Will Australia’s PM wash the feet of refugees on Manus and Nauru?

Molenbeek

 

The terrorist attacks carried out in different countries have invariably been committed out by own nationals. In Australia too, the very few instances of ‘terrorism’ were carried out by Australians, as have been the terrorists attacks in France and now in Belgium by their National citizens. In Norway, it was a Norwegian.

For Malcolm Turnbull to blame the Belgium carnage onto refugees or slack Border Control is malicious and plain wrong. The Belgium Ambassador pointed this out very clearly. Turnbull was trying to make political gain out of the misery of others, fanning the flames of xenophobia.If anything, our government is guilty of terrorism. They have jailed refugees on Manus and Nauru without trial for no reason other than to prevent others  trying to escape the hell-holes of Middle Eastern wars. Of the 12000 refugees that Abbott promised to accept in Australia lst September only 26 have been accepted so far.

Canada promised to take 25 000.  I believe most of them have now been settled in Canada.

I think it would be nice if our Malcolm Turnbull in the spirit of Easter, made amends and anoint the feet of those people so badly wronged by him. It is never too late.

The refugees will forgive!

 

 

Light at the end of darkest tunnel in Australia’s history.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-23/turnbull-says-changes-to-asylum-seeker-policy-will-be-considered/6799162

Australia’s asylum seeker policy ‘controversial’, changes will be considered: Malcolm Turnbull – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Australia’s asylum seeker policy ‘controversial’, changes will be considered: Malcolm TurnbullBy Susan McDonald

Posted 21 minutes agoWed 23 Sep 2015, 3:44pm

Photo: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says changes to Australia’s asylum seeker policy will be carefully considered. (AFP: Peter Parks)

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he is concerned about the plight of asylum seekers in Australian-run detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island.

Mr Turnbull described the Government’s asylum seeker policy as controversial and challenging.

He told Sky News any changes to policy will be carefully considered.

“Our policies will change, all policies change but when we do make changes we’ll do so in a considered way and they will be made by the ministers, myself, [and] the Cabinet.”

More to come.

Peter Greste is freed. What about the Manus Island refugees?

Asylum seekers on Manus Island.

Australian journalist Peter Greste is freed through the intervention of the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Could Abbott show similar compassion and free the refugees held in detention on Manus Island, Christmas Island and Nauru?

Peter Greste was at least charged with something, yet the refugees, some of them locked up for well over one year have never been charged.

Nauru

I mean, are the refugees going to be locked up forever, totally forgotten?
It is a stain so reminiscent of Auschwitz footage I saw on TV just last Friday.”

No matter on how we look at the situations of refugees in indefinite detention under the ‘care’ of Australia. We can’t go into the future without dealing with the past.

It might help again to point out the following.

Here a partial extract written by Paul Toohey; ‘That sinking feeling.’

“The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, to which Australia is a signatory, defines a refugee as:

“Any person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country”.

This definition is used by the Australian Government to determine whether our country has protection obligations towards an individual. If a person is found to be a refugee, Australia is obliged under international law to offer protection and support and to ensure that they are not sent back unwillingly to the country of origin.

An asylum seeker is a person who has sought protection as a refugee, but whose claim for refugee status has not yet been assessed. Every refugee has at some point been an asylum seeker.

Those asylum seekers who are found to be refugees are entitled to international protection and assistance. Those who are found not to be refugees, nor to be in need of any other form of international protection, can be sent back to their country of origin.

As of 30 June 2014 there were 24,500 asylum seekers who had arrived by boat (including 1,870 children) who had been permitted to live in the community on Bridging Visas while waiting for their claims for protection to be processed.

As at June 30 2014 there were 3,624 people in immigration detention facilities and 3,007 people in community detention.

MYTHS ABOUT REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS
There are many myths about refugees and asylum seekers. These are some of the common ones.

People who come by boat are illegals. The UNHCR states that a person who has a well-founded fear of persecution should be viewed as a refugee and not labelled an ‘illegal immigrant’ as the very nature of persecution means their only means of escape may be via illegal entry or the use of false documentation or having no documents at all. The right to enter without prior authorisation is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which Australia helped to draft.

Boat people are ‘queue jumpers’. Some believe that people who arrive by boat are taking the place of more deserving refugees waiting in resettlement camps. The reality is that there is no orderly queue, only a small proportion of the world’s refugees are registered with the UNHCR and in many places there is no opportunity to register at all.

Boat arrivals aren’t genuine refugees. Asylum seekers who arrive by boat are subject to the same assessment criteria as all other asylum applicants. Recent figures show that over 90% of asylum seekers arriving by boat have been found to be refugees and granted protection here or in another country.

We take more refugees than our share. Australia is one of only about 20 countries who participate in the UNHCR’s resettlement program and we accept a quota of about 13,750 per year. However this is only 0.03 per cent of the worlds 4 million refugees. The UNHCR’s program currently only resettles 1 per cent of the world’s refugees, with most remaining in developing countries neighbouring the countries from which they have fled.

Refugees receive higher welfare payments than Australian citizens. There is no truth to this myth, which has been widely circulated by email. Refugees living in the community have only the same entitlements as all other permanent residents. They do not have their rental bonds paid for by the government, nor do they receive a lump sum payment on arrival. Asylum seekers are not eligible to receive financial assistance through Centrelink but some can be eligible for the Asylum Seeker Assistance Scheme administered by the Australian Red Cross and other contracted service providers. The scheme provides a basic living allowance equivalent to 89% of Centrelink payments.”

A very brutal Australia.

Here a mug shot of the Australian ministers responsible for dreadful crimes committed against humanity. The prime minister T.Abbott and Scott Morrison minister for inhumanity.

Peter Dutton ‘worried’ about ‘volatile’ Manus Island protests; says hunger-strikers ‘will never arrive in Australia’

By Julie Doyle and PNG correspondent Liam Cochrane

Updated about an hour agoFri 16 Jan 2015, 4:02pm

Vine: Detainees chant ‘freedom’ on Manus Island
https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/B516516FED1167723623671291904_3e0363bfe82.1.5.13009192837509284596.mp4?versionId=2akKEhABW62fc4o0zNeSi6M0nBD6IL.v

Banner on Manus Island
Photo: A banner on display inside the Manus Island detention centre (Supplied)

Related Story: Government confirms self-harm protests on Manus Island

Related Story: Asylum seekers claim mass hunger strike on Manus Island

Map: Papua New Guinea

The Immigration Minister says he is worried about the “volatile” situation at the Manus Island detention centre, where asylum seekers have reportedly swallowed washing powder and razors as part of ongoing protests.

Peter Dutton said he was concerned about the behaviour of asylum seekers, but would not give any detail about the information he had received.

“I’m worried about developments across the last 24 hours, I’m concerned about what I’ve learnt in the last hour or so and the situation is volatile there’s no question about that,” he said.

Mr Dutton said people outside the centre had been encouraging the behaviour by telling asylum seekers it could help them get to Australia.

“I’m very concerned that somehow people are conveying a message that through non-compliant behaviour, by refusing to take food or water that somehow that behaviour will change the outcome for those individual cases in terms of their desire to be settled in Australia,” he said.

“If people are acting on that advice they should dismiss that advice.”

Mr Dutton confirmed there had been incidents of self-harm at the centre and said asylum seekers had been offered medical help.

He said one detainee had been transferred from the facility for X-rays and more specialised treatment.

Banner on Manus Island
Photo: A banner on display inside the Manus Island detention centre (Supplied)

The minister said the behaviour would not change the Government’s resolve on border security and detainees on Manus Island would never be resettled in Australia.

“My message today is very clear to the transferees on Manus and in other facilities: whilst there has been a change of minister the absolute resolve of me as the new minister and of the Government is to make sure that for those transferees they will never arrive in Australia,” he said.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said there was a “human disaster” unfolding inside the detention centre and the minister’s response was “woefully inadequate”.

“I fear that the harsh message that he attempted to send to those who are already showing such awful, tragic signs of desperation will simply inflame the situation,” she said.

“What we need is not harsh sound bites from the Immigration Minister but a little more heart and a little more compassion and empathy.”

After Mr Dutton’s suggestion people outside the centre were encouraging the asylum seekers’ behaviour, Senator Hanson-Young made clear her message for the protesters:

“Please don’t harm yourselves, involve in a constructive discussion with those inside, those who work at the centre and of course those who represent the Immigration Minister.”

Video appears to show men being taken away on stretchers

The ABC has obtained video from inside the detention centre showing what appears to be two men being taken away on stretchers.

An asylum seeker said the images showed Pakistani men who had consumed washing powder and then collapsed.

He said another Iranian man swallowed razor blades, the second such alleged case this week.

The ABC cannot independently verify the reports, and the condition of those who have collapsed is not known.

Other footage, said to be from Delta compound, showed asylum seekers chanting for freedom while guards patrolled on the other side of a fence.

An asylum seeker who spoke to the ABC on Wednesday said 15 people had sewn their lips shut and 400 men were on a hunger strike.

The protest and hunger strike continues into its fourth day

The Terrorists in Government.

Yes, what are we going to do? Australia will not make a living from keeping out boatpeople or ramping up fears. The scraping the top layer off our continent and selling it wasn’t exactly very taxing.

What are we going to do? A youth unemployment of 15% doesn’t auger well for keeping murderous attacks under control.

I sometimes wonder what people are doing in those gigantic city office buildings. I know we have one the highest densities of litigation lawyers and Big M. burger arched take away, but what about making things? You know actually producing stuff?

We could have been the world leaders in alternative energy with the world at our feet wanting solar panels, wind towers, etc. Even the Rockefellers are getting out of fossil fuel, But us…What have we done?

What are we going to do?

We could ease up on exercising our pyrotechnical bath-tub toys above and in far away sandy countries and save the $ 500.000.000 yearly.

We could also save even more doing away with the Government using ADF’s insane ‘stopping the boats’ policy. Billions in fact. Just imagine what that money could achieve?

The following from Andrew Kaldor; http://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/node/386

Tony Abbott

“Australia now spends the same as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) spends on its entire global refugee and displaced persons operations.

The UNHCR is responsible for helping and protecting some 50 million displaced persons around the world, including 11.6 million refugees. It expects to spend about $3.5 billion (US$3.3bn) in 2014. To cover 10,000 staff and all relief for the emergencies in Syria and Iraq, and Africa, as well as the protracted situations worldwide.

Tow back boats by Australian Navy

Compare that with the $3.3 billion Australia spent in 2013-14 on the detention and processing of boat arrivals. It has been the fastest growing Government programme over recent years, increasing from $118 million in 2010 at the average annual growth rate of a staggering 129 per cent.

Next year, the Department of Immigration’s budget is about $2.9 billion for that operation. But this number probably understates the total costs. It appears to ignore the extra aid to Papua New Guinea for signing the Manus Island deal, $420m over four years. It also ignores the costs of the AFP, ASIO, and State judicial system. Moreover, the value of current contracts issued by the Immigration Department, just for offshore detention for the 2014-15 fiscal year, has been estimated to be $2.7 billion [Source: data compiled by Nick Evershed, The Guardian, 25 August 2014].”

This money could have helped with our 15% youth unemployment. A terrible situation. Perhaps easing disillusionment and desperate ,perhaps even murderous situations arising.

Just imagine?

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/08/28/boats-may-have-stopped-what-cost-australia

Australia’s treatment of refugees on Manus Island .

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-06/manus-island-whistleblower-describes-filthy-conditions/5725042

Whistleblower describes ‘filthy’ conditions inside detention centre

By Andrew Greene and Benjamin Sveen

“A former detention centre guard says he is not surprised an asylum seeker has died from an infection he caught at Manus Island because he witnessed filthy living conditions inside the facility.

Hamid Kehazaei cut his foot at the detention centre about three weeks ago, developed septicaemia and was sent to Brisbane’s Mater hospital.

The 24-year-old suffered a heart attack, and was later declared brain dead.

His family in Iran made the harrowing decision to switch off their son’s life support late Friday.

Former Manus Island detention centre employee Beau Mitchell has told the ABC he is not surprised at Mr Kehazaei’s plight after recording evidence of poor hygiene inside.

“There’s no air conditioning, the beds are extremely close together. The living standards are pretty quite filthy,” Mr Mitchell said

“Often they’d be standing on concrete to have a shower that was literally falling apart underneath them, just completely rotting away.”

Australia’s treatment of refugees.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-04/isolation-units-being-used-to-control-asylum-seekers-on-manus-i/5718084

“Leaked security reports written by the company contracted to provide security and catering services on Manus Island, has describe frequent self-harm, suicide-watch and the use of isolated confinement at the Australian-run detention facility for asylum seekers.

Transfield Services staff report that “major incidents” are happening almost every day at the centre, including fights between detainees, attacks against guards, self-harm and suicide attempts.

The leaked documents are daily security and intelligence reports from July obtained by refugee advocates Humanitarian Research Partners (HRP) and shared with media.

In the most serious case of self-harm reported, a man cut himself with a razor, requiring 20 stitches to his chest and refusing treatment for two long cuts to his head.

The report said the asylum seeker had recently been told he could not voluntarily return to his home country because he was a witness to the killing of Reza Barati in February and had to stay on Manus Island until the investigation was complete.

“Due to this, [he] has been on Whisky watch since 26 July,” said the report.

Whisky watch is the term used at the centre for monitoring asylum seekers showing mental health problems and can be every three hours, every 30 minutes or constant observation.

HRP said an average of 14 asylum seekers were placed on Whisky watch each day.

On July 21 a man tried to commit suicide and when he was stopped he bit his own arm.

In a separate incident on the same day, an asylum seeker cut himself with a razor.

The reports show that at the end of July there were 18 asylum seekers staying in Australia and six staying in Port Moresby, out of the total 1,145 men considered part of the Manus Island detainees.

Several asylum seekers have been transferred to Australia for serious medical treatment but it is not clear why so many others have been moved off Manus Island.

Human rights group notifies UN of ‘harmful practises’

The Transfield Services reports describe how aggressive or “non-compliant” asylum seekers are taken to an isolated area known as “Chauka”.

Chauka compound is not listed on the official map of the Regional Processing Centre, but HRP said it is located at a different part of the Lombrum navy base, several hundred metres away from the main accommodation.

The group describes Chauka as three shipping containers forming a triangular courtyard covered in shade cloth, with a guard posted at the entry. HRP said each shipping container contains one single bed and nothing else.

“It seems as though part of the purpose of Chauka compound is to encourage more compliant behaviour through the visible punishment of a few key detainees,” wrote HRP.

Transfield Services denies that the “Managed Behavioural Area” is for solitary confinement.

“The claims in the media are unsupported and deliberately misleading to create a negative public opinion,” was a comment in the July 21-22 report.

HRP has written to the United Nations Special envoys for Torture, Human Rights Defenders and the UN Office for Human Rights with concerns about the “use of harmful practises based on fear to manage behaviour”.”

The double glazing of our lives

With thanks to Fiona Kaskauskas

I have become a hopeless disciple of double glazing. For days now I look at nothing but web-sites on that subject, even sinking as low as watching videos. One video has a lady extolling the benefits of double glazing. It is one of those you-tube things, home made and unedited. You can tell she had her hair specially done and mum must have done her make-up. Her voice isn’t synchronised with the movement of her lips either. I have watched this video several times in absolute fascination. She ends up saying her life has become so much more ‘comfortable’ and shows this by shutting a panel of double glazing. She smiles a beatific smile worthy of a mother Theresa. I am sure she will go to a heaven full of double glazed panels.

You might think watching a video on double glazing a sure sign Gerard has tipped over the edge. You are not far wrong. I have tried the rest, but it lets in so much noise. Watching the world in the single panel mode is now akin to living in a charnel house. Not a day goes by and another slaughter fronts us on the TV. The 29 or so private school students slaughtered in Uganda. How can this happen? The warring sides in Syria, children’s corpses tossed aside. “This footage might disturb some viewers”, the newsreaders keep saying.

Even the weather report is fraught with calamities of an heretofore unknown scale. People are perched on roof-tops in the UK, others are snowbound in their cars with mobiles and tablets the only thing that keeps them alive and in touch with their survivors. In Australia the drought is getting its grip back again. Dry water holes are the order of the day together with sheep and cow carcasses. I sometimes wonder if journalists have their car-boots packed with sheep carcasses, plastic flowers and teddy bears to add photographic poignancy to their stories?

The real disadvantage of viewing the world through single glazing locally is how Australia treats its refugees. The spectacle of who should apologize to whom over the lack of information coming from our government while a refugee got murdered whilst supposedly under our care. “We mustn’t let the ‘floodgates’ open.”

I would have thought the 700.000 refugees fleeing into Turkey and another 700.000 into Jordan are floodgates. You would think a politician got killed instead of a refugee on Manus Island. It is all so bloody awful. Who would have thought a retirement could be so brutally hampered by almost anything going on in public. Where are the good stories? Even our winter Olympics have been a limp affair. It’s no wonder people turn to double glazing.

We have meekly assuaged our conscience by a monthly donation to Médecins sans Frontières. It’s about the only thing we can do against the overwhelming plights of so many millions. I perhaps subconsciously hunker after a kind of double glazing of life excluding all that misery.
For those that can afford and want to do something, here is the donating web-site of Médecins sans Frontières
http://www.msf.org.au/donate/?utm_source=MSF&utm_medium=email&utm_content=donate&utm_campaign=enewsletter

The age of Essentials.

Christine Lagarde

No matter what, no matter who or whatever happens in Australia or elsewhere in this neck of the woods or deserts, we will never have a Christine Lagarde amongst our gaggle of politicians.

How refreshing to hear the IMF’s chief last night on the ABC’s Questions & Answers. “Health and education are NOT entitlements”, she reiterated several times.
Eighty individuals now own half the world’s wealth. How can that be right?

You wonder how the world can continue on with such gross inequity? There were always rich and poor. Just reading old Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace where it is taken for granted that footmen turn up at any given time, all dressed in finest livery, to take the rich and famous to the next dinner or party somewhere in St Petersburg.

One of his quotes still rings true: “Everything comes in time to him/her who knows how to wait.”

I reckon we will wait a long time before we have an admission from our leaders that Health and Education are the pinnacles that a good and just society is based upon. They are not entitlements, they are necessities that should be equally available to all.

Isn’t it telling that the IMF chief, fearlessly, appears on such a public program in Australia, and yet, our PM never. Such an incoherent bumbling coward. ” We will not listen to “Moral objections ” ,re the killing and maiming of Manus Island illegally detained prisoners of war.

The refugees on Manus Island were told they will never be allowed to settle in Australia, no matter what. There are 700.000 people having fled into Turkey, another 700.000 into Jordan, just over the last few months from Syria alone, and yet…Australia not generous enough to allow AT LEAST those that have been found wandering the ocean in leaky boats.

What sort of hell-hole did my parents migrate to?

At least I have my words that I can type out on my electric writing motor and, if that fails, I have my H and Milo in that order. 😉 Just making Spätzle. I have my H, than my putor and then Milo.

“You are a bit grumpy this morning” she told me. No real reason, “just pissed off with this government”. “No you are not,” “you are just naturally grumpy, regardless of anything”, she answered so brutally but with a fair crack of the whip. To be honest, grumpiness is the domain of men, I reckon. My H said, ” I was hoping that with your flagging testosterone diminishing that goodness and sweetness would come to the fore a bit more often.

I told H to again read Tolstoy’s quote.

This bullying Australia

Posted on September 26, 2013 by gerard oosterman

Bullying is what defines us as a nation.

For absolute proof of a bullying nation, surely you can’t get past on how we see and treat refugees coming by boat. Of course it would be better if no one made that journey. The fact is that refugees will undertake that trip. They have nothing to lose.
It is how we treat refugees after they have made it to Australian waters or land that we are getting close to behaving like a pre-war Germany. A blank-out on news was also imposed then.

Look at the sheer pleasure on politicians faces when they announce even harsher treatments.

The glint in Scott Morrison’s eye when he announced stopping ‘shipping news’. ” We will not announce any news on arrivals of illegal boats from Indonesia,” he announced with the mien of a Quo Vadis gladiator. Morrison must have repeated that statement over and over again while in bed the previous few weeks.

Oh the sheer joy on Morrison’s face all aglow into the camera: ” if they (notice the ‘they’ and not ‘refugees’) are fit enough to get on a boat ‘they’ are fit enough to be sent to Manus or Nauru island.”

As Morrison was warming up to the subject, he brought forth his dream of being seen as the man who stopped the boats. Triumphantly beaming at the prospect of having beaten back the armada of boats threatening Australia, our borders, our security. “There will be a 24 hour turnover” he chortled. This was his Waterloo moment.

Not once did Morrison even come close to mentioning ‘people’, let alone ‘refugees.’ The language of Morrison on boat people was brutalising us all.

How do you think all that comes over to our young, our children for whom we must be an example?

The bullying at schools is of course a natural reaction of what they, the young students, get fed almost daily on the TV or media. Why show respect for others when the lack of it by their peers is trumpeted on our TV almost nightly.