New refugee laws
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David 
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| Post subject: New refugee laws |  |
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Our government continues to plumb the depths of inhumanity:
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/05/senate-gives-scott-morrison-unchecked-control-over-asylum-seekers-lives
| Quote: | Senate gives Scott Morrison unchecked control over asylum seekers’ lives
Ben Doherty
Scott Morrison is now the most powerful person in the Australian government.
The passage of the migration and maritime powers legislation amendment (resolving the asylum legacy caseload) bill 2014 has given the immigration minister, while he holds that job, unprecedented, unchallengeable, and secret powers to control the lives of asylum seekers.
Previous immigration ministers have decried the burden and the caprice of “playing God” with asylum seekers’ lives, but the government has chosen, instead, to install even greater powers in the office of the minister.
With the Senate’s acquiescence, Scott Morrison has won untrammelled power.
No other minister, not the prime minister, not the foreign minister, not the attorney-general, has the same unchecked control over the lives of other people.
With the passage of the new law, the minister can push any asylum seeker boat back into the sea and leave it there.
The minister can block an asylum seeker from ever making a protection claim on the ill-defined grounds of “character” or “national interest”. His reasons can be secret.
He can detain people without charge, or deport them to any country he chooses even if it is known they’ll be tortured there.
Morrison’s decisions cannot be challenged.
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Australia now regards itself as free from the bonds of the Refugees Convention – a treaty Australia helped write, and willingly signed up to, more than half a century ago. All references to it have been removed from Australian law.
Instead of adhering to the established, internationally-agreed framework for dealing with asylum seekers, Australia will follow a “new, independent and self-contained statutory framework”, that sets out the government’s own interpretation of international law.
That new interpretation is apparent in this bill. Refugee law is built upon the fundamental principle of non-refoulement, which forbids returning a person to their persecutors.
It is exists not only in the Refugees Convention, but in customary law. It is recognised by every country.
Australian law now says: “it is irrelevant whether Australia has non-refoulement obligations in respect of an unlawful non-citizen”.
Stripped of the legalese, that paragraph says Australia is now entitled to return an asylum seeker to a country where they have been, or it is known they will be, tortured. |
The justification for all this was that boat travel is risky, and that people were dying at sea; that we did not have sufficient control over the refugee intake process. You may consider that this made "stopping the boats" a priority and that all this cruelty was at least a means to a positive end.
But we are not solving the refugee crisis. We are not stopping the boats; the boats are simply going elsewhere. Not one person will have a better life as a result of this policy. We are simply handballing the problem to other countries with fewer resources, and destroying lives in the process. Let's be clear about that: our glorified island concentration camps are terrible places; with rampant abuse and violence. And those are the people who haven't been sent back to the places they fled to be tortured or even killed.
Is this how you, as citizens in a democracy, want to be represented? Do you accept these crimes being committed in your names? I don't believe that it is ethically sufficient to turn a blind eye or sit on the fence on this issue any more; if you are not fighting against this, you are complicit.
But how can we fight against this? It's so easy to feel powerless. We can vote this government out in two years, and probably will, but how do we tackle this problem in particular? Protests, petitions and newspaper articles seem to achieve nothing. I'm not suggesting sniping Morrison from a grassy knoll, but it feels like more radical action is required. Can we petition other countries to impose economic sanctions on Australia? Are there other authorities beyond the International Criminal Court that can censure us? I don't think any possibilities should be left off the table.
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"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange
Last edited by David on Fri Dec 05, 2014 12:44 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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London Dave 
Ješte jedna pivo prosím
Joined: 16 Dec 1998
Location: Iceland on Thames
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| Disgraceful. Disgusting. |
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Culprit 
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| Quote: | | Is this how you, as citizens in a democracy, want to be represented? Do you accept these crimes being committed in your names? |
I will play devils advocate here. Yes, I am all for it. As far as crime go, lets do the stats on crimes committed by those we have given refuge too. I don't think our laws go far enough, if you are a refugee and you commit a serious crime you should be ejected from the land. If you are naturalised your citizenship should be removed then ejected.
Piling more rubbish onto our rubbish piles is not the solution. We have enough trouble looking after what is already here and we want to bring more helpless people in.
We are a very divided society now thanks to Howard and now Abbott. It's US v THEM and THEY are not wanted. Many Australians voted Abbott in due to the Boats. This is what you get and that is democracy.
I am playing my Banjo now. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| Culprit wrote: | | We have enough trouble looking after what is already here and we want to bring more helpless people in. |
Is that really justification for locking these helpless people up behind barbed wire fences for years? You may not like having part of the world's refugee problem on our doorstep, but turning our backs on that problem isn't going to make it go away. Like every other country, we need to shoulder some of the burden. If we don't, then you're just going to have more desperate people taking matters into their own hands and risking their lives to get to safety.
Perhaps if we just keep locking them up, Australian racists can be content knowing that there are not as many refugees in the community. But for those with a trace of empathy, the knowledge that there are real human lives wasting away in an open-air prison in the Pacific Ocean—the knowledge that our government put them there because we lacked the courage to offer assistance to people who needed it—is not going to go away. The rest of the world can see what we are doing too, and there will be consequences.
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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The government's aim of stopping illegal immigration is perfectly justified, and is also supported by the vast majority of Australians.
The government's methods are appalling. But then, are you surprised?
The government's failure to do anything meaningful about the much more needy and deserving refugees scattered around the world in horrible camps - mostly far worse than any of the Australian-run ones - is a disgrace.
The government's deliberate policy to tap into the massive popular opposition to its unsustainable mass migration program by pretending (a) that the real problem is the tiny handful of illegals, and (b) that the real problem thus does not exist, is quite possibly the very worst and most dishonest tactic of this very bad and habitually dishonest government.
_________________
�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives!
Last edited by Tannin on Fri Dec 05, 2014 1:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Culprit
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| Unfortunately the average person is brainwashed and will say yes. Once the ABC is removed this will become the norm as no alternative view will be available. Australian Society has become a very selfish society. Abbott and his cronies are saying, if we cut back on welfare we can give you better roads. This is Rich V Poor and divisive. |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| Tannin wrote: | | The government's aim of stopping illegal immigration is perfectly justified, and is also supported by the vast majority of Australians. |
That has long ceased to be this government's aim. They no longer differentiate between genuine refugees and supposed 'economic migrants'. It's off to the concentration camps with the lot of them.
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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^ the only refugees who can afford to get here by boat are the wealthiest ones. They may or may not be deserving of our help - that doubtless varies from one individual to another - but no matter how you judge that matter, there can be no question but that they are much less in need of our help than many thousands, probably millions of others who, for some unexplained reason, the latte-sipping SBS mafia do not care about in the slightest.
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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and you have a good point, David
and I fully support your ideals, if you could guarantee there were no criminals, terrorists or con men locked up in those cages with the real refugees.
unfortunately, you cant. too many "evil" people in this world
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| Tannin wrote: | | ^ the only refugees who can afford to get here by boat are the wealthiest ones. They may or may not be deserving of our help - that doubtless varies from one individual to another - but no matter how you judge that matter, there can be no question but that they are much less in need of our help than many thousands, probably millions of others who, for some unexplained reason, the latte-sipping SBS mafia do not care about in the slightest. |
excellent post.
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| think positive wrote: | and you have a good point, David
and I fully support your ideals, if you could guarantee there were no criminals, terrorists or con men locked up in those cages with the real refugees.
unfortunately, you cant. too many "evil" people in this world |
I cannot guarantee that there are no criminals, terrorists or conmen in the city of Melbourne, either, so perhaps we should lock up everybody here too.
What's the difference?
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| David wrote: | | think positive wrote: | and you have a good point, David
and I fully support your ideals, if you could guarantee there were no criminals, terrorists or con men locked up in those cages with the real refugees.
unfortunately, you cant. too many "evil" people in this world |
I cannot guarantee that there are no criminals, terrorists or conmen in the city of Melbourne, either, so perhaps we should lock up everybody here too.
What's the difference? |
we are stuck with the ones here, we don't need to invite new ones in AND pay for them to survive
(but yes, lock up the criminals, terrorists or conmen, that would be good!)
_________________
You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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But you don't even know for a fact that there are conmen or terrorists there, so are you willing to keep a whole lot of innocent people locked up on the off-chance there might be?
And since when is it okay to persecute innocent people for any reason?
| Tannin wrote: | | ^ the only refugees who can afford to get here by boat are the wealthiest ones. They may or may not be deserving of our help - that doubtless varies from one individual to another - but no matter how you judge that matter, there can be no question but that they are much less in need of our help than many thousands, probably millions of others who, for some unexplained reason, the latte-sipping SBS mafia do not care about in the slightest. |
That's irrelevant. However "rich" or privileged these particular refugees happen to be—a good deal less wealthy than anyone posting here, that's for sure—they are not illegal immigrants. And they and their children certainly do not deserve to be locked up on an island for the crime of trying to find a safe place to live. |
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Culprit
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| I heard the Greens say the Children were being used as hostages. The Refugees have been using children as pawns for many years. Same same but different. |
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