It may have taken almost 16 years, but finally the whirligig of time is bringing in its revenges.
Girt by Sea: Australia, the Refugees and the Politics of Fear.
In a chapter titled “What Dare Not Speak Its Name”, I asked the forbidden question: was our prime minister, and by extension his government, actually racist?
John Howard already had form: he had amended the Native Title Act to enact the Wik response that favoured farmers over Aboriginal traditional owners, he had called for a slowdown on Asian immigration, and the entire basis of his 2001 election campaign – “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come” – was one of jingoism if not xenophobia.
But did it go the whole way to outright racism? I offered the observation: “It is hard to believe that, had those rescued by the Tampa been white Zimbabwean farmers fleeing the brutal regime of President Mugabe, they would have been treated as hostile invaders and denigrated as economic migrants, illegals, and finally potential terrorists.”
Then I waited for the government or one of its many media boosters to offer a rebuttal. Deafening silence – until at last, some 16 years later, the emergence of Peter Dutton, blatantly and shamelessly demanding that white South African farmers should be encouraged to jump the queue in favour of those already languishing in the various camps – including, of course, those sponsored by Australia in Nauru and Manus Island.
It is worth noting that while the South African farmers may feel discriminated against by legislation that may take away some or all of their property, thus qualifying them as economic migrants, it is a big stretch to claim that they, as a class, let alone a race (as Dutton seems to define them) are facing deliberate political persecution.
Certainly there have been murders in South Africa – far more black deaths than white, if that matters, which it obviously doesn’t to Dutton. But much of South Africa is a violent, though not a lawless, society. To declare that the 74 farm murders between 2016 and 2017, which Tony Abbott effortlessly ramps up to 400, were all political reeks more of propaganda than of evidence.
Dutton is more than dog whistling; he is quite overtly promoting his own version of White Australia, in which all but unquestioning preference is to be accorded to whites who want residence, and the rest can rot away in whichever gulags they can find – we will decide.
Category: Australia’s Shame
By vilifying Abdel-Magied, conservative white Australia was making a point for the benefit of migrants and people of colour, writes Masrur Joarder.
EVEN THOUGH it has been 12 months since Muslim activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied posted the now infamous words, ‘Lest. We. Forget. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine…)’ on social media, she continues to be hunted to this day by the Australian mainstream media, politicians and others for stepping out of line.
via Anzac Day and Abdel-Magied: The point for migrants and people of colour
Amnesty is highlighting state and territory laws and policies which violate the rights of children, like mandatory sentencing in Western Australia. Amnesty has already successfully fought for changes to the law in Queensland which restores the detention of children to a last resort and ensure children are not held in adult prisons.
via Government’s institutional brutality (Part 3) – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The final report has been sitting with the federal government since 22 December, three days after a cabinet reshuffle in which Christian Porter was appointed to replace the former attorney general George Brandis, who ordered the report in 2016.
Call for national inquiry into protection of Indigenous children
Read moreIt was tabled in both the Senate and the House of Representatives on Wednesday as part of a job lot.
Dodson said the response, after the government had the report for three months, was “absolutely not” good enough.
We’re stripped bare. Our captain, oh captain, turns out to be a stupid little boy with the moral compass of a low criminal, enabled and not guided by a whole ship of fools. Cricket, our integrity, is what we can no longer avoid knowing, just another cheapened, commercialised, amoral spectacle presented for our consumption with a bag of corn chips and a sponsor’s beer.
There is nowhere to go from here but down. We’re going to have to find a new identity, because this one is done.
Sometime in 2014, journalist Rob Burgess interviewed former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and discussed refugee policy. During the discussion, apparently Fraser made a prediction. Burgess recently wrote an opinion piece for The New Daily discussing Minister Dutton’s recent claims about South African farmers and recalled Fraser’s prophecy The cruelties of the offshore detention system, he…
Source: The racist Immigration Minister – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“Same old Aussies, always cheating,” goes the Barmy Army chant, and it’s impossible to be offended now. When Smith said of the Cape Town episode, “This is not what we’re about”, he was thinking wishfully. This is what they are about. They did it, they were caught doing it, and they have admitted not only doing it but planning it. What they are about is what they have done.
This is cricket’s #MeToo moment: a rare opportunity for complete purge
Smith, suspended by the ICC for the final Test of the series starting in Johannesburg on Friday, won’t be seen in a Test for Australia until October at the earliest – and it is unclear in what capacity. He did not exactly get a friendly send-off.
Smith has received many a standing ovation in his spectacular ascendance to the summit of the Test arena. At Newlands on Sunday, the reception was of a very different kind.
Deposed as Australian captain less than six hours before, the 28-year-old walked to the middle of the ground at 4.12pm local time. He was booed from the moment he emerged at the top of the stairs beneath the players’ balcony until he arrived to take strike.When, a mere 29 minutes and seven runs later, he made the same journey back, there was more of the same.
via Steve Smith booed as Australia’s humiliation capped with heavy defeat
AUSTRALIAN SHAME FILE
Cape Town: A deeply ashamed Australian captain Steve Smith has admitted his team deliberately conspired to cheat on the third day of the third Test by having Cameron Bancroft use tape to illegally tamper with the ball.
While Bancroft has been charged by match referee Andy Pycroft and faces a one-Test suspension, the reputation of Smith and the Australian team is in tatters.
via Dark day for Australian cricket as Steve Smith admits plan to cheat
Proof positive its Poverty and Systemic inopportunity that creates Homelessness. News Corp is so wrong White Culture and social systems are the cause not Aboriginal Culture (OD)
Gerry Georgatos reveals the unemployment and homeless rates in Australia that we’re not being told.
AUSTRALIA IS FACING homelessness and poverty levels the likes it has never known — nor that it’s prepared to admit.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), there are more than 116,000 homeless Australians.
At least, that’s how many they’ve identified.
However, the number is closer to 300,000 homeless Australians, with more than 100,000 of them being children. Since the data released from the ABS in 2011, we’ve identified that nearly one in five of Australia’s homeless are children aged 12 years and less.
via Facing the facts: Hundreds of thousands homeless and unemployed
In Yemen, 8.4 million people are on the brink of famine and 11 million children require humanitarian assistance, in a population of 29 million. Those children are not receiving the assistance they need because of a Saudi-led, US, UK and Australia-backed, military blockade, using hunger and disease as a weapon of war, which is a war crime.
While they starve, Yemenis are being bombed from the air, and attacked on the ground in collaboration with Al-Qaeda and Al Qaeda-linked militants. Half of the country’s medical facilities have been destroyed, as a Cholera epidemic sweeps the nation. All this is being perpetrated using US, British and Australian weapons.
Why? Because it’s what Saudi Arabia, keeper of the petro-dollar, wants.
Although the UN’s Humanitarian Chief said on January 6th that the situation in Yemen “looks like apocalypse”, on January 16th, the US Army boasted on its Twitter feed that it would continue to boost the Saudi Military’s “powerful capability”.
“Capability” was a buzzword surrounding Australia’s new fleet of tanks on Wednesday as well. Capability for what? Inflicting apocalypse? Capability to starve and bomb millions of impoverished Yemeni people to death?
There has been nothing but silence after The Australian revealed the NT Government kept over $2 billion of its Indigenous aid budget.
The scathing report from The Australian came at a time when all eyes were on the NT after a shocking case of child sexual abuse hit Tennant Creek. The NT is facing a mountain of problems right now. From Indigenous health to housing, unemployment to education. Indigenous communities really need all the help they can get. The situation is nothing short of a national disgrace.
While many people have their fingers pointed directly at Aboriginal communities, no one seems to be questioning the $2 billion of Indigenous funding that was taken out of Indigenous aid budgets by the NT Govt. Can you honestly say that problems would be so bad in these communities if the $2 billion was invested like it was supposed to be?
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples still face key factors of inequality, such as: high incarceration rates, health issues, access to lands, high rates of children being taken away from their families and the need for self-determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples.
As things stand at the present, Australia’s Constitution does not recognise Indigenous or Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ prior occupation and custodianship of their land.
Actually, section 51(xxvi) allows special laws to be passed to the disadvantage of Aboriginal people, and section 25 enables state laws to disqualify people of a particular race from voting at state elections.
An expert panel recommended to remove sections 25 and 51(xxvi) and adopt new sections:
1) Add Section 51 (A) to recognise Aboriginal peoples’ occupation of the land and continuing relationship with lands and water. The section would also pay respect to culture, language and heritage, and state that the government can only make laws to the benefit of Indigenous People.
2) Add Section 116A specifically to prohibit racial discrimination for all Australians. It would forbid any government from discriminating against a person based on race, colour, ethnicity or national origin.
3) Add Section 127 (A) for recognition of languages and to acknowledge and protect the role that languages have in Aboriginal communities.
via A belated ‘Recognition’ and a ‘new policy’ (Part 2) – » The Australian Independent Media Network
There is a big difference between wanting your history known and your cultural rights restored; and being stuck in the past with a ‘poor me’ mindset. Too often this statement is used to diminish and undermine our peoples’ perspectives and to make us feel unjustified in our endeavours. It is an easy way for the ignorant to brush it off and dismiss any lingering feelings of guilt or shame.
via Victim Mentality – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In 1928 the Australian Government asked J. W. Bleakley, Queensland Protector of Aborigines, to report on policy, including ‘half-caste’ policy, in the Northern Territory. His report proposed “blood quotas” as a guiding principle. Those who possessed fifty per cent or more of ‘native blood’ would “drift back” to the black “no matter how carefully brought up and educated.” Those with less than fifty per cent of ‘native blood’ could “avoid the dangers of the blood call” if they were segregated as the prelude to “their absorption by the white race.”
via The new invasion of the Northern Territory (Part 1) – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Even this knowledge, however, could not prepare us for the calculated and wanton actions taken by current Treasurer Scott Morrison to ensure his record as Australia’s cruellest immigration minister — though, admittedly, his actions preceded the rise of current Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, whose commitment to cruelty is truly inspired.
Not to worry, though — as long as any heinous crimes were committed over four years ago, it’s no longer an issue. This is the takeaway from the PM’s response to revelations, first reported by the ABC, that Morrison asked ASIO to delay security checks for 700 asylum seekers back in 2013. Cabinet documents obtained by the ABC evince Morrison first asked his department to advise how asylum seekers could be prevented from ever receiving asylum, before deciding to intervene in ASIO’s security procedures.
via Morrison, Dutton or Turnbull: Who is the cruellest minister of them all?
Has Fairfax Media been offended or showing position in this nations hierarchy of colour? Reactive Racism, Black Racism is a natural and normal reaction to the celebration of the colonization of Australia and the 200 years of color hierarchy oppression and denial that continues through to today. One wonders why and for whom Fairfax media is reporting this? How very right wing Israeli they sound.
“The hardline Indigenous activist” “The Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance ” “the words “F— Australia”, called for the “decolonisation” of the country.” “Ms Onus-Williams’ comments prompted calls for her to be sacked from the Koorie Youth Council,” “”WAR will not rest until we burn this entire rotten settler colony called Australia, illegally and violently imposed on stolen Aboriginal land at the expense of the blood of countless thousands, to the f—ing ground, until every corrupt and illegal institution of white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist settler colonial power forced upon us is no more,”
‘Abolish Australia’, says Indigenous group behind ‘invasion day’ rally
January 26, 1788, the day the British Empire jacked an entire continent; the day that marks the beginning of a 230-year reign of terror on the Indigenous peoples of this land we call Australia, which continues to this day.
The report provides compelling evidence to justify the assertion of genocide. Even though no official figures exist, estimate of the Indigenous People population in 1788 was 750,000. It was reduced to 60,000 in 1901. By 1911 the number was 31,000. Indigenous People have only been included in the National Census since 1971. In 1996 the National Census recorded that 352,970 or 1.97 of the population were of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander descent.
via From terra nullius to Mabo – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The argument that ‘our school has no Aboriginal students so Aboriginal content is not relevant’ is grossly inaccurate and irresponsible. How can learning the original history, culture and language of your homeland ever be irrelevant? A comprehensive knowledge of traditional Aboriginal society and colonial history are vital to fully understand Australia’s social, cultural and political evolution and the ongoing legacy of this today in terms of Reconciliation and addressing Aboriginal disadvantage.
via The Aboriginal threshold – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Imasi arrived in Australia – by plane and intending only to pass through – in January 2010.
Said Imasi
Said Imasi has been held in immigration detention by Australia without allegation, charge or trial for almost eight years.But he has been detained in this country – without allegation, charge, or trial – for nearly eight years. It has cruelled his physical health and sent him plunging into depths of suicidal depression.
Imasi is stateless – there is no country on earth that accepts him as their citizen – and his case appears to have confounded Australian authorities.
it’s hard not to see a group of people who have no idea how to govern for the country as a whole, who are purely in politics for what they are able to extract from being an MP for themselves, being able to win the next election.
What a disaster it would be, if for whatever reason they were given the reins for another three years.
When a party is in such disarray the need to stay in “power” becomes the overarching imperative. This gives rise to the likes of Dutton to take any short cut to maintain his and the government’s grip on power. The Coalition’s only policy has been the demonising of those who are not white, Anglo-Saxon, and Christian.
So Dutton and others see no reason to deliver good government so close to an election. They see the rhetoric of blame as a “winning formula”.
Day to Day Politics: Him or Him? What do you think? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“Each new report of apparent African gang crime brings forth a wave of social media commentary calling for suspected gang members and their families to be deported, dealt with by vigilante groups, or even lynched.
“Anytime that I choose to speak, every time that I want to say something publicly, I have to decide whether I am ready to deal with the bigoted and the racist backlash,” Nyuon says. “It is stifling.”
Andrew Bolt is a first responder when it comes to the media and he defines the South Sudanese as he does the Indigenous of Australia and even you and me and claims he’s entitled to his narrative as he is however his his elite position in the media and Fakenews Corp tears away the equal playing field. Bolt holds his position on a daily basis the South Sudanese voice or narrative is lucky if it gets a hearing once a year and if and when it does because it hasn’t the advantage of the repetiton given Bolt and his ilk it simply doesn’t get heard and that what Bolt claims to be the legitimate structure of free speech in the social market. He denies any attempt that attempts to redress his privilege within the system in particular the ABC or any other Institutional public authority that simply qusestions what he has to say particularly those he is talking about. It’s what makes this article so important.
via ‘We’re not a gang’: the unfair stereotyping of African-Australians | Australia news | The Guardian
Dutton opens his mouth and fails to deliver any proof. Just how many times does he have to prove he’s a buffoon? Remember Boomgate…Lest we Forget
No proof in the pudding: Dutton grilled over his restaurant fear claims
‘First Nations communities are already experiencing epidemic levels of suicide and the racist oppression of living in Australia continues to be underlined without hope of reform’
Australia was elected to the UN human rights council last month, a few days before receiving a drubbing from the human rights committee for its “chronic noncompliance” with the committee’s recommendations and its treatment of both asylum seekers in offshore detention and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the justice system.
The wretched of the earth, because they were no longer safe where they lived, sought to come here. With a determined cruelty, we kidnapped and imprisoned them in Pacific lagers. These lagers became synonymous with the idea of hellholes because it was important to our government that they be – and be known as – hellholes.
On this policy of deterrence, as it was called, which had as its declared purpose to make innocent human beings suffer indefinitely, we spent billions of dollars. To this end we had truck with vile regimes such as Sri Lanka’s. And to this end we began forsaking our democratic rights.
In the camps the refugees were made to answer to numbers given to them as their new identity. Denied their names they were not even allowed their stories. Every attempt that could be made was made by the Australian government, from the petty to the disturbing, to deny journalists access to the Pacific lager. When it came to imprisoned refugees free speech became a crime: for some years any doctor, nurse or social worker in the camps who publicly reported on the many instances, now well-documented, of rape, murder, suicide and sexual abuse of refugees was liable to two years’ imprisonment.
The weakness at the heart of our democracy is revealed in the lack of protections for our First Nations people, writes Jeff McMullen, who sets out a plan to begin to right these wrongs.
Australia’s heartless ‘House of Discards’ refuse First Nations’ fundamental rights
The response from the Australian Immigration Minister was characteristically sinister and appropriate for a former police officer. With barely veiled menace, Peter Dutton suggested that New Zealand “would have to think about their relationship with Australia and what impact it would have”. “They’d have to think that through, and we’d have to think that through.”
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