Australia’s Minister for Saying-We’ve-Stopped-the-Boats – one Mr Peter ‘PDuddy’ Dutton – was out and about this morning defending what he and his government believe is the best and most successful immigration policy EVER. I decided to check out PDuddy’s claim against the following officialesque list… The Top 5 signs your Refugee Policy is a disaster Number Five: Refugees would rather
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Nauru was described by The Economist in 2001 as a hotbed of incompetence – as “Paradise Lost…..an enormous moth-eaten fedora: a ghastly grey mound of rock surrounded by a narrow green brim of vegetation“. That same year, Nauru became a cornerstone of one of the LNP’s favourite policies – their refugee policy. In the heady days of the Abbott PMship, barely a day went
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Geoffrey Robertson’s recent appearance on Q and A reminded me of the value of considering a situation through the eyes of another via a hypothetical situation… Here’s one to have a go at by: Reading the Hypothetical (and extremely fictional) story. Considering the three options. Checking out the ‘Things to consider’ section. And then…. Voting for the option you would choose if you were
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It’s something we take for granted isn’t it? That each of us has a country – a place to put our feet – on a planet where 71% of the surface is covered by ocean. Like having air to breathe, we assume that having somewhere to stand, to walk – is a basic right of existence. Our bodies aren’t exactly ocean-friendly – not for
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As we all know, good government started six months ago – following Abbott’s near demise as our Prime Minister. And this last parliamentary sitting fortnight in Canberra has been another stellar example of this. There’s been press conferences galore, leaky cabinets and question-time performances worthy of entry into the Tonies (pun intended). We also learned this week that one of the government’s key
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As most people know, laws came into effect on 1 July this year making it a crime for an ‘entrusted person’ – such as a doctor – to talk to the press about what’s going on in detention centres like Nauru or Manus Island, with a threat of two years imprisonment if they do. Having put up a shroud of secrecy
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Following last week’s cabinet discussion on marriage equality, Tony Abbott announced that: “going into the next election, you’ll have the Labor Party which wants [marriage equality] to go to a Parliamentary vote and you’ve got the Coalition that wants it to go to a people’s vote” (12 August 2015) According to our Prime Minister, he is champion of the people’s
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Political commentator Andrew Bolt said recently that Australia is fundamentally not a racist country. He’s wrong. Ok, that’s hardly a phrase that’s in uncommon usage when talking of Andrew Bolt’s views, but in this case he’s really wrong. The Anglo-Australian nation and culture was founded in racism, and racism is wound into the fabric of many of the artifacts that
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Aussies like to think we’re a reasonable people. We don’t torture. That’s something they do elsewhere. But what if we do torture? What if torture is being done in our name?
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