Senator Andrew Bartlett
Friday, September 03, 2004
 

It's very late on Thursday night and I'm sitting in a hotel room in Adelaide city. (It will be Friday by the time this is posted.)

Someone wrote to suggest I should just take some time out to watch crap TV - to show I'm always willing to listen to the people, I gave it a go, but it was too crap, so I've returned to writing some of my own.

I'm listening to the super-fabulous, top value, 2CD Rock Against Howard CD (well it's not all super-fab, you can't expect 34 songs from 34 bands to all be good, but it's got some good stuff including a couple of nuggets). TISM is playing at present with "The Philip Ruddock Blues". I don't think Philip would like it, but then TISM probably don't like him so maybe it balances out.

Flew into Perth early Thursday and went to an event to draw attention to the plight of Vietnamese asylum seekers stuck forgotten on Xmas Island for well over a year. There was a family of Vietnamese people there who came on the same boat and have been acknowledged as refugees and got temporary visas. Betty Cuthbert, the famous athlete, now wheelchair bound with MS, was speaking out in support of those still detained.Brian Greig, our WA Senator was there too.

I managed to get to Xmas Island once, flying out literally an hour before the Vietnamese people were brought in. It's an interesting place in it's own right (if you're not in detention), but a loooong way away. It's easier to get to Nauru (assuming they actually let you in) than Xmas Island (for people that live on the east coast anyway), so it's probably appropriate that the asylum seekers on Xmas Island are even more forgotten than the ones on Nauru.

For anyone interested, I'm reasonably reliably informed that as of yesterday there are still 104 refugees detained on Nauru (21 in the Topside camp and 83 in State House). There's still no news on when the 21 (all from the Tampa) will go to New Zealand.

After the event for the Vietnamese detainees, I attended an event announcing our 3 person Senate team with Brian Greig leading the ticket.Also there were many of our full team of 15 House of Reps candidates, plus a few supporters. Despite the focus many people have on some of the occasional odd people who frequent all political parties, there are a large number of wonderful selfless people who do so much with no desire for recognition of reward. There were a few of those people there today and it's always good to see them. I met with our campaign organisers after that, including Jack Evans, who was there organising the very first public meetings when the party started in 1977 and is still at it now.

Jumped back on the plane, intending to do some writing for an article I have to finish, but ended up watching Shrek 2 which was the in-flight movie. I remember disliking the original Shrek when I first saw it, but now my little daughter has it I've seen it at least 30 times and it has rather grown on me (just as well really). Anyway, the sequel was quite good, and it has a snippet of a Nick Cave song in it for good measure.

Announcing our South Australian Senate candidates today, as well as trying to give an extra push for more focus to be put on children's issues. Then driving to Murray Bridge where many Afghan refugees are currently living to meet with some of them and draw attention to some of their ongoing difficulties.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, September 03, 2004
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