Senator Andrew Bartlett
Saturday, July 30, 2005
 
Toowoomba - student services & sipping sewage
On Wednesday this week I visited Toowoomba, mainly to meet with the Student Guild and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the main campus of University of Southern Queensland. The main immediate issue I was exploring was what impact the government’s ideologically extreme version of VSU legislation would have on services to students. I’ve written on VSU a few times before so I won’t repeat myself, but suffice to say that campuses in regional areas will be even harder hit than the big city ones and you couldn’t get a better example of legislation being drafted solely with ideology in mind, rather than looking at the practical impacts of it. I'm sure any Uni campus can make a bar profitable, but getting and maintaining good quality sporting facilities, let alone assistance with courses, appeals, legal advice, etc will be impossible. It will be an early test of whether any Coalition Senators will really do what is necessary in the new Senate to ensure bad laws are improved.

I should also note that the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jim Taylor, was the most enthusiastic advocate of ICT based learning I have ever met. USQ has done a lot in this area and will be interesting to watch how they go with further developing e-learning.

I also took the chance while I was in town to get an update on the City Council’s plan to build a water recycling plant. I’ve also written on this before (and had at least one water resources engineer agree with me). The plan has been out in the public arena for nearly a month now. It seems to have gone down OK with the public, although there has been some community backlash, as mentioned in these pieces on the ABC and in The Toowoomba Chronicle, with a group called CADS (Citizens Against Drinking Sewage) forming to fight the plan.

I think governments in Australia have been pissweak (if you’ll pardon the pun) for not pursuing water recycling a lot more strongly. They seem to be scared about how hard it might be to sell to the public. Even the NSW State Government, with all their armies of spin doctors, have gone for a desalination plant basically because they didn’t think they could convince people to drink recycled water. Their Utilities Minister, Frank Sartor, said that “the scientists are right but the scientists ought to get on talkback radio and persuade Sydneysiders that there won't be a mishap" – a statement I found to be quite extraordinary. Talk about a lack of leadership! (maybe they’ll get a bit more ticker once meat eating Morris becomes Premier next week)

The oddest thing about Toowoomba’s water plan is that after treating the water to dialysis machine quality (which is better than drinking quality), they then pipe it all the way back into the nearest dam to get re-processed with rest of the not-so-clean dam water! However, that’s the price they’re paying to assure the public its safe, which they feel they need to do given that they are leading the way on this.

Once it’s shown to work there, it should be able to be done more cheaply, as it won’t need that extra piping and pumping, which can be very expensive. All strength to Toowoomba City Council for showing that leadership, and good on the state and (hopefully) federal governments for backing them with some dollars. Apart from being good for Toowoomba, this will hopefully give a bit of extra courage to other Councils and governments to follow suit. I hope Brisbane and the rest of South-East Queensland does so soon.


PS: By complete chance, I also happened to read Andrew McGahan’s new book “The White Earth” the night before I went to Toowoomba. The author was born in Dalby – a bit west of there. While the towns in the book are fictional, it’s set in the Darling Downs area north of Toowoomba. I kept reading it until I’d finished, which is always a good sign that a book is an interesting read.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, July 30, 2005 Permalink
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Friday, July 29, 2005
 
multiculturalism, muslims, racism and freedom of speech
Last week, I attended the opening of an Islamic Research Unit at Griffith University in Brisbane. Places like this which increase awareness and understanding will be very important over the next decade or so in Australia. The Director of the Unit is Dr Mohamad Abdalla, who seems to me to be a very impressive person. He was interviewed on ABC’s Religion Report lat week. The transcript is well worth a read.

When I was in Sydney overnight on Monday, I sampled some of the delights of that town’s newspapers and talkback radio and was sufficiently worried by the growing momentum of open antagonism to Muslims that I put out this media release on Tuesday pointing out that multiculturalism was a key part of the solution to tackling extremism. It was pleasing to see Kim Beazley also speak out strongly in support of multiculturalism that same day. There was also an excellent article in The Australian on Thursday by Geoffrey Brahm Levey countering some of the shallow attacks on multiculturalism that have occurred in a range of other opinion pieces. Arnold Zable also had a good piece in The Age last weekend.

In recent weeks there’s also been a fair bit of media coverage given to the views of an academic at Macquarie University called Andrew Fraser. These days it’s politically incorrect to call someone a racist, but there’s no question that this fellow’s views are racist in any meaningful sense of the word. Some interesting debate has followed about the limits of freedom of speech and how it links to the job of an academic (see here and here on Catallaxy, and also Troppo Armadillo and Larvatus Prodeo).

I’m a strong supporter of the principle (and practice) of freedom of speech and diversity of opinions being expressed, but every principle has its limits. I defend the right of this guy to say what he wants, as long as he’s not inciting violence, but I don’t think he should be operating as an academic – mainly because there is no way any non-white student could possible feel they could get a fair assessment from him. From reading comments on other blogs (such as this one), he may have held these views for quite some time. However, the fact that his views have now attracted such publicity has put his University in an impossible position. If they encourage him to go – as they are now doing – they get accused of censorship and stifling academic freedom. If they don’t act, they get accused of tolerating racism and shoddy intellectual thinking. I’m sure many readers could think of their favourite academic who they believe is intellectually shoddy, but combining that with racist bigotry is rather worse.

Of course, once these sorts of comments get given wide publicity, it becomes a magnet for other racists to come out of the woodwork. When that is combined with some of the ferocious and blinkered attacks on migration and multiculturalism that have appeared since the London bombings, it can get very toxic very quickly. Overall, I’m willing to let Andrew Fraser’s racist comments go through to the keeper rather than give them more publicity than they deserve, as long as his Uni makes sure all his students get assessed fairly. However, it is important to continue to work on strengthening multiculturalism wherever possible – being in favour of that is politically incorrect these days as well, but it still needs to be defended and promoted, fashionable or not.

UPDATE: Gerard Henderson has a good take on Andrew Fraser’s rights and obligations is this piece in the Sydney Morning Herald.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, July 29, 2005 Permalink
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Vegetarian bites the dust as meat chomping Morris set to assume Premier position
I have just seen news on the ABC website that Morris Iemma is now set to be endorsed by Labor’s NSW Caucus as the next Premier of that state, with the other main candidate (and early favourite for about 5 minutes) Carl Scully announcing he would not contest.

Carl Scully has apparently just been discovering that loyalty and friendship in politics can last as long as it’s convenient. I won’t make comment on my own experiences with that, but I did note in this Daily Telegraph piece that apparently people trying to discredit Scully’s electability had even being using his vegetarianism against him! Good to see such solid criteria being used by the ALP to determine who ends up leading our most populated state.

Maybe they can get Sam Kekovich to do another commercial for meat eating Morris after he gets sworn in next week.

Speaking of the Daily Tele, it seems they’ve been reading this blog again, with a story today mentioning this entry that touched on my viewing of the Fantastic Four. Whilst they have again ignored the whole point of what I was saying (as they have done once before), at least this time they called me Mr Fantastic, so I can’t be too grumpy. (a rewritten version of this, still misrepresenting me, also appeared in the Herald Sun nearly a week later).


UPDATE: More musings in this piece in the Sydney Morning Herald about whether Carl Scully’s aversion to flesh chewing cost him the Premiership, suggesting “a refusal to eat meat might be prejudical to those seeking public approval.” At least now I have an excuse for why the Democrats polled so badly when I was leader.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, July 29, 2005 Permalink
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Thursday, July 28, 2005
 
More of Australia excised as Xmas Island camp empties

Today it was announced that the remaining Vietnamese detainees on Christmas Island who have been held there for over 2 years would be given visas.

This means that every one of the 53 Vietnamese asylum seekers who arrived at Port Headland on 1 July 2003 have received visas (plus two babies born later). Every single one of them was initially rejected by DIMIA officials. Some were later given visas by the Refugee Review Tribunal, some had success in the Federal Court and the remaining few were given visas through Ministerial discretion.

This is all good news, but how many millions of dollars and years of suffering could have been avoided if there had been a proper and humane process operating in the first place?

The work of many advocates and supporters to keep pressuring for justice for these people should be acknowledged, especially the people of Christmas Island, and WA refugee advocate Kaye Bernard who kept pressuring day after day and had great success in drawing media attention to the absurd situations these people were put through.

This is yet one more reason why our Migration Act should be completely overhauled. Two recent Federal Court decisions add even more reason. One noted the unauthorised search, questioning and detention of a man holding a student visa, the other which showed that the Department and the Tribunal have not been properly applying the Refugee Convention to refugees on temporary protection visas.

Yet at the same time as the camp empties, the Minister has once again moved to excise thousands of Australian islands from the Migration Zone. This has been defeated by the Senate at least twice before, but will obviously be harder to stop this time. This is a seriously dangerous approach, as it enables Australian government officials to make migration decisions about people in Australia without any recourse to the law at all. As we know, actions by DIMIA and the government can be bad enough even when the Migration Act applies, but imagine what it is like when they can ignore it completely.

Of course, even though the Christmas Island centre is now empty, the Government is still planning to spend over $300 million building a new one!

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Thursday, July 28, 2005 Permalink
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Monday, July 25, 2005
 
Whatever happened to disarmament?

I wrote in this posting that, although I supported the latest deployment of Australian troops to Afghanistan, I believe the Parliament should be required to approve such momentous choices. I and other democrats have unsuccessfully been pushing legislation that would achieve this end for decades. This report in the Guardian shows that similar legislation in the UK, being put forward by former Minister Clare Short, is attracting strong backing from MPs. Apart from anything else, the debate in the UK once again shows the harmful straightjacket which Australia’s excessive ‘party discipline’ places on diverse expressions of opinion.

With all the talk of war and weapons of mass destruction over recent years, I have been amazed and distressed at how words like ‘peace’ and ‘disarmament’ seem to have fallen out of fashion at the same time. The failure by nations to make any further progress in multilateral nuclear disarmament – indeed the apparent lack of interest in even trying – is appalling.

As evidenced by my willingness to express support for troops into Afghanistan, I’m not a pacifist, although I believe war should be a last resort. But peaceful engagement and disarmament are bigger and more effective weapons in the long-term than buying another fighter plane. Surely one of the best ways to deal with the risk of weapons of mass destruction is to make sure that fewer of them are made? Not to mention reducing the general arms trade, which many western nations still seem happy to make billions out of?

Robert McNamara was US Secretary of Defence for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in the 1960s and was certainly not a pacifist either. This BBC interview labels him “the architect of America's policy of nuclear deterrence, which became known as M.A.D. - Mutually Assured Destruction. Yet today he is a passionate advocate of nuclear disarmament.”

In his own words in this article, McNamara says

“It is time - well past time, in my view - for the United States to cease its
Cold War-style reliance on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. At the risk
of appearing simplistic and provocative, I would characterize current US nuclear
weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully
dangerous.”

Frankly, even if you just accept his verdict of ‘dreadfully dangerous’, that’s enough to convince me we’re failing badly in not putting more emphasis on this aspect of our current battle to create a more peaceful and secure future. This is an area the Australian Government has failed dismally in. Our

Prime Minister may well be an international player with some clout, but he is not using that influence to generate any positive movement in that most crucial of areas. (I haven't heard much from Labor either, but their mainstream media opportunities are much more limited)

Readers who share these concerns may be interested in a conference being held by the Medical Association for the Prevention of War in Melbourne on the weekend of August 6th and 7th. It will be 60 years since the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagsaki and after some genuine hope for progress a few years ago, there is a real need to rebuild the global momentum for disarmament.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, July 25, 2005 Permalink
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Sunday, July 24, 2005
 
versions of reality
I’ve attempted to have a few days break during the last week.

In the interests of getting away from the daily grind for a while and connecting with cultural pursuits, my office staff and I went to see a movie, a semi-regular event which we last did at the end of last year. Well, it wasn’t overly cultural, as they decided to see The Fantastic 4. Whilst one could say this highly successful movie is an analogy for the multi-talented foursome who now make up the Democrat Senate team, one also has to say it wasn’t that fab a movie – even though it did invoke some memories from when I watched the cartoon as a kid.

Having got into the spirit of withdrawing from reality, I ignored my email for two days and also went to see Sin City, which is interesting to watch although fairly unrelenting, and got the third instalment of Blade out to watch on DVD.

I did also have a go at watching the TV news versions of reality, which seemed to have regular stories on mutual pocket pissing between our Prime Minister and the leaders of the USA and the UK, followed by lots of stern sounding stuff about needing to upgrade Australia’s allegedly 19th century anti-terrorism laws and other utter nonsense. There are a few quaint old fashioned traditions I wouldn’t mind us keeping (what’s left of them anyway), like the separation of powers, the rule of law and a fair and free democracy, but they don’t seem to be relevant in this Orwellian ‘war’ we’re all being told we’re fighting.

There was also a quite odd column today by Glenn Milne. In it he states that “This (overseas) trip has cemented Howard as a more important international player than either of his predecessors, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. Yet at home, there remain severe doubts among sections of the public and some commentators about whether this is a good thing or not. Partly this is driven by our national inferiority complex – an inability to grasp the fact that Australia is capable of punching above its middleweight status in global affairs.”

I find the notion that Australians are uncomfortable with the Prime Minister being an international player because of some alleged inferiority complex quite odd. I thought it was quite well established that we can often punch above our weight in global affairs and have done so in the past. That’s certainly not what bothers me about the Prime Minister’s status. I’m more concerned about what he is using that ‘punch’ to do and the fact that our punches are being thrown by someone whose main talents are deceit and divisiveness.

The London bombings have also been used an excuse for a renewed series of ferocious attacks on multiculturalism by many in the mainstream media, which is ironic at a time when the Department responsible for managing migration and multiculturalism has been shown to be incompetent to the core. The Prime Minister has always disliked multiculturalism and I’m sure he will take this chance to do even more damage to it than he has done over the past decade.

It’s all enough to make one want to go back to the fantasy world of the movies. Instead, tonight I’ll join in solidarity with the Prime Minister and watch The Ashes test at Lord’s (although I’ll be in my lounge-room in Brisbane and he’ll be at the ground in London).

Tomorrow, I have two days of Senate Committee hearings, which will make me once again look at how DIMIA engages with reality - always a strange and sometimes disturbing place to visit. Rather like Alice in Wonderland, where words mean whatever they want them to mean.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, July 24, 2005 Permalink
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Change on Nauru - for better or worse?

I saw last week that Green Party Senator Kerry Nettle was endeavouring to visit the detention camp on Nauru, but had been denied a visa. As regular readers of this blog – or visitors to my main website – would know, I've visited the refugees and asylum seekers there three times and it is good that another Australian MP is now seeking to do the same. Given that it has cost millions of dollars of Australian taxpayers' money, it is particularly poor that no Government Minister has gone there since the earliest days of the camps' establishment.

I have to say it rings alarm bells that a federal MP is being denied entry to another country – particularly one which is currently so dependant on assistance from our government. However, in the strange alternative reality that our Immigration Department inhabits, one is always looking for signals of hidden truths and subtexts - a bit like trying to interpret happenings in the Kremlin in the communist era.

With just 32 asylum seekers left on Nauru and no real viable alternative for most of them other than coming to Australia, it is hard to know how much longer the farce of the detention camps can go on. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Australian & Nauruan governments allowing the camps to operate is currently being renegotiated, and the letter from Nauruan Consulate General to Senator Nettle said “the Government is currently in the process of revising its position on a number of issues pertaining to the Overseas Processing Centre on Nauru.” Just maybe this is a good signal that something significant is about to change and the asylum seekers will finally be allowed into Australia?! Of course, it may also be a very bad signal that some of the people are about to be forcibly returned, which in the case of at least some of them would mean returning to highly dangerous situations. Either way, though I am reluctant to be too critical of the Nauruan government - who are really not in a postion to be too choosy - refusing someone entry to the country for that reason is unacceptable.

Australia has a long history of involvement with Nauru. Our permanent diplomatic presence on the island ceased due to Budget cuts in around 1997, but was re-established in 2001 (on a continuing 'temporary' basis) when Australia persuaded Nauru to host a detention centre for asylum seekers who had been intercepted by the Australian Navy trying to enter the country.

Australian currency is used there, and it may be the only nation outside of Australia where Australian football is the most popular football code. Australia was integral in the running of the island's phosphate mining prior to it being taken over by the Nauruans, and was also heavily involved in the island's transition to independence. Many of Nauru's leaders were educated in Australian schools.

For anyone wanting more details on Nauru beyond the detention camps, I recommend reading a paper just released by the Jesuit's UNIYA Social Justice Centre called "Between a mined-out rock and a hard place". This gives a good rundown of Nauru's history and it's current economic and social situation and the history of Australia’s involvement. I do think some of Nauru's past leaders should be held a bit more accountable than the paper suggests for the mess their country is in now, but it is still a good summary.

I have previously met some of the senior figures in the current Nauru government and whilst I obviously disagree with their willingness to maintain the detention camp, I found them impressive people who recognised the serious situation their country was in and seemed willing to make some of the hard decisions and sacrifices that are needed.

When I visited Nauru for the third time last May, it unexpectedly coincided with some minor diplomatic turmoil. The Nauruan Government had announced the (re)establishment of diplomatic ties with Taiwan, much to the chagrin of the Chinese government, who provided the only diplomatic presence on the island other than Australia.

My visit was also coincidentally at the time of their annual Constitution Day public holiday, which marks the country's independence. Normally, Australian Consulate officials and visitors like me would have attended Constitution Day festivities on Nauru out of respect to the country. Unfortunately, the major celebration in the evening was also a celebration to mark the establishment of diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which put the Australian Consulate and other officials in rather a bind, as our Government is always very keen to avoid offending the Chinese Government. This was made all the more awkward, as the celebration was held at the Hotel Menen, which is where all the Australian officials live and the Consular Offices are (along with the offices of DIMIA and the Australian Protective Services), which made non-attendance that bit more obvious.

As I didn't really want to get caught up in any inadvertent offence to anyone, I went to my room. The electricity on Nauru is subject to regular load shedding, and the power at the Hotel in Menen is rationed from 5 o'clock to 11 o'clock in the morning and the night time. I was fortunate to have access to a television, although I didn't feel so fortunate when the ABC's Asia-Pacific news broadcast an item about Nauru's recognition of Taiwan, complete with some patronising hypocrisy from Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. Of course, there's nothing unusual in hearing Minister Downer being hypocritical or offensive, as this seems to permeate most of his utterances. However, it did have extra poignancy watching it in a foreign country at the very time he is patronising them.

The Foreign Minister was expressing concern at Nauru's decision to recognise Taiwan, in exchange for some immediate financial assistance. There was a lot of truth in the concerns he expressed about the need for Nauru to move away from economic quick fixes and cash cows and towards a more stable economic footing than can be relied on in the longer-term. However, it is a bit rich lecturing Nauru about this, when his Government provides the ultimate cargo-cult cash cow with the totally unsustainable detention centre being funded at great cost. It is especially ridiculous when everyone knows the detention camps on Nauru were established as the Australian government's own quick fix –getting them out of a political and legal quandary rather than an economic one.

It was Australia's choice in 2001 to make Nauru a pivotal part of our country's strategy for repelling asylum seekers. That choice has added a new and very different component to the relationship and history between Australia and Nauru. There have now been three Memoranda of Understanding (MoU's) agreed to between Australian and Nauru regarding the detention centre and development and other assistance. The third MoU expired at the end of June and the fourth is being negotiated now. If Australia was genuinely concerned about the long-term well being of Nauru it would ensure that the new MoU included a time line to remove all the people from the detention centre and the resources instead put into providing the long-term health, education and economic infrastructure that Nauru desperately needs.

When the asylum seekers finally leave, as they inevitably will one way or another, probably within the year, most of the infrastructure 'supporting' them will go too, along with the capacity to maintain it. Australia should guarantee a long-term diplomatic and economic presence in Nauru. There is no doubt that Nauru will need comprehensive assistance over a long period of time to ensure that the country can have a solid and secure economic and social future. Programs and funding that last one or two years at a time will continue to mean a piecemeal approach and a continual cycle of three steps forward two steps back. On this visit, I met Australians who are providing management and planning expertise at the hospital and with the education curriculum. They seem to be providing great value, but their positions (and the resources dedicated to them) are not permanent or long-term.

For example, the food for the patients at the hospital is being provided by the caterers who cook for the detention centre, as the island's own ability and facilities fail to meet this task. It is good that this service can be provided, but it creates a significant dependence on detainees staying on the island.

The conditions of most of the classrooms are sub-standard and in some cases simply dangerous. The hospital has serious shortcomings. The island has a major problem with diabetes and primary or community health care falls well short of what is needed. I was told the life expectancy of Nauruans is around 55.

While I was being shown around the hospital, I saw a newly refurbished ward of 10 beds. Unfortunately, it is kept locked and is only for use if it is needed by the asylum seekers. Meanwhile, in other parts of the hospital I saw adults and babies sleeping on the floor. No one can tell me that scarce foreign aid funds are being properly spent with maximum value for Nauruans when a situation like this is happening.

With such clear cut and immediate needs for the Nauruan people and their government, it is a travesty that millions of dollars continue to be spent solely on denying freedom to 32 asylum seekers, allegedly so a 'message can be sent' to people smugglers.

Australia does owe a debt to Nauru and an obligation to continue assisting that country as it attempts to rebuild a sustainable future for its people. The biggest favour we could do for them is to close down the detention camp straight away and ensure that the money instead goes directly into proper assistance.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, July 24, 2005 Permalink
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Thursday, July 21, 2005
 
Animal Stories II – Putting an Elephant in a cage is like putting a whale in an aquarium

One year ago today, I put out a media release urging the federal Environment Minister to refuse to issue permits allowing the import of endangered Asian elephants into Australian zoos. Yesterday, after obviously spending a lot of time thinking about it, the Minister decided to side with the zoos in pretending this is supposedly an environmental measure rather than primarily a commercial one.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when the major parties make decisions in favour of commercial interests rather than environmental or animal welfare interests, but I had hoped that the clear-cut intent of the federal environment law (the Environment Protection & Biodiversity Conservation Act) would actually be adhered to on this occasion.

I have been personally involved in significantly strengthening this Act over the last few years. While it is far from perfect, it is clearly stronger than what was there before (not that that stopped the Greens from strongly attacking me for agreeing to something that wasn’t perfect). However, after decisions like this, it makes you wonder what the point is putting in the effort improving laws, when the Minister administering them so willingly ignores them - not that that is a reason for leaving the laws even weaker, but it does make the whole lawmaking thing seem fairly pointless.

We will find out whether this decision to import endangered elephants into Australian zoos breaches the letter of the law rather than just the intent and spirit of it, as the decision is being appealed by animal welfare groups the Humane Society International, International Fund for Animal Welfare and the RSPCA.

As this statement by elephant experts from the region says, there is a good case to be made that importing endangered Asian elephants into zoos just encourages the illegal trade in this endangered species. It also gives people false belief that something meaningful is being done to help preserve the species and diverts resources and attention away from actions that would actually help, such as maintaining the elephants’ natural habitat. If the habitat is lost, then having captive bred elephants sitting in zoos around the world won’t help much.

Whilst it is possible that these elephants may have a few offspring in our zoos, these will just be used to replenish zoo stocks (and draw in more dollars through people coming to look at the cute baby elephant), not replenish the species in the wild.

Putting aside the implausible claim that this is an altruistic action to help the survival of the species, there is the even more clear-cut fact that putting elephants in any sort of cage, no matter how big, is blatantly inhumane. Elephants roam over large distances in family groups and confining them is akin to putting a few whales in a big aquarium. Some Australian zoos have improved a lot over the last decade or two in the conditions they keep their animals in, but we cannot kid ourselves that it is possible to come even close to meeting an elephant’s behavioural needs in a closed zoo environment. That is not an ‘anti-zoo’ statement, it is a simple fact.

This letter by some experts in the elephant field (including Professor Clive Phillips, the Director of the Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics at the University of Queensland) shows the animal welfare and environmental shortcomings of the whole scheme.

Last year, the Detroit Zoo announced it was voluntarily closing its elephant exhibit. As the zoo’s Director said,
“it is important that we provide all animals in captivity with a socially and physically healthy environment. We now more fully understand an elephant’s needs. Just as Polar Bears don’t thrive in hot climates, Asian elephants shouldn’t live in small groups without many acres to roam.”
We may have been able to kid ourselves a decade or so ago that elephants didn’t suffer in captivity, but the fact that Taronga Zoo is still propagating the fiction that their elephant facility addresses animal welfare standards makes it very hard to give any credibility to pronouncements from the Taronga Zoo about the wellbeing of the animals in their facility.

The fact is that the federal Minister is under no legal obligation to consider the welfare and suffering of the animals. This is why I believe we need animal welfare laws at the national level, to make it a legal requirement that the welfare and potential suffering of animals get taken into account in decisions like this.

I am not naïve enough to think that commercial exploitation of animals is going to stop any time soon or that the suffering of animals will start outweighing commercial factors. But the fact that we are using environment laws to provide a cover for inflicting this suffering is, to put it mildly, disappointing.

UPDATE: According to this report, the Government’s decision has been branded “shabby and corrupt” by a Bangkok newspaper, which it suggests is linked to a return deal by Australia to allow 10 Australian species such as kangaroos and koalas to be imported to Thailand.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Thursday, July 21, 2005 Permalink
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Tuesday, July 19, 2005
 
Who is the longest serving detainee now that Peter Qasim is ‘Free’?
The welcome news came over the weekend that, after being locked up since 9th September 1998, Peter Qasim has finally been released on a Return Pending visa. Most Australians interested in migration matters would be aware of his case and I have written about him previously. The only things I would add now are:
(a) whilst it is good he has been released, that does not excuse the Government keeping him imprisoned for so long;
(b) Whilst the Return Pending Visa does give him rights to work, income support and Medicare (unlike the Bridging Visas which many other released detainees are existing on), he still has no security for the future;
(c) unless he chooses to be in the public domain, he should now be left alone to try to rebuild his life. After the initial euphoria of freedom, many long-term detainees suffer a form of post-traumatic stress which can take a long time to recover from. The lack of certainty over his future and the continued possibility (however remote) of deportation will not help, but neither would having his life continue to be under a public spotlight.

I expect attention will soon shift to looking at who now ‘holds the mantle’ of our longest imprisoned immigration detainee. When I visited Baxter with Parliament's Migration Committee, we were given information that said there were seven people who had been in detention since 1999. My understanding is that the longest detained amongst them is an Afghan asylum seeker, who has been in detention since arriving here with his family on 30th September, 1999. His wife and two children were granted protection visas and have since become Australian citizens, but he remains in detention. I met him a few weeks ago on a visit to the detention centre he is currently in.

His situation raises the vexed issue of how much weight DIMIA gives to anonymous ‘dob-ins’. His claim was rejected on the basis that he allegedly was involved in serious crimes as a military official of the former Afghan government. His appeal against this rejection failed in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. This finding of the AAT was overturned on appeal by a decision of the Full Federal Court, and it is now being heard again in the AAT. Why this has all taken nearly 6 years I'm not sure.

The finding and full reasons of the Court in quashing the AAT decision can be read here. I won’t go into all the details, as people can read it for themselves if they are interested, but I found it very disconcerting reading. Anyone who continues to believe that our visa determination process is fair and reasonable would find it very difficult to hold that view after reading this finding. Despite all the experiences I have had with hundreds of cases, I still find myself getting astonished that a person can be denied a visa on the basis of such flimsy and uncorroborated allegations, and does not even get the chance to know what the allegations are, let alone provide evidence to rebut them.

This case has wider implications than ‘just’ another migration matter. The AAT is the Tribunal that hears appeals regarding security matters, which has relevance to the current debate regarding the powers of ASIO and other security agencies. The way the AAT chose in this case to exercise its powers to deal with confidential evidence that was severely prejudicial to a person does not fill me with confidence.

Hopefully in this instance the man will now get a fair hearing from the AAT, but even if he succeeds, he will have spent 6 years locked up when he shouldn’t have, whilst his wife was left on her own and his children grew up without him. Yet another example of why the Migration Act needs reform.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, July 19, 2005 Permalink
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Monday, July 18, 2005
 
Animal Stories
This blog hasn’t focused much lately on the ‘diary’ part of web diary. I’ve found myself writing what I think about issues without mentioning so much about what I’ve been doing. I’ll try to redress this imbalance a bit.

What I’ll be doing tonight is engaging in the highly political activity of watching television – something I do very little of these days apart from looking at a bit of football and bits and pieces of news.

Tonight’s Australian Story on ABC TV profiles Brian Sherman and his family. He is a migrant to Australia who has set up Voiceless, a fund for animals that assists with increasing public awareness of the conditions many animals live in and getting better laws and policies to protect them. This fund is relatively new but has enormous potential to significantly improve things for animals in the future and to make the public more aware of ways they can easily help reduce animal suffering. A lot of people make a lot of money out of animals and it is very important to have some funds available to help put the animals’ side of the story.

Just to stay on the animals theme, tonight's 4 Corners details the battle around Japan’s intention to increase the number of whales they kill each year. As I wrote last month, while I totally oppose whaling, I do wonder why people are (rightly) horrified by the slaughter of whales but don’t seem to have a problem with the slaughter of many other mammals on a much wider scale.

It might seem like a stretch to keep up the animal theme with tonight’s Enough Rope, which has interviews with East Timor President Xanana Gusmao and his wife Kirsty and with racing driver Peter Brock. However, it’s a chance for me to point out that Peter Brock has an interview from a few years ago on the Animal Liberation website talking about the reasons behind his being vegetarian/vegan for over ten years – not that I expect Andrew Denton to focus on this aspect of Peter Brock very much.

There are a few high profile Australian sportspeople who are vegetarian. Greg Chappell, former Australian cricket captain and recently appointed coach of India, is another who has been vegan for many years. While their diet is also driven by health factors, as Greg Chappell says even if you start for health reasons, “it is impossible to ignore the ethical and environmental aspects of our meat-eating culture.” All of this plays a role in slowly changing public attitudes and moving towards the goal which Brian Sherman and his Voiceless organisation are working towards. It happens to be a goal I share, so I thought I’d take the chance to give it a mention.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, July 18, 2005 Permalink
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I is for ID Card

Peter Beattie and John Howard seem to be boosting the idea of a national ID card with the enthusiasm the major parties often seem to have (when they are in government) of giving governments more power.

The Democrats - under Janine Haines’ leadership - were crucial in stopping a national ID Card being introduced in Australia back in 1987. This doesn’t mean the idea shouldn’t be considered again, but personally I’d need some convincing.

Giving more information and potential power to Govt officials strikes me as dangerous unless we have better safeguards for citizens (and others). A Bill of Rights is the perfect vehicle to attempt to provide those protections and if Peter Beattie was to commit Queensland to something like this (as has been done in the ACT), I would feel a bit more reassured with his enthusiasm.

A Senate Committee inquiry, initiated by the Democrats, has just produced a report which shows some of the existing shortcomings with our national privacy laws. These would definitely need to be fixed too before we consider an ID card.

I am also very uneasy that the issue is being raised in part as a suggested weapon in the so-called ‘war on terror’. As was stated in this article, the London bombers could have got visas to enter Australia “in about 30 seconds”. ID cards can do nothing to address this. Nor would a UK identity card have helped them. Their identity was not the problem. Using the ‘war on terror’ seems to be a guise for the Government to give itself more power without accompanying it with proper controls and safeguards on how that power is used.

Having said all that, it is worth having a debate on this, as long as it is an informed one, rather than a simplistic measure put forward under the ‘war on terror’ pretext. We already have huge amounts of personal identifying information spread all over government departments. A more unified national mechanism could make the undoubted 'public good' aspects of having such data more effective. It might also make it easier to detect abuse and misuse of that information if it was centralised. Of course, it could also make that misuse and abuse much easier too.

Michelle Grattan takes a reasonably measured approach to the issue and comes down broadly in favour of it. I found a very useful outline (with further links) of some of the factual issues that have to be considered in any realistic discussion of an ID card at this site - http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0112.html - which I got through an internal Democrat discussion list.

If you want to revisit what the original Australia Card was all about, this paper by Roger Clarke from 1987 gives an outline of its technical details and the origins of the idea. It is interesting to note that an ID Card is being floated today as a possible solution for the problems raised by terrorism and migration issues, while the perceived ‘evils’ it allegedly addressed in 1986/7 were tax and welfare fraud. I found the addendum, which deals with the political endgame, particularly interesting. Despite having previously given an indication that he would not use it as a double dissolution trigger, Prime Minister Hawke found the opportunity offered by the disruption of the mad Joh for PM campaign too big a temptation to resist and used it as an excuse for an early election. As Roger Clarke says, “although it was the ostensible reason for the election, the Prime Minister's policy speech devoted less than two lines to the Australia Card, and during the entire campaign the major parties barely mentioned it.” There has not been a double dissolution election since then.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, July 18, 2005 Permalink
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Sunday, July 17, 2005
 
I is for Immigration AND Indigenous (and Indonesia)

One aspect of the controversies surrounding the culture of the Department of Immigration Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) that I haven’t seen mentioned is how it reflects on the sort of deal indigenous Australians are getting. The second ‘I’ in DIMIA stands for Indigenous, and the recently removed Secretary of the Department, Bill Farmer, oversaw the whole Department, not just the immigration side of it. It doesn’t give great confidence in how indigenous issues are being handled.

I’ve said before that indigenous issues should be given a separate Department, or at least a separate Minister. Given the massive inequality that indigenous Australians experience and our failure as a nation to fix this, this matter should have top political priority, which is not possible if the Minister responsible has their attention elsewhere half the time. This problem is compounded when the Department administering the area is so clearly dysfunctional.

Speaking of Bill Farmer, there is a report today that an Indonesian Parliamentary Committee may not be totally happy with Mr Farmer being appointed as Australia’s ambassador. Apparently the Parliamentary Commission for Security, Defence and Foreign Affairs gets a say on ambassadorial appointment of other countries, and one of the MPs on it has “formally raised ‘deep concern’ about the appointment.”

I met with some members of this Commission in Jakarta last month when I was there as part of a visiting delegation. The MPs I met certainly couldn’t be characterised as ‘anti-Australian’, although it’s quite possible the Indonesian MP quoted in the media is mainly focused on giving a political message to a domestic audience rather than speaking purely from a policy based perspective. I believe Australia’s relationship with Indonesia is vital for both our countries and this ambassadorship is amongst the most important. Whilst the relationship seems to me to be quite good at the moment, it is also a fragile one and not one where any unnecessary damage should be risked just to help the Prime Minister out of a political difficulty.

Apart from the concerns raised in the media report, it is worth noting that Bill Farmer was not just head of DIMIA, but part of the Prime Minister’s People Smuggling Taskforce at a time when Australia initiated ‘disruption activities’ with Indonesian military and police. It has never been clear precisely what this entailed, but evidence at the recent trial of a man convicted of helping to organise the fatal voyage of the SIEV X clearly showed Indonesian police or military helped facilitate this voyage. The federal Government, including Bill Farmer (and the new DIMIA Secretary Andrew Metcalfe), continually stonewalled attempts by the Senate to get answers on this.

One other issue which arises from the controversy in Indonesia over Bill Farmer’s appointment is how impressive it is that the Indonesian Parliament gets a say in ratifying appointments of overseas Ambassadors. This new democracy puts Australia to shame in showing how little real accountability there is under our system with Government appointments to key positions. The Democrats have been campaigning without success for years to get a system of appointment on merit. While it doesn’t guarantee a good outcome every time, Parliamentary scrutiny of appointments, such as is done with great vigour in the USA, at least provides some check and balance against blatantly partisan or inappropriate appointments to important positions.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, July 17, 2005 Permalink
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Friday, July 15, 2005
 
Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? It's the Government giving the tunes to the Immigration Culture Club
"Change the institutions and, over time, you change the culture” – so said John Howard this week. However, he was not talking about the Immigration Department, but about his plans for workplace relations. And how does he plan to change that culture? By dramatically overhauling the law.

I’m strongly opposed to what the Prime Minister plans to do with workplace relations, but he is right about one thing –to change institutional culture, you need to significantly change the law.

It seems that key fact is being missed in the barrage of commentary following the release of the Palmer Report into the Cornelia Rau case. Everyone is talking about the bad culture within the Department of Immigration, Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) (perhaps understandable, as on my count the Report uses the word "culture" 43 times). But most people (encouraged by the Government) seem to be ignoring the obvious fact that this culture is a direct consequence of the law (i.e. the Migration Act 1958) and the Government policies which inform and direct the Department in how to administer that law.

The notion that you can overhaul the culture of an entire Department without reforming the laws and policies which are the air that Department has breathed for the last decade (and more) is farcical. It is also a convenient way of blaming the public servants, who have basically just delivered the system the Government has demanded.

Who can forget the biggest ‘cultural message’ of all from the Prime Minster – at polling booths all over the country on election day 2001? “We will decide who comes into this country and the circumstances under which they come!” That is basically what has informed DIMIA decision making – they will decide and that’s that. Immigration matters are all about so-called ‘border control’ and that meant normal niceties such as due process, the rule of law and natural justice - let alone more general notions such as decency and a fair go - do not apply.

The Migration Act reinforces this. The most obvious case is mandatory detention. If a Migration officer has a suspicion that a person is unlawfully in Australia, then, as the name of the policy says, it is mandatory for that person to be locked up. Our legal and democratic system and traditions normally requires some form of testing of evidence before a person can be jailed for any significant length of time, but not under the Migration Act. As the Palmer Report showed, jailing people and keeping them there is done as a matter of ‘administrative convenience’.

Even just this week, reports appeared of a pregnant New Zealand woman in a Queensland jail awaiting deportation because her visa had been cancelled. Following media coverage, Minister Vanstone decided to allow her to be released back in the community where she had previously been serving parole. Leaving aside whether or not cancelling her visa was a fair and reasonable thing to do (Section 501 of the Act gives the Minister personal powers to cancel visas on character grounds and specifically precludes the rules of natural justice from such decisions, which is a topic worthy of a separate post of its own), the Minister's own statement about this case said the woman currently has an appeal against her deportation before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. This is another clear case where someone was stuck in jail because it was administratively convenient (and arguably required under the Act), even though there was no significant risk if she remains in the community while her appeal is heard. Not to mention it being another case where media publicity gets a different result, which is hardly a good sign of decisions being made on their merits.

The Palmer Report was based predominantly on just one case, yet there are many many more examples of gross injustices perpetrated by DIMIA. I could list over 100 cases I am personally familiar with over the last few years that have involved huge suffering, major injustices, massive inefficiency, pigheaded inflexibility or what appeared to be arbitrary factors determining decisions. Many of these have not been asylum seeker cases; many have involved Australian citizens or families. Some have been hard cases; some seemed to be the result of nothing but bureaucratic pettiness. But I have no doubt that every single one of them occurred in part because the law, backed up in a big way by Government policy and regular Ministerial statements, reinforced the notion that this was how our migration system is meant to operate.

To blame the public servants for doing what they were clearly required to do is just buck passing on a massive scale. The Palmer Report was as scathing as you could get, yet it had very narrow terms of reference and as it stated itself, its comments were “not intended to call the policy into question.”

It is up to the community to call the policy into question and insist that the Government and the Labor Party recognise the need to substantially reform the policy and the law that underpins it. Whilst the Prime Minister and his government must bear primary responsibility, the law, and therefore this culture, is very much a joint creation of the two major parties over the past decade and a half. Until it is substantially changed, continuing injustices are inevitable, and the Immigration culture club will continue to sing pretty much the same tune.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, July 15, 2005 Permalink
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Tuesday, July 12, 2005
 
Troops back to Afghanistan
I have mixed feelings about the imminent decision by the Government to send some Australian troops back to Afghanistan.

As a matter of principle, I don’t believe any Australian troops should be deployed to a new theatre overseas without a vote of Parliament, except in cases of extreme emergency. I’ve had a Private Senators Bill in the Parliament to this effect for some years, as have many other Democrats stretching back to the days of Don Chipp and Colin Mason in the early 1980s. However, neither of the larger parties support it, so it has never been adopted. Whilst Afghanistan is not exactly a new area of deployment, this does involve a decision to send troops to a country where we don’t have them at the moment, so I think formal Parliamentary endorsement is desirable.

However, I do support, with some apprehension, the provision of military assistance to Afghanistan. Indeed, I called for this support to be provided over 12 months ago, following requests for assistance from the Afghan government. That request was ignored and things have been allowed to deteriorate since. It is simply ridiculous that Australia left Afghanistan to basically fend for itself so soon after the toppling of the Taliban. Whilst I am always apprehensive that more troops in a situation can end up hindering rather helping achieve peace, I think in this case there is sufficient need and sufficient justification. Afghanistan has another crucial election coming up later this year and that needs to go well to give the country the best chance of stabilising in the future.

So on balance, I support sending troops back to Afghanistan. I noticed the Greens put out a statement saying they oppose sending troops. Whilst they rightly make the point that any deployment should be debated in Parliament first, their opposition to the actual deployment seems to be because George Bush has also asked for it, rather than just Afghani President Hamid Kharzai. Whilst that is a cause for cynicism, I don’t see that it should mean the deployment should not be supported, particularly given that the Afghan Government also clearly still wants extra support. I also think the Greens’ view that “this situation in Afghanistan would not exist had the invasion of Iraq and consequent heightening of terrorism not occurred" is stretching it a bit. I’m sure illegally invading Iraq hasn’t helped reduce terrorism anywhere, but whilst the situation would be different in some ways, there’s no reason to suggest it would be much better (except for the fact that it would have meant resources staying in Afghanistan longer, rather than being diverted to support the invasion of Iraq.)

However, risking the lives of Australian troops by sending them overseas should always be a matter of major debate. It is not an abstract intellectual exercise; there are lives and families literally being put in the firing line. There are legitimate arguments for and against deploying troops, but what I find very frustrating is that the public reporting of the possibility of re-deploying troops is once again wrapped in the usual bluster about fighting the war on terrorism, protecting democracy and generally wrappping ourselves in the flag. If all that is true, why did the Government pull troops out of Afghanistan so early (or “cut and run” to use their jargon) and why were they not labelled ‘soft on terror’ by all their cheerleaders in the media who supported the invasion of Iraq? Today’s Daily Telegraph has an article headlined “Back to finish the job”. One would think this begs the question of why the Government left the “job” unfinished in the first place, but the article simply gives some “Boy’s Own” style quotes from the Prime Minister and the Treasurer while they practice their impression of steel jawed resolve (while sending other people to face the landmines, bombs and bullets).

However, all of that is more a criticism of how dismal the level of public debate on these issues is, rather than a criticism of the decision to send the troops back. Whilst I do support the redeployment of troops and remain critical of the previous withdrawal, I repeat my view that we need a reconsideration of how we are approaching the so-called ‘war on terror’. Military support can play a part in this, but it can only ever be one part, and even that has to be judicious in its use.


UPDATE: As was widely anticipated, the Government has announced it will send some troops back into Afghanistan. There’s seems to be little comment about whether they should have been withdrawn in the first place.

I also find I’m agreeing with Malcolm Fraser again. An article by him in today’s Age expresses support for deployment in Afghanistan, opposition to the invasion of Iraq and calls for different strategies in the ‘war on terror’, including the importance of strong adherence to the rule of law.

There’s also a good piece in the Sydney Morning Herald by Christopher Kremmer. “There is simply no comparison between the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. One was a justified, legal military action to root out a terrorist network that had taken over a whole country and declared war on another; the other, a foolish and possibly illegal invasion which served vested interests and made a bad situation worse.”



posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, July 12, 2005 Permalink
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Overcoming Disadvantages for Indigenous People
A week ago I wrote about the scandalous levels of disadvantage and inequality endured by many indigenous people in Australia, and how we seem to be able to look the other way about it even when we are looking directly at poverty and early deaths in African countries.

A new report by the Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision has just been published assessing some of the key indicators of indigenous disadvantage in Australia. The report is one of a series which it says “reflects a new determination by Australian governments to address the root causes of disadvantage”.

Without in any way dismissing the report or the process by which it was compiled, both of which are valuable, I’ll judge how determined Australian governments really are on the basis of the concrete actions they take and the public leadership they show in eliminating this disadvantage and inequality, rather than how many reports they commission.

Every time a report comes out - whether it’s on Aboriginal health, or kids being abused, or the number of homeless, or the prevalence of poverty in Australia, it gets a bit of mainstream publicity. For example, there was an article in The Australian and reports on the ABC about this latest document. But as this report notes, there has not been dramatic improvement in recent years. These reports tend not to lead to major change, and seem not to cause any major political issues. Everyone – the media included – assumes it will go nowhere and we don’t follow it up and demand to know why it goes nowhere. The politicians know if they just keep quiet, or at best make sympathetic clucking noises, it'll just fade away and be buried by whatever the latest ‘important’ story is.

Unless Governments choose to make this a higher political priority, the same will happen again. To repeat an example I have already used, this latest report identifies that “The proportion of live births during 1999–2001 with low through to extremely low birthweight was more than twice as high for babies born to Indigenous mothers than for babies born to non-Indigenous mothers.” The Australian Medical Association has identified ways this can be addressed at a cost of around $20 million. This money is yet to be provided by the federal government, yet they are prepared to spend the same amount on a completely illegitimate advertising campaign to promote their policies and protect their own jobs.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, July 12, 2005 Permalink
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Sunday, July 10, 2005
 
Govt Workplace Relations advertisements - stealing the public’s money
It probably just shows my naivety, but sometimes I still find myself getting truly shocked at how flagrantly dishonest and brazen some governments and politicians can be.

The new federal government advertising campaign promoting their plans for workplace relations is nothing but blatant stealing of the public’s money by the government so they can spend it shoring up their own backsides.

There will always be a grey area between what constitutes legitimate government advertising to inform the public and what is just blatant party political propaganda. But these adverts are so far beyond that grey area that no one can credibly pretend they are legitimate.

The most obvious fact that makes these adverts partisan propaganda is that they are selling a policy, not explaining a new law. No matter how much people might hate the new workplace changes, if they had been passed into law, there would be some justification to informing the public about what they entailed (as is currently happening with the new rules on superannuation choice). But not only are these workplace changes not yet law, they are not even draft legislation so there is no way of knowing how much of it is true and how much of its half-truths and lies. This is nothing other than spending the public’s money to try to build public support for a policy of the Liberal & National parties.

The media often marvel about what a clever and skilful politician John Howard is, and there is undoubtedly some truth to that. But if I had twenty million dollars to spend every time I wanted to build public support for an idea of mine or to counter criticism by others, I think I could make myself look pretty good too.

Frankly, I think the mainstream media are being an accomplice to theft and in receipt of stolen property in taking money to run these adverts. If they were genuinely interested in an honest democracy and fair public debate, they would refuse to run these advertisements.

UPDATE: This paper for the ANU's Democratic Audit by Fred Argy looks at the incumbency advantages for governments by examining the use of taxpayers' money for political advertising campaigns and argues that public money should not be used for 'proposed and unlegislated' policy changes.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, July 10, 2005 Permalink
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Saturday, July 09, 2005
 
Thoughts on the London Bombing - #2
Today’s Age newspaper carries comments from 5 different Australian Muslim and Arabic groups and representatives. All condemn the bombings and some also rightly call for a rethink on the tactics and approach to the so-called ‘war on terror’. I for one don’t want my country to be permanently in the middle of a war we can never win. We will also never lose such a war in the traditional military sense, but terror isn’t just a military weapon, it’s a state of mind and I don’t want Australia’s children growing up immersed in a society of perpetual, barely suppressed anxiety and apprehension.

As the Australian Arabic Council said, “while terrorism will never succeed, the current strategy in confronting it will also not succeed. We need to break the cycle of violence.”

Here’s a couple of articles from the Aljazeera website (found at this site) which contain reactions from Muslims leaders overseas: - Muslims leaders condemn deadly London attacks and Muslim scholars ban killing in the name of Islam.

A statement by former British Foreign Affairs Minister Robin Cook (found at Antony Loewenstein's site) says what I was endeavouring to say in my post yesterday in a much clear way:

"The danger now is that the west's current response to the terrorist threat compounds that original error. So long as the struggle against terrorism is conceived as a war that can be won by military means, it is doomed to fail. The more the west emphasises confrontation, the more it silences moderate voices in the Muslim world who want to speak up for cooperation. Success will only come from isolating the terrorists and denying them support, funds and recruits, which means focusing more on our common ground with the Muslim world than on what divides us."
(although I would also add that this is about much more than building better links with Muslims, it is about building more understanding and acceptance across all parts of our society and communities)

It is also a good time to remind ourselves that it is very much in our own interests to stand up against injustice and breaches of basic rights, even when it doesn’t seem to be effecting us directly. At a time like this when we need greater understanding and cooperation with Muslim communities, we have to remember the justified scepticism of some Muslims with a Government that determinedly pursued measures such as indefinite detention without charge, deliberately keeping refugees separated from their family, the knowingly false deliberate defamation of asylum seekers as potential terrorists and claims like "I don't want people like that in this country", the involvement in invading another country under false pretences when it is now crystal clear the decision to invade was pre-determined, the willingness to allow Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks to be dealt with by the USA in a manner completely outside any sort of due process or the rule of law, the extra ASIO powers which have been used only against Muslims, etc .

All of these things just happen to have had Muslims as direct targets and victims. That is not the same as saying the Govt has attacked all Muslims, but you can hardly blame some Muslim Australians for being somewhat sceptical when it's suggested that they trust the Govt and ASIO by cooperating with them – especially when so many in the wider Australian community stood by or actively supported the Government whilst it has done these things.

This is why I have consistently said that Government policies which undermine basic freedoms and standards of honesty harm and endanger all Australians, not just the small vulnerable group who are directly being targeted at the time. It’s also why I emphasise that understanding, respect and cooperation will work far better as an intelligence tool in the long run than fear, intimidation and endlessly tougher powers.


posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, July 09, 2005 Permalink
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Friday, July 08, 2005
 
Some Thoughts on the London Bombings
Tragedies such as this are awful not just for those directly killed and injured and their friends and families, but because they engender such fear in everybody. Fear and uncertainty creates dangers of their own and it is important that these natural reactions are not exploited or responded to irrationally.

I’ve received a few emails and calls today from people blaming multiculturalism for the London bombing and urging tighter immigration controls on who we let into Australia –one example says “most trouble spots in this world are civil wars caused by the intermingling of races” which we must prevent in our society and that people like me who support multiculturalism are “betraying our war dead”. The rest are along similar lines.

Peter Faris' blog uses a quote (I assume approvingly) of Tony Blair’s from the civil liberties debates around proposed security laws in the UK last year, when Blair was trying to overturn centuries old British legal rights and freedoms and give more unaccountable power to his government on security grounds. No doubt Blair will be repeating this effort again soon.

Sydney lawyer and blogger Irfan Yusuf urges Britain’s Muslim’s to speak out loudly in condemnation of the bombings or they will be condemned themselves (article found via On Line Opinion). Many in Australia’s Muslim communities have already expressed fears that ASIO’s extra powers are being used specifically to target them. If underlying community antagonism increases – even subconsciously – as a consequence of the London bombings, then the fear and apprehension amongst our local Muslim community will probably also increase. I know it is very easy for the bigger more difficult issues to be lost in amongst calls for greater and ever more strident condemnation, but I agree with Irfan Yusuf’s argument. While I know many Australian Muslims do condemn actions like these, I believe they need to do more to make those views heard - for thier own sakes as well as our wider community.

There will be strong and emotional debate around these topics, as there should be and needs to be. But, as the Editor of the excellent Open Democracy website, Isabel Hilton writes, “now is a moment to reaffirm those values – to resist blaming any community or faith for the actions of criminals, to defend traditions of justice, dissent and solidarity – that broad ground on which the democratic citizen stands.”

That ground of democracy and freedom is what our society rests upon more than anything else, and we must resist the temptation to undermine it in the face of the fear and uncertainty that events like this generate. The role of community leaders in keeping those fears rational and in context is a vital one, as many governments will look to exploit any opportunity to give themselves more power and control and take it away from others.

Now is the time to more strongly than ever defend our freedoms and rights from attack from both inside and outside our society, and to promote the importance of a diverse, pluralistic, multicultural, multi-faith society as the best way to defeat the ignorance and hate most graphically demonstrated by the London bombings.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, July 08, 2005 Permalink
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Tuesday, July 05, 2005
 
Why can’t we ‘Make Poverty History’ in Australia too?
I think the Live 8 concerts and related public debate have been a wonderful way to bring a focus on the fact it needs political will to end poverty and its related suffering. Reports that the goal of $25 billion more for aid was in sight are great to hear. The usual curmudgeons have been about saying that aid won’t solve anything without political and economic reform and the end of corrupt governments and leaders in Africa. There is some truth in this, but to use that to criticise attempts to alleviate crippling debt and build political will to break the back of poverty is pathetic.

But I do agree that without genuine political will from the leaders of countries that have severe poverty and avoidable early deaths amongst their citizens and the proper directing of resources towards the poorest people who are most in need, full progress won’t be made. That’s why the finger has to be pointed at Australia's political leaders for continuing to accept third-world health standards for many of our aboriginal people. I felt even more annoyed at those who scoff at the idea of more aid and just blame governments in Africa for the appalling health situation of their people, when kids are dying in Australia who shouldn’t be, and people are suffering terrible ill health and poverty in Australia who shouldn’t be. No one is saying that situation is all the fault of corrupt leaders who do not have the political will to do anything about it. In fact a lot of people don’t seem to be saying very much about it at all.

In amongst those very telling images from the Live 8 coverage of fingers snapping every three seconds – each click signifying a preventable, poverty related death – we must remember are Australian aboriginal kids and young adults dying as well. The health statistics for indigenous Australians are compatible with some of those African countries we are talking about, yet there is no political will in our country to do something about it or to put the money that is needed towards fixing it. The facts are all there and well known, yet they continue to be ignored politically. I don’t know what it will take to make us sit up and take it seriously and feel as strongly about our own people as we do about those in African countries.

According to the Australian Medical Association, “each year 83 indigenous children die in Australia because they are indigenous”. Australia’s indigenous people don’t live in a third world country – is that why we don’t in the main notice their suffering or why we read the statistics but don’t register it? Do we think perhaps “they live here so they have the opportunity if they just got their shit together?“ Do we really think it’s that simple?

This is all the more shaming and damning because we are not a third world country – we are not a poor country. We are a very rich country. We are a democracy where everyone is equal and all deserve to share in the wealth. Our leaders are not corrupt or spirit money away for their own purposes, do they? The AMA estimates that around $20 million a year of new money would provide the health workers and support staff, outreach services, pharmaceuticals, food and transport required to make a crucial difference on the pivotal issue of low birth weight and premature babies amongst indigenous communities. This is the same amount the federal government is likely to spend on advertisements to defend their planned changes to our industrial relations laws. The ABC reports a small indigenous health initiative has just been announced, although the AMA has already pointed out an obvious flaw in the plan.

Another of my many frustrations from the last election campaign was being unable to raise any interest in this most blatant and compelling injustice. I just cannot understand how we accept children continuing to die in our own back yard while pontificating about those that are dying in Africa and why our political leaders and mainstream media do not treat this as a matter of the utmost urgency.


PS While I’m mentioning Live 8, there’s a good piece on the topic at William Burroughs’ Baboon – “Whether from left or right, check your politics in at the door when you enter the house of Desperate Deprivation.” This piece also mentions a very good examination of the issues by Brian Bahnisch at Larvatus Prodeo (which is followed by some good debate and comments too).

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, July 05, 2005 Permalink
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