Painting Fakes

So, the talks between Government and Opposition on reviving offshore processing have collapsed .  Even though both government and opposition want basically the same thing, each wants their own version of it and neither will compromise.  This is undoubtedly good news  for asylum seekers, at least in the short term, because Australia's current laws as interpreted by the High Court are more compassionate than either of our main parties would like them to be. Meanwhile, Tony Abbot has plumbed new depths of absurdity in this increasingly absurd debate, suggesting that a Coalition Government would return boats to Indonesia .   As usual, Abbot is a little short on practicality here.  First of all, there is the issue of detecting the boats.  The ocean is wide, the boats are small.  Often the first Australian authorities know of their existence is when they chug into the dock on Christmas Island. Secondly, there is the issue of the process of their return.  Most of the boats are not s

Back in September I wrote to Julia Gillard , Immigration Minister Chris Evans and my local member to express the view that both offshore processing and immigration detention should be abandoned and asylum seekers allowed to live in the community.  Not long after, the High Court ruled that offshore processing is illegal and the Gillard government accidentially arrived at a policy somewhat similar to my suggestions. Finally, I have a reply to my letter to Chris Bowen from Kate Falvey, Director of Protection Policy in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.  Some of the things she says are as follows. You will be pleased to know that on 18 October 2010, the Government announced that it would move the majority of children, and a significant number of vulnerable families, into the community by the end of June 2011, by expanding the community detention program.  This commitment was met. As at 21 November 2011, the Minister had approved 2382 clients (1266 adults and 1116 childr

So, a few weeks ago I wrote a letter to Julia Gillard , with copies to Chris Bowen and my local member Graham Perrett, outlining the reasons they should not only abandon overseas processing of boat arrivals but the whole mandatory detention system.  I'm still waiting for the reply, aside from a brief acknowledgement from a member of Perrett's staff thanking me for saying what I think.  But blow me down if they haven't gone and done something quite like what I suggested .  All arrivals will be processed in Australia, with those deemed likely to be granted refugee status given bridging visas and allowed to live in the community after basic health and security checks.  At last, a move in a more humane direction! It would be nice to think they listened to me and the thousands of other people advocating a more humane solution.  Sadly, it seems that it's just a stuff up.  The media is even talking about it as the "failure of migration policy".  Both Liberal and La

The following is a slightly edited version of a letter I sent to my local member and copied to Ms Gillard and Immigration Minister Chris Bowen. The recent High Court decision preventing the government from sending recent boat arrivals to Malaysia is a good opportunity for your government to rethink your approach to asylum seekers. It’s time to accept that the policy of mandatory detention is an expensive failure. In the two decades in which it has been in place, it has done nothing to stop boat arrivals. At the same time it has a massive cost in a number of different ways. It is costly financially – I understand it costs around $1b per year to manage Australia ’s current asylum seeker system, with the majority of this funding the detention centres. That would pay for a lot of resettlement services! It is costly in human terms, in the trauma inflicted on the detainees themselves, particularly as centres become more crowded and longer term detainees become more

In today's edition of The Australian, Denis Shanahan says: The key to success for the Malaysian solution for Labor is to be seen as hard-hearted and uncompromising, putting asylum-seekers on planes, manacled and at gunpoint if necessary, to convince people-smu gglers and their customers the corrupt "business model" will not work. Refugee advocates are starting to look back at the detention centre on Nauru as "the good old days" and advocate for its re-opening. What more can I say?  I previously opined that the differences between Gillard and Howard on asylum seeker policy were so slight Gillard may as well shave her head and put on glasses.  I was wrong.  Howard should buy a red wig and get himself contacts. 

This Labor Party election flyer appeared in my mail-box yesterday.  My expectations of electioneering are quite low so I rarely react strongly but this one definitely got under my skin! Sustainable Australia: We are ensuring a sustainable Australia with tighter control of our borders and record investments in solar and other renewable energy. Since when was detaining aslyum seekers or diverting them to an as yet un-named third world country a sustainability initiative?  Is this what we get now in place of an ETS?  Get real, Labor Party!