The realists among us know many things, not least of all that even though we’re all expendable, some of us are more expendable than others. Mathew Kenneally explains. It will be hard for him to accept, but it is a reality. Tony Abbott must leave Parliament. Peter Dutton should follow him. Australia no longer needsMore
Source: Tony Abbott And Peter Dutton Must Go, In Order To Save Realism And Civilisation – New Matilda
This is a story of desperation, a saga that stretches across half a lifetime and in which no one has actually done anything wrong yet but where a soul-destroying injustice is poised to happen unless one man does the right thing.
Source: You be the judge: should this man be thrown out of Australia?
Lyn Bender examines the recent re-branding of Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison and finds only “lovely lies” and the same old hard-hearted cruelty.
The government has ceased processing citizenship applications from boat-arrival refugees entitled to become Australians, leaving hundreds in limbo.
Source: Secret freeze on refugee citizenship processes | The Saturday Paper
We hear the word “terrorism” in bouts of media hysteria — usually about Muslims — a lot more than any of us would prefer these days.
Devlin, who lives in Vancouver, was watching the news one day when he saw a reporter raise a simple but important question. The reporter asked politician Peter McKay, Canada’s former defense minister, how the government defined terrorism.
The minister’s curt reply: “Look it up.”
(That’s Madonna, not Peter McKay.)
Devlin took it upon himself to find out.
He felt a little hung up on the words “unauthorized or unofficial.”
(Cue laugh track.)
Still unsatisfied, he kept digging for more and found a report released by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (Canada’s CIA) that lays out all the groups they see as a threat to national security.
Devlin was shocked to see one group in particular that was dismissed as a threat: white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.
According to the report (which you can read in full if you like), the explicitly racist groups “do not overly propose serious acts of violence.”
Devlin goes on to recount one of several horrifying stories that occurred since that report was written. The short of it is that two white supremacists allegedly set a Filipino man on fire … just because. To which he makes a great point:
The video closes with with a seemingly contradictory finding from the Canadian spy agency’s documents — that “lone wolf” acts of terror are more common among white supremacist and right-wing extremist groups than radical Islamist groups.
So what’s up with all the Islamophobic, terror hysteria spread by the government and media?
Devlin’s comedy troop, Shit Harper Did, is exploring this topic and a bunch of other important issues in a new documentary called “Pull the Rug.” Check out their website for it if it interests you.
In its cheap attacks on the president of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, the Abbott government has shown it has a very prominent glass jaw. When Professor Triggs criticises the government, out comes a minister with a string of damnations, the most recent alleging that she has politicised her role. Say it often enough, and people will come to believe it. That is the way this government works. It seeds falsehoods and plays with words and meanings. It rethreads stories so that details get lost in translation.
What exactly has Professor Triggs done to deserve the thundering denunciations of this government? She has criticised its policies on human rights. She has denounced its treatment of asylum seekers. She has warned of executive overreach, of the dangers of investing ministers with more powers but without proper checks and balances and without the explicit authority of the people. And she has queried if the policy of unilaterally turning back boats carrying asylum seekers may be a reason why Indonesia and other neighbouring countries “will not engage with us on other issues that we care about, like the death penalty”.
To be clear, in those latter comments Professor Triggs did not specifically mention the execution of drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, as Immigration Minister Peter Dutton suggested. She did allude to the death penalty in pressing her point that if Australia wanted common ground on some matters with regional neighbours, it needed to consider how its own policies affected other countries.
The link was there, but these are hardly controversial comments and to make such a link is not a “complete disgrace” or an “outrageous slur”, as Mr Dutton contends. They are contributions to the debate about the efficacy of government policies and the management of diplomatic ties
Professor Triggs says the kinds of things governments don’t like to hear. That is the essence of her role. The commission is required to be alert to potential abuses of power, to criticise when it detects human rights intrusions, to call out the danger and act as monitor. Professor Triggs and her fellow commissioners are fundamentally not there to support the government of the day. They are there to act on our behalf and for the rights of all people within Australian territory.
Professor Triggs, though, has been the target of a despicable, orchestrated campaign by the Abbott government. It was led by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who accused her of acting in a “blatantly partisan” manner for investigating the conditions of children held in immigration detention. He declared the government had lost confidence in Professor Triggs. Then it was Attorney-General George Brandis, who tried to force her resignation by sending a bureaucrat to offer her another role.
The latest unwarranted and high-handed volley was from Mr Dutton. He needs to have a hard look at himself. Remember he brought to cabinet (with Mr Abbott) the unheralded and preposterously un-researched proposal to cancel, on the say-so of a minister, the citizenships of Australians suspected of terrorism activities.
As Immigration Minister, Mr Dutton has charge of one of the most important and sensitive government portfolios. His brief requires focus on matters of national security as well as national cohesion. To enhance national security requires more than extra defence and police powers or border protection services or, indeed, stripping citizenship rights from individuals. As Immigration Minister, he should be building tolerance and inclusion, not demonising and ostracising.
The efforts of all these senior ministers to blunt the independent advocate for human rights underscores how desperate the government is to deflect criticism of other matters, and how haughtily some ministers seem to view the power of the executive. On that last point, authoritarian is a word that springs to mind.
olddogthoughts 