Talking Point with Pat Dodson: Can Australia afford not to be reconciled?

Asylum, Detention and Democracy in Australia

[RAP: Julian Burnside gives an excellent account, based on his work with asylum seekers, of the effects of detaining innocent and traumatized adults and children and treating them as criminals in order to discourage other innocent and traumatized people from asking us for help. Some of what he has to say provides some context for recent incidents in Australian detention centres such as the unaccompanied children scuffling and the self-harm and suicide, most recently of Ahmad Al Akabi  this morning and the protests that resulted from it. There are more parts to these presentations available from the source]

Australia's factories of mental illness have claimed yet another victim

NEW calls have been made for an overhaul of immigration detention following the apparent suicide of an Iraqi detainee at Sydney's Villawood centre. Detainees were today staging a hunger strike following the man's death, which comes after a series of rooftop protests at Villawood sparked by the suicide of Fijian detainee Josefa Rauluni in September.

The Greens today demanded an overhaul of Australia's immigration detention system, while refugee advocates said it was taking too long for claims to be processed.
Police and immigration officials said a 41-year-old man had been found unconscious in a shower cubicle at Villawood early this morning.
“The detainee attempted self-harm,” a NSW police spokesman said.
“Staff and ambulance officers attempted to revive the man and he was taken to Liverpool Hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.”
The spokesman said police were treating the death as “non-suspicious”.
Refugee advocate Sara Nathan named the man as father of three Ahmad Obeid Al Eqabi, who she said had committed suicide after having his claim for asylum twice rejected by the Department of Immigration.
Ms Nathan said the man had arrived by boat last year and was detained at Christmas Island before being transferred to Villawood in April.
“He hung himself because he feared he would be killed if he returned to Iraq,” she said.
“Why is it taking over a year for claims to be processed? It is costing taxpayers' dollars to keep people in detention ... these long periods should cease.”
There are currently 164 irregular maritime arrivals at Villawood, a centre that holds 314 detainees in total, which includes overstays.
Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said up to 100 refugees were today on hunger strike at Villawood following Mr Al Eqabi's death.
An Iranian inmate at Villawood, Mosan Manoucheripour, also said a lot of people were grieving and would begin protests.
“We start to do the hunger strike for showing my protest against the act of Immigration, and we want to mourn for this man who died,” he told ABC radio earlier.
Mr Manoucheripour said about 30 detainees had gathered to listen to the Koran.
“They are very very upset and confused and they couldn't sleep, they want to be awake until morning and they want to start the hunger strike,” he said.
However the Department of Immigration said the situation at the facility was “calm” and they had not noticed anything out of the ordinary.
“There were no significant numbers of people not consuming breakfast this morning,” a departmental spokesman said.
“While staff are saddened with two deaths in recent months the important task is to ensure the welfare of the department's clients ... that is the first priority.”
Mr Rintoul said a full inquiry was needed into the Mr Al Eqabi's death.
“The factories of mental illness have claimed yet another victim,” he said in a statement.
“Incidents of self-harm are becoming daily occurrences at detention centres across the country.”
Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said detention has a “devastating” impact on the mental health of asylum seekers.
“What we've seen overnight was a man who was so desperate and so sickened by his detention that he's taken his own life,” she told reporters in Canberra.
“It's a very, very sad event and I hope that the government quickly reviews the way that they're managing the system.
“We really need a total overhaul of the immigration detention system.”
Three groups of asylum-seekers, including Chinese and Sri Lankan Tamils, staged rooftop protests at Villawood in September after Mr Rauluni, 36, leapt to his death from a roof ahead of his deportation.
This year there have been 119 boat arrivals carrying a total of 5693 passengers and 296 crew.
There are currently 2920 irregular maritime arrivals detained on Christmas Island and 2677 in mainland facilities including the Villawood detention centre.

[RAP: RAP wonders if the Coalition will be celebrating this latest tragedy as it seems to fit with their anything to "stop the boats" message. And with this, more of Australia's humanitarian vote is turning Green.]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/tensions-rise-at-sydneys-villawood-detention-centre-after-inmates-death/

Unaccompanied Detained Children in Fight at Melbourne Immigration Detention Centre

AN investigation will be held into a brawl involving about 50 unaccompanied Afghan asylum-seeker boys at a Melbourne immigration detention centre. Department of Immigration spokesman Sandi Logan said the boys were unaccompanied minors and were yesterday involved in “a number of separate scuffles in the dining room” of the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation centre in Broadmeadows, in Melbourne's west.
The brawl erupted after 98 unaccompanied minors were transferred from Australia's Christmas Island detention centre to the Melbourne centre over the weekend.
Seven of the boys, aged about 15-18, were taken to hospital, most with cuts and bruises and one with a possibly fractured nose.
One boy remains in hospital, with the rest having been returned to the detention centre.
Mr Logan said furniture and windows in the dining room were also damaged during the brawl, which broke out before 8pm, but no staff were injured.

“Victoria Police were called and assisted to restore order in about 30 minutes, with the individuals returned to their rooms,” Mr Logan said.
“The centre is now calm and has been since last night.”
A department spokesman said there were currently 136 people being held at the centre.
Mr Logan said detention services providers would investigate the incident and provide a full report.
AAP

[RAP: "Department of Immigration spokesman Sandi Logan said the boys were unaccompanied minors"  RAP wonders whether this was "a brawl" or "separate scuffles" and notes that having been in positions of responsibility in secure institutions that it is a fine line between needing police assistance and not. Often it is the presence of the police itself that decides the seriousness with which an event is viewed. 

The only surprising aspect of this story of unaccompanied, stressed and traumatized children, detained by Australia and then becoming involved in horizontal conflicts and violence is that it wasn't predicted and the risks contained. Primarily, it must be said the risks should be contained by releasing all these children from detention immediately and caring for them according to our international and human rights obligations. And as with most comparable countries stop detaining and criminalizing people for seeking asylum and feigning surprise when people's behaviours reflect their treatment and the contexts in which they're held.]


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/teenage-brawl-erupts-at-melbourne-immigration-detention-centre/

A Great Day for Freedom?

In the refugee case, the court (unanimously) said that the offshore processing of asylum seekers had to be conducted with procedural fairness and according to law. The fact that the former immigration minister Philip Ruddock had tried to deny legal rights to possible refugees by containing them in black holes like Christmas Island did not excuse the ministerial obligation to observe binding decisions of the Australian courts or the Migration Act itself.

Ruddock's invention, we recently discovered, was the result of some creative discussion around his family dinner table.
Already the court's decision is being flagged by the ''stop the boats'' brigade as an open invitation to asylum seekers and people smugglers to overrun our borders.
Not quite. The broader challenges to the Migration Act and the minister's discretion on granting protection visas were not upheld.
The way in which chapter three and rules of procedural fairness are applied by the High Court are far from consistent. After all, the court has held that it is perfectly legal to lock up a person indefinitely without charge. It has also held that secret evidence can be used by courts to make decisions and that can be done without showing the evidence to the party adversely affected and having it properly tested.
Chief Justice James Spigelman of NSW, who would have been chief justice of the High Court had it not been for Kevin Rudd, said something last month that we all know, but least expect judges to say publicly: ''It is all too easy to dress up a conclusion, reached on other grounds, by selecting from the smorgasbord of maxims and principles of interpretation those which assist the achievement of the predetermined result.''
Yesterday was an emphatic statement by the High Court led by Robert French. Further, ministers ignore the law and the judges at their peril. That both major decisions were scheduled to come thudding down from on high on the same day rubs in the points even more forcefully.
justinian@lawpress.com.au

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-great-day-for-freedom-as-gavel-falls-on-government-20101111-17pc0.html

Boat people victims of a big lie

MY FATHER dug up a photo from the family archives last week of my late Great Aunt Rita, his father’s sister. She is standing aboard a boat that had just arrived in Port Melbourne in the late 1940s. Staring at her across the deck is a crowd of well-dressed, young smiling faces.

You’d have to wonder why they were smiling. They had just travelled six weeks across the ocean from southern Europe after fleeing the ravages of World War II.
Many were alone, many had lost entire families.
Perhaps it was because they knew that interest rates in Australia were then controlled by the government.
Rita was this country’s first welfare officer, having served as immigration minister Arthur Calwell’s secretary.
Her job was to ensure safe passage of post-war displaced people to this country under the government’s policy of Populate Or Perish.
I’m told she would often get on the boat herself and sail to Europe to collect the lost and bewildered, travel back with them, many with little or no English, and help them resettle as the New Australians.
She was a pioneer in a program that eventually transformed the mono-cultural character of Australia. Most would say for the better.
Looking at these pictures, it struck me, as odd as it may sound, that the big four banks have done the political debate on asylum seekers a service this past week, by making too much money and charging people more to have some of it.
They have put the issue in context. And in doing so they have exposed the great lie of the recent election campaign and the moral perversion that accompanied it.
Today, unless you live in Inverbrackie, the only thing in your hand would be a calculator and the last thing on your mind would be the threat of a population explosion or cultural dilution. One of the burdens of living in Australia is that you have to invent horrors to be outraged by.
In the past week, as people recalculate their monthly mortgage payments, hundreds of asylum seekers have quietly arrived at our shores.
A daily missive from the Government heralds the arrival of yet another boat from unknown destination.
But you wouldn’t know it unless you’re on Brendan O’Connor’s email list. And what of the new Paul Erlich-inspired population bomb? But barely a word mentioned.
It simply goes to prove, in a stark demonstration of electoral caprice, that the recent federal election was fought, largely, around a big fat lie - that Australia was at risk of being swamped by boat people. Again.
It’s no wonder that there is some deep soul searching going on in the Labor Party at present. Much of it is about how it approached this issue during the election in response to the Coalition’s well-worn dog whistle. Greg Combet called it for what it is last week when he suggested the values of compassion, equity and social justice had been abandoned in favour of focus groups and polling.
And so it is with this deliberately confused debate around immigration, population and illegal entrants and the push polling of fear that has driven it.
Its effect has been a wilful distortion which encourages the issue of illegal entrants to be confused and demonised in the community as an excuse for failures to deal with the broader discussion on immigration levels and population numbers, which neither side of politics has an answer for.
The fact is that the number of boat arrivals in the past year numbered 5237, which is 3.15 per cent of the total immigration program of 168,623. If you take it as a percentage of the 2009 net overseas migration figures or population growth which was 320,400, the percentage is down under 1 per cent.
Here’s another figure. In 2008, there were an estimated 42 million displaced people in the world, 15.2 million refugees and almost one million asylum seekers.
Australia is abou tNo. 22 in the world in the ranking of countries most likely to have people lining up at the border to get in. More people actually apply to get into Cyprus and Malta than they do Australia.
YESTERDAY, the Sunday papers warned that we have hit record high numbers of people arriving by boat, although the figure is only marginally higher than it was in 2001.
Julia Gillard was right when she said it would take 20 years to fill the MCG with asylum seekers as they arrive at their current rate to Australia.
More backpackers are in this country illegally than people who arrive by boat.
But what she failed to do - and still fails to do - is clearly articulate the issue as not one about a bigger Australia and immigration levels but one that has distinct and separate obligations, which we as a country have signed up to.
With every wave of migration to Australia - whether forced or encouraged, and largely in reaction to war - there have been accompanying campaigns of fear that white European heritage and culture would be further diluted.
Whether it was the Greeks and Italians, Eastern Europeans, Russians or Turkish, or the Indochinese that followed, the same fears were raised in the community and fostered for political advantage.
How ironic that there is probably not an Australian alive today who hasn’t eaten at a Vietnamese or Chinese restaurant. Beer companies now even make ads about kebabs. We all eat Greek salads and spaghetti bolognese.
Hell, there is even a North African diner in Neutral Bay that is permanently booked out.
Sadly, the current hysteria is a case of history repeating itself under a different racial and religious banner. This time the fear being cultivated is that we are to be swamped by Muslims.
Again, the notion is an absurdity. Not just because many fail, sometimes deliberately, to make distinctions between Islam and extremism, but because the numbers simply don’t stack up.
For a start, of the three main groups currently dominating illegal entrants to the country, the Tamils from Sri Lanka are predominantly Catholic or Hindu. They are not Muslim.
Of the Afghan refugees, the majority are Hazara. And while they are Muslim, the reason most are fleeing their country is because the Taliban are terrorising them for not being Muslim enough.
On both sides of politics, there are decent men and women who privately see this issue through a prism of compassion, humanity and reason.
But the politics of fear that has been allowed to fester in the community has swamped the judgment of those whose responsibility it is to lead by example and principle, and not by misguided populism. Populism should be reserved for bashing banks and a bit more humanity put back into the debate about asylum seekers.

From: Simon Benson in The Daily Telegraph.

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/simonbenson/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/boat_people_victims_of_a_big_lie/

SBY warns Australia ahead of meeting

From Jakarta Post:

Just a day before talks with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told Australia to stay away from the Papuan torture issue, vowing to bring to justice those involved in the torture.“There’s no need to pressure Indonesia. We have conducted an investigation and are ready for a trial or anything that is required to uphold justice and discipline,” he told a press conference on Monday.
Gillard arrived in Jakarta on Monday morning, and will have lunch with the President on Tuesday before heading to Yogyakarta to visit victims of the Mount Merapi eruption.
Indonesia, which just received the ASEAN chairmanship from Vietnam last week, has long been proud of its democracy and human rights record. Under Yudhoyono, the country wants to set an example in upholding human rights and democratic principles. 
The video posted online last month by the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission that showed Indonesian Military (TNI) members allegedly torturing Papuans has tainted Indonesia’s image, with local and international human rights organizations immediately expressing condemnation.
New York-based Human Rights Watch urged Gillard to “press for the accountability of abusive Indonesian security forces” through a letter it sent to Australia’s House of Representatives last week.
“The trial will happen soon, and it will be a just trial. If there is a mistake then we will punish the perpetrators. There will be no impunity,” Yudhoyono said.
The President, however, said the presence of the TNI in Papua was inevitable, “although the world doesn’t believe it, there are in fact separatist movements in Papua.”
The issue of the torture of Papuans suspected to be part of separatist movements, however, has overshadowed other Australian interests, such as the handling of human smuggling and the fate of its citizens on Indonesia’s death row.
Prior to Gillard’s attendance at the ASEAN Summit in Hanoi, she said she would suggest that leaders set up regional refugee centers.
“Certainly I will raise the issue of human smuggling and the movement of people,” Gillard told ABC Television. “The dialogue has been continuing.”
Gillard’s trip follows a tour by Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, who went to Indonesia, Malaysia and Timor Leste, which Australia has nominated as a potential home for the regional center.
Timor Leste has agreed to discuss the proposal, but remains cautious of the plan that would see asylum seekers held in the country while their refugee claims are assessed.
On a possible plea to let Australian citizens, including Schapelle Corby and the Bali Nine, off the hook, Gillard has said she would make it private with Yudhoyono.
Gillard told ABC News that it would be inappropriate to discuss if she would lobby Yudhoyono on behalf of the Australians.
“Clearly, Australia does not support the death penalty — that is our position as a nation,” she said.
“But when it comes to advocacy on behalf of individuals, it’s certainly in the best interests of those individuals to be doing those discussions privately, rather than publicly, and I intend to.”



http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/11/02/sby-warns-australia-ahead-meeting.html

New call for end to mandatory detention

Xmas Island Detention Centre

Australia's shameful and embarrassing position as the only industrialized country to routinely imprison people for seeking asylum continues as the HRC makes yet another call for the prison camps to be closed.

"The Australian Human Rights Commission has again recommended an end to mandatory detention of asylum seekers.

The latest call coincides with the release of the Commission's 2010 Christmas Island immigration detention report.

Human Rights Commissioner Catherine Branson says despite recent decisions by the federal government to move children and families into commmunity-based detention, conditions on Christmas Island remain unacceptable."

http://www.sbs.com.au/podcasts/Podcasts/world-view/episode/120532/New-call-for-end-to-mandatory-detention

Australia Jumps The Queue In East Timor

From Shona Hawkes in the newly reborn New Matilda.

"Many are against it because they think that East Timor’s first priority should be its own people’s basic needs. Few Timorese people can access clean water. Many can’t get to a doctor, or a school — half the population is illiterate. This year crazy weather has led to floods, landslides and big winds, tipping subsistence farmers over the brink. People I’ve spoken to don’t understand why a big, rich country like Australia is trying to offload its responsibilities onto its struggling half-island neighbour.

[...]

To establish a refugee processing centre, Australia would have to ensure that there were no overlapping land claims for a proposed site, or else negotiate with all legitimate claim holders. Alternatively it risks being complicit in land rights violations. Because of the lack of land laws, it’s not clear who owns land in East Timor. In numerous cases the East Timor Ministry for Justice has simply claimed properties as State land, without recognising others’ land claims or ensuring just compensation. Traditional customary landowners and vulnerable people have no means to assert and defend a land claim."

http://newmatilda.com/2010/10/22/australia-jumps-queue-east-timor
Response AP is happy indeed to see New Matilda breathing again after her near-death experience.


Have a look at:  http://fretilinmedia.blogspot.com/2010/10/fretilin-timor-leste-not-ready-to-have.html .

Training for more doctors, nurses and health professionals

"The Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the Minister for Health Nicola Roxon today announced funding for the clinical training of up to 12,000 more medical, nursing and allied health professional students to help deliver better health care to Australians."

http://www.pm.gov.au/node/6954

New Risks Identified from Second Hand Smoke

Smoking, ADHD link found: study

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/smoking-adhd-link-found-study-20101008-16b0g.html

"Wendy Max, Professor of Health Economics at the University of California San Francisco, said the results showed how passive smoking could impact on a child's overall health as well as learning and social development.

Prof Max said the trend of a rising smoking rate in developing nations ensured those countries less equipped to deal with the ramifications would bear an increasing burden.
"Children in countries with high smoking prevalence are at greatest risk," Prof Max said.
"As smoking rates in developed countries (such as Australia) continue to fall, the burden of childhood exposure to second-hand smoke will be disproportionately borne by countries that already face economic disadvantages."

A huge issue affecting the AP region. Thailand has made a number of moves in this area and is to be applauded for some of them. Their ban on advertising of tobacco products is noticeable to anyone paying attention. One downside is the silly censoring of smoking in TV movies in which a smoky vaseline splodge follows what everyone knows to be a cigarette around the screen. Marring the movie and hiding nothing. ( A US Lobby Group's brief appraisal of Thailand's efforts: http://www.tobaccofreecenter.org/resources_country/thailand, Risk Factors of Tobacco Use Among Thai Adolescents: http://www.mat.or.th/journal/files/Vol92_Suppl.3_4_9867.pdf, Thailand Government on Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bans: http://www.who.int/tobacco/training/success_stories/en/best_practices_thailand_adv_ban.pdf)

Indonesia however continues to lag behind, trampling the rights of Indonesians to clean air. Indonesia is one of a very few countries in the world that has refused and failed to sign the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. It is common in Indonesia to ride in public transport in which half of the passengers are men, many of them smoking and the other half women and children breathing in the fumes with the windows closed. Indonesian sports and entertainment promoters continue to use Corporate Tobacco to promote, fund and hijack their events, linking the cool of the musicians with the whiff of smoke. (A US Lobby Group's brief appraisal of Indonesia's woeful situation: http://www.tobaccofreecenter.org/resources_country/indonesia, BMJ: Tobacco Control in Indonesia: http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/8/1/85.extract, Full Text: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1763925/pdf/v008p00085.pdf)

WA police too reliant on tasers: CCC

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/04/3029074.htm

The Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) has found there is a serious over-reliance on tasers within the West Australian Police Service... there were concerns about the disproportionate use of tasers against indigenous people.

(See Also: http://www.taser.com/Pages/default.aspx, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/IOR41/023/2010/en , http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/049/2010/en (death following Taser use)

Indonesia concludes Australian drug smuggler Scott Rush's final hearing

The president has previously shown little mercy to death row drug convicts, although he regularly reduces sentences for corrupt officials.

I'm not usually inclined to include these personal interest stories. However, the above line caught my eye and made me smile.

None of this takes anything away from the fact that prisons in Indonesia are appalling and Mr Rush will be joining the many Indonesians and overseas nationals that languish in them. Families of detained Indonesian people will be rallying around to raise money to secure the most basic necessities for their family members in often far-away prisons.

(See: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/indonesian-prisons-pamper-the-rich/352166 ; http://www.indonesiamatters.com/9687/indonesian-prisons/ )

Australia's Dark Heart

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/03/alice-spring-murder-racism

When an Aboriginal man was killed by five white youths in Alice Springs last year, it was the latest race-hate crime in an area plagued by violence. But the lenient sentences handed down to the "Ute 5" have sparked alarm that there will be a racial backlash in the Australian outback

UNHCR Affiliates Accused of Refugee Corruption

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19615

" Speaking to The Irrawaddy, Ko Maung, a member of both the BRO and NLDLA, said, “I became a member of two organizations doing business with the Burmese refugees. I have paid a so-called 'membership fee' of 60 Malaysian Ringgit (US $20) per month to each group for one year now. But when the UNHCR began registering refugees, I was overlooked for others who had paid more money.
“I’ve no document to live in Malaysia,” he added. “I am frustrated that the UNHCR passed responsibility [for the registration process] to other organizations and that it is not involved directly with the refugees.”

This is "the queue" that the right, the politicians and the elites in Australia say the sunburned travellers on the leaky boats should be languishing at the back of rather than using their initiative and getting themselves to safety. Albeit as the UNHCR says to anyone who will listen that there is no orderly queue and that refugees should get themselves to safety any way they can. Sometimes it seems Australia is discriminating against people with initiative.

Bikes For Remote Indigenous Kids in Australia

New Bikes For The Mt Liebig Kids

http://www.sbs.com.au/podcasts/Podcasts/world-view/episode/114687/Bikes-for-remote-Indigenous-kids

"The Bikes for Bush Foundation presented the 30 bikes to the children of Mt Liebig, about 325 kilometres west of Alice Springs."

When Response was in the UK there was a bike project that took found, left, lost and stolen bikes from the police, made them lovely and then gave them away to local inner-city kids with free workshops where the young people could bring them in and learn to repair and maintain them. It made a big difference to young people's lives and we're hoping it can do the same in remote Australia. Will there be any kind of similar follow-up here?

Australia Assists With Reproductive and Post-Abortion Health Care In Mae Sot

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/aust-assists-reproductive-health-care-20100915-15b3v.html

"Until now we haven't received any assistance from the Australian government for these populations who are under threat of forced labour, forced relocation by the (Burmese) state government," [Dr Cynthia Maung] told AAP.

Govt lifts freeze on refugee processing

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/30/3026177.htm?section=justin

"The Federal Government has announced it is immediately lifting the freeze on processing the refugee claims of Afghan asylum seekers"