did not follow through.
The ALP policy to join the Libs in the sewer was ‘initially’ done at a time when they could have chosen to be humane.BUT> they chose opinion poll driven victories instead.Well Helvi you can’t have both.Labors calls for investigations of Nauru, now are too little too late, for too many.
Repeat, Labor have had a decade to be ‘real’ Labor and care.They chose to flinch and the rest is history.
The catchcry on twitter etc should be, ‘we were better than this’.
[But even then only marginally better than now, and even then with caveats.First Austs s being the resident football.]
Labor can and will be held to account.If only by history. There is just as much blood on their hands, and ‘but Libera’l is an excuse, wearing way too thin.Pauline could not have slid under the RADAR or come through the front door without the vacuum of sound logic (no fear mongering) from strong leadership.Labor was the vacuum.
And who in Labor was arguing for Indonesia to do their share with the hundreds of millions of $$ we paid to address people smuggling and the drowning of refugees? What did our patrol boats get used for? Where was the oversight? Were they used for water skiing for the corrupt generals? Fishing? Anything?
Where was a humane increase in the intake of refugees?
Labor could have still processed onshore ,here or Indo, even if boats were turned back.
Why do ppl get so defensive of labor FFS?
I know they are a lost cause.Someone here pointed out the low greens vote %, and I agree,not enough ppl voting for them.Why we ask?
Racism and $$$ and apathy and greed.
Let’s face it.Not enough ppl give a toss about the weak,sick,poor,brown,black,refugees or any part of nature in the way.
Either Labor and Liberal respond to the loudest and vilest of Australian voters, or we really are inhumane scum.
JW said the other other day the left don’t have a narrative.She is probably right.Where would you start FFS in this environment?
I know one thing for sure.Labor don’t have a left.
and
Yep this nation is racist.No 2 ways about that.We are slowly making apartheid SA look like Disneyland.
We are currently shaping up to license bragging about it, if the 18c reform happens.
LikeLike
What is wrong with everyone? Why are you all so cross with each other?
LikeLike
Australians bicker with each other and post abusive messages on blogs. Meanwhile the people in the firing line on Nauru get assaulted with iron bars.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/14/manus-island-photos-show-aftermath-of-violent-attack-afghan-refugees
One day this country will wake up to itself and realise just who bears the long-lasting physical and psychological scars resulting from our inability to agree on this issue.
As Professor William Maley (ANU) wrote as long ago as 2004, “future generations will find our inhumanity impossible to fathom”.
For god’s sake get a grip, everyone. People are dying while we, as a nation, point the finger at each other, EVEN WHEN WE FUNDAMENTALLY AGREE about the inhumanity being perpetrated.
Where on earth is this country going?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bad hair day?
In my case, I’ve had a gutful of hypo’s monotonous aggression and the equally montonous passive aggressive, attention seeking self fixations of victimhood Dianne with Dianne. I am utterly frustrated that you won’t direct her back to thread topics when she is only attention seeking trolling.
Most of all I’ve had a gutful of myself.Today is obviously my punishment for killing a chinaman in a previous life.
The rest of you can answer for yourselves.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear punctuation monitor,
Passive-aggressive has a hyphen,possibly the same for a few of your other diagnoses.
No such word as montonous.
‘chinaman’ should be capitalised and or hyphenated , and is lazy English and there are many other more suitable descriptive terminologies, more acceptable.
Hypo also has a capital.
Call me aggressive again and I’ll beat the crap out of you.
: )
PS, Why did YOU kill the man of Chinese origin?
PPS Labor are a bunch of #####s
LikeLike
I’m not very directive, PW. But I can be more strict about staying on topic I suppose.
But you are all adults!!!
I hope tomorrow is a better day, for you & everyone who didn’t like today.
LikeLike
Perhaps they are all rather frustrated with the course of the national debate and are taking it out on each other.
I’ve been debating this same topic for thirty or forty years now and it just seems to go around in circles.
DQ sighs.
LikeLike
pw and hypo, for the love of frigging Christ put a sock in it. Or get a room, if you’re that much obsessed with each other.
LikeLike
Arthur,I’m not obsessed with anyone.But thanks for the diagnosis.I’ll add it to the list.
I see no reason why ppl should back off on ppl who continue to make excuses for the ALP, who were once the beacon for fairness.
The majority of the nation voted to continue the inhumane treatment of innocents, and yet for some reason one party (bipartisan in that outcome) should be afforded slack?
Not on my watch..
LikeLike
Thanks dq,
Arthur Baker, if that’s who you really are, why single me out?
I thought the blog was about issues, not serial personality stuff.
Hypo, if Labor a bunch # # # #, what do you reckon you would be, you smug, anonymous coward?
LikeLike
Here we go.Looks like the ‘man’ has more invested in the ALP than a vote every few years.
Anonymous yes,coward perhaps, but I am not the alternative govt, nor do I stand between life and death of many,or undo-able harm.I’m not the party/leader/aspirant claiming to be ‘different’ to the pox that is the LNP.
I am not the one rolling out a perpetual line of excuses and ‘look away triggers’ for this perverted version of Labor.
LikeLike
Ok everyone. No more personal abuse. Stay on topic. Argue robustly but civilly. I’m censoring personal abuse from now on, as if I haven’t already got enough to do FFS.
LikeLike
That’s the spirit,sport.
LikeLike
I think when you find a blog that encourages candour, within reason, and is not covetous or solicitous of tribal dynamics, you should value it highly and respect its rarity. Just sayin …
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Dan. I appreciate those comments.
LikeLike
People in other countries are starting to notice what’s going on.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-has-lost-moral-compass-over-immigration-detention-new-zealand-opposition-20160814-gqs493.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
Digressing to that forbidden land, the thread topic, this:
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/detention-operator-serco-eyes-nsw-public-housing-20160812-gqr1ya.html
Since it is also about Bambi and NSW, a number ex Ellis people will be tempted to join dots..the universalisation of detentionistics would be my neologism…this was inevitable in the same way as Morrison citing “öperation mattters” as now a norm with further msm inquiry into the census cock up banished on arbitrary fiat with the excuse of security implications.
A huge brushwood curtain is being erected across the country.
LikeLike
Sercos record over in WA in transporting prisoners and hospital services,speaks for itself.
They must have an employment policy which requires cruelty and incompetence.That would explain why they have neo-con contracts as far as the eye can see.The odour of fish seems to accompany every ministerial excuse, with every blunder they make.
As far as the contract values, they basically print $$$
LikeLike
Yes, crude, cruel and furtive.
Lots and lots of graft is mixed up in it over time and you would also know the huge money involved is a factor in keeping the detention camps open and expanding into Civil Society, US style, as is required in Hard Right ideology.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Royal commission into responses to child abuse is now considering looking into child abuse in immigration detention centres, including Nauru. Just heard this on ABCTV News Breakfast.
Dutton, Turnbull, Abbott, the net is tightening around you. Tomorrow, a Royal Commission near you. The day after tomorrow, perhaps, The Hague.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I just heard that as well, Arthur.
This isn’t going to go away.
LikeLike
And right on cue, here’s Richard Ackland in yesterday’s Grauniad discussing how the ICC might get involved.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/15/can-the-law-come-to-the-rescue-of-abused-asylum-seekers-and-refugees
LikeLiked by 1 person
Brilliant piece of work.
LikeLike
Can’t see how. Nauru is a sovereign nation, believe it or not. That is, it is out of the Royal Commission’s jurisdiction.
LikeLike
You know how disingenuous the Duttonite explanations as to things are. Whatever the legalistics, Nauru is our colony and the offshoring of asylum seekers to it has exclusively been an attempt to avoid responsibility through technicalities, as are most privatising events.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Royal Commission’s job is to examine *responses* to institutional child abuse. A representative of the Human Rights Law Centre explained on TV this morning that when they challenged the legality of the Nauru camp earlier this year, the High Court ruled that the Australian government is (quote) “indisputably involved” (unquote) in the running of that centre. So the government’s responses to child abuse ARE within the remit of the Royal Commission. We say who goes there, we say who leaves the place, we fund it, we control a whole lot of matters as regards the running of the place, so even though it’s in another country, it’s basically ours, so the government’s responses to things going awry are examinable by the RC. Bring it on.
LikeLike
Further to the above, it seems it is at least arguable that the Royal Commission has jurisdiction:
Click to access Legal%20Advice%20to%20Royal%20Commission%20Into%20Institutional%20Responses%20to%20Child%20Sex%20Abuse.pdf
This opinion by a QC has not as yet been accepted by the Commission.
LikeLike
I’d like to think (dream in vain) that at some point before ‘the meteor’ arrives,that the law actually wrestles justice back from the clutches of the right wing nuts.
As it is even , RC (in the absence of political goodwill to address the recommendations) are becoming obscenely expensive ‘under the carpet’ exercises, rather than an opportunity to;
forensically analyse,thoughtfully recommend,appropriately react and adequately legislate, to avoid repetition of initial issue .
Given the local legal system self regulates etc, I believe RC’s as such, may have passed their use by date.I’d prefer international justice orgs were engaged on investigating many of these serious issues.(Especially when the cases go to non Australian citizens)
Even at home,I’m not convinced that the child abuse RC will deliver what was needed.Same for the NT youth detention RC.
So let’s hope any enquiry into the refugee detention issue does deliver some justice and decisions makers are HELD TO ACCOUNT!..(Too late for many.)
LikeLike