Category: Australia’s Shame
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has opened the door to a potential refugee resettlement deal between Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, acknowledging it is a decision for the two sovereign states that Australia could not block.
But he warned any arrangement would be against Australia’s wishes and would run the risk of souring both countries’ diplomatic relationships with Australia – making it unlikely without Canberra’s blessing.
Peter Dutton opens door to New Zealand refugee deal with Papua New Guinea, but warns of risks
‘Waste of money’: Dutton rubbishes NZ’s plan to upgrade services on Manus
Three bikies are convicted for walking to a car parked on the side of a Brisbane road, under Queensland’s VLAD laws that ban gang members congregating in public.
Over 600 refugees have now been abandoned on Manus Island by Australian officials in a hostile environment without food or water.
Conservative Media commentators like Andrew Bolt Nominated Peter Dutton for PM
Source: BREAKING: Dutton abandons Manus refugees without food, water or power
“It is PNG’s position that as long as there is one individual from this arrangement that remains in PNG, Australia will continue to provide financial and other support to PNG to manage the persons transferred under the arrangement until the last person leaves or is independently resettled in PNG,” Thomas said.“PNG has offered refugees the option of resettlement but will not force refugees who do not wish to settle in the country … they remain the responsibility of Australia.”
Australia is one of just seven countries responsible for more than 50 per cent of global biodiversity loss.
Unless history strives for truth it is nothing more than propaganda. There is nothing intrinsically educational about a statue, memorial or place name
A system deliberately designed to cause both physical and mental harmPhysical harm via the provision of inadequate and poor-quality food for which the Australian taxpayer was paying a great deal; $500,000 per detainee p.a., to be exact.This money was meant to be for the provision of meals, clothing, shelter, cleaning, sanitation, recreation, medical care and security. Methinks that the contractors, Broadspectrum subsequently taken over by Ferrovial a large Spanish infrastructure company, Wilson security and IHMS (Medical services) made exorbitant profits on these contracts with the Federal government. The Australian taxpayer has not been getting value for money. Time for a thorough financial audit by the ANAO.
Source: “Catastrophic neglect” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
An Indigenous woman in Perth has been jailed for 14 days for unpaid fines, 10 months after a coronial inquiry recommended the Western Australian government abolish the practice.When police arrived they performed a background check on the woman and found an outstanding warrant for $3,900 in unpaid fines, dating back to a dispute over an unregistered dog in 2012.
Source: Aboriginal woman jailed for unpaid fines after call to police | Australia news | The Guardian
Australian immigration minister does not comment on reports Muslim minority being paid to return to country where they face persecution
Exclusive: Rohingya sent to detention island in Papua New Guinea pressured to return to Myanmar, where thousands have fled ethnic persecution
Source: Australia offers to pay Rohingya refugees to return to Myanmar | World news | The Guardian
More than 380,000 ethnic Rohingya have crossed the border into Bangladesh in the last three weeks, following reports of persecution and mass killings at the hand of Myanmar’s military.
Starting from the 1860s, tens of thousands of Pacific Islanders were lured, tricked or kidnapped to work on plantations.
Starting from the 1860s, tens of thousands of Pacific Islanders were taken to Australia to work on plantations in Queensland — often by force or trickery.
Unmarked mass graves full of labourers who died on those plantations are still being uncovered today.
At least seven apartment blocks in one Canberra suburb see same-sex marriage postal surveys strewn about the street by wind and rain, after apparently being left on top of mailboxes.
The Indian High Commission says the ad was “offensive” and “hurt the religious sentiments of the Indian community”.
Source: Indian government lodges official diplomatic protest about ‘offensive’ Australian lamb ad
The boom in house prices in Canberra and across Australia is of course being celebrated by those who are fortunate enough to currently own a home. For many of these lucky Australians their capital wealth has increased to levels beyond their imagination. Their good fortune comes, of course, at the expense of those, including the majority of Aboriginal people in Canberra and Australia, who do not own a home. In fact many if not all of the Aboriginal people living in Canberra in homes that they do not own, are descended from families who last owned a home in 1788.Surely it is not expecting too much, after eight generations of exclusion of Aboriginal people from home ownership in their own land, for the ACT government to develop an Indigenous housing policy.
Source: Aboriginal people paying for boom in Canberra’s property prices
Statues of Lachlan Macquarie and Captain James Cook were graffitied by protesters last week, in an action the most cowardly prime minister in Australian history described as “cowardly.” Angry criticism erupted from the most unexpected of quarters, confirming that the privileged mind governs both the left and the right when it comes to challenging the…
Source: From the heartland of privilege: the week in politics – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Tuesday 29 August 2017 1 A Government that deserts its duty of care for humans in its charge is one that is devoid of a moral compass that includes basic decency. That an Australian Government could possibly do what it now proposes is really beyond any acceptable standard of Australian governance. Shame, Turnbull shame. Shame,…
Source: Day to Day Politics: A Government devoid of compassion. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Amid a period of great conflict between white colonists and Aborigines known as the Black War, Governor George Arthur said it was “a fatal error” a treaty had not been entered into with the Aboriginal people of what’s now the Australian state of Tasmania, after white settlement had commenced some 30 years earlier.The absence of a treaty was cited by Mr Arthur as a crucial and aggravating factor in relations with the first inhabitants of the island, the scene of some of the worst treatment inflicted on Aborigines by British colonists.Almost 200 years later, Australia remains the only Commonwealth country to have never signed a treaty with its indigenous people. While treaties were established early on in other British dominions such as New Zealand, Canada and in the United States, the situation in Australia has been, often notoriously, different.
Source: Why doesn’t Australia have an indigenous treaty? – BBC News
The Immigration Minister says lawyers are frustrating the government’s constitutional responsibilities to asylum seekers.
Source: Lawyers representing asylum seekers are ‘un-Australian’: Peter Dutton
But Australia’s harsh asylum policies impact not only on those individuals living onshore and in limbo, or held on Manus or Nauru. They also have a deep and abiding impact on the nation’s international reputation, which matters.
Source: Australia is bankrupting its standing with ‘deportation by destitution’ policy
The Government will cut income support and accommodation services for about 100 asylum seekers in Australia for medical treatment.
A second Melbourne council is stripped of its power to hold citizenship ceremonies after voting to dump Australia Day celebrations.
Stolen Generations members still alive in the NT have sent letters to federal ministers calling for the Commonwealth to follow other states’ lead in creating a compensation scheme.
“It is clear that these arson attacks were designed to intimidate and influence those that attend this mosque and the wider Islamic community. These actions have no place in our society,” McCartney said.
Body of Hamed Shamshiripour, whose friends had complained about his treatment by authorities, was found near Australian-run centre
Each year thousands of Pacific island workers come to Australia to work on farms. Allegations of mistreatment are worryingly reminiscent of the era of bonded labour ‘blackbirding’, campaigners say
Two men are recovering in hospital.
Source: Manus Island Detainees Brutally Attacked With ‘Bush Knives’: Refugee Advocates
In 2014, a terminally ill woman was gaoled for unpaid fines of $3,622 and, rather than receiving urgent medical care, was treated with derision and contempt before dying — her family learning through the coronial inquest that her death was preventable but there was no action taken against those who failed her so grossly.In 2015, a White man was given an 18-month suspended sentence and six months in home detention for driving under the influence of methamphetamine hitting and killing Aboriginal boy – Jack Sultan-Page – and it was followed by calls by Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda seeking reform after the baffling sentence.There was no reform and no change.On 16 August 2016, an innocent Aboriginal woman was placed in a police cell in Maitland, presumed intoxicated, before dying five hours later. The police took an additional six hours to notify her family and although police could not explain why she was placed in the cell. An investigation revealed she was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time and no explanation of a failure to render medical care was forthcoming.Thirteen days later, Elijah Doughty was mown down by a White man, who placed more import on a piece of property than a child’s life and the criminal justice system so egregiously failed him that the killer may walk free next February after being convicted of a traffic offence.
Source: Drowning in White privilege
A decade ago, they sent the Army in, and made things demonstrably worse. Professor Jon Altman wonders where to from here. The 10th anniversary of the Northern Territory National Emergency Response, the Intervention that was militaristically launched with extraordinary media fanfare on 21 June 2007, has come and gone. I wondered what sort of response thisMore
Source: The Debilitating Aftermath Of 10 Years Of NT Intervention – New Matilda
A truth and justice commission that digs honestly and methodically into the murders of Indigenous people will take more than money. It’ll take guts
The savaging has been so grotesque in its meanness, ugly in its intolerance and alarming in its violence,
Source: Yassmin Abdel-Magied: the latest woman to be roasted on the spit of public life
Refugees in detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru could be delayed entry to the United States after the country hit its annual refugee intake cap yesterday.
2GB distanced itself from the incident today, saying the network “doesn’t condone Prue MacSween’s comments”.
Source: 2GB distances itself from Prue MacSween’s Yassmin Abdel-Magied comments
This week, Australia has seen more calls for “go back to where you came from” directed towards high profile identities, and we have to look at why.
Source: Attacks on Waleed Aly and Yassmin Abdel-Magied sadly par for the course
A timeline of how Australia got to this point.
Source: How A Seven-Word Facebook Post Created “Australia’s Most Publicly Hated Muslim”
Perhaps our people never tire of telling the United States’ people where they’ve stuffed up, or why the election of an inept and dangerous jerk such as Trump, the militarisation of their country and the impoverishment of so many of their citizens are just three of many possible indicators of decline. Perhaps our sound and fearless advice just never gets reported, and the true character of the relationship only seems to be reflected in the fawning speeches, the idiot grins, the pap about shared values, the talking points that have scarcely changed in 50 years, and the unfailing participation in wars the US has decided to fight.
Source: The handshake | The Monthly
“Africa made its own problems. Quit having ten kids. Famine is nature’s way of saying there are too many people. Stop reproducing.”
Source: Ignorant and ugly: Australian social media attitudes to an African disaster
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