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Project SafeCom News and Updates 4 March 2006
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Project SafeCom
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Mar 04, 2006 01:34 PST
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Project SafeCom News and Updates 4 March 2006
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¤ - In this Edition - ¤
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1. I'm sorry, you and me John, we're over
2. Detention 'psychologically harmed boy'
3. Laughter at last as boy wins settlement
4. Detention children scarred: Greens
5. Detention payout may pave way for others
6. Deportee 'proud to be an Aussie'
7. Senate Committee Reports on Migration Act
8. Coroner urges medical examination of detained fishermen
9. Activists back health checks for detained fishermen
10. Cloth caps, burqas and big men in skirts
11. Bill Leak: Howard the Ordinary
12. What the bloody hell do our tourism chiefs think they're doing?
13. Children from migrant families top state schools
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=============================
1. I'm sorry, you and me John, we're over
=============================
The Age
By Melanie La'Brooy
March 4, 2006
Dear John,
Ten years we've been together. Ten years. Remember right back to the early
days, when you first moved into the Lodge? Oh, that's right. You didn't.
You stayed in Kirribilli. Well, anyway, back then Oasis was at the top of
the charts, no one had heard of Harry Potter and convicted felon, ballroom
dancer and ginger seller Pauline Hanson was making her maiden speech to
Parliament and receiving televised tuition in the meaning of polysyllabic
words from Tracey Curro.
Everything was so rosy, like it always is at the start of a new
relationship. I was your little Aussie battler and you were my John Winston
(Winnie-the-Pooh) Howard. Following the Port Arthur massacre, you defied
your Coalition heartland to ban semi-automatic weapons and implement the
gun buy-back.
Then in your second term came the Australian-led InterFET peacekeeping
mission to East Timor. Dammit, but I was proud of you.
Sure, I wanted to dress you in a Pro-Choice T-shirt and throw you to Tony
Abbott when you introduced the GST and condemned me to an eternity of
business activity statements, but economics isn't my strong point, so I was
prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt.
But it was during your third term that you really started to worry me,
Winnie. Come 2001 and, quite frankly, you started to lose the plot. The
Tampa election, the children not thrown overboard incident. And then, in
2002, we had the double whammy of the war in Iraq and the selection of Pat
Rafter as Australian of the Year. I love Pat's work, especially in those
Bonds ads, but the guy lives in Bermuda.
In August 2001, in conversation with Neil Mitchell from 3AW, this is what
you said regarding asylum seekers: "It is a huge problem. We are a
humanitarian country. We don't turn people back into the sea, we don't turn
(back) unseaworthy boats which are likely to capsize and the people on them
be drowned. We can't behave in that manner . . . The only alternative
strategy I hear is really the strategy of using our armed forces to stop
the people coming and turning them back. Now for a humanitarian nation that
really is not an option."
So, um, how come only weeks later you initiated the Pacific Solution, a
strategy that used the armed forces to turn back unseaworthy boats to stop
the people coming? And then when the SIEV-X tragedy occurred in October
2001, in which it is estimated that 353 people drowned, you continued to
proclaim Australia's status as a humanitarian nation.
In public statements, both you and Philip Ruddock made much of the fact
that asylum seekers aboard the various suspected illegal entry vessels were
wearing life jackets. The inference was that the wearing of life jackets
signalled their intention of jumping overboard, a tactic whereby they would
be rescued, which would then activate the formal asylum seeking process.
Now, Winnie, you and I both know that you don a safety helmet to tour a
sock factory. And the good sense of these people was justified when those
without life jackets on SIEV X were forced to cling onto corpses to stay
afloat.
In 2001, the Los Angeles Times called you John Hunt. The following year you
addressed the US Congress. Only 10 per cent of the representatives turned
up. That's 50 people.
But when the White House referred to you as John Major, I couldn't help
feeling a bit surprised. Just a few months earlier George Bush had stood on
the steps of the White House and, with an arm around you, had called you
his "man of steel". At the time it seemed like a demonstration of how close
our two countries had become through war, how intimate our two leaders
were. Bestowing nicknames is what you do to your mates. But now I can't
help thinking that George couldn't remember your name.
I'll admit that I haven't been faithful to you. I adored Paul, flirted with
Mark (big mistake) and often wondered if I'd like Simon if I ever had the
chance to know him.
But that's beside the point. There are certain things that I just can't get
past. You signed the Kyoto Protocol but then refused to ratify it. You just
plain refused to sign the UN Protocol on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination against Women, which Australia had helped to draft. In 2002
you voted against a protocol designed to strengthen the UN Convention
against Torture.
After years of practical reconciliation, a United Nations index released in
2004 ranked the quality of life for Australian Aborigines as the
second-worst on the planet.
The Iraq war was the first war that Australia has ever participated in
starting, we never did find those weapons of mass destruction, you broke
the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and 1977 and you've worn the same frigging
tracksuit every single day.
It's been 10 years but at times it's felt like an eternity.
So I'm sorry, John, but this is officially your Dear John letter. I promise
that I'll still always think of you when I hear our special song, Beds are
Burning by Midnight Oil. But please don't call me, don't beg and don't cry.
If you want to apologise, I'm willing to listen, as long as you understand
one thing.
You and me - we're over.
Melanie La'Brooy's latest novel, The Wish List, is published by Penguin.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/im-sorry-you-and-me-john-were-over/2006/03/03/1141191846330.html
==============================
2. Detention 'psychologically harmed boy'
==============================
news.com.au
From: AAP
March 03, 2006
THE Federal Government is to pay $400,000 compensation to an 11-year-old
Iranian boy who suffered psychological harm in two Australian detention
centres, a spokeswoman for the boy's lawyers said.
Shayan Badraie sued the immigration department on the grounds he was
psychologically harmed while living in Woomera and Villawood detention
centres between 2000 and 2002.
After months of hearings in the Supreme Court in Sydney, the boy's legal
team, Maurice Blackburn Cashman lawyers, accepted a settlement offer of
$400,000 made yesterday by Government solicitors, the spokeswoman said.
The settlement is due to be ratified in the same court today at 10am (AEDT).
The spokeswoman said the family, who lives in Sydney, has also this week
been granted permanent Australian residency visas.
Shayan attends a school in Sydney, she said.
Lead lawyer Rebecca Gilsenan said the settlement should aid in Shayan's
recovery.
"The settlement is an acceptance of responsibility for the psychological
injuries suffered by this child as a result of the shocking circumstances
in which he was detained at Woomera and then at Villawood," Ms Gilsenan said.
Earlier, Ms Gilsenan told ABC radio the Badraie settlement set a precedent
for other detainees who may be in similar positions.
"The problems that Shayan experienced were systemic problems rather than
ones that were just specific to him, although the particular treatment that
he received was disgraceful," she said.
"So it's quite possible that there are other children or even adults out
there who lived in a similar environment during that time in immigration
detention and possibly have similar problems."
Ms Gilsenan said Shayan, who witnessed attempted suicides and violence
while in immigration detention, had a debilitating psychiatric disorder.
"He still has a psychiatric condition and his symptoms fluctuate," she said.
"When he is reminded of detention experiences, for example by running into
people in the street who their family were detained with, his symptoms
deteriorate, so he does have a psychiatric disorder.
"Sometimes he can appear like a relatively normal child and sometimes he
can be completely disabled by it."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18334200-29277,00.html
==============================
3. Laughter at last as boy wins settlement
==============================
Sydney Morning Herald
By Ben Cubby
March 4, 2006
THERE was a moment yesterday when the parents of Shayan Badraie, 11, broke
into spontaneous laughter.
After a gruelling 63-day court hearing in which the Iranian family was
stoic as Federal Government lawyers tried to undermine claims that their
son was traumatised by the time he spent in immigration detention, the
relief was palpable outside the court.
When photographers started circling Shayan Badraie's father, Mohammed
Saeed, and his stepmother, Zahra Saberi, outside the NSW Supreme Court
yesterday the couple started to smile, and then the laughter bubbled out.
As well as the vindication of the Federal Government agreeing to pay
damages for the trauma suffered by Shayan, they had just learnt they had
been granted permanent residency. For the first time since arriving as
refugees from Iran in March 2000 the family has a home.
"We are very relieved that the Government has finally taken responsibility
for what happened to our son in immigration detention," said a statement
read yesterday by their lawyer Rebecca Gilsenan on behalf of the family.
"We came to Australia seeking protection and a peaceful life. It broke our
hearts to see our son so sick because of what he saw in immigration
detention camps."
The $400,000 paid by the Federal Government, much of which will be held in
a trust fund until the boy turns 18, will be used to pay for medical
treatment. The court also approved a government offer to pay court costs,
estimated at more than $1 million.
http://smh.com.au/news/national/laughter-at-last-as-boy-wins-settlement/2006/03/03/1141191849390.html
===========================
4. Detention children scarred: Greens
===========================
From: AAP
March 03, 2006
HUNDREDS of children have been mentally scarred by their time in
immigration detention and further claims are planned, Greens senator Kerry
Nettle said today.
The New South Wales Supreme Court today approved an out-of-court settlement
for 11-year-old Iranian boy Shayan Badraie, who sued the immigration
department on the grounds he suffered psychological damage during his time
in Woomera and Villawood detention centres between 2000 and 2002.
The boy received $400,000 under the terms of the settlement.
Outside the court today, Senator Nettle said the consequences of this
outcome relate directly to the Federal Government's policy of mandatory
detention.
"The Government has accepted the responsibility for the health consequences
of their policy of mandatory detention," Senator Nettle said.
"There is a raft of children, we are talking hundreds of children ... and
adults who have had their mental health significantly impacted by the
policy of mandatory detention.
"Some of those are looking to see whether or not they wish to pursue action
but none of them (before today) have made the decision to take that step to
this point."
Senator Nettle said she would ask Parliament to detail the cost to the
Commonwealth in originally defending the case and ask the Government if it
was an appropriate expense.
She also rejected any claim the Government should be congratulated for
offering the settlement.
"To have gone through these proceedings, and spent the amount of money they
have spent, to put Shayan's mother in the witness box for two weeks, is not
an indication of a willingness and public accountability by the Government
to accept responsibility for their actions," Senator Nettle said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18335016-29277,00.html
================================
5. Detention payout may pave way for others
================================
Sydney Morning Herald
March 3, 2006 - 8:24AM
A $400,000 federal government compensation payout to an 11-year-old Iranian
boy who suffered psychological harm in Australian detention centres has
been described by his lawyers as a "landmark outcome."
The NSW Supreme Court has approved the compensation offer to Shayan Badraie
who sued the immigration department on the grounds he was psychologically
harmed while living at Woomera and Villawood detention centres between 2000
and 2002.
After months of hearings, on Thursday the boy's lawyers accepted an
out-of-court settlement offer of "$400,000 by government solicitors", a
spokeswoman for legal firm Maurice Blackburn Cashman said.
Justice Clifton Hoeben secured the compensation in law during a brief
hearing in the NSW Supreme Court.
The court also was told the family, who live in Sydney, have been granted
permanent Australian residency visas.
Outside the court, lawyers for the boy said the payout was a "landmark
outcome" that could pave the way for more claims from other detainees in
similar positions.
Lead lawyer Rebecca Gilsenan said it was about time the government took
responsibility for the consequences of keeping children and families
detained in brutal circumstances.
"The government should not have detained innocent children that way - now
the Department of Immigration has to face the consequences," Ms Gilsenan said.
Shayan was in detention between the ages of five and seven, Ms Gilsenan said.
He developed post-traumatic stress disorder, which resulted in numerous
hospitalisations when he refused to eat, drink or talk.
The boy witnessed traumatic events such as suicide attempts, self harm and
abuse, in both detention centres.
Ms Gilsenan said the commonwealth now was obliged to pay the legal costs
the Badraies incurred in bringing their case to court.
She said their costs for the 13-week trial could total more than $1 million.
Ms Gilsenan then read a statement from the family, saying the money would
help with their son's medical costs.
"We are very relieved that the government has finally taken responsibility
for what happened to our son in immigration detention," the statement said.
"We came to Australia seeking protection and a peaceful life.
"It broke our hearts to see our son so sick because of what he saw in
immigration detention camps.
"No amount of money can give our son back his childhood.
"But it will help us to get the educational and medical assistance he needs
to recover from what happened."
© 2006 AAP
http://smh.com.au/news/National/Detention-payout-may-pave-way-for-others/2006/03/03/1141191818689.html
=========================
6. Deportee 'proud to be an Aussie'
=========================
news.com.au
From: AAP
March 03, 2006
A MAN deported to Serbia after committing a string of offences to support
his heroin habit said he is proud to be Australian after the government
decided he can come home.
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone announced yesterday that Robert
Jovicic, an Australian resident born in France to Serbian parents, would be
allowed back after he was deported in June 2004 on character grounds.
Mr Jovicic said today that Australia was the epitome of the meaning of a
fair go.
"Today I truly feel proud to be an Australia," he told ABC radio.
Mr Jovicic said he felt empty when he got the news from his sister Susanna
over the phone.
"It has been a long drawn out time for me," he said.
"I actually thought that all this time I would be able to, once a decision
was given, and I firmly always believed that justice would prevail, that I
would be jumping up and down but it wasn't the case."
The decision to allow Mr Jovicic back into Australia came just weeks after
Commonwealth Ombudsman John McMillan found Senator Vanstone's department
had unfairly deported people with criminal records who had lived in
Australia since they were children.
Mr Jovicic, 39, of Melbourne, arrived in Australia as a two-year-old with
his parents and brother and sister but never became an Australian citizen.
Philip Ruddock, who was immigration minister at the time, ordered Mr
Jovicic's deportation after he was jailed for committing a string of
burglaries to support his heroin addiction.
In Serbia Mr Jovicic was destitute and suffering physically and mentally.
He was living on the street outside the Australian embassy when his case
came to public attention. He was then put up in a hotel paid for by Australia.
Susanna Jovicic said the only thing she had wanted was to get her brother home.
"We would have paid his airfare, his visa, whatever it took to have got him
here," she said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18334162-29277,00.html
==================================
7. Senate Committee Reports on Migration Act
==================================
AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRATS PRESS RELEASES
Senator Andrew Bartlett
Deputy Parliamentary Leader and Democrats Senator for Queensland
Australian Democrats spokesperson for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs
Dated: 02 March 2006
Portfolio: Immigration and Multicultural Affairs
The Australian Democrats today welcomed the findings of the Legal and
Constitutional Committee Report into the administration and operation of
the Migration Act but said that the report does not go far enough.
"The widely acknowledged cultural problems within the Department of
Immigration stem from the inherent unfairness and complexity built into
much of the Migration Act," said Democrat Senator Andrew Bartlett.
"It's time for serious re-appraisal of the Migration Act, as many of the
changes made over the last decade have proved to be harmful to both the
people it affects and those who administer it. We need a review of the
current law which will look at reversing many of these changes to the
legislation and the negative culture which it engendered."
The Democrats argue that several measures need to be re-assessed including:
• The legislation that introduced and tightened mandatory detention.
• The Migration Legislation Amendment (Strengthening of Provisions Relating
to Character and Conduct) Act 1998, which toughened existing provisions and
enabled the cancellation or refusal of visas on character grounds. (The
Democrats noted at the time that this measure could be disastrous).
• Statutory rules that mandated the elimination of support for many asylum
seekers in the community.
• Temporary Protection Visas and the excising of parts of Australia from
the migration zone.
• Restricting access to the courts and tightening rules which restricted
detainees' access to legal assistance.
"While the Committee report provides may useful recommendations, unless
there is major reform of the Migration Act, the problems with how the laws
are administered will not be solved."
"We must remember that the law applies to human beings, not to abstract
concepts. Basic principles of natural justice and a fair go must always
remain central in Australian law," Senator Bartlett said.
http://www.democrats.org.au/news/index.htm?press_id=5022&display=1
===========================================
8. Coroner urges medical examination of detained fishermen
===========================================
ABC ONLINE NEWS
Friday, March 3, 2006. 1:05pm (AEDT)
The Northern Territory Coroner has recommended that all detained foreign
fishermen undergo a medical examination within 24 hours of being caught.
Coroner Greg Cavanagh has made the recommendation after investigating the
death of a 37-year-old Indonesian fisherman who died on board a detained
boat in Darwin harbour last year.
Mr Cavanagh found Muhammed Heri was detained for nine days before he died
from coronary heart disease and he was not given a medical check.
The Coroner has also found that Mr Heri's treatment during detention did
not contribute to his death.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1583239.htm
=======================================
9. Activists back health checks for detained fishermen
=======================================
ABC ONLINE NEWS
Saturday, March 4, 2006. 7:45am (AEDT)
A group campaigning for people in immigration detention has welcomed a
coroner's call for suspected illegal foreign fishermen to undergo a health
check within 24 hours of being detained.
The Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) also says the death of an Indonesian
fisherman in Darwin Harbour is a sign the Department of Immigration needs
to improve the way it treats illegal fisherman.
Northern Territory Coroner Greg Cavanagh has found 37-year-old Muhammed
Heri died from a blocked artery last year.
RAC spokesman Ian Rintoul has welcomed the coroner's recommendation that
all detained fishermen should get a health check within 24 hours of being
detained.
"Unfortunately, I think we're seeing in this particular case exactly what
we saw with the detention of asylum seekers," he said.
"The welfare of those people is not foremost in the department's mind and
it's taken perhaps this tragedy to bring that to the attention of the
department."
Mr Rintoul also says prompt medical checks are welcome but there should
also be better healthcare available at detention centres.
"The medical facilities are inadequate, the communication between people
who have been detained and the management of the detention facilities in
the Department of Immigration leave a lot to be desired and that's what
really needs to be looked at," he said.
An Immigration spokesman says fishermen are already given a medical check
when they are processed at a detention centre.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1583847.htm
================================
10. Cloth caps, burqas and big men in skirts
================================
The Age
By Alan Attwood
March 4, 2006
A cautionary tale for the Prime Minister. Many years ago I was walking in
East St Kilda close to midnight. The street was deserted until I saw a lone
figure coming straight towards me, fast. It was dark, but something about
his appearance seemed threatening. Oh no, I thought, he's a skinhead. So
what was I to do?
Crossing the road would look too obvious: a clear sign of alarm, if not
panic. I could run - but where, and for how long? He was closing fast. I
decided to bluff it out: move to one side; try to avoid eye contact; puff
out my chest a bit and be ready to bolt if he made a move. But my
self-control snapped. When I was close enough to hear his footsteps,
inexorably moving my way, I glanced up.
He wasn't a skinhead at all. He was a young Jewish student, carrying books
and wearing a yarmulke. Something else I noticed, too: although the night
was cool, his forehead was damp with sweat. This guy had clearly been as
alarmed about me as I had been by him. I'd been the big bugger coming
straight at him, never deviating an inch. I suspect we both exhaled at the
same time.
The moral, Mr Howard, is that appearances are often deceptive. What looks
like a neo-Nazi crop-cut from a distance can simply be a circle of cloth; a
harmless symbol of piety. And the burqa - the "full garb" for Muslim women
that the PM believes is "confronting" to most Australians - is just another
outfit; no more or less disturbing, even outrageous, than the
lairy-coloured costumes that Howard has worn for his walks all over the world.
He certainly can't count me among those who allegedly find "the whole
outfit" for Muslims at all alarming. Anyone who has ever met me, or has
sneaked a peek inside my wardrobe, knows I have no credibility when it
comes to clothes. I lean to comfort rather than style. And I have boundless
admiration for anyone whose outfit reflects, or is dictated by, their
individual religious or cultural beliefs.
It's not unusual for me to drive along Hotham Street on a Friday or
Saturday. In a street in which signs proclaim the coming of Moshiach, I see
many, many Orthodox Jews. I see the knickerbockers, the clumpy shoes, the
long black coats and some truly wondrous hats. These are not clothes worn
for convenience. Considering the weather we've had lately, I'd argue that
those with the courage of their convictions to wear such outfits deserve
medals for valour.
I enjoy the fact that there is a part of Melbourne, not far from my home,
where people quietly go about their lives, observing their own rites and
rituals. It makes for a more interesting community; another ingredient in
the geographic casserole. I like this sense of general diversity and local
cultural cohesiveness. It reminds me of visits to the Crown Heights
district in New York or the year I had in Coburg, when I'd wander up to
Sydney Road and feel like the only one with English as a first language.
What disturbs me most about Howard's comments on Muslim clothing the other
day - even making some allowance for the fact that he was chatting to John
Laws on talkback radio, and perhaps pandering to a particular audience - is
that it is part of a pattern suggesting that his Government is deeply
suspicious of differences in the community. Differences in religion;
differences in appearance; even differences in nationality or surnames.
First there was Danna Vale warning us that those fast-breeding Muslims
would take over the country. Then came Peter Costello's hymn to homogeneity
and his assault on "mushy, misguided multiculturalism". Tony Abbott rounded
off the trifecta by suggesting that those of Greek or Cambodian or Spanish
or Vietnamese backgrounds in the seat of Hotham were perhaps less
"Australian" than others. Again, you can make allowances for context.
Abbott was performing in the bearpit of parliamentary question time. But,
at the very least, it was a bad-taste contribution to Hansard at a time
when his earlier, thoughtful comments about engagement with the Muslim
community had rightly earned praise.
As the Howard administration enters its second decade, we are left with a
sense that some senior members prefer the way things used to be. The
white-bread era of a picket fence and a couple of kids. When we played the
right national anthem for Her Majesty and Bob Menzies had the perfect
riposte for any pissant who dared oppose him.
All the commentaries on John Howard as PM have mentioned Menzies. But the
patron saint of the Liberal Party is a dubious role model when it comes to
costume. He was proud of his Scottish heritage. Could recite reams of
Robbie Burns. Reportedly cut an imposing figure in a kilt. A big man in a
skirt? Now that is confronting, Prime Minister.
Alan Attwood is a Melbourne author and journalist.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/cloth-caps-burqas-and-big-men-in-skirts/2006/03/03/1141191846320.html
=========================
11. Bill Leak: Howard the Ordinary
=========================
By: Bill Leak
Wednesday 1 March 2006
March 2, 1996 marked the start of 10 long years of struggle for the
nation’s cartoonists.
John Howard’s ordinariness is one of his most effective electoral
attributes, but it is almost impossible to capture. It’s a bit like having
to draw something that’s not there. As someone once said of British
politician Gordon Brown, ‘when he leaves a room the lights go on.’ Howard
seemed to us like that — or, as Paul Keating put it, ‘like a lizard on a
rock — alive but looking dead.’
Mark Latham, on the other hand, had it all: a big boofy head, as flat at
the back as it was bulbous at the front; a nose in the middle of it as
formless and as formidable as a boarding-house pudding; little gimlet eyes
sparkling away behind small rectangular glasses; the kind of tight lips
that can be rendered with just one squiggly line; and only two chins
between his mouth and the collar of his shirt, both almost as big as each
other. The man who told us ‘politics is Hollywood for ugly people’ summed
up in his whole being why it is that most politicians are a delight to draw.
We look for big noses like Peter Costello’s magnificent proboscis, big ears
like Tony Abbott’s or Billy McMahon’s (who was famously described as
looking like a Volkswagen with the doors open), or big droopy eyes the size
of ping-pong balls like Philip Ruddock’s.
Politicians like Rob Kemp, Bob Hawke and Robert Menzies did the decent
thing by cartoonists by allowing their eyebrows to sprout in much the same
way as other men disfigure themselves with handlebar or Zapata moustaches.
Bronwyn Bishop and Graham Richardson gave us bouffant hairdos that endeared
them both to us forever, while — perhaps most generously of all — Alexander
Downer donned fishnet stockings and stilettos just to give us a trademark
to run with and enjoy.
What we need is a feature to exaggerate to the point of absurdity,
something — anything — to get a grip on … but, please, not ordinariness.
Journalists as well as cartoonists found it difficult to get a handle on
Howard when he first rose to prominence in Malcolm Fraser’s ministry in
1977. Fraser himself, with his half-closed eyes lurking somewhere behind
the hanging gardens of his eyebrows and his jaw, the length of which was
restricted only by the amount of drawing space available, was a gift from
God. But his Treasurer was a different matter.
Howard was mired in the 1950s, a man who came over all misty eyed when
recalling those glory days when Australia was still hanging on firmly to
Mother England’s apron strings, nice people lived in suburban houses on a
quarter acre, a wild night was when someone broke free from singing songs
around the piano and danced the hokey-pokey, and modern art was a foreign
pestilence successfully quarantined from our shores. Cartoonists and
journalists alike portrayed him as a man living in the past, defined by a
series of tired clichés.
His bottom lip has always been his most outstanding feature. For some
reason it always looks completely white, especially under the lights in the
House of Representatives. When he makes his way to the dispatch box, one
can’t help being reminded of a zinc-creamed cricketer heading out to the
crease. I lengthened his lower lip by 10 per cent after he brought in the
GST and nobody noticed.
Alan Moir, a cartoonist with an exceptional gift for coming up with just
the right image, started drawing Howard with only one eye. When one day,
out of forgetfulness, he drew him with two, readers of the Sydney Morning
Herald complained.
Thanks to an enormous upper lip, a protruding lower one and the absence of
a discernible forehead, it became standard practice for cartoonists to
represent Howard as a simian creature who had not evolved as far from the
ape as one might expect of a future statesman.
Soon after Howard became Prime Minister my colleague Peter Nicholson
started a minor diplomatic crisis with our nearest neighbour by drawing
then Indonesian president Suharto as an orang-outang swinging happily
through the trees high above a jungle engulfed in flames. Peter tried to
defend this highly seditious piece of whimsy by demonstrating to the
Indonesians that drawing our political leaders as apes is perfectly
acceptable in Australia. He came running in to my office and asked me if I
had any cartoons that made John Howard look like a monkey. I was able to
oblige with several thousand.
Oscar Wilde once said it’s absurd to categorise people as either good or
bad; people are either charming or tedious. The 1996 election came down to
a choice between the charming and the tedious. And, to the disappointment
of many — and the grim-faced self-affirmation of others — tediousness won
on the day.
It was Keating who said ‘when the government changes, the country changes.’
There are many of us still wondering why he had to squander an election
just to demonstrate that it was true.
Howard’s victory speech said a lot about our new Prime Minister. The man
with the pinched eyebrows and the permanently pleading look on his face
waited for the cheering to die down before he dribbled into the microphone:
‘The deepest, the most profound emotion I’m experiencing here tonight is …
humility.’ The contrast with Keating’s 1993 victory declaration, ‘the
sweetest victory of all,’ could not have been greater. Howard was
apparently a man who rated humility as an emotional experience.
Nicholson, with his brilliant cartoon ‘The Big Picture’ showing Howard
arriving in his new office as Keating puts a huge work of art through the
shredder in the background, summed up what a lot of people feared most
about Howard while at the same time capturing what a lot of others had come
to loathe about Keating.
Having realised his ambition to become Prime Minister, Howard quickly
transformed himself into a creature entirely different from the one most
cartoonists had grown to understand. Given his uncanny resemblance to a
chameleon, I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised. In his 10 years in
office, Howard has reinvented himself more times than Madonna. But, like
the pop star, the image changes while the music stays the same. Howard has
stuck to his ideological agenda with the tenacity that has characterised
his whole political career.
In early 1999, while Howard was resisting calls for an apology to the
Aborigines over the stolen generation, US President Bill Clinton was trying
to quash rumours that he had sired a half-black love child, one of the many
stories his enemies were putting about in an attempt to brand him as a
serial philanderer. This gave me the opportunity to invent Little Black
Johnny, a half-Aboriginal love child of Howard’s own, in a cartoon that
showed a tearful Janette extracting an apology from her husband. Sitting
between the two was a toddler who looked exactly the same as his ‘father,’
only black.
Readers were both outraged and delighted, in roughly the same numbers, and
so another Little Johnny was born. For a year or so he kept on popping up
whenever I drew a cartoon on the subject of ‘the apology.’ The little chap
symbolised the Prime Minister’s conscience and I continued to draw him in
the vain hope that he would eventually get his message through. With time
he faded away, just another failed attempt by a delusional cartoonist to
influence the public debate.
Howard was right when he said ‘the times will suit me’. He has presided
over the Parliament during a period of historically ineffective Opposition
and that, of course, has suited him just fine. It has also suited us
cartoonists whose job it is to act as a constant thorn in the side of any
government, regardless of its political stripe. We look for hypocrisy and
falsehood with the same eagerness with which we look for big noses and gap
teeth, and Howard keeps us busier than ever.
From his 1996 declaration that he would enforce unprecedentedly high
standards of parliamentary behaviour (a notion that cost him seven
ministers in his first term), through to the spectacular ‘children
overboard’ deception and the subsequent ‘Tampa election,’ cartoonists have
been outraged and grateful in equal measure at the political audacity of
this arch-conservative-turned-revolutionary.
And it got worse. Next thing we were being told that a bloke called Saddam
Hussein was squirrelling away a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in
a place called Iraq and if we didn’t stop him dead in his tracks he’d be on
his way across the oceans, hell-bent on testing them out on the likes of
us. Cartoonists had a field day pointing out the absurdity of this
proposition, but if we presumptuously assumed we were acting as a
substitute Opposition, we were soon to realise we were even less effective
than the ‘real’ one in Canberra.
We wore out a lot of pencils expressing our disgust at the treatment of
asylum seekers, thinking mandatory detention had to be a temporary
aberration, the sort of thing that could never happen in Australia. But
here we are, many years and thousands of pencils later, all realising that
it’s going to take a lot more than a few cartoons to bring about any change
in the direction of the Ship of State as long as Howard is at the helm.
It doesn’t matter what uniform we put him in, be it as the
seven-million-year-old caveman, Bush’s diminutive sidekick, the deputy
sheriff or a blundering soldier lost in the minefields of Iraq, Howard is
always one step ahead, leaving us to wonder what cliché he is going to
demand of us next.
It is often said that Howard is the consummate politician and, if managing
to turn around both policy and debate on a wide range of issues is any sort
of test, you’d have to say it’s true. If longevity in office is anything to
go by, Howard comes up trumps on that score too. He also proves time and
time again that his ability to read the collective mood of the people is
pretty near infallible, as is his skill at leading his party and bending
his ministers to his will.
The makeover of Howard’s appearance and deportment has been as complete as
the makeover he has given the country. Howard has reshaped Australia to
conform to his own vision. We love the inflated feelings of international
self-importance he has given us and we don’t seem to care about all the
things he has taken away. Happy to live in an economy instead of a society,
we might as well also accept that we are all Little Johnnies now.
Smaller, meaner and less attractive, we’re looking more like monkeys every
day.
This is an edited extract from The Howard Factor (Melbourne University
Publishing).
About the Author
Bill Leak suffered his first attack of culture shock in 1956 when, having
fully expected to be born in Madrid, his birth took place in Adelaide.
Predictably, he drifted into cartooning and painting. He has been drawing
for The Australian since 1994.
http://www.newmatilda.com/home/articledetailmagazine.asp?ArticleID=1387
================================================
12. What the bloody hell do our tourism chiefs think they're doing?
================================================
By Natasha Cica
February 28, 2006
In 2000, I was privileged to attend a prelaunch viewing of a series of
short films the Federal Government commissioned as part of an important
overseas information campaign. The screening was held in a meeting room in
Parliament House in Canberra. The intimate gathering attracted Coalition
parliamentarians (from memory, although I could be projecting, Queensland
Nationals MP De-Anne Kelly sat enthusiastically up front) and staff
members, and was hosted by a blonde bureaucrat in a tight grey suit.
The vids in question captured a face of contemporary Australia we were
beginning to show boldly to the world. Entitled The Trip, Reception and
Experiences and Expectations of Travellers, the trilogy featured clumsy
images of killer sharks, crocodiles, snakes and desert. The stated aim was
to deter the would-be hordes of brown boat people we were starting to call
"illegals" as a matter of course. Accompanied by a martial beat that would
have done Leni Riefenstahl proud - stimulating one staff member of my
acquaintance to scrawl "Nazis love blondes" on his notepad - a narrator
delivered broken English messages to the would-be visitor like "many people
drown" and "it's not worth the risk". It's not clear whether these dinkum
messages ever reached those who subsequently took that risk on vessels such
as the Palapa (rescued by the Tampa) and SIEV X. As William Maley, then of
the Australian Defence Force Academy and now director of ANU's Asia-Pacific
College of Diplomacy, observed at the time in a paper on Australia's Afghan
refugees: "These remarkable videos caused considerable anger in various
sections of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade because the
paranoia which they reflected ran the risk of reminding key circles in
Australia's Asian neighbours of the paranoia which for years fuelled the
White Australia Policy. Given the dismay caused in Asia by the rise of
Pauline Hanson's One Nation, this was the last thing that Australian
diplomats needed."
By comparison, Australia's new "so where the bloody hell are you?"
advertisements, commissioned by Tourism Australia to attract the right kind
of visitor to Australia.com and launched last Thursday by Fran Bailey as
federal Minister for Small Business and Tourism, look pretty bloody good.
Prettier looking wildlife (playful whale sharks and white guests
a-snorkelling) and a bloody different slice of remote Australia (greenest,
coolest Tassie rainforest plus - can this be true? - a line of
Afghan-looking camels walking into a tranquil beachside sunset). A
friendlier welcome message, scrawled in white lettering, a little
reminiscent of the pre-Shier national broadcaster where citizens, not
shareholders, wrote the ABC logo in mid-air with their fingers. Stressed
and stretched DFAT officers trapped in the AWB matrix must have breathed
audible sighs of relief.
Call me churlish, or bloody-minded, but I felt no such release. The "bloody
hell" campaign appeared in tandem with the Howard-Costello push against
multicultural "mush" and mad Muslims. It's hard to comment fully on the
Aussie vision-splendid delivered by M&C Saatchi (also responsible for the
"100% Pure New Zealand" campaign) for its taxpayers' $100 million-plus fee,
as a special preview invite was inexplicably missing from my 2006 inbox.
Accessible images so far include happy Anglo Vegemites, looking welcoming
against glorious backdrops, pyramids and suchlike. A bit Qantas meets Peter
Allen. Again, not as dire as Hoges or Sir Les Patterson or - narrow escape
there? - Lleyton Hewitt. But it's so lagging behind and limping a little.
Especially abroad, creative Australians are delivering at the cutting edge
of their industries: film, advertising, and artier fartier. Jennifer
Higgie's been a key player in London's frieze push. Her brother Andrew's
sold everything from Mr Bean to David Beckham to Tap Dogs. The divine Cate
B needs no introduction. The Venice Biennale screams for Patricia
Piccinini's pink squishy hairless piggy genetic mutant babies.
Between them, these and similar Australians could have done better than
"bloody hell". Which might have been OK if the target market was (do we
really need more?) Brit backpackers. But it's not. It's experienced
international travellers looking for "authentic personal experiences they
can talk about" and wanting to "engage with the locals". They're educated,
open-minded and from affluent backgrounds. They're "opinion leaders" who
are interested in world affairs.
Bloody hell. Do we truly want foreigners like that poking round in our
backyard? In a fit of nationalistic service, I tracked one down to test
drive the Saatchi concept. How, I asked, would you feel on the receiving
end of this message?
"Does it really say where the bloody hell are you?" she asked.
"Um - yes."
"Get f---ed, I'll go skiing in New Zealand."
Dr Natasha Cica is a strategy and communications consultant.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/editorial/what-the-bloody-hell-do-our-tourism-chiefs-think-theyre-doing/2006/02/27/1141020019018.html
=====================================
13. Children from migrant families top state schools
=====================================
The Age
By Chee Chee Leung
March 4, 2006
FAMILIES with an overseas background are scoring some of the state's best
academic results, with almost half the students at the top VCE school
coming from homes where English is not the main language.
At the academically selective MacRobertson Girls High School — which has
achieved the highest VCE marks for the past four years — 48 per cent of
students live in homes where the main language is not English. Among the
male students at its sibling selective government school, Melbourne High,
the figure is 40 per cent.
In contrast, across all government schools in Victoria, just under 14 per
cent of students live in homes where the main language is not English.
Melbourne High principal Jeremy Ludowyke said the enrolments reflected
migration patterns into Melbourne. In the postwar period, there were many
students from Italian and Greek backgrounds, and the Vietnamese and Chinese
communities came in the following decades.
Mr Ludowyke said there were now growing numbers from the Asian
subcontinent, especially Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. "At least one-third of
our intake every year is made up of boys who have at least one parent born
overseas. While cultural mixes have changed, the proportion has not."
At the two selective schools, Vietnamese, Chinese and Sinhalese are the
most common domestic languages other than English. Across all government
schools, the most widely spoken foreign languages are Vietnamese and Arabic.
Mr Ludowyke disputed the stereotype of the "brainy Asian", saying the
motivation of students with an overseas background was not linked to their
culture but to the migrant experience.
At MacRobertson Girls High, assistant principal Rebecca Vosper agreed that
students from a migrant background were highly motivated to do well, and
said their parents often took a keen interest in education.
"There's a great respect for parents on the children's part. They do really
want to please their parents and to achieve for their parents as well as
for themselves," Ms Vosper said.
She said with 38 different language backgrounds represented among students,
the school was an example of strong cultural diversity.
"It's just the norm here … I really think that the school is showing so
strongly the success and strength of multiculturalism in Victoria."
Melbourne University education expert Richard Teese said the language
statistics for the two schools were not surprising. "If you get on the tram
at half past three, you will see the results. They are largely Indian and
Chinese … and they are very good kids."
Professor Teese said Asian migrant families were more likely to opt for a
selective government school, because academic success was more important to
them than the status or benefits associated with private schools.
Georgina Tsolidis, associate professor in education at Monash University,
said educational aspiration was linked to migration, but questioned the
grouping of students by language. "Instead of saying the Chinese-speakers
are doing well, they should be classified as Australians," she said.
All in pursuit of a better life
WHEN Tanya Dontas was in primary school, she already knew she wanted to go
to university.
Now aged 16, she is considering a career in psychiatry or the law.
Rewind a couple of generations, and her family's circumstances were a far
cry from the bluestone academic aspirations of this MacRobertson Girls High
School student.
Tanya's grandparents made a living as factory workers and shopkeepers in
food stores after migrating from Turkey and Greece to Australia in the 1960s.
"They moved here for a better life, and so their families could have a
better life, and I guess you want to keep going with that," the year 11
student said.
"I've always been brought up to try my best at everything … If I haven't
tried, they would be disappointed and I don't want to disappoint my family,
and I want to do well for myself."
Tanya's grandparents stressed the importance of education with her parents,
Alex and Olga, who are both university educated. Mr and Mrs Dontas have
passed on this message to Tanya and her 22-year-old brother.
"Education was seen as something that should be respected … for bettering
oneself, both as a person and in terms of status," Mr Dontas said. "They
(my parents) would say: 'Make sure you study so you don't end up doing the
sort of things we are doing.' "
Tanya, who counts students of Malaysian, Vietnamese and Chinese backgrounds
among her school friends, says she noticed a somewhat different view
towards education among some of her classmates from non-migrant backgrounds
at her previous school.
"A lot of the girls were more interested in being popular and going out.
Their parents never pressured them to do much … They expected they would
get everything in front of them all the time," she said.
"For us, it's different. You don't expect everything handed to you. People
know they have to work to get what they want."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/children-from-migrant-families-top-state-schools/2006/03/03/1141191854022.html
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