Delta40
02-27-2014, 09:52 AM
Had to get this off my chest. Alot happening in Oz right now.
The Cost of Staying White
I’ve done a lot of tweeting in the last few days. Got into it with a right winger who bombarded me with nothing but accusations. How I didn’t give a hoot about the asylum seekers who drowned under the Labor government reign, that I was a disgrace to my country and I had no facts whatsoever to back up my argument.
I replied ‘so what?’ Did he mean that I couldn’t lobby for the fair treatment of people now just because people had died under a previous government? After a few exchanges and more insults he basically said no, I couldn’t because boat people had died, I did nothing then and so any arguments I put forward now are therefore invalid.
In reality, civil unrest slowly gathers impetus. People weren’t happy then. It’s a fact that more people are unhappy now. As this unease grows another realisation is becoming more and more abundantly clear. The subject of asylum seekers can no longer be used as a bargaining chip by political parties during election campaigns. We’re starting to understand that while health, education and employment are part of the standard package, asylum seekers is a stand-alone issue. It’s a human rights one and it doesn’t matter at all which party you vote for.
While some of us loyally lean to the left or the right, people are suffering and the shocking truth is no party we’re affiliated to is lobbying to receive asylum seekers onshore, process their applications within six months and be done with it.
The UK do it, Canada does it. Their border websites are friendly, informative and set out step by step the process. In contrast, ours is hostile, terrifying and provides video and audio in several languages as well as comic propaganda to prospective asylum seekers about the terrible conditions in the offshore compounds with a 100% assurance that they will never be settled in Australia.
At the same time Immigration Minister Scott Morrison guarantees us that asylum seekers are safe within the compounds so long as they remain cooperative indefinitely. He has to say this on account of the recent death of Reza Barati whose skull was crushed by G4S staff on Manus Island in February this year. More than sixty other asylum seekers were seriously injured as well. Nobody is really sure what happened as PNG officials investigate, the situation remains extremely tenuous.
Despite the vast majority of asylum seekers arriving by air, the spotlight is shone on the minority who arrive by boat. The Abbott government has illegally deemed these people to be criminal and as such they’re not allowed to even touch Australian soil. At extraordinary expense, the Royal Australian Navy is currently a watchdog along the coastline and intercepts any boats. It tows them back into Indonesian waters, without the Indonesian government’s permission and leaves them to their fate.
If the boat isn’t seaworthy the government provides a capsule worth $200,000 and puts the asylum seekers in there. So far we’ve spent $2.5m and we’ll spend much more for as long as asylum seekers from all over the world get duped into thinking they’re going to be flying to Australia and hand their passports over in Indonesia. Men, women, children, babies are at the merciless hands of people smugglers and then at the merciless hands of the RAN. The capsules can only be used once and wash up along the shores of Indonesia or Java. To date, three people have died. Others have been beaten by locals and suffered from severe dehydration. What is worth noting however is that the Indonesian government has continually warned the Australian government to stop smuggling people into Indonesia. The asylum seekers are not from Indonesia in the first place and have no legal right to be there. Australia however will not take heed, continues to invade Indonesian waters and send people back by boats while Tony Abbott makes speeches how this country will not be intimidated and Operation Sovereign Borders is about saving lives.
In the meantime, Indonesia has increased its military power and deployed extra aircraft to its military bases.
G4S will return to the UK before any investigation into the death of Reza Barati can get underway.
A week and half later Barati’s body was under guard by the very staff that brought about his death still awaiting autopsy.
Australia will now fork out $1.2b to Transfield Security to oversee the asylum seekers on Manus Island for the next 20 months. Lord knows how much they’re getting paid in Nauru where children stand in line for up to two hours in searing heat waiting for food.
A lot of the issue is the government’s insistence on secrecy. They say it is for security reasons. Journalists don’t have access to information nor can they check on the wellbeing of asylum seekers on these offshore compounds in third countries. The application for a visa to Nauru for a journalist is $8000 and it’s non-refundable. Usually it’s declined. In PNG, authorities won’t let you take pictures of Manus. We’re really relying on whistleblowers for information.
We do know that given the abject conditions at Nauru, women miscarry; some opt for abortion and so are flown to Brisbane for the procedure.
There is no schooling or advanced healthcare available. Orphaned children must fend for themselves in a compound that is next to an abandoned phosphate mine with no facilities or programs in place for them.
These places are only operating due to the deals made by the former Labor government who increased its foreign aid to these countries. As it’s all in a bid to keep asylum seekers out of Australia, our present government hasn’t even overseen how the aid is being distributed.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has since approached the Cambodian President Hun Sen and discussed the possibility of resettling the asylum seekers there. In view of the recent tragedy, the government wants a quick solution. Never mind that Cambodia has 30,000 refugees who are not allowed to work or go to school and live in terrible poverty. This is not the concern of the Australian government. Neither do they care about cultural problems. In PNG the appointed manager of Manus is an ex Sri Lankan Commando who may have been involved in war crimes. Some of the refugees are Tamils. Abbott refuses to get involved with these so called ‘difficult’ subjects.
What we know and the asylum seekers know is they’re never going to get processed. They’re destined to be locked up for an indeterminate period of time for a crime they never committed. Serial killers and paedophiles get treated better and everyone knows this at some level yet we continue to accept the atrocious treatment being inflicted upon innocent men, women and children as if they somehow deserve it.
According to the UN, Australia is in breach of some 150 human rights but like the leaky boats some of them arrived in, such censures just don’t hold any water since the Australian government isn’t getting fined for maltreating human beings.
Nobody will admit to the influence our historical White Australia Policy is playing nor how we are steeped in Colonialism but it’s really here, lurking like a huge elephant in the room.
Ironically the real illegals are people who arrive here legitimately and outstay their ticket or visa. Remarkably 65% of those are British but nobody is kicking up a stink about the Poms. Instead it’s a bit of a joke. No interpreter is needed to tell them ‘Go back to where you came from’.
So how fortunate our system doesn’t allow a little English Rose to be trapped behind the barbed wired fence of Nauru burning under the blazing sun awaiting deportation with her family. Because if it did, this nation would face the biggest international human rights uproar ever known to mankind.
Face it. We all know this to be true.
We need to stand back from our own fence lines, our own politics and see this for what it really is. Asylum seekers need our common human decency. We’re a country that can afford this on every single level.
Delta40
26 February 2014.
The Cost of Staying White
I’ve done a lot of tweeting in the last few days. Got into it with a right winger who bombarded me with nothing but accusations. How I didn’t give a hoot about the asylum seekers who drowned under the Labor government reign, that I was a disgrace to my country and I had no facts whatsoever to back up my argument.
I replied ‘so what?’ Did he mean that I couldn’t lobby for the fair treatment of people now just because people had died under a previous government? After a few exchanges and more insults he basically said no, I couldn’t because boat people had died, I did nothing then and so any arguments I put forward now are therefore invalid.
In reality, civil unrest slowly gathers impetus. People weren’t happy then. It’s a fact that more people are unhappy now. As this unease grows another realisation is becoming more and more abundantly clear. The subject of asylum seekers can no longer be used as a bargaining chip by political parties during election campaigns. We’re starting to understand that while health, education and employment are part of the standard package, asylum seekers is a stand-alone issue. It’s a human rights one and it doesn’t matter at all which party you vote for.
While some of us loyally lean to the left or the right, people are suffering and the shocking truth is no party we’re affiliated to is lobbying to receive asylum seekers onshore, process their applications within six months and be done with it.
The UK do it, Canada does it. Their border websites are friendly, informative and set out step by step the process. In contrast, ours is hostile, terrifying and provides video and audio in several languages as well as comic propaganda to prospective asylum seekers about the terrible conditions in the offshore compounds with a 100% assurance that they will never be settled in Australia.
At the same time Immigration Minister Scott Morrison guarantees us that asylum seekers are safe within the compounds so long as they remain cooperative indefinitely. He has to say this on account of the recent death of Reza Barati whose skull was crushed by G4S staff on Manus Island in February this year. More than sixty other asylum seekers were seriously injured as well. Nobody is really sure what happened as PNG officials investigate, the situation remains extremely tenuous.
Despite the vast majority of asylum seekers arriving by air, the spotlight is shone on the minority who arrive by boat. The Abbott government has illegally deemed these people to be criminal and as such they’re not allowed to even touch Australian soil. At extraordinary expense, the Royal Australian Navy is currently a watchdog along the coastline and intercepts any boats. It tows them back into Indonesian waters, without the Indonesian government’s permission and leaves them to their fate.
If the boat isn’t seaworthy the government provides a capsule worth $200,000 and puts the asylum seekers in there. So far we’ve spent $2.5m and we’ll spend much more for as long as asylum seekers from all over the world get duped into thinking they’re going to be flying to Australia and hand their passports over in Indonesia. Men, women, children, babies are at the merciless hands of people smugglers and then at the merciless hands of the RAN. The capsules can only be used once and wash up along the shores of Indonesia or Java. To date, three people have died. Others have been beaten by locals and suffered from severe dehydration. What is worth noting however is that the Indonesian government has continually warned the Australian government to stop smuggling people into Indonesia. The asylum seekers are not from Indonesia in the first place and have no legal right to be there. Australia however will not take heed, continues to invade Indonesian waters and send people back by boats while Tony Abbott makes speeches how this country will not be intimidated and Operation Sovereign Borders is about saving lives.
In the meantime, Indonesia has increased its military power and deployed extra aircraft to its military bases.
G4S will return to the UK before any investigation into the death of Reza Barati can get underway.
A week and half later Barati’s body was under guard by the very staff that brought about his death still awaiting autopsy.
Australia will now fork out $1.2b to Transfield Security to oversee the asylum seekers on Manus Island for the next 20 months. Lord knows how much they’re getting paid in Nauru where children stand in line for up to two hours in searing heat waiting for food.
A lot of the issue is the government’s insistence on secrecy. They say it is for security reasons. Journalists don’t have access to information nor can they check on the wellbeing of asylum seekers on these offshore compounds in third countries. The application for a visa to Nauru for a journalist is $8000 and it’s non-refundable. Usually it’s declined. In PNG, authorities won’t let you take pictures of Manus. We’re really relying on whistleblowers for information.
We do know that given the abject conditions at Nauru, women miscarry; some opt for abortion and so are flown to Brisbane for the procedure.
There is no schooling or advanced healthcare available. Orphaned children must fend for themselves in a compound that is next to an abandoned phosphate mine with no facilities or programs in place for them.
These places are only operating due to the deals made by the former Labor government who increased its foreign aid to these countries. As it’s all in a bid to keep asylum seekers out of Australia, our present government hasn’t even overseen how the aid is being distributed.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has since approached the Cambodian President Hun Sen and discussed the possibility of resettling the asylum seekers there. In view of the recent tragedy, the government wants a quick solution. Never mind that Cambodia has 30,000 refugees who are not allowed to work or go to school and live in terrible poverty. This is not the concern of the Australian government. Neither do they care about cultural problems. In PNG the appointed manager of Manus is an ex Sri Lankan Commando who may have been involved in war crimes. Some of the refugees are Tamils. Abbott refuses to get involved with these so called ‘difficult’ subjects.
What we know and the asylum seekers know is they’re never going to get processed. They’re destined to be locked up for an indeterminate period of time for a crime they never committed. Serial killers and paedophiles get treated better and everyone knows this at some level yet we continue to accept the atrocious treatment being inflicted upon innocent men, women and children as if they somehow deserve it.
According to the UN, Australia is in breach of some 150 human rights but like the leaky boats some of them arrived in, such censures just don’t hold any water since the Australian government isn’t getting fined for maltreating human beings.
Nobody will admit to the influence our historical White Australia Policy is playing nor how we are steeped in Colonialism but it’s really here, lurking like a huge elephant in the room.
Ironically the real illegals are people who arrive here legitimately and outstay their ticket or visa. Remarkably 65% of those are British but nobody is kicking up a stink about the Poms. Instead it’s a bit of a joke. No interpreter is needed to tell them ‘Go back to where you came from’.
So how fortunate our system doesn’t allow a little English Rose to be trapped behind the barbed wired fence of Nauru burning under the blazing sun awaiting deportation with her family. Because if it did, this nation would face the biggest international human rights uproar ever known to mankind.
Face it. We all know this to be true.
We need to stand back from our own fence lines, our own politics and see this for what it really is. Asylum seekers need our common human decency. We’re a country that can afford this on every single level.
Delta40
26 February 2014.