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Project SafeCom News and Updates 20 November 2005
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Project SafeCom
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Nov 19, 2005 15:45 PST
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Project SafeCom News and Updates 20 November 2005
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¤ - In this Edition - ¤
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1. Rising New Movements of Social Justice
2. The subversion of Australian Democracy
3. Chris Rau speech at Sydney People's Inquiry
4. Terror 'eroding refugee goodwill'
5. A marriage made in hell
6. Solving problems that don't exist
7. Terrorism laws 'bristling' with safeguards
8. Amnesty demands US detention camp investigation
9. Alvarez Solon's struggle far from over
10. Alvarez compo bid 'still likely'
11. Alvarez 'fatigued but excited'
12. PM no plan for Alvarez apology
13. Pea trial results spur anti-GM lobby
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-|| This is the Project SafeCom Newsletter - also published
-|| as the RAC-VIC Newsletter (Racvicnews) since July 2004 by agreement
-|| with RAC Victoria, which endorsed that their news service be
-|| managed by Project SafeCom. More information about us below.
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1. Rising New Movements of Social Justice
===============================
by Eve Hillary
Project SafeCom website
20 November 2005
[....]
By all accounts there are staggering social justice movements afoot which
are starting to change the current trend of corporatization, political
oppression and corruption.
Increasingly institutions and corporations are being held to account. More
health care consumers now require doctors to provide accurate information
about vaccinations, drugs and medical procedures. Increasingly, Class
Actions are gathering; on behalf of vaccine-damaged children, persons
suffering adverse effects from prescribed drugs and inappropriate medical
treatments.
With the help of a compliant mainstream media, governments blindly continue
to create reams of laws that seek to enslave humanity in "free trade"
zones. Meanwhile however, the world's people reside in communities and are
creating a thick global network of Free People Zones; where millions of
people are joined by the spirit of their collective values. They create
their own community-based media, literature, food, conservation projects,
healing centers, technology and politics. In the US, over 300 cities and
four States have passed resolutions to have the patriot act repealed.
Around the world, individual persons, entire communities, fellowships and
emerging sweeping movements have put the government on notice that
Constitutional Laws and Human rights will not be violated in their area.
[....]
Full article: http://www.safecom.org.au/eve-hilary1.htm
===============================
2. The subversion of Australian Democracy
===============================
by Tony Kevin
Project SafeCom website
20 November 2005
[....]
Under the new laws, it is possible that while we sit down to our Christmas
dinners, Australian terrorism suspects will have been secretly rendered to
offshore preventative detention on Christmas Island, effectively beyond
reasonable defence lawyer access and the protections of Australian law.
[....]
Full article: http://www.safecom.org.au/terrorlaws-tonykevin.htm
==================================
3. Chris Rau speech at Sydney People's Inquiry
==================================
Speech at the Sydney launch of the People's Inquiry into Immigration Detention
The Chancellery, UNSW
Saturday, 19th November, 2005
Chris Rau
[....]
While studying and working in Germany for a few years in the early 1980s, I
worked with Holocaust survivors, where I heard stories of such obscene
cruelty and hardship that people living here in easier times would think
they were surreal.
So I was already deeply uneasy over our treatment of onshore asylum seekers
and disgusted at the political maneuverings over Tampa years before our
family got caught up in the debate.
But, like most other people, I did nothing about it. And, like most other
people, I didn't have any inkling of just how unjust and damaging the
system was. Obviously we don't have death camps and (despite the feelings
of some who would argue otherwise) we still have a democracy. But the fact
that we have camps at all, hidden far from the public eye, which leads to
irretrievable damage in some detainees, should fill us with great disquiet.
The information we found out over the past ten months horrified us, as I'm
sure it would horrify most Australians, were they aware of it.
Full speech at http://www.safecom.org.au/christine-rau2.htm
========================
4. Terror 'eroding refugee goodwill'
========================
news.com.au
From: AAP
November 19, 2005
FEAR of terrorism is eroding Australians' goodwill towards refugees, said
the sister of an Australian resident who was wrongly held in immigration
detention.
Christine Rau, whose sister Cornelia was detained by the Immigration
Department for 10 months after she was mistaken for an illegal immigrant,
tonight warned that terrorist attacks were driving a wedge through society
and alienating people of Middle Eastern background.
Ms Rau was speaking at the launch, at the University of NSW, of a "people's
inquiry" into Australia's immigration detention system ahead of public
hearings in Sydney this week.
Academics initiated the hearings after expressing concern that the Palmer
Inquiry into immigration detention made recommendations for fixing systemic
failings but failed to take into account the impact of detention on
individuals.
The inquiry is headed by former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld and
convened by RMIT Associate Professor Linda Briskman.
Ms Rau tonight called on Australians to stand up for the rights of people
in detention, despite their apparent willingness to discard some of their
own freedoms under the Federal Government's proposed new anti-terror
legislation.
"This spectre of terrorism, now heightened, will be the single most
corrosive force against any emerging goodwill towards asylum seekers," she
said.
"When the majority of Australians seem willing to sacrifice some of their
own human rights to combat terrorism, they are hardly going to go in to bat
for the human rights of people they perceive as coming from terrorist
countries.
"The very people who opposed extremism and religious intolerance in their
home countries and risked considerable danger to flee from it, are once
again the collateral victims of extremism here and overseas."
Ms Rau criticised the Government for failing to implement the "openness and
accountability" in the Immigration Department recommended by the Palmer Report.
"Seven people who arrived from Indonesia off the Kimberley coast two weeks
ago are still being held, incommunicado, in Darwin," she said.
Ms Rau said she hoped the "people's inquiry" would help Australians
understand the impact of detention on individuals and record what would go
down as an "aberration" in Australia's history.
Justice Einfeld said the purpose of the hearings was to air the stories of
individuals who had experienced detention, and to force further changes in
the government's detention policies.
"The Palmer Report went so far," he said.
"It wasn't intended to, and didn't, take evidence en masse from people who
have experience of the detention system."
Public pressure had already forced the Government to soften its detention
policies but it needed to go further, he said.
"We should abolish the mandatory detention policy" Justice Einfeld said.
"It still exists to some extent ... and the policy is bad, it's wrong, it's
inhumane, it's cruel.
"Australia is the only country in the world who ever had mandatory,
incommunicado detention of asylum seekers."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17299804-29277,00.html
===================
5. A marriage made in hell
===================
The Sunday Age
By Penelope Debelle
November 20, 2005
LOVE seemed so unlikely it was at first shrugged off. What Australian woman
in her right mind would dare take seriously an unsolicited declaration from
a young Muslim man who suddenly professed ardent love?
Sometimes, it began like a schoolyard crush, with a crumpled note thrust
into the woman's hand. "I know we are from different ages, different
countries, different cultures and religions, but all these things don't
make any difference for me if I have the pleasure of your company," wrote
the young Moroccan, Salah, to the Woomera detention centre guard, Dee Garratty.
There are now more than 20 Baxter and Woomera brides, women who found love
in the most unlikely places. They include Garratty, who was not the first
Australasian Correctional Management guard to fall in love with a detainee
but is the only one to marry; a former immigration agent at the Baxter
centre who is pregnant; a Melbourne academic; a South Australian public
servant; a grandmother of 60 whose husband is half her age and fantasises
that she will be like the biblical Ruth and bear a child at an advanced
age; and more recently a Melbourne left-wing activist. They have in common
the battle to rise above the misery of meeting their partner in a detention
centre, the bureaucratic hurdles placed in their way — including, in
Garratty's case, a $72,000 bill for accommodation and travel — and the
daily struggle to normalise relationships that began in a situation so
stressful it has been likened to war.
In most cases love evolved over a series of often furtive, passionate
exchanges, long and emotional conversations, mostly on the phone, and
snatched physical encounters.
"An emotional intensity gets set up," says the head of the Royal
Australasian College of Psychiatrists, Dr Louise Newman. "For the detainee,
the person who is visiting them is their lifeline, the person who is giving
them hope for the future when otherwise they wouldn't have it. So the
boundaries around relationships can get blurry and shift from a
helper-helpee into something else."
Along the way, deeply felt emotions have sometimes been trampled on. After
The Age wrote in 2003 about a guard who fell in love with a younger
detainee, it emerged the same man, a Christian convert, was also declaring
his love for someone else. He is now out, on his own, last heard of working
in the boom South Australian outback mining town of Roxby Downs. Sometimes,
the men have suffered. A young Iranian, a former tae kwon do champion and
political activist with a psychiatric illness from prolonged detention, was
jilted by a Department of Immigration employee who had given up her job to
marry him.
"She'd quit (the department) and wasn't allowed to visit him for three
months, that's the rules," said a friend who visits detainees at Baxter.
"It was only days before the wedding, maybe a week, when she called it off.
He'd been over the moon, then devastated. These guys get their hopes up and
dashed just so many times."
The man, who had harmed himself and spent 14 days on a hunger strike on the
Baxter rooftop during a protest in December 2004, was given psychiatric
treatment at Adelaide's Glenside Hospital only after his case went to the
Federal Court. "I wish the tsunami had taken me," he told a psychiatrist
who reported on his suicidal state of mind. He is now out of detention and
living quietly in Adelaide.
But some women's lives have changed for the better in ways they could not
have imagined. "Well, I never thought I would get married," says Evelyn
Shams, who married Iranian Masoud Shams inside Baxter earlier this year. "I
was very happy as an independent person. I've always been very wary of
marriage and scared of that kind of commitment. Choosing to marry Masoud
was in many ways a huge leap of faith."
When Dee Garratty, 50, read the declaration of love from Salah, 27, she
knew only a little about him, that he seemed nice, intelligent and was not
a troublemaker. Garratty was one of a group of officers at Woomera — which
closed in April 2003, when the remaining detainees were moved to Baxter —
who treated detainees with compassion and dignity, a group referred to
dismissively as "care bears" by their tougher, more ruthless colleagues.
Garratty was working in Woomera because years earlier she fell in love with
the town and its starry skies, clean air and unique surroundings. Her first
encounter with Salah was to see him dragged from his trailer home at
Woomera, flexicuffed and frogmarched into a truck, where he injured his
ribs. Later he asked her why he had been treated so badly: "I had to say,
'I don't know Salah, I'm sorry. Do you need anything? Do you want to go to
medical'?" Salah later told her that was when he started to have feelings
for her.
When she read his first love letter, her training kicked in. "I thought, oh
my God, this is what they warned us about," she says. She was in her late
40s, a divorcee, he was in his early 20s. "I sat on the mess steps and said
to him, 'this is only because you are in detention and you haven't had
female companionship, no one's been nice to you before. We're a different
age bracket, we're a different culture, a different religion, it's silly'."
When she arrived at the centre she heard rumours about relationships
between guards and detainees, including one that had led to a sacking.
According to Newman, strong emotional attachments must be expected in
detention centres, as they are in prisons. "It is documented that people
fall in love with their jailers," she says. "In a more extreme version, the
hostage falls in love with the hostage takers in what is called the
Stockholm Syndrome. I think there is a spectrum that we are seeing here."
Salah's response to Garratty's rejection stumped her. "I didn't choose for
this to happen," he said, as if in the grip of some higher power. "But I am
happy that it has happened. I will prove you wrong."
That was Christmas, 2001. Over the next few months he was attentive, wrote
more notes, and was jealous if she paid too much attention to other male
detainees. Once he asked her how she felt and she told him she cared for
him but that was all. "You care for a pot plant," he said in disgust. "I
can't say more than that," she countered. "I'm not going to say I'm in love
with you because I don't know you beyond talking through a fence." At
Christmas and New Year, they shook hands; it was their only physical contact.
Salah's case for asylum had already been rejected. Living in Casablanca
with his 13 siblings, he had read about Adelaide and decided to come. He
contacted people smugglers and with a friend paid $2000 to travel via
Indonesia. On the way he had his suitcase and money stolen and arrived at
Darwin, from where he was sent to Woomera. By the time he declared his love
for Garratty, he had already agreed to go home.
"The morning he left I was on day shift," she recalls. "It was January 23,
2002. I was standing back and he said, 'I must hug this officer' and gave
me a hug as he left."
But from Morocco, he persisted and the talk of casbahs and Marrakesh and
Casablanca took on a decidedly exotic air. When Salah wrote saying she
should come and meet his family she could not think of a convincing reason
to refuse.
By now, friends were worried. Garratty was an only child and her parents
were dead but one friend in particular opposed her decision to go. "I said
to her on the phone, 'is it because he's a detainee, because he's younger
than me or because he's Moroccan?'," Garratty says. "She said, 'all of the
above'. I think she thought I was going to get sold off to the white slave
trade. But I knew from talking to Salah that he was trustworthy. He had
shown me pictures of his family, his brother was a policeman. I knew I was
going to be OK, so long as he met me at the airport. So I went."
Still lukewarm about the prospects of such an unlikely union, Garratty,
then 47, assumed his family would be shocked when they saw how much older
she was but felt ready to face it. He was waiting at Casablanca airport and
they shared a fumbled embrace. On the way to her hotel he was a tour guide,
pointing out places of interest. At the hotel, she had to pay for Salah to
have his own room because Muslim codes of conduct did not allow her to have
a man in her room. "I don't know if I was overawed that I was there with
Salah or just overawed that I was in Morocco," says Garratty. "We
consummated our relationship."
Over the next fortnight she was embraced by his family, had her hands and
feet decorated with henna and began falling in love. "Before we left for
Marrakesh he gave me a little ring box with a ring in it and said, 'I want
you to be my wife'," she says. "While we were away I did start to fall for
him … We were on the train and it suddenly lurched and he put his hand out
to save me without even thinking. I started to believe he was genuine."
ABOUT four weeks later, just before she was due to return home, she agreed
to marry him. They were staying in a small house under the snowcapped Atlas
mountains. "We were sitting up there and I realised that I didn't want
whatever it was that we had to finish when I got on the plane," she said.
"That's when I said, yes, all right, we'll get married."
What followed was a complex process involving Moroccan notaries, a police
interview (in which she had to deny having had sex with him) and a document
search that would have failed but for the kindness of a public servant at
the South Australian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Before her
divorce papers could be faxed to her, she had to send $11.95, an
impossibility in a country that has no facility for such a transaction. She
sent the public servant, Roger, a pleading note explaining her situation.
He waived the fee and faxed the documents with a note wishing her luck.
There was no wedding ceremony as such, just a long process of bureaucracy
that culminated in a stamped document confirming they were indeed married.
At his family's house a woman was sent for to apply henna and ceremonial
brass bowls were filled with figs and milk. In a traditional exchange,
Garratty fed her husband figs, he fed her milk and they were sprayed with
orange blossom water.
Back in the Australian outback at Woomera a few days later she told no one
what she had done. Three weeks later, she dared to confide in Liz, another
guard who had fallen less happily in love with a detainee.
Over the next two years Garratty conducted an almost single-handed battle
to have Salah accepted into Australia on a spouse visa. During that time
she spent only a couple of months with him in Morocco, where she got to
know his family, wore kaftans she designed herself and ate Moroccan-style,
breaking off bits of bread and eating with her fingers. She felt no
pressure to convert to Islam but observed Ramadan with Salah. She wore
ordinary clothes at home but put on a jelabah, or kaftan, when she went
out. At the communal women's baths in Casablanca, she stripped naked with
Salah's mother and sat in the steam rooms, where the women scrub and henna
their feet.
Back in Australia she was reassigned and spent the next 16 months guarding
a psychologically ill Iranian woman who was held in detention at Adelaide's
Arkaba Motel. When she got off work she would email Salah and try to push
his application for a visa. They were at the mercy of the Immigration
Department — the organisation whose punitive and arbitrary culture the
Federal Government has since been under pressure to change.
Garratty says they were initially told by the department's collector of
public moneys that they would have to repay $1000 to the Refugee Review
Tribunal. But a few months later in Cairo, the nearest Australian embassy
to Casablanca, Salah was told by a department officer the debt was actually
$46,000. Garratty called the collector of public moneys, who told her the
total fee was now $72,000, including $25,000 for Salah's deportation. "I
thought, how could I ever pay that?" says Salah.
On learning of the debt, Garratty bought a plane ticket and flew to his
side. The visit sustained them for the next 19 months. In August 2003,
Garratty had a decisive meeting with the Refugee Review Tribunal in
Adelaide, which included a phone link with Salah. She took in his gifts,
their intimate emails, his love letters and the clothing he bought her in
Morocco. In November last year the visa was approved but months passed
before it was issued. In June this year, he arrived in Australia and joined
Garratty at her home in Port Pirie. He has a cleaning job at the local
smelter and they are paying off the $72,000 in small weekly amounts.
HIS assimilation has been slow. "No one actually wanted to say to me
'you're being a fool Dee, he's using you', but they would tippy-toe around
it and I knew what they were getting at," says Garratty. "There wasn't a
lot of support. A lot of people thought I would be housebound and wear a
veil. There were a lot of comments about, 'well, he'll have to fit in here'
but he's just like the rest of us."
There have been adjustments on both sides. Garratty says she can now go
down the street without Salah quizzing her about her intentions. He is
quiet in her presence and does jigsaws to pass the time. Fasting for
Ramadan and having never touched alcohol, he is unlikely to strike up great
friendships with the men of the town but their home is decorated with
Moroccan flourishes and they are planning a visit "home". Garratty buys
halal meat in Adelaide and is pleased Salah has found work so quickly.
"Initially I said it would take three to four months for everything to fall
into place but now I would say it could take six to 12 months," she says.
Other couples have been defeated by the odds. Unrealistic expectations of
happiness out of detention and the inequality of a relationship where only
one partner is free can cause both sides to confuse fantasy with reality.
Newman says the detainee may have invested too much in the person they
thought would save them and the expectations could not be maintained. The
strain of living with someone traumatised by detention and suffering from
depression can also be insurmountable. One couple, who married at Woomera
and whose hugely romantic story was told in The Age two years ago, has
fought hard to be together. After he was deported to Iran she followed and
they spent time together in Turkey. Having battled long and hard, he was
this year granted a spouse visa and arrived in Australia a few months ago.
But his emotional damage runs deep and he may not be able to stay. A Perth
couple who married and were deeply in love have had to separate because his
mental problems forced them apart.
"There is the stark reality of life on the outside," Newman says. "There is
the fact that many people when they get out are irritable, they have
post-traumatic stress disorder and they can be very depressed. Some
relationships survive that and adjust to a more banal reality of life and
recovery from trauma but it's a very hard ask."
When Evelyn Shams married Masoud this year, she says the guards at Baxter
did what they could to ruin it. Four weeks before the wedding, Global
Services Limited, which now runs the centre, banned visitors and music.
"There was no attempt to make it nice; I had to beg for everything," Shams
says. "I wore my full white dress, Masoud wore his Italian suit but we
didn't have anyone there. It was very mean. But … we turned it into the
best situation we could and we still had a fabulous day."
A bigger hurdle was in overcoming the inequality encountered when Masoud
was granted a bridging visa and released five months after their marriage.
Under the visa's restrictive conditions, he was unable to work even as a
volunteer and was fully dependent on her. "I thought, 'my husband has his
pride, this is going to be a real challenge for us'," says Shams, who met
her husband when she began visiting Baxter as a gesture of sympathy for the
detainees' plight. "But Masoud said, 'well, what can I do, this is my
situation. Now, I need you and as soon as the circumstances change it will
be my turn and I will do the same for you'. I think that's how we coped as
well as we did because he had such a nice attitude about it."
The issue of age is a sensitive one, for the husbands as well as their
wives. "I gave you my youngness and my handsomeness," said one husband
during a heated exchange. In some cases, the woman's age means her husband
must abandon hopes of having children. Garratty, 50, says she and Salah
will accept whatever happens. They talked about children during her first
visit to Morocco, sitting on the walls of a mosque in Casablanca. "Salah is
not champing at the bit now to have a little mini-me running around but he
might be in 10 years' time, when he will only be 35 and I will be well and
truly past it."
One refugee worker believes some of the marriages are based on
Middle-Eastern cultural traditions of love built upon abiding care and
respect rather than Australian ideals of romantic attraction. It may well
work both ways. Some of the women were on their own because they were
disillusioned with marriage, Australian-style. Instead, they have found
something quite different and potentially more rewarding. "What I find
interesting about arranged marriages is that they are based on respect,"
says the refugee worker. "An arranged marriage assumes the two people will
respect each other and love will develop from respect."
Evelyn Shams says none of the men who came through Baxter are the young men
they used to be because for them, detention changed everything. They would
not be suitable matches for women of their own age because their life
experience has been too different. She says many of the detainees at Baxter
were visited by young university students studying law or international
affairs and none of these relationships led to marriage. "I think it has a
lot to do with the severity of what their situation is," she says. "I think
you need someone who has a very mature outlook and who can cut them a lot
of slack because they have got so much to work through to rebuild
themselves. I'm only guessing here, but when I look around, a lot of these
guys have young faces but they are really old people inside. They have had
to work through so many things it has made them grow up very, very quickly."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/a-marriage-made-in-hell/2005/11/19/1132017019200.html?page=fullpage
=========================
6. Solving problems that don't exist
=========================
Sydney Morning Herald
November 18, 2005
New laws for labour and security aren't necessary. They're political,
writes Peter Hartcher.
YOU can't object to John Howard's stated aim with the two big measures he
now has before Parliament - keeping the economy strong and national
security tight. You can wonder, however, whether these bills are sufficient
- or even necessary - to achieving those aims.
Howard is right to lampoon some of the silly Labor fearmongering over the
industrial relations changes. Kim Beazley's claim, for instance, that "this
has gone beyond Americanisation of workplaces, perhaps the South
Americanisation of workplaces".
The new Fair Pay Commission that would set minimum wages is prohibited by
its charter from cutting wages in nominal, or dollar, terms. But it will
have the power, at the extreme, to hold nominal wages unchanged. This means
that, as inflation rises and wages stay the same, inflation could gradually
eat into the real value of the minimum wage.
So, at most, the real - that is, inflation-adjusted - minimum wage could
fall by the rate of inflation, which is about 2 per cent to 3 per cent a
year. This would not be pleasant for workers who depend on the minimum
wage. Whether this happens is up to the new commission. But it is hardly
the South Americanisation of workplaces.
Lower real wages would probably help create new low-paying jobs, and help
cut the unemployment rate, so long as the economy remains buoyant.
But what does Australia need for its strong economy to continue, for its
15-year-old economic expansion to be extended? Does it need the changes
that Howard is promoting?
The central problem with the Australian labour market is not that wages are
out of control; it is that there is a severe shortage of skilled labour.
The Reserve Bank's wage-price index shows average wages rising at an annual
rate of 4 per cent, which is brisk but within normal, tolerable ranges.
The national wages bill, as a proportion of the total economy as measured
by gross domestic product, is 54.2 per cent, unchanged from a year earlier
and at a historic low. When Bob Hawke took power, it was 61.7 per cent.
When Howard assumed office a decade ago, it was 55.8 per cent.
Capital and labour in Australia agree that there is not a wages crisis;
there is a skills crisis. The Business Council of Australia has been
campaigning on this for three years.
"You had not only the long-term issue of skilling up an ageing population,
you also had the issue of skilling up for short-term pressures, especially
in construction and building and resources and mining," says the council's
policy director, Maria Tarrant. "Then with the Financial Services Act and
the move to international accounting standards, you also saw shortages in
professional services like accounting."
The federal Department of Employment lists alphabetically the job
categories where there is such a shortage that Australia is seeking skilled
migrants. It lists 31 professions, starting with accountant and
anaesthetist and ending with sonographer and surgeon. Plus it lists 26
trades, starting with automotive electrician and bricklayer and ending with
vehicle painter and welder.
The national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Bill Shorten,
points out that the Bass Strait oil platform was shut down five times last
winter because of the shortage of skilled operators. "Australia is training
the same number of people in traditional trades as we were in the early
1990s. We have a steel industry that employs 20,000 people but it is
employing only 120 apprentices."
In its statement on monetary policy 11 days ago, the Reserve Bank described
the shortage of skilled workers as "acute". It talked not of a shortage of
workers or a general wages break-out, but of a shortage of "suitable"
workers. It warned that it might have to increase interest rates if there
were any acceleration in inflation. And the likely sources of inflation?
Any further increase in oil prices, and any further pinch in the shortfall
of skilled workers.
In other words, business, labour and the authorities concur that we are in
the grip of a serious crisis. What will Howard's workplace changes do to
address the skills shortfall? Nothing.
The proposals supply a solution to a problem that Australia does not have.
And the Government is not adequately addressing the real limitations on
future growth. The workplace reforms are neither necessary nor sufficient.
What about the anti-terrorism legislation that crimps traditional rights
and freedoms such as the presumption of innocence and the freedom of speech?
Is it necessary? The apparent success of the police and authorities in
swooping on alleged cells of terrorists in Sydney and Melbourne suggests
that existing laws are adequate to allow pre-emptive action against terrorists.
All of the action so far has been done under the existing laws, not the
proposed law. This strongly suggests that the authorities have all the
powers they need.
And the Federal Government, beyond simple assertions, still has not made
any serious effort to explain that the anti-terrorism bill is necessary.
All the experts here and abroad warn us that one of the most important ways
of defeating the danger of home-grown Islamicist terrorists is to make sure
that the authorities work closely with moderate Muslims, the first line of
defence against the emergence of extremists.
Leading Muslim leaders in Australia have said that the anti-terrorism bill,
by granting unnecessary and unexplained powers to the police, implies a
lack of trust in Muslims in Australia and creates the potential for
victimisation and alienation.
The anti-terrorism bill, like the industrial relations bill, seems to be
both unnecessary and insufficient, and perhaps even counterproductive.
So if these changes are not based in sound policy, what are they based on?
The inescapable conclusion is that they are political, and only political.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/solving-problems-that-dont-exist/2005/11/17/1132016926410.html
===============================
7. Terrorism laws 'bristling' with safeguards
===============================
ABC ONLINE NEWS
Friday, November 18, 2005. 11:38pm (AEDT)
By Tanya Nolan
The Senate inquiry into the Federal Government's proposed anti-terrorism
laws have been told that parts of the legislation are "bristling" with
human rights protections.
Critics say the laws lack safeguards to protect human rights, particularly
in relation to control and preventative detention orders.
But the assistant secretary of the security law branch of the
Attorney-General's Department, Geoff McDonald, says the laws are consistent
with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
He has told the inquiry that people issued with control and detention
orders have to be given a summary of the grounds on which the orders are given.
"For individuals, in terms of making sure that the detention orders are
explained properly to people, [the laws] are bristling with requirements
which are designed to ensure that this bill is consistent with the ICCPR,"
he said.
He denies the language contained in the legislation is arbitrary.
"The test to ensure that the tension is not arbitrary in the sense of the
criteria is one which is based on reasonableness, necessity, proportion,
appropriateness, justifiability in all circumstances," he said.
"Because of this, the Government is satisfied that preventative detention
regime meets this test and is not arbitrary or otherwise contrary to
international law."
-------------
Advice secret
-------------
During the hearing, Mr McDonald made a point of reading carefully from his
notes, which he told the committee were based on advice from the Office of
International Law.
But he says in accordance with Government policy, the advice will not be
made public.
Greens Senator Kerry Nettle wanted to know why the public should not be
allowed to know that the laws comply with the ICCPR.
"Only the people who have that advice are able to be assured that it
complies with the ICCPR," Senator Nettle said.
"If there's no damage done to the legislation by inserting the ICCPR in
there, would you accept that there's a benefit in doing that, because it is
clear for everyone that it complies with the ICCPR?"
Mr McDonald replied: "The UK are locking people up for 28 days and they've
got a Human Rights Convention, so ultimately the provisions that you have
in your legislation are going to be really where your human rights are
protected."
-------------
Urgent change
-------------
Mr McDonald also told the inquiry that the idea to change the wording in
the current anti-terrorism laws from "a" to "the" terrorist act, came from
discussions with the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions in March
this year.
The change was rushed through Parliament shortly after Prime Minister John
Howard announced there was "specific intelligence" about a threat to Australia.
A week later, the change was used to facilitate some of the charges laid
after raids on terrorist suspects in Sydney and Melbourne.
Mr McDonald says the issue was first discussed on March 30.
Senator Crossin said: "So it took eight months for the country to realise
it was so important and urgent that it needed to have a special convening
of the Senate?"
The Senate Committee has until November 28 to report on the bill.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200511/s1510376.htm
=======================================
8. Amnesty demands US detention camp investigation
=======================================
ABC ONLINE NEWS
Saturday, November 19, 2005. 6:01am (AEDT)
Human rights organisation Amnesty International has demanded that the
European Union investigate whether the United States has run illegal prison
camps in Poland.
Referring to reports of camps in Poland, Irene Khan, Amnesty's
secretary-general, said: "We should not be sitting here trying to speculate
whether it is Poland and whether the Polish Government will do something
about it.
"I think the European Union should investigate it."
She also called for the United States to open up the Guantanamo Bay
detention camp on Cuba to the United Nations.
Poland has formally denied that it has on its territory any of the alleged
secret US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisons holding Al-Qaeda suspects.
The Washington Post has alleged that the CIA was running a network of
secret facilities for captured terrorism suspects in eight countries,
outside the reach of the US justice system.
The American rights group Human Rights Watch alleged that Poland and
Romania had cooperated with the CIA, based on flight records and other
evidence.
Amnesty International was launching a three-day conference in London on
human rights, detentions and the prevention of torture, bringing together
former Guantanamo detainees.
Ms Khan said: "Poland is a member of the European Union, which has certain
standards about human rights which it imposes on those who wish to become
members of the European Union and it now needs to impose on the members,
those who already are members of the European Union.
"I think there is a huge responsibility on the UK, holding the presidency
of the European Union right now, to push and discover what is actually
happening in Poland."
Ms Khan also called for the United States to grant the UN free access to
Guantanamo detainees.
Ms Khan said: "If the US has nothing to hide, they should open up Guantanamo.
"Denying meaningful access to those held in Guantanamo Bay is totally
unacceptable," she added.
UN officials have been trying to visit the camp since it opened in January
2002.
A deadline passed at midnight on Friday without the US and UN human rights
monitors agreeing on conditions for an inspection.
"Guantanamo has become the epicentre of a shadow justice system," Ms Khan said.
-AFP
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200511/s1510397.htm
============================
9. Alvarez Solon's struggle far from over
============================
The Age
By Jordan Baker and David Marr, Sydney
November 19, 2005
SHE did not utter a word, but lawyers for Vivian Alvarez Solon made one
thing clear: they expect the Government will be paying her millions of
dollars compensation.
Ms Alvarez Solon faced the media from her wheelchair within hours of
returning to Australia yesterday — more than four years after being sent to
the Philippines in an Immigration Department bungle.
Her chief barrister and spokesman, former Federal Court judge Marcus
Einfeld, said Ms Alvarez Solon was silent partly because of her amnesia,
caused by a serious road accident before her deportation.
Ms Alvarez Solon, an Australian citizen since 1986, was struck by a car in
March 2001. Despite telling the Immigration Department of her citizenship,
she was deported that July, even though the Philippine embassy thought her
unfit to travel.
The department knew of its error in July 2003, but made no amends. Only
this May was Ms Alvarez found in the Philippines, in a Catholic hospice,
after an Australian priest recognised her on a TV report. Ms Alvarez Solon,
44, will initially stay in Sydney, where she will receive medical
treatment. She will be in touch with her family, including her sons, aged
17 and nine.
"She is appreciative of the fact that Australia is trying to make good," Mr
Einfeld said.
Her package includes free medical and health care, carer support,
transport, financial help with establishing a home, support for a family
member to help her and telephone costs.
Her lawyers will raise issues such as loss of earnings and earning
capacity, medical expenses, pain and suffering, lost time with her children
and her future needs in the likely event she does not fully recover.
The past four years had been horrific for Ms Alvarez Solon. She needed to
be reminded of her family, although she remembered she had two children.
"Let me say this: she would not be able, given her physical condition, to
look after a nine-year-old boy," said one of her lawyers, George Newhouse.
She needed a tube in her throat to swallow, had trouble keeping food down,
nursed a partially paralysed hand, suffered pelvic pain and could barely walk.
Her lawyers decided to bring her back to Australia after the Government
agreed to a binding arbitration process under retired High Court judge Sir
Anthony Mason, to begin within a fortnight and finish early next year.
"Vivian did nothing to bring this wrong on herself," Mr Einfeld said. In
Korea, Prime Minister John Howard blamed her legal advisers for the lengthy
delay in her return to Australia.
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said she was pleased Ms Alvarez Solon
had returned to Australia after what she described as a "serious mistake".
- With MISHA SCHUBERT and STEPHANIE PEATLING
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/alvarez-solons-struggle-far-from-over/2005/11/18/1132016987061.html
========================
10. Alvarez compo bid 'still likely'
========================
news.com.au
From: AAP
November 18, 2005
IMMIGRATION Minister Amanda Vanstone says she hopes talks between lawyers
will head off a court case for compensation over the wrongful deportation
of Vivian Alvarez.
Ms Alvarez, who flew into Sydney today, was seriously injured in an
accident, then deported in July 2001 after being mistakenly identified as
an illegal immigrant.
She was discovered in May this year living in a Catholic hospice near Manila.
The Government has offered her a care package as compensation for the
immigration department bungle.
"I would assume there would be a compensation claim if there isn't already
one," Senator Vanstone said. "That would be the normal process done on a
lawyer-to-lawyer basis.
"I would hope we could avoid litigation on this, that we can go into an
arbitrated settlement."
Senator Vanstone said any decision on compensation was not her
responsibility, but she accepted the deportation was a "a serious mistake".
"But what we've done since then and what we are putting in place we have
demonstrated we do understand that and I'm sure that people who are
negotiating with her equally understand that.
"But my job is not to be a part of discussions in relation to compensation
– my job is to make sure that the decisions we've made are actually
implemented."
She said she was "very pleased" that Ms Alvarez had finally returned to
Australia.
Family and Community Services Minister Kay Patterson said the Government's
compensation package would continue until a final agreement was reached
between the government solicitor and Ms Alvarez's solicitor.
The package includes free medical and health care, carer support up to 24
hours a day, transport, financial help with establishing a home, support
for a family member to help her and telephone costs.
"I think it's a very generous and appropriate package," Senator Patterson
told ABC radio.
"The most important thing we can do is settle her back in Australia as
effectively and quickly as we can, look after her and make sure her needs
are met."
Senator Patterson said if compensation had not been resolved within six
months the Government would extend the assistance package.
But in the meantime the Government hoped to come to an agreement with her
solicitor.
"All parties are committed to an early resolution," she said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17285626-29277,00.html
=======================
11. Alvarez 'fatigued but excited'
=======================
news.com.au
From: AAP
November 18, 2005
WRONGLY deported Australian citizen Vivian Alvarez has arrived back in
Australia "fatigued, anxious but excited", her lawyer said.
The 43-year-old arrived in Sydney on Qantas flight QF20 from Manila about
7.30am (AEDT), four years after she was deported to the Philippines in an
immigration department bungle.
But there was no sign of Ms Alvarez, with only her lawyer Harry Freedman
speaking to waiting media about an hour later.
Mr Freedman confirmed Ms Alvarez had arrived in Sydney and had left the
airport to "go relax".
Ms Alvarez' sister Lillian was also on the flight back to Australia.
When asked how Ms Alvarez was faring after the flight, Mr Freedman said
"she's a little fatigued, nervous and anxious".
But she was very excited to be home, he said.
The mother of two was deported to her native country, the Philippines, in
July 2001 after being found dazed and injured in the NSW town of Lismore in
March 2001.
She was only discovered in May this year, living in a Catholic hospice run
by nuns in the city of Olongapo, near Manila, after an Australian priest
recognised her on a satellite TV.
Ms Alvarez is expected to hold press conference in Sydney at 2pm (AEDT) today.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17285054-29277,00.html
=========================
12. PM no plan for Alvarez apology
=========================
news.com.au
From: AAP
November 18, 2005
PRIME Minister John Howard had no plans to offer Vivian Alvarez a
face-to-face apology for an immigration bungle in which she was deported to
the Philippines after being mistakenly identified as an illegal immigrant,
Mr Howard said today.
Ms Alvarez, who flew into Sydney today, was seriously injured in an
accident, then deported in July 2001 after an immigration mix-up.
She was discovered in May this year living in a Catholic hospice near Manila.
Mr Howard said he hoped a similar situation would never re-occur but he
could not guarantee it would never happen again.
"It is impossible for any prime minister to guarantee something like that,"
he told reporters.
"I can guarantee the Government has taken all steps it can be reasonably
expected to take to prevent it occurring again in the future."
Mr Howard wished Ms Alvarez well for the future but saw no reason to meet
her to personally apologise for the Government's mistakes.
"I'm glad she's back, I wish her well," he said.
"I thought the apology I had given to date is quite appropriate."
Mr Howard stressed that the length of time it had taken to return Ms
Alvarez to Australia was not the fault of the Government.
"It was due to the stance taken by her legal advisers," he said.
"We have at all times offered, and continued to have available, a very
generous package of measures."
Mr Howard said he believed the question of compensation would be decided
through arbitration.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17286263-29277,00.html
============================
13. Pea trial results spur anti-GM lobby
============================
The Age
By Stephen Cauchi, Science Reporter
November 19, 2005
OPPONENTS of genetically modified food have jumped on CSIRO's admission
that research into GM peas has ended because it made mice sick.
The anti-GM groups Greenpeace and GeneEthics claim that other GM products
that caused illness in animals have been approved by Australia's food
regulator and are available in supermarkets.
CSIRO, the Australian science agency, announced on Thursday that the $3
million, decade-long development of GM peas, designed to resist attacks
from pea weevil, will be stopped. Tests by scientists at the John Curtin
School of Medical Research in Canberra found that mice who ate the peas
developed inflamed lung tissue.
Australia's $100 million field pea industry suffers substantial losses
every year from pea weevils. The GM peas carried a gene from beans that
could not be digested by weevil larvae.
CSIRO plant industry deputy director T. J. Higgins said the effect the peas
had on the mice "was enough to alert me to say that this research should
come to an end. If there was any chance it would have the same effect on
humans, the responsible thing to do was to stop the research immediately."
The results were published in this week's Journal of Agricultural and Food
Chemistry.
GM food crops are grown experimentally in Australia, but states have banned
commercial crops. Many GM foods are imported into Australia, including soy
beans, corn and potato, but others, such as imports of GM fruit, meat and
fish, are banned.
Greenpeace and GeneEthics applauded CSIRO's decision, but said other GM
companies would not have made such research public.
Greenpeace GM spokesman Jeremy Tager said that Food Standards Australia New
Zealand had approved a type of GM corn, Mon863, for consumption in
Australia even though it had caused "serious organ damage" to rats in Germany.
Greenpeace Germany sued the maker of the corn, Monsanto, in 2004 to require
it to release the rat study findings.
In a statement published at the time, FSANZ said the rat study did not mean
the corn (or foods made from it) was "unsafe".
"(The study) is narrow in design and scope and the interpretation of such
studies in relation to the safety of food is therefore limited," it said.
Dr Higgins yesterday defended the regulator. "I think the regulatory system
picks these things up in the early stages," he said. "People have been
eating GM food for 10 years and there isn't a single piece of evidence that
it's any less safe than conventional food."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pea-trial-results-spur-antigm-lobby/2005/11/18/1132016987031.html
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