Australia's Dilemma
- Thread starter Buck
- Start date
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
The problem, Buck, is not actually with the Woomera detention centre. It is with our stupid legal system. Out of a sense of misguided fair-play (or, more realistically, out of a sense of legal-fee greed perhaps) it is perfectly possible and indeed commonplace for illegal immigrants to stay on in the Woomera centre for year after year after year (six years is not unhead of) meanwhile (a) refusing to go back whence they came, (b) living in miserable conditions, largely self-inflicted (Would you keep rebuiding a house for an uninvited guest who insists on burning the damn thing down every year or two? We do.) and at my expense, and (c) spending many thousands of my dollars on legal challenge after legal challenge after legal challenge.
Any normal country would have sent these people home long since. Our else decided to let them stay, once and for all. Or real problem is that we are far too soft and allow illegal immigrants to stay on almost forever, just so long as they are spending vast sums of our money on yet another court hearing.
The most recent case to hit the headlines involves a man who is "afraid to go back to Afganistan in case the Taliban get him". Huh? Did I miss something? Were all those B52s and SEALS and SAS troops sent to the wrong map reference or something? Did we actually bomb Uzbekistan by mistake and leave the Taliban in control of Afganistan after all?
Give me a break.
There are only so many places to go around each year. For every illegal immigrant we let in, there is a genuine, legitimate immigrant that gets unfairly excluded. The correct answer is simple: close the detention centres and send illegal immigrants straight home. No ifs, no buts, no delays. Then we can focus on helping the genuine cases who apply through the legal channels instead of the queue-jumpers.
Any normal country would have sent these people home long since. Our else decided to let them stay, once and for all. Or real problem is that we are far too soft and allow illegal immigrants to stay on almost forever, just so long as they are spending vast sums of our money on yet another court hearing.
The most recent case to hit the headlines involves a man who is "afraid to go back to Afganistan in case the Taliban get him". Huh? Did I miss something? Were all those B52s and SEALS and SAS troops sent to the wrong map reference or something? Did we actually bomb Uzbekistan by mistake and leave the Taliban in control of Afganistan after all?
Give me a break.
There are only so many places to go around each year. For every illegal immigrant we let in, there is a genuine, legitimate immigrant that gets unfairly excluded. The correct answer is simple: close the detention centres and send illegal immigrants straight home. No ifs, no buts, no delays. Then we can focus on helping the genuine cases who apply through the legal channels instead of the queue-jumpers.
James
Storage is cool
I think this is one of the few topics where we are poles apart, Tony.Tea said:
There is no "sense of miguided fair-play" - if anything, the system as it stands may be illegal from an international law standpoint.
I disagree vehemently with Australia saying that it should be free of UN "meddling" in its legal system where it touches on issues of international concern. There are a series of international laws that Australia of its own free will signed and agreed to be bound by. These laws need to stand in some form or other or international relations becomes an anarchy and we all go back to the dark days of protectionism and xenophobia. The time to object to the UN charters was back in the 40s and 60s when they were drafted, not now. There is a process to update the agreement as circumstances change, that process does not include going to the press snivelling and whining like a spoilt brat caught doing something wrong. It's demeaning and it makes us no better than places like Libya and the African dictatorships.
I agree with your underlying point that it takes far too long for Australia to decide on a refugee's status. Being in the carrier business I reckon there should be an SLA - say three months - and then your case is determined one way or another. Given the present government I'd like there to be an independent system of appeal, but I'd like that to be the final port of call. One appeal on your case, then you abide by the result.
As soon as you start denying people the due process of justice that they are entitled to, you go down a path where I will not follow.
You have to consider the source of the story, Tony. The Australian public on the whole is easy to feed information to because by and large the media does not look below the surface of a story.
That's not to say the story isn't true, but I'm always suspicious of these sorts of obviously silly stories.
This is just bizarre, you're just not thinking rationally.
1. There is no such thing as an "illegal immigrant" until their case has been determined. It is enormously prejudicial and morally reprehensible that as soon as refugees arrive in Australia they are branded illegal immigrants, but very typical of the current government.
2. If a refugee has been let in to Australia, in other words if they have a legitimate claim on refugee status, they are not an "illegal immigrant." They are a full immigrant. Now, two years ago at that stage they would also be entitled to stay in Australia with any immediate family (spouse, children) they brought in with them. This is now no longer the case, creating situations where families are torn apart and the immigrant must start another process to apply to be rejoined by their family. Disgraceful, and even if the moral side of this doesn't repel you the waste of time and resources should.
3. I see you have bought into the "queue" theory. There is no such thing. There are a limited number of refugee places available, yes, but it is rare indeed that we fill it. There were about 4,100 refugees that arrived by boat in 2000-01 and about another 1,500 by air. Given that temporary protection visas were issued to 4,456 people in 2000-01 :
... we find that almost exactly 80% of those that arrive here in an unauthorised manner are found to have sufficient cause to have done so and a legitimate reason to stay, even if it is on a temporary, three year basis. In other words, overwhelmingly these so-called "illegal immigrants and queue jumpers" are found to be legitimate refugees. This doesn't even count those who are given permanent visas for one reason or another.http://www.immi.gov.au/facts/64protection.htm said:
Note as you go around the immigration website how hard it is to find out how many people actually apply for refugee or humanitarian status in Australia from outside - if you can find it, let me know. However, this idea that potential refugees should meekly go along to their local Australian consulate (we no longer have consulates in most of the worst countries such as the Balkan, Afghanistan, Eritrea etc. anyway) and apply for a refugee visa while their lives are potentially in danger is really strange.
And how do you determine who is a legitimate applicant and who isn't? How does a poor family being perscuted by racial death squads in the former Yugoslavia travel to Vienna to apply for refugee status at the Australian consulate there, pray tell? Or Kurds in Iraq travel to Istanbul? It's nonsensical.
time
Storage? I am Storage!
I'm afraid I agree with James. We're being misled by a morally corrupt government and complicit media (who are only interested in sensationalism, not truth).
This doesn't mean we want to throw open our doors, but the methods of dealing with the refugees, political or economic, befit a two year old rather than a national government.
For example, we're now allowed to repatriate Afghani refugees to their homeland, but only if they want to go. Understandably, most are still nervous. Heck, revenge killings are still very much on the cards - who'd want to be an Afghani cabinet minister? So the government pulls stunts like cancelling TPVs, forcing people back into the concentration camps. Funnily enough, repatriation seems a whole lot more attractive than spending another year or more behind razor wire.
The guy I think Tony is referring to has been separated from his wife and kids. He lives in Sydney while they're a couple of thousand kilometers away in the desert, which may as well be the other side of the world. Despite the initial assessment that he was a bona fide refugee (including voice pattern analysis!), the government has been trying to cancel his TPV. The covering story is that someone has said he is actually Pakistani, so he must be lying, so it's okay to lock him up.
If you believe that, you probably believe that refugees ruthlessly threw their kids into the sea in a sink or swim approach to asylum. That's what our government claimed days before a close election. It's interesting that no politician has even been reprimanded, let alone sacked, for lying to the Australian public about this. At the end of the day, the buck was passed round in a circle.
Anyway, the guy's kids escaped with a bunch of others (helped by an Australian underground movement), and turned up in Melbourne seeking asylum from the British consulate. They failed and were turned over to the feds. Amidst much publicity, the father flew to Melbourne to see his sons before they were returned to the desert prison (given he doesn't speak a word of english, I imagine all this was orchestrated by the movement).
The government made a point of flying the kids out of Melbourne before he arrived. When the shit hit the fan, they denied any knowledge of his attempt, complaining that he didn't call them.
I don't care if he is actually a sleeper terrorist from Timbuktu. All stops should have been pulled out to facilitate him seeing his kids, especially given the bad psychological state they were in. The government's actions were indefensible, reprehensible, and beneath contempt. As I said, befitting a two year old.
This doesn't mean we want to throw open our doors, but the methods of dealing with the refugees, political or economic, befit a two year old rather than a national government.
For example, we're now allowed to repatriate Afghani refugees to their homeland, but only if they want to go. Understandably, most are still nervous. Heck, revenge killings are still very much on the cards - who'd want to be an Afghani cabinet minister? So the government pulls stunts like cancelling TPVs, forcing people back into the concentration camps. Funnily enough, repatriation seems a whole lot more attractive than spending another year or more behind razor wire.
The guy I think Tony is referring to has been separated from his wife and kids. He lives in Sydney while they're a couple of thousand kilometers away in the desert, which may as well be the other side of the world. Despite the initial assessment that he was a bona fide refugee (including voice pattern analysis!), the government has been trying to cancel his TPV. The covering story is that someone has said he is actually Pakistani, so he must be lying, so it's okay to lock him up.
If you believe that, you probably believe that refugees ruthlessly threw their kids into the sea in a sink or swim approach to asylum. That's what our government claimed days before a close election. It's interesting that no politician has even been reprimanded, let alone sacked, for lying to the Australian public about this. At the end of the day, the buck was passed round in a circle.
Anyway, the guy's kids escaped with a bunch of others (helped by an Australian underground movement), and turned up in Melbourne seeking asylum from the British consulate. They failed and were turned over to the feds. Amidst much publicity, the father flew to Melbourne to see his sons before they were returned to the desert prison (given he doesn't speak a word of english, I imagine all this was orchestrated by the movement).
The government made a point of flying the kids out of Melbourne before he arrived. When the shit hit the fan, they denied any knowledge of his attempt, complaining that he didn't call them.
I don't care if he is actually a sleeper terrorist from Timbuktu. All stops should have been pulled out to facilitate him seeing his kids, especially given the bad psychological state they were in. The government's actions were indefensible, reprehensible, and beneath contempt. As I said, befitting a two year old.
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
We are indeed a long way apart on this one, James, and are no doubt destined to remain so. Still, for the benefit of other readers (or possibly because I never could resist a good argument) I'll ponder in a little more depth.
I have paid little or no attention to the situation vis-a-vis UN rules. I don't trouble to follow the news these days, as it just depresses me. In general though, I have no objection to our complying with UN rules - and I have little but scorn for those nations that think that international rules apply only to other countries. (As an aside, the USA is spectacularly good at saying "the rules are only for other countries, and don't apply to us". Pure humbug.)
But having said that, as I understand things, the UN rules are that no nation is obliged to take in non-refugees just because they want to decamp to someplace where the sun shines brighter or the standard of living is higher - and let us not forget, that is what this is primarily about: our standard of living. Now the standard of living of any nation is, in the final analysis, determined by two things and two things only: (a) the productive resources of the country, and (b) the number of people that must share these resources. (This is to ignore the extent to which a nation is able to leech off other nations, as the British and Soviet Russia used to do, and as the USA does to this day, or the extent to which a nation has its resources appropriated by other nations - which is what happens to the vast majority of third world countries, and also ignores the efficiency of the nation's productive processes. I may return to this last point later on if it seems useful.) Put simply, the more people you squeeze in to a country, the poorer everyone gets (and, generally speaking, the worse that country's human rights situation becomes). This is what immigration policy is all about: maintaining the nation's population at a sustainable level.
This is a simple matter of first things first: if we let in too many people (or breed them ourselves) then no-one can be wealthy or free. So the first task of any immigration policy is and must always be to regulate the total influx of people.
Now anyone with any moderate understanding of economics and anyone with any understanding of the Austrailan countryside at all is capable of discovering that we are already well beyond the long-term sustainable carrying capacity of the land. The instant you travel outside of Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Perth and look at the real countryside - the countryside that maintains this nation - you are treated to (if you know what to look for) an almost never-ending series of disasters: consider the Mallee dustbowl, the massive loss of arable land to salination, the severe and ongoing water supply crisies that afflict almost every part of rural Australia and have recently become so bad that even the major capital cities are having problems. (Have you looked at your water rates bill lately? Compare it to the one your father got 20 or 30 years ago - after adjusting for inflation, it's about five times higher, and set to become a good deal worse.) Consider the death of our major river systems - when was the last time you met anyone who has ever so much as seen a Murray Cod? Consider the substantial drop in our standard of living this last 30 years. When I was a kid, it was commonplace for ordinary people - schoolteachers, plumbers, policemen - to own a holiday house by the beach. Now - forget it, you have to be Kerry Packer to afford it. Or just consider the incredible price of land. That alone should be sufficient to demonstrate that we have a very simple but severe problem: too many people.
Since the population boom in Australia began in 1788, we have destroyed two-thirds of our forests and lost one half of our topsoil.
Back when I was born, it was said that Australia rides on the sheep's back. By that, people meant that we generated the bulk of our foreign exchange from wool exports (actually from many other agricultural products as well, but wool will do as the example). And, on the back of our massive wool crop, we were one of the wealthiest countries on earth. Usually, we were in the top two or three. Now, we are nowhere near that level. And back then, remember, we had massively inefficient industries, and very little in the way of labour-saving machinery. Nor did we have North-West Shelf gas, Western Australian iron ore, Bass Strait oil, or Weipa aluminium. So here we are, with all the advantages of modern technolohy, a vastly more efficient industrial structure, a huge increase in our natural resource base (at least we have that for so long as it takes to dig it all up and ship it overseas) and yet we are somehow still poorer than we were 30 years ago. Why? Because we are sharing it out amongst twice as many people. Oh you can fiddle round the edges, but the bottom line is as simple as that: too many people.
And in the next few decades, things will get worse. Much worse. First, we are in the front line for global climate change: el ninya years, with all their massive impact on our agricultural productivity, are becoming the rule as much as the exception. Second, we are doing nothing of any significance to blunt the impact of the single greatest threat to our national wealth: salination. And third, we will soon run out of Bass Strait oil. The longer we take to face up to these issues, the worse the pain will be.
I am not talking about denying justice, James. You yourself said "one appeal and that is it". I gather that this bloke that is getting all the publicity at present has been going through one appeal after another for six years. And even if he hasn't, plenty of others have.
The man who is "afraid to go back to Afganistan in case the Taliban get him" is saying that himself. The Immigration Department are saying that he perjured himself and that he is actually from Pakistan, not Afganistan at all. Who knows which is true? We do know that he arrived here illegally, and we do know that a good many nations, Australia among them, have just gone to a good deal of effort to remove the Taliban from power in the country he claims to be afraid to go back to.
When you say "by and large the media does not look below the surface of a story", you are absolutely right.
An "illegal immigrant" is someone who arrives here without a visa (or who overstays). They may later become legal immigrants, subject to the appropriate processes, but if you get on a boat and do your best to infiltrate in secret, you are an illegal immigrant. The illegal immigrants we get here are not branded as such any more. They are now called "asylum seekers". In my view, this is prejudicial and morally reprehensible. An illegal immigrant is an illegal immigrant is an illegal immigrant.
If there is no such thing as a queue, then there most certainly ought to be, and it needs to be established as soon as possible. Saying that "80% of illegal arrivals are found to be genuine refugees" is completely meaningless. There are millions of genuine refugees in the world today. Offering asylum to those who happened to be wealthy enough to buy their way to Indonesia (or whichever other jumping off point) and pay the necessary bribes to the appropriate officials in the waystation countries and buy a passage on a people-smuggler's boat is a ludicrously unfair way to determine who is deserving enough to be chosen. It tells us that they were determined and resourceful, relatively wealthy, and prepared to be dishonest. No more, no less. It does not tell us that they are more needy than others (in fact it almost certainly tells us the reverse, else they could not have bribed and bought their way this far), nor does it show that they will make good citizens.
We need to be much more proactive with our regugee policy. We need to establish some fair way of determining who is the most needy, and (if we have any claim to morality as a nation) we need to focus our immigration policy on those people. If that means sending immigration people to Bosnia or to refugee camps on the borders of whichever state is war-torn right now, then so be it. It has to be cheaper than this crazy expenditure on detention centres and guards and (above all) lawyers, lawyers, lawyers. And a good deal fairer.
To the extent that we can take migrants at all - and this is limited but there is a certain amount of natural population outflow which can by all means be balanced by compassionate migration, to the tune of quite a few thousands of people a year - it seems to me that we are morally obliged to try so far as possible to take the most needy people first. I am not sure what the best way to determine who the most needy people are is, but it is most certainly not choosing those who manage to successfully buy their way onto an Indonesian smuggler's fishing boat.
To say that "80% of those that arrive here in an unauthorised manner are found to have sufficient cause to have done so and a legitimate reason to stay" tells us nothing. I should imagine that if you were to visit a refugee camp in, say, Bosnia or the Sudan, you could find something more like a 100% "legitimate refugee" rate. Who are the more deserving cases? On the face of things, it seems obvious that anyone with the resources to travel half-way around the world is less needy than many people who face a similar domestic situation and don't have those resources.
I have paid little or no attention to the situation vis-a-vis UN rules. I don't trouble to follow the news these days, as it just depresses me. In general though, I have no objection to our complying with UN rules - and I have little but scorn for those nations that think that international rules apply only to other countries. (As an aside, the USA is spectacularly good at saying "the rules are only for other countries, and don't apply to us". Pure humbug.)
But having said that, as I understand things, the UN rules are that no nation is obliged to take in non-refugees just because they want to decamp to someplace where the sun shines brighter or the standard of living is higher - and let us not forget, that is what this is primarily about: our standard of living. Now the standard of living of any nation is, in the final analysis, determined by two things and two things only: (a) the productive resources of the country, and (b) the number of people that must share these resources. (This is to ignore the extent to which a nation is able to leech off other nations, as the British and Soviet Russia used to do, and as the USA does to this day, or the extent to which a nation has its resources appropriated by other nations - which is what happens to the vast majority of third world countries, and also ignores the efficiency of the nation's productive processes. I may return to this last point later on if it seems useful.) Put simply, the more people you squeeze in to a country, the poorer everyone gets (and, generally speaking, the worse that country's human rights situation becomes). This is what immigration policy is all about: maintaining the nation's population at a sustainable level.
This is a simple matter of first things first: if we let in too many people (or breed them ourselves) then no-one can be wealthy or free. So the first task of any immigration policy is and must always be to regulate the total influx of people.
Now anyone with any moderate understanding of economics and anyone with any understanding of the Austrailan countryside at all is capable of discovering that we are already well beyond the long-term sustainable carrying capacity of the land. The instant you travel outside of Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Perth and look at the real countryside - the countryside that maintains this nation - you are treated to (if you know what to look for) an almost never-ending series of disasters: consider the Mallee dustbowl, the massive loss of arable land to salination, the severe and ongoing water supply crisies that afflict almost every part of rural Australia and have recently become so bad that even the major capital cities are having problems. (Have you looked at your water rates bill lately? Compare it to the one your father got 20 or 30 years ago - after adjusting for inflation, it's about five times higher, and set to become a good deal worse.) Consider the death of our major river systems - when was the last time you met anyone who has ever so much as seen a Murray Cod? Consider the substantial drop in our standard of living this last 30 years. When I was a kid, it was commonplace for ordinary people - schoolteachers, plumbers, policemen - to own a holiday house by the beach. Now - forget it, you have to be Kerry Packer to afford it. Or just consider the incredible price of land. That alone should be sufficient to demonstrate that we have a very simple but severe problem: too many people.
Since the population boom in Australia began in 1788, we have destroyed two-thirds of our forests and lost one half of our topsoil.
Back when I was born, it was said that Australia rides on the sheep's back. By that, people meant that we generated the bulk of our foreign exchange from wool exports (actually from many other agricultural products as well, but wool will do as the example). And, on the back of our massive wool crop, we were one of the wealthiest countries on earth. Usually, we were in the top two or three. Now, we are nowhere near that level. And back then, remember, we had massively inefficient industries, and very little in the way of labour-saving machinery. Nor did we have North-West Shelf gas, Western Australian iron ore, Bass Strait oil, or Weipa aluminium. So here we are, with all the advantages of modern technolohy, a vastly more efficient industrial structure, a huge increase in our natural resource base (at least we have that for so long as it takes to dig it all up and ship it overseas) and yet we are somehow still poorer than we were 30 years ago. Why? Because we are sharing it out amongst twice as many people. Oh you can fiddle round the edges, but the bottom line is as simple as that: too many people.
And in the next few decades, things will get worse. Much worse. First, we are in the front line for global climate change: el ninya years, with all their massive impact on our agricultural productivity, are becoming the rule as much as the exception. Second, we are doing nothing of any significance to blunt the impact of the single greatest threat to our national wealth: salination. And third, we will soon run out of Bass Strait oil. The longer we take to face up to these issues, the worse the pain will be.
I am not talking about denying justice, James. You yourself said "one appeal and that is it". I gather that this bloke that is getting all the publicity at present has been going through one appeal after another for six years. And even if he hasn't, plenty of others have.
The man who is "afraid to go back to Afganistan in case the Taliban get him" is saying that himself. The Immigration Department are saying that he perjured himself and that he is actually from Pakistan, not Afganistan at all. Who knows which is true? We do know that he arrived here illegally, and we do know that a good many nations, Australia among them, have just gone to a good deal of effort to remove the Taliban from power in the country he claims to be afraid to go back to.
When you say "by and large the media does not look below the surface of a story", you are absolutely right.
An "illegal immigrant" is someone who arrives here without a visa (or who overstays). They may later become legal immigrants, subject to the appropriate processes, but if you get on a boat and do your best to infiltrate in secret, you are an illegal immigrant. The illegal immigrants we get here are not branded as such any more. They are now called "asylum seekers". In my view, this is prejudicial and morally reprehensible. An illegal immigrant is an illegal immigrant is an illegal immigrant.
If there is no such thing as a queue, then there most certainly ought to be, and it needs to be established as soon as possible. Saying that "80% of illegal arrivals are found to be genuine refugees" is completely meaningless. There are millions of genuine refugees in the world today. Offering asylum to those who happened to be wealthy enough to buy their way to Indonesia (or whichever other jumping off point) and pay the necessary bribes to the appropriate officials in the waystation countries and buy a passage on a people-smuggler's boat is a ludicrously unfair way to determine who is deserving enough to be chosen. It tells us that they were determined and resourceful, relatively wealthy, and prepared to be dishonest. No more, no less. It does not tell us that they are more needy than others (in fact it almost certainly tells us the reverse, else they could not have bribed and bought their way this far), nor does it show that they will make good citizens.
We need to be much more proactive with our regugee policy. We need to establish some fair way of determining who is the most needy, and (if we have any claim to morality as a nation) we need to focus our immigration policy on those people. If that means sending immigration people to Bosnia or to refugee camps on the borders of whichever state is war-torn right now, then so be it. It has to be cheaper than this crazy expenditure on detention centres and guards and (above all) lawyers, lawyers, lawyers. And a good deal fairer.
To the extent that we can take migrants at all - and this is limited but there is a certain amount of natural population outflow which can by all means be balanced by compassionate migration, to the tune of quite a few thousands of people a year - it seems to me that we are morally obliged to try so far as possible to take the most needy people first. I am not sure what the best way to determine who the most needy people are is, but it is most certainly not choosing those who manage to successfully buy their way onto an Indonesian smuggler's fishing boat.
To say that "80% of those that arrive here in an unauthorised manner are found to have sufficient cause to have done so and a legitimate reason to stay" tells us nothing. I should imagine that if you were to visit a refugee camp in, say, Bosnia or the Sudan, you could find something more like a 100% "legitimate refugee" rate. Who are the more deserving cases? On the face of things, it seems obvious that anyone with the resources to travel half-way around the world is less needy than many people who face a similar domestic situation and don't have those resources.
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
Now, Time. We do indeed have a "morally corrupt government" and "complicit media (who are only interested in sensationalism, not truth)". Not many people despise the Howard Government more than I do. The media, however, have become quite hysterical allies of the well-meaning but terribly misguided and quite often dishonest people who have taken it on themselves to champion the cause of the illegal immigrants.
How is it possible to say that "the government has been trying to cancel his TPV"? The Minister for Immigration does not have to "try to" cancel that guy's visa. He, and his department, have the power to cancel it at any time. Nor is that cancelation subject to legal appeal. If the Minister wants to cancel it, he can simply do so, and he is not obliged to so much as give a reason.
Now, the story that the media has gone crazy about these past few days. Everyone agrees that the kids were in the Woomera detention centre and that they broke out.From there, there are two different stories.
The media story is that the kids presented themselves to the English Consulate in Melbourne and applied for refugee status, which was denied, and were then swooped on by the dastardly police and their fascist lackeys. Or something like that. Then, the kids were taken to the Maribynong detention centre.
Next, the Department somehow learned that their father was coming to visit them, so they deliberately and maliciously flew them off to Woomera at a moment's notice just so that he wouldn't be able to see his children. Do you believe that? Well, it might be true, but it sounds like a most odd way for anyone to behave. After all, what possible harm could it do? What on earth would the Department, the Government, or anyone else have to gain from it?
In fact, now we get to the really interesting question. Who did stand to gain from that episode?
1: The media got a whole big box full of sensational front pages, and the radio talk-back lines are still humming.
2: The pro-illegal immigration movement got the best publicity they have ever had. (Quite probably better even than the wonderful free gift the government handed them with their incredibly stupid (but alas successful) phoney babies overboard scandal.
3: The family in question may have materially improved their chances of getting to stay in Australia. Or may not - that's a tough one to call.
Now, let's consider an alternative interpretation of the events. Consider this scenario:
Once the escapees were recaptured (outside the Consulate), it would be routine to take them to the nearest available detention centre for the time being. This was Maribinong (which is a suburb of Melbourne and thus close by) and which has limited space. Then, one assumes that it would be routine to return them to the institution that they escaped from. (Which also has better security and is, I think, larger.) I imagine that organising this and taking all the paperwork through the proper channels would take some reasonably predictable amount of time. (Not predictable by me, of course, but by anyone with a working knowledge of the Department's intricacies, and very predictable by anyone with a source on the inside.)
Then, knowing that the kids were due to be flown back to their original accomodation at a particular time, it would be a simple matter indeed to arrange to have the kid's father board the correct plane just a little too late, and an even simpler matter to make sure that there were plenty of TV cameras there to record it all in living colour.
Now, which one sounds more likely to you?
In my mind, the only question to be answered is this: who was the mastermind? The man himself? I doubt it. The press? Very possibly. The man's "friends"? Most likely of all.
Was someone in the Department paid to reveal the flight time? The press have any amount of money to throw at this sort of task if they need to. Or was it just a disgruntled employee, possibly acting from the best of motives? More likely the latter, I think. Or was it just an outsider with a good knowledge of the Departmental procedures? Forced to bet, I think I'd go with this last possibility.
But whichever one of those it was, that is vastly more believable than the "deliberately heartless and callous and amazingly incompetent administration" theory. Good Lord, even our nincompoop on an Immigration Minister isn't that stupid. Hey - remember their last dirty trick, the "babies in the water" thing. It all came out as a fraud, but it didn't come out untill after the election - an election that they were desperate to win and which, up until the babies overboard fraud, they looked very likely to loose.
Is the Howard Government evil? That's a matter of opinion, but I would say "yes".
Is the Howard Government immoral? More opinion, but again I would say "yes".
Is the Howard Governement dishonest? A matter of public record: yes without any shadow of doubt.
Is the Howard Government stupid? Well, yes. But not even I think they are that stupid.
How is it possible to say that "the government has been trying to cancel his TPV"? The Minister for Immigration does not have to "try to" cancel that guy's visa. He, and his department, have the power to cancel it at any time. Nor is that cancelation subject to legal appeal. If the Minister wants to cancel it, he can simply do so, and he is not obliged to so much as give a reason.
Now, the story that the media has gone crazy about these past few days. Everyone agrees that the kids were in the Woomera detention centre and that they broke out.From there, there are two different stories.
The media story is that the kids presented themselves to the English Consulate in Melbourne and applied for refugee status, which was denied, and were then swooped on by the dastardly police and their fascist lackeys. Or something like that. Then, the kids were taken to the Maribynong detention centre.
Next, the Department somehow learned that their father was coming to visit them, so they deliberately and maliciously flew them off to Woomera at a moment's notice just so that he wouldn't be able to see his children. Do you believe that? Well, it might be true, but it sounds like a most odd way for anyone to behave. After all, what possible harm could it do? What on earth would the Department, the Government, or anyone else have to gain from it?
In fact, now we get to the really interesting question. Who did stand to gain from that episode?
1: The media got a whole big box full of sensational front pages, and the radio talk-back lines are still humming.
2: The pro-illegal immigration movement got the best publicity they have ever had. (Quite probably better even than the wonderful free gift the government handed them with their incredibly stupid (but alas successful) phoney babies overboard scandal.
3: The family in question may have materially improved their chances of getting to stay in Australia. Or may not - that's a tough one to call.
Now, let's consider an alternative interpretation of the events. Consider this scenario:
Once the escapees were recaptured (outside the Consulate), it would be routine to take them to the nearest available detention centre for the time being. This was Maribinong (which is a suburb of Melbourne and thus close by) and which has limited space. Then, one assumes that it would be routine to return them to the institution that they escaped from. (Which also has better security and is, I think, larger.) I imagine that organising this and taking all the paperwork through the proper channels would take some reasonably predictable amount of time. (Not predictable by me, of course, but by anyone with a working knowledge of the Department's intricacies, and very predictable by anyone with a source on the inside.)
Then, knowing that the kids were due to be flown back to their original accomodation at a particular time, it would be a simple matter indeed to arrange to have the kid's father board the correct plane just a little too late, and an even simpler matter to make sure that there were plenty of TV cameras there to record it all in living colour.
Now, which one sounds more likely to you?
In my mind, the only question to be answered is this: who was the mastermind? The man himself? I doubt it. The press? Very possibly. The man's "friends"? Most likely of all.
Was someone in the Department paid to reveal the flight time? The press have any amount of money to throw at this sort of task if they need to. Or was it just a disgruntled employee, possibly acting from the best of motives? More likely the latter, I think. Or was it just an outsider with a good knowledge of the Departmental procedures? Forced to bet, I think I'd go with this last possibility.
But whichever one of those it was, that is vastly more believable than the "deliberately heartless and callous and amazingly incompetent administration" theory. Good Lord, even our nincompoop on an Immigration Minister isn't that stupid. Hey - remember their last dirty trick, the "babies in the water" thing. It all came out as a fraud, but it didn't come out untill after the election - an election that they were desperate to win and which, up until the babies overboard fraud, they looked very likely to loose.
Is the Howard Government evil? That's a matter of opinion, but I would say "yes".
Is the Howard Government immoral? More opinion, but again I would say "yes".
Is the Howard Governement dishonest? A matter of public record: yes without any shadow of doubt.
Is the Howard Government stupid? Well, yes. But not even I think they are that stupid.
time
Storage? I am Storage!
Firstly Tea, I agree in principle with much of what you say in your response to James.
But I think you give too much credit to Ruddock and his minions. Immigration decisions have always been contentious. It's just that any semblance of integrity seems to have been swept away in the last couple of years.
From 'The Age', July 24:
Mr Baktiari has been living in Sydney on a Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) but was issued with an intent to cancel that visa in April this year. He is challenging that decision through the courts.
Here's Ruddock's latest rebuttal, if you can call it that, of Baktiari's ethnic origin claim:
Mr Ruddock said Mr Baktiari's claim of belonging to the Hazara race was not proof he was Afghani, as Hazara people lived in many nations around the world.
Anyone doubting the reality of Baktiari's refugee status would do well to read some of this: http://www.hazara.net/
For what it's worth, the immigration department's linguistic analysis "tests" that Ruddock is also relying on have recently been criticised by one of Australia's leading experts on Afghanistan, from the Defence Force Academy no less.
But I think you give too much credit to Ruddock and his minions. Immigration decisions have always been contentious. It's just that any semblance of integrity seems to have been swept away in the last couple of years.
Tea said:
From 'The Age', July 24:
Mr Baktiari has been living in Sydney on a Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) but was issued with an intent to cancel that visa in April this year. He is challenging that decision through the courts.
Here's Ruddock's latest rebuttal, if you can call it that, of Baktiari's ethnic origin claim:
Mr Ruddock said Mr Baktiari's claim of belonging to the Hazara race was not proof he was Afghani, as Hazara people lived in many nations around the world.
Anyone doubting the reality of Baktiari's refugee status would do well to read some of this: http://www.hazara.net/
For what it's worth, the immigration department's linguistic analysis "tests" that Ruddock is also relying on have recently been criticised by one of Australia's leading experts on Afghanistan, from the Defence Force Academy no less.
Sol
Storage is cool
Ah, imegration.
Definatly takes too long. And perhaps the conditions are bad, I couldn't say, having never been to a camp. But why are they so bad? They cost us a fortune to keep up don't they? Destructive protests could be one reason. Cirtainly protests such as asylum seekers sewing thier mouths together will only harm them. The government won't react positvly to that and I wouldn't want them too.
I have to disagree with Tony on the media being allied with the pro-imegration groups. The media are most definatly playing this one from both sides, even the same media groups will show weepy pics of the two boys being led away by police whilst saying that thier mother couldn't even recognise Afgani money.
I just don't think that anyone has all the facts here, one side makes an argument and most of the viewing public can't say for sure if it is valid or not. I know I can't but thats not new. But how many people actually know why the conditions at the detention centers are as they are, or who can even be totally sure of exactly how that is?
Definatly takes too long. And perhaps the conditions are bad, I couldn't say, having never been to a camp. But why are they so bad? They cost us a fortune to keep up don't they? Destructive protests could be one reason. Cirtainly protests such as asylum seekers sewing thier mouths together will only harm them. The government won't react positvly to that and I wouldn't want them too.
I have to disagree with Tony on the media being allied with the pro-imegration groups. The media are most definatly playing this one from both sides, even the same media groups will show weepy pics of the two boys being led away by police whilst saying that thier mother couldn't even recognise Afgani money.
I just don't think that anyone has all the facts here, one side makes an argument and most of the viewing public can't say for sure if it is valid or not. I know I can't but thats not new. But how many people actually know why the conditions at the detention centers are as they are, or who can even be totally sure of exactly how that is?
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
This is my observation on the issue (which I thought was relayed through the cartoon):
Australians are paying for detention centers and government personnel to house, guard, and aide a certain class of immigrants. At the same time, these bureaucratic measures are adding salt to the wounds of humanity by mishandling these immigrants, and thus require that more bureaucracy be implemented in order to quell the situation. All the while, the world watches sensationalized media coverage that does little for the situation at hand.
This situation is not unique to Australia, it just happens to get coverage that the media has handsomely profited from.
Australians are paying for detention centers and government personnel to house, guard, and aide a certain class of immigrants. At the same time, these bureaucratic measures are adding salt to the wounds of humanity by mishandling these immigrants, and thus require that more bureaucracy be implemented in order to quell the situation. All the while, the world watches sensationalized media coverage that does little for the situation at hand.
This situation is not unique to Australia, it just happens to get coverage that the media has handsomely profited from.
Jake the Dog
Storage is cool
other than stating that i'm against our current detention policy and find our governments weak attempts at administering a fair and humane policy absolutely disgusting. i'm trying to stay out of this one as my feelings run strong on this issue and i don't want to get too excited in arguing with you guys.
i’ll only add this; our government is taking us for fools too. i mean, tying our immigration policy to border protection is ridiculous. border protection has nothing to do with refugees. border protection deals with threats or potential threats to Australian national security. border protection means bolstering our coast guard and military and considering with concern some of the powers and events in the Indonesian archipelago.
james, time and i are sitting on the same side of the fence so i'm happy for everyone to see me as having their same opinion, as long as james and time don't mind of course.
i’ll only add this; our government is taking us for fools too. i mean, tying our immigration policy to border protection is ridiculous. border protection has nothing to do with refugees. border protection deals with threats or potential threats to Australian national security. border protection means bolstering our coast guard and military and considering with concern some of the powers and events in the Indonesian archipelago.
james, time and i are sitting on the same side of the fence so i'm happy for everyone to see me as having their same opinion, as long as james and time don't mind of course.
Pradeep
Storage? I am Storage!
"The Federal Government is under fire for its decision to vote against a new United Nations protocol against torture.
The protocol calls for independent visits to prisons as a way of halting torture.
Australia was one of eight countries to vote against the protocol, while the United States abstained, having earlier expressed its opposition to the protocol.
Despite Australia's opposing vote, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted the "optional protocol" to the Convention Against Torture 35 votes to eight, with 10 abstentions.
It will now go before the General Assembly for approval.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd says by voting against the protocol, Australia has lined itself up with countries where torture is more likely to occur, like China, Cuba, Libya and Nigeria.
"It is a remarkable state of affairs and one of which we as Australians should be collectively ashamed," he said.
Mr Rudd says while the US abstained from voting, Australia's stance puts it alone among Western countries.
"What Australia is effectively doing is providing succour to authoritarian regimes around the world to continue to engage in these sorts of practices," he said."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/politics/2002/07/item20020726203230_1.htm
Well Downer has certainly outdone himself this time
The protocol calls for independent visits to prisons as a way of halting torture.
Australia was one of eight countries to vote against the protocol, while the United States abstained, having earlier expressed its opposition to the protocol.
Despite Australia's opposing vote, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted the "optional protocol" to the Convention Against Torture 35 votes to eight, with 10 abstentions.
It will now go before the General Assembly for approval.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd says by voting against the protocol, Australia has lined itself up with countries where torture is more likely to occur, like China, Cuba, Libya and Nigeria.
"It is a remarkable state of affairs and one of which we as Australians should be collectively ashamed," he said.
Mr Rudd says while the US abstained from voting, Australia's stance puts it alone among Western countries.
"What Australia is effectively doing is providing succour to authoritarian regimes around the world to continue to engage in these sorts of practices," he said."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/politics/2002/07/item20020726203230_1.htm
Well Downer has certainly outdone himself this time
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
He should be sacked immediately. I can think of no possible excuse for him.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Hmmm ... Interesting article in The Age on Friday. I don't altogether agree with it, but he makes a very interesting case. Read it for yourself and see what you think:
http://www.theage.com.au/handheld/articles/2002/08/08/1028157988214.htm
http://www.theage.com.au/handheld/articles/2002/08/08/1028157988214.htm
Bartender
Storage is cool
That is an interesting article, but some assumptions are made that seem unrealistic.