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Project SafeCom News and Updates 8 March 2006
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Project SafeCom
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Mar 07, 2006 17:11 PST
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Project SafeCom News and Updates 8 March 2006
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¤ - In this Edition - ¤
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1. Rebecca Gilsenan: In denial over a living hell
2. In denial over a living hell
3. Shayan Badraie: The Cost, the Carnage and the Bill
4. Visa doubts for deportee
5. Workshop targets refugee crisis
6. Labor holding onto coal: Greenpeace
7. Emissions policy: it's either coal or coal
8. Earth in grip of mass extinction: scientists
9. New visa needed for those at risk
10. State fights for asylum seeker
11. DFAT 'holding up torture case'
12. Mothball this tired Bomber
13. SYRIANA AND THE SHIFTING WINDS: Bush, lies & videotape
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==================================
1. Rebecca Gilsenan: In denial over a living hell
==================================
A refugee boy's case puts the Government to shame
The Australian
OPINION
March 07, 2006
ELEVEN-year-old Shayan Badraie has his good days and his bad. April 30,
2001 was one of the worst days of his life. On that day the then
six-year-old was playing with a friend, running from room to room in
Sydney's Villawood immigration detention centre, where Shayan and his
family were spending their second year in detention. The two boys found a
detainee in his room, bleeding profusely. Moments before, he had slashed
his wrists.
In Woomera Shayan saw numerous acts of violence and self-harm, including a
man holding a shard of glass to his chest and threatening to kill himself
and another threatening to jump to his death from the branches of a tree.
These incidents were among many that featured in Shayan's landmark case
against the commonwealth Government and the private detention centre
operator, Australasian Correctional Management.
The Government spent 13 weeks in court and millions of dollars arguing that
those incidents were not the cause of Shayan's illness.
But even before the incident at Villawood, Shayan had been diagnosed with
psychiatric illness by the Woomera detention centre psychologist, who said
the cause of Shayan's illness was that he had witnessed other traumatic
events at Woomera.
Indeed, every other specialist who treated Shayan, most of them appointed
by the Government or ACM, agreed that Shayan suffered psychiatric illness
as a result of the traumatic events he witnessed in immigration detention.
Nor was Woomera in any other way an appropriate place to detain a child
pending resolution of a claim for refugee status. The centre, bursting at
the seams with 1450 detainees, only had 12 toilets, not enough shoes for
every detainee in winter or even enough water jugs for everyone during
lock-down periods.
Allan Clifton, the former operations manager at Woomera, gave evidence that
two teachers who did not speak the detainees' languages were supposed to
teach the centre's 240 children in a building that seated 25 people. He
testified that activities, including yoga, beauty and hygiene, anger
management, coffee clubs, gardening and language courses were never
provided as ACM claimed in its reports to the Government.
During the August 2000 Woomera riots, a few months after the Badraie family
arrived, Clifton witnessed children rubbing their stinging eyes and gasping
for air as tear gas enveloped the centre.
Further traumatic events followed when they were transferred to Villawood
in March 2001. During his stay in Villawood Shayan was hospitalised nine
times for 94 days as an emergency patient as his deteriorating mental state
had led him to stop eating, drinking and talking.
By the time Shayan and his family were granted temporary protection visas
in 2002, he was no longer the healthy little boy who had arrived with his
parents seeking Australia's protection in March 2000.
Nobody can deny that Shayan was, and is, deeply disturbed. To this day he
is withdrawn and sad. He has difficulty learning and fitting in with other
children. He goes to school, but finds it hard to sleep at night. Doctors
believe he will have difficulty holding down a job later in life. His
parents, at a loss as to how to help their disturbed child, turned to the
law for an answer. And now, more than three years later, they have it.
The Government tried to argue that it was Shayan's own family that made him
sick, as part of a scheme to get them out of detention. The Government's
idea that Shayan, a boy yet to reach his eighth birthday, could be
persuaded to not eat or drink for days on end as part of a ploy to get
visas for his family, quickly revealed itself as a smear on a family caught
in a living hell. Expert witnesses dismissed out of hand the ability of a
young boy to execute such a plan.
Shayan's treating psychiatrist, David Dossetor, of the Children's Hospital
at Westmead, also dismissed the Government's theory that the parents were
to blame. He gave evidence that Shayan's parents are caring and sensitive
parents doing everything they can for a very sick child.
Expert psychologist Wendy Roberts was adamant the reason Shayan, then
seven, weighed 19kg in August 2001 was post-traumatic stress disorder
caused by what he experienced in detention.
But for months, the Government and its contractor battled on regardless
with their arguments in opposition to Shayan's claims. Contrary to the
impression that the Minister for Immigration would have the community
believe, the Government did not make an acceptable offer to settle the
claim until the family had suffered 13 weeks of a gruelling trial and an
ongoing uncertainty over their status as residents in this country.
The Government's first offer was not a good one but finally, 13 weeks into
the trial the Government decided to settle the case, agreeing to a judgment
against it, on terms that were acceptable. We can only hope that other
victims, who may now have the confidence to come forward, will not be put
through such an ordeal.
The Government has at last admitted what the treating doctors said all
along - that the cause of Shayan's tragic illness were the conditions he
experienced in immigration detention.
The reasons why the Government chose to spend several million dollars
fighting the case and putting Shayan's family, now permanent members of the
Australian community, under relentless pressure for years rather than
accepting responsibility earlier should be a topic for concerned debate.
This small boy was failed by Australia's Government by being detained in
inhumane circumstances for almost two years. It was a further governmental
failure to then subject the family to huge litigation pressures rather than
compassionately deal with the resulting claim.
Without a free and fair legal system, and lawyers prepared to conduct
massive litigation on a pro bono basis, Shayan's injuries, and their cause,
would have gone uncompensated and regrettably largely unnoticed by the
wider community. At all levels this has been a shameful episode.
Rebecca Gilsenan, principal, of Maurice Blackburn Cashman, represented
Shayan Badraie on a pro bono basis. Shayan's barristers, Andrew Morrison
and Adam Casselden, also represented him on a pro bono basis.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18368642%255E7583,00.html
====================
2. In denial over a living hell
====================
Letter to the Editor
The Australian
7 March 2006
Sincere thanks to the pro bono lawyers (In denial over a living hell,
Opinion 7/3/06) who dragged the legally qualified Minister for Immigration
and her legal advisors to a reluctant legal settlement in favour of an
innocent child inhumanely detained in a toxic environment and damaged
beyond comprehension and in the face of persistent evidence over many years
from experts and ordinary Mums and Dads who said that "kids don't belong in
detention centres". Money in no way makes up for the years lost and damage
done to a child, his family and his many friends. Is this finally a
Government acknowledgement of its legal obligations (since 14 January 1991)
under the Convention on the Rights of the Child which provides that the
best interests of the child must be a primary consideration in all
decisions affecting children?
In the post Palmer reformed culture of the Immigration portfolio, will all
other vindictive and unreasonable and very expensive legal action against
asylum seekers and refugees be brought to a quick settlement and permanent
residence be granted to genuine refugees still in limbo on temporary visas?
Frederika Steen
Chapel Hill Qld
=======================================
3. Shayan Badraie: The Cost, the Carnage and the Bill
=======================================
Letter to the Editor
The Australian
7 March 2006
The culture of denial around millions of dollars for litigation once more
put the spotlight on the former Minister for Immigration, Philip Ruddock,
who - as was put to him during a visit to Germany, spent a lot of time
"defending the indefensible".
Fresh on the heels of the Australian Wheat Board bribery scandal, which saw
our nation part with more than $300 million dollars, questions should come
thick and fast after last week the National Auditor's report could not
explain why the government had spent $5.7 million in a payment to
Australasian Correctional Management (ACM), the company that let Shayan
Badraie down so horrifically while he was jailed for being a refugee in the
Woomera detention centre.
On all accounts it appears that the Immigration Minister has a case to
answer about the reasons for this payment after cancelling the contract
with ACM - and I presume until I hear otherwise that this 'shut up and hold
your peace bribe' was sent to ACM to lock them out of the subsequently
issued tender seeking a new refugee jail contractor.
Since Tampa the Howard government has spent several billions of dollars to
prove an Orwellian point, locking up a few thousand people for years, if
need be indefinitely, who on the balance - nearly 93% of them - proved
refugees after all.
Like Shayan, most of the long-term detainees will suffer the nightmares of
being jailed for the desire to have a peaceful life, for the rest of their
lives in Australia, their new home country.
It's time that every household gets informed, after the Cost and the
Carnage, also of the Bill of these draconian policies.
Jack H Smit
Narrogin WA
===================
4. Visa doubts for deportee
===================
March 8, 2006
AS Robert Jovicic, the Australian-raised man deported to Serbia by the
Department of Immigration, was boarding his return flight yesterday, plans
for his return home were thrown into confusion when an immigration official
told his lawyer he still did not have a valid visa.
Mr Jovicic's supporters say they had been assured that the Minister for
Immigration, Amanda Vanstone, had agreed to return Mr Jovicic on
compassionate grounds. "I thought, surely they can't go back on their word
this time," said a family spokesman, Ross Waraker. It is now unclear what
will happen when Mr Jovicic arrives at Sydney Airport tomorrow morning, but
it is no longer certain he can stay. According to Mr Waraker, the
immigration official had said that Mr Jovicic might be issued a temporary visa.
Ben Cubby
http://smh.com.au/news/national/visa-doubts-for-deportee/2006/03/07/1141701510076.html
=========================
5. Workshop targets refugee crisis
=========================
Armidale Express
Wednesday, 8 March 2006
The alarming magnitude of refugee problems throughout the Asia-Pacific
region has emerged more clearly than ever before during an international
workshop at The University of New England.
The workshop, on March 2 and 3, brought together more than 30 participants
from various countries in the region, including key speakers from Malaysia,
Japan, Indonesia and Hong Kong,as well as an interdisciplinary group of UNE
researchers.
UNE's Professor Amarjit Kaur, who organised the workshop, said it had
highlighted the need for an approach to the 'refugee crisis' that focused
on human rights as well as border control.
"It's become very clear that in some Asian countries where governments have
not signed the 1991 United Nations Convention on Refugees, refugees are
classified as illegal migrants and are subject to imprisonment and, in some
cases, corporal punishment and fines," Prof Kaur said.
"In the past few years the national governments of the region have become
increasingly closely engaged in negotiations on cross-border flows of
people," she explained.
"However, these negotiations are often conducted at a bilateral level, and
frequently focus on collaboration to strengthen border controls. Meanwhile,
international treaties and organisations designed to protect the rights of
refugees have faced new challenges in the international environment of the
twenty-first century."
One of the keynote speakers at the workshop, Malaysian human rights
commissioner Professor Hamdan Adnan, developed this theme when he argued
that individual security, with its focus on human rights, was ultimately
more important than a national security that involved the proliferation of
detention camps.
Prof Adnan, who is chairperson of the complaints and inquiries working
groups of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, said the workshop had
been a useful exercise in sharing information that could be used in efforts
to reduce the flow of refugees.
"Australia, as one of the more developed nations in the Asia-Pacific
region, could play a bigger role in finding solutions to the region's
refugee problems," he added.
Prof Kaur said participants in the workshop had agreed that the United
Nations High Commission for Refugees was not doing enough to address the
crisis in the Asia-Pacific region - particularly when it came to resettling
refugees in a third country.
Other keynote speakers at the workshop were Prof Koki Abe from Kanagawa
University in Japan, who is a board member of the Japan civil liberties
union and a member of the refugee studies forum, Japan.
Also present were Dr Riwanto Tirtosudarmo, from the research centre for
society and culture, Indonesian institute of science and Ms Devi Novianti
from Hong Kong.
The workshop was sponsored by the international centre of excellence in
Asia Pacific studies and the UNE asia centre, and forms part of the Asia
Pacific regional migration network forum program led by Prof Kaur, Prof
Tessa Morris-Suzuki (Australian National University) and Prof Kang Sangjung
(Tokyo University).
http://armidale.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&story_id=464069
============================
6. Labor holding onto coal: Greenpeace
============================
The Age
March 7, 2006 - 1:19PM
Labor is hedging its bets and still hanging onto a coal-powered future,
Greenpeace says.
Holding onto coal exports is the opposite of what protecting the planet
from climate change devastation is all about, Greenpeace campaigner Danny
Kennedy says.
Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley released his climate change blueprint
on Tuesday, committing Labor to signing the Kyoto Protocol, aiming for a 60
per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and making five-star
energy efficiency mandatory for new homes.
Mr Kennedy welcomed Mr Beazley's acknowledgment of the opportunities in
solar and other renewable energies.
"However, they're still trying to hedge their bets and say that they'll
keep coal going in a climate changed world," he told AAP.
"They have to make a choice and start setting the policies for a just
transition from coal dependency into that beautiful sunrise industry, that
future that Mr Beazley talked about."
Mr Kennedy said it was clear that neither the ALP nor the coalition had yet
grappled with the reality of climate change.
"Exporting carbon overseas, as we do from Newcastle, Gladstone and other
points along the coast, is antithetical to protecting the climate," he said.
"Whether it's a function of marginal seats politics or whether it's just
the denial that had beset the coalition party room, it's sort of irrelevant.
"The point is, we've got to quit coal and move on into that clean energy
future."
He welcomed Labor's commitment to putting a price on carbon through an
emissions trading system, but believed there were better ways.
"Greenpeace doesn't believe an emissions trading system is the best. We
think a carbon tax is a much more direct way," he said.
"It makes the polluter pay, rather than just spreading it around the economy."
© 2006 AAP
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Labor-holding-onto-coal-Greenpeace/2006/03/07/1141493651768.html
==============================
7. Emissions policy: it's either coal or coal
==============================
Sydney Morning Herald
By Wendy Frew Environment Reporter
March 8, 2006
ANY chance of Australia significantly cutting its greenhouse gas emissions
was called into question yesterday as the Federal Opposition joined the
Coalition in endorsing coal as a long-term source of power.
In a blueprint to protect Australia from the threat of climate change, the
Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, also placed confidence in unproven
clean-coal technology.
He committed a federal Labor government to a 60 per cent cut in Australia's
2000 emission levels by 2050.
Mr Beazley stressed the need to act within the next few years and said
Labor would invest in clean-coal technology and solar power.
He did not want cuts in coal exports or in the use of coal as a domestic
source of power, however, and provided no funding commitments for energy
research and development. Nor would he say by how much Labor would raise
the Government's mandatory renewable energy target, which gives some
support to solar, wind and biomass power.
The ambitious greenhouse gas target came as state Labor governments
continue to issue coalmining licences. In NSW, the Government and industry
are spending hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading railways and ports
in the Hunter Valley to cope with a coalmining boom.
Mr Beazley said: "We have 300 years' worth of coal reserves in this
country. There is always going to be a requirement for it so … we have to
make sure that industry can progress within an environmentally friendly
context." That meant getting clean-coal technology into place.
A Greenpeace campaigns manager, Danny Kennedy, said: "All recent analysis
shows that it is not possible to achieve deep [emission] cuts while using
coal, even with as-yet-unproven [clean-coal] technologies."
http://smh.com.au/news/national/emissions-policy-its-either-coal-or-coal/2006/03/07/1141701510097.html
================================
8. Earth in grip of mass extinction: scientists
================================
ABC ONLINE NEWS
By environment reporter Sarah Clarke
Scientists say Earth is experiencing the largest mass extinction in 65
million years.
Environmental scientist Professor Norman Myers says the loss of species is
more severe than the five mass extinctions of the geological past.
"In the lifetime of many [television news] viewers we could lose half of
all those 10 million species around the world," he said.
There are 33 extinction hotspots around the world.
The Australia Museum's Frank Howarth says two are in Australia and up to 80
per cent of the crucial habitat has been wiped out.
"One [is] north Queensland rainforest, the other is in south-western
Australia but in Australian terms we have a lot of areas where we have real
competition between endemic animals that are found nowhere else," Mr
Howarth said.
Green groups say current measures to protect sensitive habitats are not
effective.
"The Australian Government is investing a lot of money in biodiversity but
it's not being invested in the most responsible way," Nicola Beynon, from
the Humane Society International, said.
Professor Myers says if governments do not do more, the planet will
continue to lose 50 species per day compared to the natural extinction rate
of one species every five years.
"The whole thing is taking place in what you might call a flickering of an
evolutionary eye," he said.
"It's hard to keep up with unless we damp down on some of the causes of the
evolution."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1586235.htm
=========================
9. New visa needed for those at risk
=========================
The Australian
Mark Dodd
March 07, 2006
A SENATE committee reviewing immigration laws has recommended introducing a
"complementary protection" visa to asylum-seekers who have not qualified
for refugee status but may still face dangers in their country of origin.
The review of the Migration Act recommends the abolition of isolation
cells, and says the "self-protective" approach of immigration officers
reflected the tougher policy stance of the Coalition Government.
The 500-page report by the Senate's legal and constitutional references
committee claims substantial taxpayer savings could be achieved by offering
the new class of visa to people facing human rights violations if they were
deported.
Those eligible would include people who have no nationality or right of
residence and those from conflict-riven countries where human rights abuses
are widespread.
The visa would bring Australia in line with Canada, the US and members of
the European Union, which have all adopted complementary protection.
The inquiry was spurred by the Immigration Department's bungling of two
notorious cases -- the wrongful detention of Australian resident Cornelia
Rau and the improper deportation of an Australian citizen, Vivian Alvarez.
The inquiry was told the department had not conducted any studies into the
feasibility of complementary protection or assessed whether its
introduction would reduce the chances of the department being sued.
The committee recommended that "management units", or isolation cells, be
abolished or used only in an emergency, and for a maximum of 24 hours.
It proposed a 90-day limit on detention for asylum-seekers, improved
training for guards and better access for lawyers and visitors to detention
centres.
The report recommended that the Government lose its right to deport people
if they are children or have lived in Australia for more than 10 years.
"In the committee's view the defensive and self-protective culture that has
developed in the department has been a direct result of the Government's
tougher immigration policy led and implemented by ministers (Philip)
Ruddock and (Amanda) Vanstone."
This view was endorsed by Brisbane lawyer Bruce Henry, who successfully
challenged the department in the Federal Court last year over the
administration of temporary protection visas.
"It should be clear to anybody who has followed the news of the last couple
of years -- all is not well in the Department of Immigration," he said.
"These are not issues of the past, and so far none of the department's
problems have been fixed."
Although the Government's policy breached Australia's human rights
obligations, the committee acknowledged that over the past four years the
number of illegal immigrants had been reduced to a trickle, from a peak of
75 boats and 4175 asylum-seekers in 2000 to two vessels carrying 50
asylum-seekers in the six months to January.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18374059%255E5001561,00.html
========================
10. State fights for asylum seeker
========================
The Herald Sun
Patrick O'Neil
06mar06
AN asylum seeker has been imprisoned without charge in Victorian jails for
more than two years.
The State Government discovered the man was being illegally kept in a
maximum security prison last month and demanded he be moved into
Commonwealth custody.
The man was a rapist who was kept in prison even though he had served his
sentence.
Corrections Minister Tim Holding has insisted that immigration detainees
not be jailed illegally in Victoria.
Mr Holding has written to Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone saying the
detention is illegal in Victoria.
"We will not accept the Federal Government hiding away their problems in
Victoria as a result of their unwillingness to manage detainees," he said.
Chinese detainee Xiang Dong Wang, 27, of China, was jailed for rape in 2001.
But when his jail term ended in 2004, the Federal Government left him in
prison for another two years at Victorian taxpayers' expense.
The Department of Immigration said Wang was held in Victoria under the
Commonwealth Migration Act.
This was because he was awaiting deportation and the Federal Government
believed he was potentially a danger to other asylum seekers.
Wang had appealed against his deportation and so far succeeded, after the
Commonwealth ombudsman stopped it for fear that Wang could be executed in
China.
A corrections source said Wang had an estimated IQ of 70 and had been held
in various Victorian prisons -- most recently the maximum-security Barwon
Prison.
He was finally released and handed back to the Federal Government and moved
to Maribyrnong detention centre on February 20.
Wang was initially imprisoned for burglary and rape but when his sentence
ended in 2004, he was kept in the prison.
Department and Immigration spokesman David Seale said Wang was kept in the
prison because he was a risk to other detainees.
"Under the Migration Act, a prison is a place of immigration detention," Mr
Seale said.
"People are routinely transferred to immigration facilities at the end of
their sentences. Obviously it took a bit longer here."
Mr Holding said the Commonwealth should have its own facilities to house
problem prisoners.
"This man committed serious crimes against the Victorian people and served
his sentence for those crimes," he said.
"Without subsequent criminal charge or conviction, I immediately instructed
Corrections Victoria to hand him back to Commonwealth officials."
Mr Holding said the State Government resolved in 2001 to not accept
detainees who had not been charged with a criminal offence.
The State Government then returned a number of immigration detainees it was
housing to the Federal Government.
Senator Vanstone's office refused to comment.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,18357492%255E2862,00.html
=========================
11. DFAT 'holding up torture case'
=========================
news.com.au
From: AAP
By Adam Gartrell
March 07, 2006
A SYDNEY Falun Gong practitioner who claims she was tortured in China says
her court case against a former Chinese president has stalled because of
the Australian Government.
Falun Gong practitioner and artist Zhang Cuiying is suing former Chinese
president Jiang Zemin for damages in the New South Wales Supreme Court
after allegedly being tortured in a Chinese prison from March to November 2000.
The 43-year-old claims she still suffers as a result of the torture she
says she was subjected to because of her attachment to spiritual group
Falun Gong, which is outlawed in China.
The court originally requested the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
(DFAT) serve the damages claim to Mr Jiang in September 2005, via the
Chinese embassy.
However, she said the request has not been carried out and today asked the
court to compel DFAT to serve the claim without further delay.
She also asked the court to allow an extra six months for the document to
be served.
Ms Zhang's lawyer, Bella Zhou, told the court the documents had been in the
hands of DFAT for more than five months.
"There has been no reasonable explanation about the status of the request
or when the documents will be served," Ms Zhou said.
Registrar Jerry Riznyczok said he could not compel DFAT to serve the
damages claim on Mr Jiang.
He reserved his judgment about whether to give Ms Zhang the additional six
months to have the documents served.
He will hand down his decision on March 13.
Outside court, Ms Zhang said she believed DFAT had been pressured by the
Chinese Government.
"They put pressure on DFAT and requested DFAT to use its influence to
intervene in the case," she said.
Falun Gong today produced documents, obtained under freedom of information
legislation by freelance journalist Richard Szabo, which detail
correspondence between DFAT and the Chinese Government.
In an email dated September 28, 2004 a DFAT official writes: "The Chinese
embassy has made further representations to us on the lawsuit filed against
Jiang Zemin in the NSW Supreme Court by a Falun Gong practitioner.
"The Government would do everything it could, within the law, to ensure
that the case did not become a problem for the bilateral relationship.
"However, under the Australian Constitution, a separation of powers between
the executive and the judiciary set clear boundaries on what the Government
could do."
Another email stated: "China understood that Australia's system was based
on the separation of powers but hoped that government would use its
influence, consistent with Australia's laws, to express its opinion."
A DFAT spokesperson said today the department was still attempting to
establish details about the damages claim.
"Following the receipt (of the documents), confirmation was sought from the
plaintiff that the documents are still within the time for service," the
spokesperson said.
"That confirmation has not been received."
Comment has been sought the Chinese embassy.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18381141-29277,00.html
======================
12. Mothball this tired Bomber
======================
From The Australian
By Phillip Adams
March 07, 2006
IT'S time. Time to put Kim Beazley out of our misery. In the battle with
Beelzebub, the Labor leader is worse than useless. The Lucifer in the Lodge
will never be dislodged by the ALP's lollop of a leader. The closest Kim
will get to Kirribilli is on a passing ferry.
Oh, if the economy went further south than Scott of the Antarctic, or if
the Cole inquiry found that the AWB millions had been hidden in Zurich by
the late Rene Rivkin to fund the Prime Minister's ever-receding retirement,
or if it was revealed that he and Dubya had started a Brokeback
relationship while pyjama partying at the President's ranch in Texas, then
perhaps, just perhaps, the Bomber might, just might, fall over the line.
But short of John Howard providing a recession we have to have, or the
discovery that he stole Saddam Hussein's money or the opening of a closet
to reveal John and George as consenting adults, Beazley hasn't a hope in
hell. A hell of the ALP's own creation. Not so much a result of the PM's
alleged political genius as of Labor's gift of the gaffe, its proven
ability to make disastrous decisions. One of which it has made twice. Beazley.
Satirists can see more deeply than analysts. The Chaser boys filmed a vox
pop on the streets where they tried to find someone or something that would
have a lower preferred Prime Minister score than Kim. Passers-by were
offered a choice of Beazley or bin Laden or Hitler or a lump of dog poo. It
seemed appallingly cruel, even to a long-standing critic of Beazley such as
myself. But it cut through the waffle.
It's not just that Kim's pretty much a policy-free zone. Elections have
been won on less. Nor that he's responded so gutlessly to branch stacking
by Cambodians in Victoria. (After all, Malcolm Turnbull branch-stacked
Vaucluse with millionaires and that harmed neither John nor Malcolm) A
greater problem is a question of style. Though I've seen Kim deliver some
blistering parliamentary attacks during the Keating years, his problem in
the house and on the hustings - and most of all on television - is his
inability to calibrate or modulate.
Kim gives every issue exactly the same treatment at exactly the same
volume. Irrespective of where it sits on the political Richter scale, Kim
treats it as a 7.2 earthquake. In doorstops and press conferences, both
minor matters and national scandals produce an identical degree of huffing
and puffing. Yes, Simon Crean had a similar problem, but Kim puffs even
louder, like a boiler about to burst. And to make matters worse, that's
what he looks like.
In contrast to Beazley's histrionics, Beelzebub talks everything down,
makes everything boring. If Australia were about to be hammered by a giant
asteroid, his bland announcement would be as lulling as lithium. Isn't that
what he's done over the years on the climate change crisis? No weapons of
mass destruction? Iraq a catastrophe? Don't worry about it. Go shopping.
The contrast between Howard's soporific but strangely reassuring style and
the Bomber's bluster makes him look as desperate as he is. This is sad for
Kim, but a tragedy for Labor. It confirms that he's just another
politician, a man of processed, pasteurised passions.
Beazley lacks authenticity. You could never say that of Paul Keating, let
alone Mark Latham. Now in short supply in federal parliament you see it in
the likes of Tony Abbott and Amanda Vanstone. Even if you totally oppose
what they stand for, at least they stand for something. Whereas most
pollies stand for nothing or, even worse, will stand for anything. Like
Beazley at the time of the Tampa asylum-seeker stand-off.
Then there is the mystery of what Kim wants for the country. What we do
know is that on many an issue he's as conservative as Howard, happily
surrendering to the PM on more than refugees. So why vote for the
substitute when you can have the real thing?
It's time, and my leadership candidate remains Kevin Rudd. Yes, Labor's
foreign affairs spokesman should lose his trousers in Memphis. Anything,
something to muss him a little. And I'd like him less word-perfect in TV
appearances. Let's see what neither Kim nor Simon showed us - a little raw
emotion. Nonetheless Kev's the brightest bloke on the front bench and,
despite the usual protestations of loyalty, he's hungry for it.
Hunger. That's another problem with Kim. He's spent the best part of 10
years proving that his appetite for power isn't as great as his appetite
for food. When it comes to defeating Howard, old second helpings has been
on a diet. There's no evidence Kim can sink his teeth into the Coalition,
let alone have it for breakfast.
Incidentally, as a god-botherer, Rudd should know all about exorcism. This
would help him expel the demon from the Lodge and Kirribilli.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18368654-2,00.html
================================================
13. SYRIANA AND THE SHIFTING WINDS: Bush, lies & videotape
================================================
March 2, 2006
by Richard Neville
http://www.opednews.com
When cornered, a stupid leader retreats into platitudes and make believe.
He becomes easy to mock. At this moment in history, the whole world is
laughing at Bush, but it’s no longer so funny. Rage, pain, explosions and
fire are melting cities, killing children. No-one knows who’s doing what to
whom anymore, or why. The lingua franca of today’s leadership is The Lie.
Brief a President about an imminent hurricane, and he will later say he was
never warned. Broadcast the tape of the briefing and his minders will
dispute its relevance. In the age of knowledge, the king is ignorant.
Every time I push people to see Syriana, the Arab/Texas oil romp, they
emerge impressed, yet bewildered. No-one fully understands the plot,
probably not even the writer. It’s one of Syriana’s many virtues. A
geopolitical intrigue touching CIA terror, suicide bombers, spoilt princes,
feminist mothers and the rise of China is bound to be murky and complex.
Holes in the story are true to life. A furtive achievement is its
sympathetic insight into the moulding of a suicide bomber, played by Mazhar
Munir, whose performance is gripping, though his chance of an Oscar is
slim. While the sweep is global, the metaphoric skyline is Iraq, awash with
oil, blood and extracted fingernails.
Another big-picture critique of the West is the book Confessions of an
Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, who feels “weighed down with guilt” for
the wreckage he and his colleagues have inflicted on the developing world.
A former Peace Corps activist, Perkins was lured by an executive prostitute
into Halliburton Heaven, a vortex of Lear Jets, pillage and dodgy
statistics. His inflated forecasts of growth served to increase the
indebtedness of client states, adding to the poverty of their people and
the profits of his employers. Any odd glitch, such as an elected third
world leader with good intentions is dealt with by the CIA. The story is
almost too evil to be true, and yet Perkins’ case is solid. The book
reprints his photo/bio from corporate brochures, names, dates, minutes of
meetings, corroborating sources. A veteran hit on the New York Times &
Washington Post best-seller lists, this expose was largely ignored by
mainstream reviewers. Its revelations make Syriana seem soft.
And yet both works slash away the veils of illusion
And now some Christian groups are undertaking kind of radical truth telling
that befits the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. As army chaplains bless the
stealth fighter-bombers and anoint the torturers, the US branch of the
World Council of Churches has made a public confession to the Assembly of
its Global Council: “We acknowledge that we are citizens of a nation that
has done much in these years to endanger the human family and to abuse the
creation .We lament with special anguish the war in Iraq, launched in
deception and violating global norms of justice and human rights. We mourn
all who have died or been injured in this war; we acknowledge with shame
abuses carried out in our name; we confess that we have failed to raise a
prophetic voice loud enough and persistent enough to deter our leaders from
this path of preemptive war. Lord, have mercy”. WCC members include
mainline Protestants, Anglicans and Orthodox churches representing more
than 500 million followers.
The confession continues: “Rivers, oceans, lakes, rainforests, and wetlands
that sustain us, even the air we breathe continue to be violated, and
global warming goes unchecked while we allow God’s creation to veer toward
destruction. Yet our own country refuses to acknowledge its complicity and
rejects multilateral agreements aimed at reversing disastrous trends.
Christ have Mercy”. And so on.
http://www.wcc-usa.org/news/news-container/article/1099/a-letter-from-the-us-conf.html
In both the US and Australia, the moral centre of public life is shifting
from the political stage. “Of course we don’t condone torture”, says the
White House; “of course you do”, says Amnesty International and other
NGO’s, posting heaps of evidence. “We treat asylum seekers with respect”,
claims the Australian Immigration Department. “Oh no you don’t”, chorus the
activists, producing case studies of the victims.
Naqib Ahmed Noori, was falsely imprisoned for six years. When he finally
won an appeal against this decision, based on mistaken identity, they held
him another 4 months out of spite (“police & security checks”). An Iranian
boy, Shayan Badraie, was put into an immigration camp at the age of six,
where he was isolated from other children and witnessed repeated acts of
brutality. Today, aged 14, Shayan is still in the throes of post-traumatic
stress syndrome and may never recover. The immigration bullies have even
deported and jailed Australian citizens. And yet as a result of campaigning
by respectable citizens on all sides of politics, the Government was forced
to soften its stance. The department is still renowned for its “culture of
malice” and its sinister former Minister, Philip Ruddock, was “punished”
with a promotion to Attorney General, where he is now expunging civil
liberties.
Australia is a nation with a split personality. While posing as
egalitarians, we produce our fair crop of political and corporate monsters,
many of whom feed off the poor. Media magnates Rupert Murdoch and his local
rival/friend, the late Kerry Packer, turned tax avoidance into an art form.
For this and other acts of deviousness, Packer was rewarded with a State
Memorial Service at the Sydney Opera House. It was his first visit. Russell
Crowe performed the eulogy, Tom Cruise and his entourage upped the
celebrity voltage.
Spoiling the wake was a former employee, Richard Walsh, who pointed out in
the press that Packer “had utter contempt for politicians, for the arts,
for idealism of any kind, for the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and
for those who did not share his world view. His ethics were defined simply
as whatever the law allows… In some ways he unfortunately represents all
that is wrong with contemporary Australia”.
(http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/02/23/1140670202991.html) .In response
to an appreciative email,Walsh, the co-founder of Sydney Oz magazine
replied: “I have NEVER had such a tsunami of enthusiasm in all my born
days. Clearly I touched a nerve”. And that’s the nerve that keeps Australia
decent.
Am I reading too much into straws? Are we finally watching an awakening in
the West? Are Australians, though our swimming pools be full and our global
view obscured, becoming aware of an emptiness at heart? Or is it only the
emptiness of the landscape that we notice, as featured in the current
tourist campaign, SO WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU? Lost, perhaps.
Appreciating the gifts Australia has to offer, but all too aware of the
little shop of horrors at the core of Government. Slightly schizoid, we
zoom off to forest and beach.
As I write, John Howard is celebrating ten years as our Prime Minister.
During the round of lavish banquets - $10,000 a head – he was asked on air
whether he had any regrets about sending our troops to Iraq. TV footage
from the area makes it hard to imagine that Satan’s hell would be worse
than Iraq’s. Beaming in his dinner suit, Howard looked puzzled. “Regrets?
Not al all. We were told Saddam had weapons.” Even today there appears to
be no-one in the media with the courage to quiz Bush, Blair or Howard on
their true feelings about the deaths and maiming of over a 100,000 Iraqis.
Howard now lectures the nation on the “perversions of Islam”, without a
hint of awareness that our deeds in the terror wars are a perversion of
Christianity.
As the credits rolled on Syriana, the three of us felt so flat as we
trudged for the exit. Why? An overheard remark from a teenager offers a
clue: “Syriana shows how fucked up the world is and there’s nothing anyone
can do about it”. It’s disconcerting for a work of art to leave you wiser,
but feeling so disempowered. For how long? Perhaps the confessions by
economists and Christians, the rebirth of satire and the rise of
politically savvy blogs and blockbusters, are yet more signs of a shift in
the public mood.
ENDS
This is a re-drafted version of a piece on http://www.richardneville.com
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_richard__060302_syriana_and_the_shif.htm
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