Australia is breaking my heart :(

mccardey · Dec 16, 2013

Filigree said:
This one looks like a Tea Party clone from the US. I'm sorry, Australia, you deserve better.

This is what we have this morning: a new code aimed squarely at making it easier to lock up asylum seekers was "quietly gazetted last week". More secrets, because if you want to behave shamelessly, it's better to do it behind closed doors.

Daniel Webb, director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre, said the introduction of the code raised serious legal questions.

"People may be indefinitely locked up on the basis of untested allegations of traffic infringements or bullying,” he said.

“The suggestion from the government that such an arbitrary and draconian deprivation of liberty is ‘reasonable, necessary and proportionate’ is dubious at best.

"Morrison says these reforms uphold fundamental Australian laws and values. Well, the right to liberty and the presumption of innocence are pretty fundamental. And these reforms trash them."

mccardey · Dec 16, 2013

mirandashell said:
Ain't that the definition of politician?

Australia has had and still has some wonderful politicians. Really good people, on both sides. Tony Abbott just isn't one of them.

The good news is:

The third major poll in as many weeks has found Tony Abbott's 100-day-old government has been given no honeymoon by voters and would have been bundled out if an election were held over the weekend.
In a double blow to the Prime Minister, it found the only honeymoon is actually being enjoyed by his direct opponent, Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...otts-slumps-20131216-2zhku.html#ixzz2ng4FGBK6

ETA: And I'll just leave this here with a screw you, Tony Abbott

When Abdul Sharifi started high school in Sydney after fleeing war-torn Afghanistan, he did not speak English and had never been to school. "They didn't really have proper schools in Afghanistan," he said. "So I didn't do maths, science, English, nothing."
Yet, against the odds, he is likely to be among the state's high achieving HSC students when results are released on Wednesday.
Abdul is a product of a western Sydney public school with a reputation for punching well above its weight. Despite more than half the students at Holroyd High School school being of refugee background and most starting with no or very limited English, about 40 per cent of its HSC students have received university offers in recent years.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/educ...-its-weight-20131216-2zh92.html#ixzz2ng7oLCt1

Don · Dec 16, 2013

Zoombie said:
So, obviously, we just need to partition the world into several million very tiny nations.

Now you're getting the idea, although I'd prefer about 7 billion of them.

screenscope · Dec 16, 2013

Don said:
News Flash!

A politician actually turns out to be a lying, self-serving, child-beating ass interested only in enriching himself and his cronies, while shafting the people who elected him (and the 99% in general), hiding as many facts as possible from the people, and doing all he can to have himself presented as a prince in the official history.

You have a more charitable view of Abbott than me.

Helix · Dec 16, 2013

The only thing that surprises me about the Coalition (which, of course, has no problems with coalition governments unless they involve Labor) is that they are even more inept than I imagined they could be. Even though we had a warning in the example of Campbell Newman.

The only good bit is that I can now get all annoyingly told-you-so to those acquaintances who crowed about voting Lib or Nats and who are now saying, 'Who would have thought it would be like this?". Well, you know, all those people who didn't vote for them had a bit of an inkling...

Atlantis · Dec 16, 2013

mccardey said:
The new PM's first 100 days

And let's not forget this

It's the new politics of secrecy and it's awful.

Yes our new government is pretty fucking terrible.

It's almost comical...in a way.

They remind me of the villians from Captain Planet. I would not be surprised if someone told me Abbott had an underground lair somewhere.

It's disgusting how they are treating refuggees. They do not deserve to be treated like that. At all. No one does. To be put on a hell hole of an island for years at a time with little to no care only to be denied permaent residency if they're ever lucky enough to get here. It's fucking disgusting.

And don't even get me started on his attitude towards climate change. I hate the fear mongering and scare tactics a lot of people use when they talk about climate change. Acting like the world is ending...stuff like that. You could call me a skeptic, I guess, because I do not think the world is ending BUT at the same time, though, I do not deny that the climate is changing and I think it is incredibly important to make efforts to protect what we have.

Bloody Abbott though... he acts like he can do what he wants and the Earth will always be there to provide, will always be green and fruitful... the way he has shunned science since coming into power and freaking dismantled climate protection groups I mean seriously, wtf? Not being in climate change is ONE thing but sticking a big middle finger up at the Earth and doing everything you can to destory it is another kettle of fish entirely.

He's a monstrous prime minster and a terrible, terrible man.

The only thing I agree with him on was his comments about smacking kids and how we should not become a nanny state. Parents should be able to punish their children with a light smack on the butt or the arm if they do something foolish like run across a road. There is a big difference between a light smack with the hand and belting a child until they bleed with a stick.

I am actually not that worried about Abbott being in charge though because I think sometimes countries need to go through periods with a dick in charge to remind the people how important it is to elect the right people next time. We needed a change from Labor. It was as simple as that. Abbott will not be in charge forever. He'll go away eventually and Labor will be back in and Australia will become a better place.

Sometimes you need to go from one extreme to the other to remind people who are the real good guys in life. Labor might be shit at a lot of things, but they have heart, and they treat people like human beings.

mccardey · Dec 17, 2013

Oh good grief! Tim Wilson for Australian Human Rights Commissioner? Tim Wilson of the IPA? The same IPA who call for the abolition of the Australian Human Rights Commission? That Tim Wilson?

Yep - that Tim Wilson.

The Abbott government has sent shockwaves through the anti-discrimination and political establishments by appointing one of the nation's most vociferous critics of the Human Rights Commission as its new chief.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...ion-dubious-20131217-2zj6j.html#ixzz2nij4q0T6

Helix · Dec 17, 2013

Oh, dear heaven.

"The appointment of Mr Wilson to this important position will help restore balance to the Australian Human Rights Commission which, during the period of the Labor government, has become increasingly narrow and selective in its view of human rights," Senator Brandis said.

And I had such a lovely day at the Lake Barrine Tea House.

mccardey · Dec 17, 2013

I'm just hoping they'll take a break over Christmas.

Helix · Dec 17, 2013

Meanwhile we can all rally around Peppa Pig.

M R Mortimer · Dec 17, 2013

Also in today's good news: Tony Abbott smacked his daughters, and thinks you should too

He needs to be spanked, but he'd probably enjoy it.

It is terrible that, as an Australian, I feel the need to appologise to everybody I speak to for the actions of a government I did not vote for.

M R Mortimer · Dec 17, 2013

double

Albedo · Dec 17, 2013

mccardey said:
Oh good grief! Tim Wilson for Australian Human Rights Commissioner? Tim Wilson of the IPA? The same IPA who call for the abolition of the Australian Human Rights Commission? That Tim Wilson?

Yep - that Tim Wilson.

Oh great, they've skipped ahead to the wrecking ball phase of Tory government already. I guess implicit in this is the recognition they will be one term wonders.

Thank fuck someone's finally willing to prioritise the human rights of straight white millionaire talkback radio hosts.

Helix · Dec 18, 2013

I'm just a teensy bit annoyed by the PM's statement about Holden workers:

"Some of them will find it difficult, but many of them will probably be liberated to pursue new opportunities and to get on with their lives."

From here.

Mate, I'd like you and your lousy front bench to be liberated in exactly the same way. Bring on the double dissolution.

mccardey · Dec 18, 2013

This is terribly sad.

Two women being held in immigration detention have lost their babies after repeatedly being turned away from medical care, a leading obstetrician says.
James Cook University professor of obstetrics and gynaecology Caroline de Costa said there is an "urgent need" for more doctors and nurses with obstetric qualifications in Darwin's detention centres and for improved care on Christmas Island.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/wome...-costa-says-20131218-2zl10.html#ixzz2np7NwCaj

Of course, Mr Abbott has just sacked the Health Advisory Group a key group that provided advice on the health of asylum seekers in detention and refused to renew the contract for the Salvation Army to continue their humanitarian work with asylum seekers.

So I guess we'll be hearing a whole lot less about awkward little problems like stillbirths and infant deaths, from now on...

ETA: RACHAEL BROWN to Natasha Stott Despoja, newly appointed Ambassador for women and girls:

"The Immigration Health Advisory Group that has been sacked by the Coalition Government has voiced concerns about the number of women losing their babies while in detention centres.

In Darwin there was one born stillborn, also in Darwin there was a woman who lost her baby two months later. On Christmas Island a woman gave birth to a dead baby last night, and the six women who were pregnant on Manus Island, three of those women lost their babies. How much of a role can you play looking into why these women are losing their babies?

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said the problem is we just don't have enough data on the issue, and perhaps we'll be losing even more data with the exodus of the Immigration Health Advisory Group."

That was on the ABC. Mr Abbott had better stop funding the ABC, too.

JimmyB27 · Dec 18, 2013

mccardey said:
Oh good grief! Tim Wilson for Australian Human Rights Commissioner? Tim Wilson of the IPA? The same IPA who call for the abolition of the Australian Human Rights Commission? That Tim Wilson?

Yep - that Tim Wilson.

On the bright side, presumably he won't be trying to abolish it any more, or he'll be doing himself out of a job...

mccardey · Dec 18, 2013

JimmyB27 said:
On the bright side, presumably he won't be trying to abolish it any more, or he'll be doing himself out of a job...

No, but he'll change it into something his friends the shock-jocks would approve of - and keep the job. Two birds, one stone.

Helix · Dec 18, 2013

According to Twitter (that reliable source!), he's deleted some of his own tweets, starting with the one in which he says that freedom of speech doesn't equate with freedom to be heard and that the govt should turn a water cannon on the Occupy Melbourne folk.

ETA: Link to a Guardian piece containing the aforementioned tweet.

mccardey · Dec 18, 2013

Nauru, for the non-Aussies, is an island we have paid to take any asylum seekers who manage to make it to Australia. It is - and I think the Nauruans would concur - a somewhat-less-than-well-resourced nation. Life expectancy - 66 years. Its economy peaked in the 1980s and was basically guano-based.

In conditions as harsh as those on Nauru it is often the small things, the day-to-day things, which weigh heaviest on people's minds. While I was in the family compound, distraught children repeatedly came to me and begged for new shoes because theirs had worn through and the hot gravel was hurting their feet. They said that when they asked the detention centre staff for shoes their pleas were ignored and that their parents couldn't do anything to ease their pain.

<snip>

There is a battle of wills taking place on Nauru right now. The Australian government is trying to break the spirit of these vulnerable people in the hope that they'll return to the countries from which they have fled. This indignity and the lack of control that the refugees have over their own lives is being carried out methodically, with the aim of dehumanising those who have been locked up. The conditions are designed to break people and it's sickening that young boys and girls are being abused like this.
Children are forced to line up for th

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/ag...han-animals-20131218-2zl90.html#ixzz2ntOoD1sy

The bit about the shoes - a friend and I were visiting at Villawood Detention Centre in the middle of winter a couple of years ago. There was a new crop of Sri Lankans, underdressed and barefoot in weather that was in their terms (annually 80 - 86 degrees F) bloody cold.

I asked why they didn't have shoes. They'd lost them when the boat capsized: by which I mean that when they were in the water for more than six hours, they'd kicked them off - along with anything else that would weight them down. I called the-powers-that-be and asked why these guys still didn't have shoes. The answer was that they did. Or they would. In the fullness of time. But they hadn't filled out the forms. Once they had filled out forms, the shoes would be provided. In six or eight weeks. But first they'd have to ask for the forms.

My friend and I went out and bought shoes from Target. Lots of shoes.

I don't know when I've been crankier, or more ashamed.

Helix · Dec 18, 2013

I don't know if this will make us feel better or worse:

Guardian Australia's awards of the year

It's the end of 2013, so let's look back and dish out some prizes to Australia's good, bad and ugly. And the winners are ...

(Warning: Contains video of Clive Palmer twerking.)

mirandashell · Dec 19, 2013

Ah! Alan Whicker did a couple of docs on that island, I think. For a few years, they were all millionaires and then when the guano ran out, so did the money. And now they are all poor. Is that the right place?

Helix · Dec 19, 2013

That's the one! Among the nation's investments was a big office block in Melbourne. It was officially known as Nauru House, but was usually called Birdshit House because of the source of the money.

Albedo · Dec 19, 2013

One of Nauru's more bizarre investments was Leonardo, the Musical.

Helix · Dec 19, 2013

Albedo said:
One of Nauru's more bizarre investments was Leonardo, the Musical.

Dear heaven. What a shame it wasn't a great success. It'd be brilliant to be able to claim a musical-led recovery.

Albedo · Dec 19, 2013

Helix said:
Dear heaven. What a shame it wasn't a great success. It'd be brilliant to be able to claim a musical-led recovery.

I dare say that would have been a great premise FOR a musical, had it ended well.

Australia is breaking my heart :(

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