Julian Burnside: Gillard shredding child refugee protections Saturday, September 17, 2011 By Jay Fletcher
Photo: Alex Bainbridge
Australia’s ability to remain a signatory to the UN refugee convention would be put in serious doubt if the government succeeded in weakening protection for refugees in the migration act, prominent human rights lawyer Julian Burnside QC told Green Left Weekly.
“The judgement was clear that the arrangement that had been made with Malaysia has been made legally invalid,” he said.
“The question is whether the government thinks having signed the convention limits the range within they can change the act.
“The High Court has interpreted our protection obligations in a way that suggests that we are not adhering to [them].
Burnside said this was “not really surprising in a way, because mandatory detention breaches our protection responsibilities under other obligations — notably protections of the child and the covenant on civil and political rights”.
The High Court found on August 31 that Australia could not send refugees to another country that did not protect their rights under domestic and international law.
This decision ruled out the refugee swap planned with Malaysia and also raised doubts on the legality of detention camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.
But Prime Minister Julia Gillard said after the decision that her government would push ahead regardless. She said “the best solution” to stop people seeking asylum in Australia “is the arrangement with Malaysia with a complimentary centre in PNG”.
Despite objections from some Labor MPs, by September 10 the Labor cabinet and caucus had agreed to put legislation to parliament to weaken protection for refugees.
The changes would also remove the legal obligation for the immigration minister to act in the best interest of refugee children.
The immigration department said the amendments would be deliberately broad to allow the government to expel refugees to any country without regard for human rights protection.
However, Burnside said that unless Australia withdrew from the UN refugee convention the changes could not be made without bringing further High Court challenges.
“The interesting question is whether any amendment is possible that would make it legal within the restrictions of the High Court decision,” he told GLW.
“That would depend in part whether the High Court holds in the next challenge that any country must offer protection of the sort that the refugee convention requires.
“The central obligation is protection and non-refoulment [the return of refugees to countries where they may be persecuted].”
Australian Lawyers Alliance president Greg Barns wrote on Online Opinion on September 1 that the High Court ruling “makes it highly unlikely that without the two major political forces conspiring to amend the Migration Act in order to weaken human rights protections, offshore processing cannot go ahead without it being subject to a legal challenge that is likely to succeed”.
The Coalition would need to support the government’s bill to amend the act. In May, a motion introduced by Greens MP Adam Bandt condemning the Malaysia refugee swap deal was passed 70-68 in the lower house. The Senate also voted against the deal.
But Liberal opposition leader Tony Abbott said on September 15 the Coalition would likely vote in favour of weakening Australia’s refugee protection, contingent on the government adopting its brutal “Pacific solution” style policies.
He said the Australian government should be “stopping the boats through [reopening the detention camp on] Nauru, temporary protection visas and turning the boats around”.
Shadow immigration spokesperson Scott Morrison said the Coalition would not support the Malaysia deal. But he said the Coalition “have the patent” on offshore processing.
Burnside slammed the two big parties for engaging in a false debate on the issue.
“I think that in the community at large the texture of opinion is very different to what it was 10 years ago.
“A lot of the debate is driven by the politicians. They’ve found a convenient stamping ground on which to lock horns and they’re doing it with disregard to what people actually think.”
He said a recent Herald/Nielsen poll that showed 54% of Australians think asylum seekers arriving by boat should be processed in Australia should give refugee advocates hope.
Burnside said even though most Australians still consider detention necessary, “I suspect that figure will drop to well below a majority … if people knew they are not at risk from these people, that there is not a queue and there’s massive psychological harm caused in detention”.
An especially concerning aspect of the plan is the government’s bid to legalise the deportation of unaccompanied refugee children to countries with little protection.
On September 15, Gillard said the existing protections for children must be removed to avoid the “risk that people smugglers would start choosing to fill boats with children”.
“It’s astounding,” Burnside said, “that we should be able to mistreat children so that they would not be able to come here for safety.
“It’s a bizarre idea that parents will throw their children onto boats. The logic doesn’t follow. It’s the sort of thing that most parents will not do except in the most extreme circumstances.
“People will do what it takes to get somewhere safe. And if they [the government] smash the ‘people smugglers’ business model’ they will prevent people getting here and seeking safety.
“They would much rather see people die at the hands of the Taliban than try to reach safety here or die at sea.”
Burnside said many Australians did not know what refugees go through before they reach Australia and are locked up in indefinite detention.
He said would ask Gillard and Abbott: “Why are we so hysterical about punishing them or deterring them just because they do what any of us would do too?
“I would like to see them in a position of refugees stuck in Indonesia — accepted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees but living in the shadows because they are not allowed to be there, constantly at risk of being thrown in jail, not allowed to work or send their kids to school.
“They face a 10 to 15 years wait before a country sticks its hand up to resettle them, or they could board a boat.
“Would they get on a boat? I bet anything they would.”
Rudd's popularity gives Libs pause September 19, 2011
fp: "Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard vowed to push on with her agenda Tuesday despite a poll showing she has sunk below opposition leader Tony Abbott as preferred leader for the first time."
Let's get this right. Kevin Rudd saw off Malcolm Turnbull. Tony Abbott saw off Rudd and now looks as though he will do the same to Julia Gillard.
The solution?
Bring back Rudd to see off Abbott. Which has already raised the prospect of the Liberals bringing back Turnbull to see off Rudd.
At this rate, we may as well go back to the beginning and make Brendan Nelson prime minister.
Underpinning all this leadership chatter are the structural, cultural and policy challenges and failures with which the major parties are grappling.
At the same time on Friday that Julia Gillard laid out the structural reforms she thought the Labor Party needs to undertake to revive its membership, the Liberal Party federal executive was having a similar discussion, poring over the post-election review conducted by Peter Reith.
Like Labor's Faulkner/Bracks/Carr review that underpinned Gillard's speech, the Reith review similarly warns of a declining membership and proposes measures to empower the members by giving them a greater role in electing office bearers and candidates and policy forums.
Proponents of such change are not optimistic. It is understood the bulk of Friday's discussion concerned recommendations governing finances and fund-raising. Hard may it be to believe, but the Liberals claim the donations are not pouring in as one would think given the hostility towards the government.
That there should be grumbling about Tony Abbott is absurd given the poll position the Coalition is in. But party elders have counselled Abbott that he cannot expect to cruise into government on the back of discontent with Labor and will have to get on the front foot on policy. Since an election could happen any time, there is pressure to hasten the transition from opposition to alternative government.
Reith was at it again last week, warning that if Abbott did not embrace industrial relations reforms, the Liberals could still lose the next election. He'll be at it again tomorrow at the National Press Club.
Spectator Australia has joined the growing conservative condemnation of Abbott for not supporting changes to the Migration Act to ensure offshore processing remains possible.
What alarmed the Liberal worriers was last week's Herald poll, which showed if Labor brought back Rudd, it would move from facing a wipe-out to an election-winning lead.
''The guy burns the house down,'' said a Liberal of Rudd's record as prime minister. ''Labor says 'let's bring back the arsonist' and people are prepared to back them again'.''
This, he concludes, indicates the numbers are still soft. Gillard's problem is not a lack of policy per se. For every member lauding Labor's courage on climate change, there are more condemning it for the Malaysia plan. On the latter, the government has managed to create a unity ticket between Tony Abbott, the Greens and the Labor Left.
On Friday, after Gillard announced the proposed party reforms with a target of 8000 new members next year, David Grant from the Yass sub-branch took the Prime Minister to task.
''I can tell you, Prime Minister, last night we discussed at our branch meeting the issue of the Malaysia solution,'' he said. ''It is a strongly-held perception among those of our members who are falling away that we are about politics not principle.''
Gillard urged Grant ''we shouldn't necessarily talk ourselves down or use critiques that others would use of us''.
To those angry about asylum seeker policy, think about the sacrifices the government was making on climate change, she said.
The exchange underscored that structural reform alone will not lift the party's stocks but it can help by ushering in cultural change which will require faction bosses to start putting the party first.
Gillard has excited the Left by backing ''the party members empowerment reforms'' proposed in the Faulkner review. The most significant is giving the rank-and-file power to elect an increased component of delegates to the national conference, which would dilute union and factional control.
There will be resistance from the Right, which will be keen to maintain its control of the party. The last leader to try and reform the party was Simon Crean and it cost him his job. Gillard, who has little to lose, cautioned she was not prescribing anything: ''I don't want to get my own way on every detail.''
Even small changes to the party structures will be better than none, and putting her stamp on the conference now may ward off any leadership change being plotted for the same time, in early December.
Because by giving permission for everyone to have a full-blown brawl and ''not an American-style convention'', Gillard sent a direct reminder of the hideously confected last conference under Rudd, which stripped the party of its soul.
Phillip Coorey is The Sydney Morning Herald's chief political correspondent.
Until a month or so ago, I was under the impression that the One Nation party had shuffled off into history. So, I was surprised, attending a lunch at which Joe Hockey spoke, to hear repeated questions from reporters about the role of One Nation in attacks on Hockey’s standard against the appeals to racism allegedly advocated by (Lib Immigration shadow) Scott Morrison. Then, on a recent visit to Sydney I heard David Oldfield spruiking the One Nation line on 2UE. And now Pauline herself appears at an anti-carbon tax rally, along with a bizarre cast of characters including Angry Anderson and the League of Rights. Does anyone have any insight into what’s going on here? Is this just some bandwagon-jumping or is there a real resurgence of One Nation and similar groups?
One Nation, for those outside Australia, was a divisive and (clearly) racist minority party that appealed to the darker side of the electorate.
I posted a reply, but thought it worth while expanding my argument.
We are at an interesting point in history, living in the years following 9/11, the wars in Iran and Afghanistan, the Bali Bombings, terrorism, the rise of various fundamentalisms (Muslim, Christian and market) the Global Financial Crisis and growing concerns over climate change and environmental collapse.
In my mind we are living through a time not dissimilar to the 1920s and 1930s…
With such existential threats such as climate change looming, people are either getting very angry or burying themselves in denial.
A similar pattern could be seen during the 1920s and 1930s with people flocking to the Left/Right extremes of politics. It was also an age of spiritual mediums (today’s New Age), new forms of entertainment (then it was movies and radio, today the internet) and a cynical and wear weary public harbouring resentment against politicians and “other elites”.
It was also during the 1920s and 1930s that the “anti-Relativity” movement was in full swing.
Sound familiar?
The RWAs
People feel powerless and look for agents causing them harm: conspiracy theories to help make sense of the world and thus regain some control. Scientists are lying – dare we say conspiring – to get more funding and control the world! Thus climate change is not real!
On a deeper level, there are personality types attracted to the messages of the climate sceptics and right-wing shock jocks.
“Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) is a personality and ideological variable studied in political, social, and personality psychology. It is defined by three attitudinal and behavioral clusters which correlate together:[1][2]
Authoritarian submission — a high degree of submissiveness to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.
Authoritarian aggression — a general aggressiveness directed against deviants, outgroups, and other people that are perceived to be targets according to established authorities.
Conventionalism — a high degree of adherence to the traditions and social norms that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities, and a belief that others in one’s society should also be required to adhere to these norms[3].
There are also “highly destructive”, as a series of psychological studies indicate:
In roleplaying situations, authoritarians tend to seek dominance over others by being competitive and destructive instead of cooperative. In a study by Altemeyer, 68 authoritarians played a three hour simulation of the Earth’s future entitled the Global change game. Unlike a comparison game played by individuals with low RWA scores, which resulted in world peace and widespread international cooperation, the simulation by authoritarians became highly militarized and eventually entered the stage of nuclear war. By the end of the high RWA game, the entire population of the earth was declared dead…”
“A large map of the world is laid out. The game involves up to 70 participants or more (depending on the size of the venue). Each participant is randomly assigned to one of the 10 regions in the world: North America, Latin America, Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Africa, The Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, China and the Pacific Rim. Each player represents roughly 100 million people. Each region begins with realistic assets and problems. North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim are well off, but India and Africa are in extreme poverty. Food supply, medical facilities and employment opportunity tokens are distributed accordingly based on actual figures in reality. Likewise, military strength also mirrors that of the real world. The passing of time represents the number of years. Normally the span is around 30 to 40 years.
At the beginning of the game, the three nuclear powers are asked whether they wish to disarm their nuclear armaments. Players who do not have food, health care and employment are given a black arm band; any player who receives three will be declared dead. Regions can also declare refugees, however if no other region offers them asylum, they perish into the open ocean. When the game is in play, the facilitators will move around to determine if proposals for certain problems are feasible or not and reward or punish the groups accordingly. For example, the poor management of the environment can lead to famine, strife and pestilence. Facilitators will also announce random problems at specified intervals, ranging from ozone depletion to global warming.
Leaders are chosen in the beginning of each game to lead their respective regions; these leaders are given coats ties and hats to give them the aura of leadership. They control the finances and military strength and are allowed to pocket the wealth of their regions as they deem fit. To win, one must be the leader of a region and acquire the most wealth.
Leaders can also choose to declare war: Victory is determined by the army tokens. Once victory is achieved, the loser’s territory and assets belong to the winner. If the army tokens are equal then both sides lose not only the armies but also the wealth. A victor can control the invaded territory by stationing troops in the conquered land. Nuclear war wipes out the entire earth population…”
Here comes the criticisms about “models” and “psychology is BS” from certain segments of the WtD’s readership…
Still, I maintain some elements of the denial movement would rather see the planet burn and our species wiped out than concede the point that there might – just might – be some truth to the science.
John Quiggin asks “Where are all these people from?”
They’ve always been there.
Indeed, within every society they exist.
They’ve simply migrated from one conservative “cause” to another: whether it is opposing a carbon tax, vilifying “boat people” as queue jumpers or “all Muslims are terrorists” they’ve always been pursuing their dark agenda.
Last weeks protests simply threw a light on their continued existence.
The tragedy was the leader of the Liberal Party standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them, giving them a legitimacy they should never have.
This is an excellent article by John Kilcullen .. tickle ..
A Comparison of the Australian, British, and American Political Systems
The Australian political system is in some ways like the British, in others like the American.
1. Like the American system ours is federal: i.e., there are two levels of government, neither of which can change the powers of the other or make laws within certain fields assigned to the other. The British system is 'unitary': the British parliament can make laws on any matter, local government has whatever powers the national government delegates to it.
2. Like the British, ours is a system of responsible government. The Government (the Prime Minister and cabinet) is 'responsible' to parliament. This means that at any time, simply by vote of no confidence, carried on whatever grounds, the parliament can remove the Government from office or force it to call an election. In the American system the head of the executive Government, the President, cannot be removed by the Congress (except by impeachment, which requires a kind of trial). .. continued .. http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y67xan1.html ..
Note: our political systems are mix and match with one important difference .. Australian politicians do not have fixed terms ..
Laurie Oakes The Daily Telegraph November 12, 2011 12:00AM
MIXING with the great and powerful on the international stage does not always give Australian prime ministers a boost in their domestic standing.
Hosting President George W. Bush and a string of other world leaders at the APEC summit just before the 2007 election did nothing to help John Howard with Australian voters.
But Labor strategists are pretty confident that next week's visit by Barack Obama will be a positive for Julia Gillard.
She has started, at long last, to look prime ministerial.
Having her close relationship with the US President on show should burnish that improving image at least a little.
It might have been different if Obama had headed for these shores a few months ago when Gillard's poll ratings were in free fall, her party was in total despair and it seemed that she could do nothing right.
For some time, the government's back-room operators have believed that Gillard would get a chance to rebuild her authority if industrial relations could be brought back to the centre of political debate.
They were considering ways to achieve this when Qantas management did the job for them by locking out workers and dramatically grounding the troubled airline.
Suddenly Gillard was in her element. As the former workplace minister, IR is her issue. More important, it is an issue that involves fundamental Labor values and directly affects many traditional Labor voters who had been feeling dis-illusioned with the party.
And it is an issue that Tony Abbott, scorched by WorkChoices, is desperate to avoid and clumsy in handling.
So Gillard looks confident, portrays herself as defender of Australian workers and the travelling public, wrong-foots the opposition, outperforms Abbott in parliament - and goes up in the polls.
Labor, with a two-party vote of 47 per cent compared with 53 per cent for the Coalition, according to Newspoll, is still in an electorally disastrous position. But just two months ago it was 41 per cent Labor, 59 per cent Coalition. An 18-point gap has shrunk to 6 per cent.
For the time being, at least, Gillard has seen off the likelihood of a leadership challenge from Kevin Rudd.
And the trend in the polls, combined with the prime minister's newfound assurance, has unsettled the Coalition.
"We need to reconsider where we are over Christmas. What we've been doing might not continue to work as well as it has," a prominent Liberal MP said yesterday.
Abbott's basic strategy, which has served him well, has been to fight only on limited ground, and ground of his own choosing. The resurgence of industrial relations as an issue has shown this is not always possible.
Gillard was out on the IR battlefield again this week with the promise of pay rises for 150,000 mainly female community sector workers - a major step towards equal pay for work of equal value. And the government has plans to announce some changes to how the Fair Work Act operates.
IR is likely to stay on the political agenda, whether Abbott likes it or not, which means he will have to involve himself in developing a new IR policy, despite the risk of opening up divisions in Coalition ranks.
The opposition's most serious problem is that its own inconsistencies are becoming increasingly apparent as some of the pressure comes off Labor.
There was an example overnight when Abbott delivered a major speech in London comparing Australia's economic situation with that of Britain, the US and major European nations, emphasising in particular our low level of government debt - 8 per cent of GDP compared with 73 per cent in Britain and the US and 100 per cent in Italy.
"On the face of this comparative performance, Australia has serious bragging rights," Abbott said.
"Compared to most developed countries, our economic circumstances are enviable."
This from an Opposition Leader who has been proclaiming economic gloom and doom himself, whose shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, described our debt level at Budget time as "a mountain to climb", and whose National Party mate Barnaby Joyce claims our gross debt is "tearing through the roof" and warns: "We are getting to a point where we can't repay it."
Some Liberal leading lights admit privately there is no way Hockey and shadow finance minister Andrew Robb will be able to find savings anywhere big enough to pay for the spending commitments Abbott and others keep rolling out.
The latest example was the backflip on increased superannuation payments that the government intends to finance through its mining tax.
While pledging to repeal the tax, the Coalition has now decided - via a discussion involving Abbott cronies but pointedly excluding Robb - that it will leave the super measures in place if it wins office.
Where will the money come from? No one knows.
What everyone does know, however, is that political pragmatism again trumped policy, as happens so often under Abbott. The Opposition Leader set up another test of his own policy consistency by telling the London audience: "The Australian government's most urgent economic task is to return to surplus as quickly as possible."
Quite soon - coinciding with the release of Treasury's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook - treasurer Wayne Swan will announce new spending cuts to help bring the budget back to surplus.
Will Abbott support them, or take the populist route and oppose? Liberal MPs concerned about the Coalition's economic credibility are just as interested as the government in the answer.
In the meantime, Gillard can enjoy her moment in the sun with the US President.
Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. His column appears every Saturday in The Daily Telegraph
Slipper's expenses out of the bag but rest likely to stay secret Linton Besser, Matthew Moore
June 4, 2012
EXCLUSIVE ALP primary vote falls to 26 per cent ..embedded video..
PETER SLIPPER'S new coat and tails cost taxpayers $1248. His total travel bill in his first six months as Speaker of the Parliament was more than $18,000. He has spent more than $8500 on catering.
It will be the first - and probably only - time the Parliament discloses what perks it pays federal politicians.
Mr Slipper's spending figures were obtained by the Herald under freedom of information in what is believed to be the first successful application in the Parliament's history.
House of Representatives Speaker Peter Slipper participates in the Speaker's procession with the Serjeant-at-Arms armed with the mace and the Speaker's Attendant from the Members' Hall to the House of Representatives at Parliament House Canberra on Tuesday 14 February 2012. Pool Photo: Gary Ramage
In full regalia ... Peter Slipper as Speaker of the House. Photo: Gary Ramage
But the Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, has said the government will shield remaining MPs from such scrutiny by moving Parliament outside the reach of FOI.
Her office said she was considering a bill to ensure the perks Parliament paid or administered - as well as the $230 million a year its departments managed - remained secret. ''It has been long-accepted practice that the parliamentary departments are exempt from FOI,'' her spokesman said in a statement. ''The government is considering its options to correct this anomaly.''
An FOI expert, Peter Timmins, said the planned legislation was a serious setback for accountability, noting that the government had failed to properly overhaul the way politicians were remunerated after a landmark inquiry in March last year recommended root-and-branch reform.
''They receive or administer significant amounts of public money that are not subject to the same standards of accountability and transparency that other government agencies are subject to,'' Mr Timmins said.
''Why don't we have a single system that is transparent so that we can see online how this money is being spent in real time?'' he said, citing the Scottish Parliament as an example of where such measures were in place.
Since freedom-of-information laws were introduced in Australia, the Federal Parliament has been considered off limits. The bureaucracy might have to account for its spending but the Parliament and its politicians do not, despite the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission that Parliament should be covered.
But in 1999, when a new parliamentary services law was introduced, the three agencies that run the Parliament were accidentally exposed to the legislation. No one noticed until now.
In late April, the serjeant-at-arms of the House of Representatives, Robyn McClelland, denied the Sunshine Coast Daily access to information about Peter Slipper's expenses as deputy speaker: ''Such details have not been released previously and we do not propose to make the details that you have requested available to you at this time.''
But the matter came to the attention of the Australian Information Commissioner, John McMillan, who made a surprise ruling that the Department of the House of Representatives, the Department of the Senate and the Department of Parliamentary Services had all been subject to the law since 1999.
On May 1, the Herald tested the ruling. Last Thursday it received a table of all money paid to Mr Slipper first as deputy speaker and then, since November, as speaker.
In all, Mr Slipper has cost taxpayers $407,000 in the two roles.
But on the day the Parliament was preparing to give the Herald this information, Ms Roxon announced the government deemed such disclosure an ''anomaly''.
The Greens senator Lee Rhiannon said all MPs should be covered by FOI and their expenses should be readily available to the public.
"Public money is what keeps the House of Representatives and the Senate functioning and the public have a right to know how that money is spent,'' she said. ''Parliament should not be beyond the reach of FOI.''
When Britain passed FOI laws 12 years ago, its Parliament and MPs were included and the media and others sought details of their expenses. The Parliament tried to stop the release but the courts said it was public money and public information.
The Parliament continued to resist until the entire file of MPs' expense claims and disbursements was leaked to the media in 2009 and caused a national scandal. Some MPs were claiming ''second-home'' allowances while renting those properties out, some were inflating council tax rates on these properties and pocketing the difference, and many were claiming inflated costs for renovations or repairs to their properties.
The speaker and several ministers were sacked, the then prime minister, Gordon Brown, issued a public apology and several MPs were prosecuted and given jail sentences.
In case the Australian government does try to move the Parliament out of the reach of FOI, on Friday the Herald asked the Parliament for the expenses of every member of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
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