Index

Click on subject of interest shown on the right under the heading "labels" to see all relevant posts

To look at letters (and some replies) sent to politicians and newspapers, scroll down the index on the right hand side and select the appropriate heading.

Note the blog allows multiple labelling and all letters to politicians are under "letters to pollies".

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30.7.14

reply from Harsuyker to Marlene on boat people 30 July 2014

From: Hartsuyker, Luke (MP) [mailto:Luke.Hartsuyker.MP@aph.gov.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 30 July 2014 1:03 PM
To: 'Marlene Griffin'
Subject: RE: Asylum Seekers.

Dear Ms Griffin,
Thank you for your correspondence seeking information about the Sri Lankan nationals who attempted to arrive illegally by boat to Australia as part of a maritime people smuggling venture.
The suspected illegal entry vessel (SIEV) was intercepted by Border Protection Command West of Cocos (Keeling) Islands in late June. At no stage was the vessel in distress and all persons aboard the SIEV were safe and accounted for.  Forty one potential illegal maritime arrivals who were intercepted on the SIEV were returned to Sri Lankan authorities on Sunday 6 July. The 41 Sri Lankan nationals were transferred at sea, in mild sea conditions from a vessel assigned to Border Protection Command (BPC) to Sri Lankan authorities, just outside the Port of Batticaloa.
All persons intercepted and returned were subjected to an enhanced screening process, as also practiced by the previous government, to ensure compliance by Australia with our international obligations under relevant conventions.  This process includes identifying any person who may need to be referred to a further determination process. In such cases, the Government's policy is to transfer such persons to either Papua New Guinea or Nauru for offshore processing. 
In the single case where such a referral was recommended, the individual, a Sinhalese Sri Lankan national, voluntarily requested to depart the vessel with the other persons being transferred and returned to Sri Lanka.  This transfer of 41 persons, including 37 Sinhalese and 4 Tamil Sri Lankan nationals, follows previous returns to Sri Lanka including 79 illegal maritime arrivals under Operation Sovereign Borders last year.
The Australian Government will continue to act in accordance with our international obligations, including applicable international conventions and to protect the safety of life at sea. At the same time we will not allow people smugglers to try and exploit and manipulate Australia's support of these Conventions as a tool to undermine Australia's strong border protection regime that is stopping the boats and the deaths at sea.  Accordingly, the Government will continue to reject the public and political advocacy of those who have sought to pressure the Government into a change of policy. Their advocacy, though well intentioned, is naively doing the bidding of people smugglers who have been responsible for almost 1,200 deaths at sea.  We will continue to do what we said we would, consistent with our obligations, and achieve the results we said we would achieve.
We have more than 200 days since the last people smuggling venture successfully arrived. In that time no one has drowned at sea. This is an outcome the Government welcomes.
Australia and Sri Lanka have a strong history of cooperation at the operational level to disrupt people smuggling ventures departing Sri Lanka. We are grateful for the efforts of the Sri Lankan Navy to combat people smuggling, as well as other Sri Lankan authorities.  Sri Lanka is one of many close partners with whom the Australian Government works in our region. The Australian Government looks forward to continued cooperation with Sri Lanka. Australia’s cooperation with Sri Lanka is as important as it is effective.
The Australian Government does not deal in half measures and has the policies and resolve to fight people smugglers and stop illegal boat arrivals.  People should not trust the lies of people smugglers and seek to come to Australia illegally by boat. It is dangerous and the Australian Government's strong border protection policies under Operation Sovereign Borders mean they will not succeed.
Yours sincerely,

The Hon Luke Hartsuyker MP
The Nationals' Federal Member for Cowper
Assistant Minister for Employment


letters to Courier Sun

The Bellingen Courier Sun is more likely to accept a letter if sent by email

The address is editor.couriersun@ruralpress.com

Letter - Entitlement or Compassion? submitted for 30 July 2014 edition

Dear Editor

Entitlement or compassion?

Last week Darcey Browning repeated the political slogan from Joe Hockey “the age of entitlement is over”.
Another politician stated 
"You can judge politicians by how they treat refugees: they do to them what they would like to do to everyone else if they could get away with it."
When Darcey finds out who said that he will explode.
A safer path is a biblical reference
"Do for others what you want them to do for you." Matthew 7:12

Regards

David Wallin
Spicketts Creek










Wednesday 14 May 2014



30 April 2014

Letter to  Mr Hartsuyker


I used to be proud to be Australian; to be a citizen of a nation that led the world in moral matters, that believed in a fair go, that had a government devoted to humanity and social progress.  Now we have a government so ethically debased that it is prepared to use the benighted and disadvantaged asylum seekers as political pawns in the game of petty power politics.  
Your government has manipulated and maligned the most powerless, has sacrificed the vulnerable in the pursuit of getting elected.  In so doing, you have demeaned your office, you have committed systematic cruelty and you have appealed to the lowest in humanity, reducing our once noble nation to an assembly of the mean-spirited.  I am ashamed.

I have some questions to which I would appreciate your considered answers:

Do you support locking up children and pregnant women?

Do you think PNG or Nauru can really support refugees for ever?  The Amnesty International report into conditions on Manus was absolutely damning and the latest outbreak of mosquito-borne disease on Nauru is a symptom of the inadequacy of these off-shore concentration camps.

Do you think spending billions of dollars on a few thousand people is wise for the country as a whole? Would it not make better economic sense to hold these people only for as long as required for basic health and security checks, before releasing them into the community, where they could obtain work and independence, as happens in other countries?  Why are we locking these people up instead of processing them, when we know the vast majority will prove to be genuine refugees?

How do you plan to protect the rights of children who arrive with no parent or adult family members? How can it be in the best interests of any child to be sent away from Australia and into remote, indefinite detention with no certainty around resettlement even if the child is a refugee?  Should one child be punished in the hope of helping another? You have children: how would you feel about your children being locked up in a remote detention centre?  I am a mother and I would find it agonisingly insupportable.

What are your thoughts on the suicides and mental harm caused by indefinite, remote detention? 

If we don't increase the number of refugees we take from Indonesia and Malaysia we are not saving any lives, they are just not dying in our ocean near our media attention. They remain home and die or are completely unsafe stuck in limbo between their homes and Australia, often for decades.  These inhumane off-shore gulags are not about ‘saving lives at sea’: please do not insult our intelligence with this manipulative, fraudulent posture.

If we deny refugees family reunion we are actually going to attract whole families on boats out of desperation, not just fathers or husbands.   What is your view on this matter?
How did your forebears come to Australia?  Did they come seeking a better life for themselves and their families?  Does that mean they were brave and enterprising?  Does that mean they were economic refugees?  Or were they fleeing persecution?  Did they have a right to come here?
In the name of justice and humanity, I wish to see an end to mandatory detention, an end to the persecution of people who have no choice but to arrive by boat without visas, an end to the deliberate infliction of misery upon these victims with the malicious aim of making them abandon hope and return to countries where they are in danger. I would like to see Australia live up to its responsibilities under the United Nations Convention for the treatment of asylum seekers.  I am mortified we are denying them freedom of movement, access to education and the other human rights to which they are entitled.
I wish to see an end to the travesty of democracy where love of country is corrupted to xenophobia, where a propaganda war is waged against the voiceless and the vulnerable, where compassion is thwarted in the service of political careers.   I want to see an end to the denial of human rights to legitimate claimants that has brought international shame on our once great nation.
You do not represent me when you vilify the persecuted and the suffering.
Yours faithfully

_______________________________________________________________________________
Bellingen
28 March 2014


So we are now encouraging employers to bring in large numbers of overseas workers under the 457 skilled migrant category and at the same time punishing people who are supremely able to contribute their skills to this country by forcing a potential workforce of refugees onto bridging visas where the conditions attached, particularly the prohibition on working means asylum seekers face poverty or homelessness.  Without the ability to support themselves through paid work, people become dependent on community services for their basic needs.  Past experience in Australia has shown those restrictions which prevent asylum seekers from working and earning an income can negatively affect their physical and social wellbeing, resulting in problems with health and nutrition, isolation, depression and other mental health issues, and family breakdown. Being able to work contributes both to an individual’s dignity and to the survival of that person and his or her family.  It also allows them to fulfil their wishes to contribute to this country they so fervently wish to be a part of.  Allowing asylum seekers to work would enable them to be better prepared, both financially and psychologically, for their transition to life as Australian residents if they are granted protection visas. This is significant because in previous times around 90% of asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat were ultimately found to be refugees and were granted protection visas.
And now we have yet more cruelty and inhumanity foisted upon these vulnerable people - Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has quietly reintroduced a ''backdoor'' alternative visa arrangement to the controversial temporary protection visa, meaning asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat or plane without valid visas will never get permanent residency.  Under the ''Temporary Humanitarian Concern'' visa, refugees will not be permitted to apply for family reunions, nor will they be able to settle in Australia.  The move has been widely criticised by human rights groups who describe the visa - which has very similar restrictions as the temporary protection visa that was voted down in the Senate in December - as cruel and counter-productive.  Paul Power CEO of the Refugee Council of Australia stated that "For people already traumatised by their refugee journey, living on a temporary humanitarian visa brings uncertainty, unfairness and fear for the safety of family members in dangerous and desperate circumstances. It's using existing visa sub classes in a way in which they were never intended.  It will also retrospectively apply to the 20,000 asylum seekers who have arrived by boat and are waiting on bridging visas.
Surely Australia is better than this?

_________________________________________________________________________________

Not in our name




Not long ago former high court judge Michael Kirby presented his report about North Korea to the world community. In his final conclusion Kirby said other nations could not say of North Korea, as happened with the Nazis, that they did not know the extent of the crimes: "Now the international community does know. There will be no excusing a failure of action because we didn't know. It's too long now. The suffering and the tears of the people of North Korea demand action." 

Thankfully Australia is by far not as bad as North Korea, but in regards to the treatment of asylum seekers by Australian authorities Kirby’s words could easily be used. Thousands of people who have fled horrible conditions in their home countries and asked Australia for protection are either locked up indefinitely in concentration camps in impoverished nations like PNG and Nauru or sent back from where they came from or they are dumped back on Indonesian soil. Our fellow human beings who haven’t committed any crime (it is legal to ask for asylum in Australia) are treated like cattle, locked up in inhumane conditions (including children and unaccompanied minors) and now some were even killed or severely injured. Though everything is done as secretly as possible, keeping journalists or any other observers away from boats and the lockup facilities, everybody who wants to know can’t have any doubts that in our name and with our money most vulnerable people are brutally punished for knocking on our door for help.

The argument used to justify that such a punishment is necessary to stop the boats to save hundreds of people from drowning is a very populist argument from people who don’t really care about the suffering of asylum seekers. A humane society does also not kill or indefinitely lock up people who committed crimes with the argument that this would save lives because then these people couldn’t reoffend. Anyway, Australia has signed the UN refugee convention and is obliged to protect and not punish people who come to this country, but this commitment is permanently violated by the politicians from both big parties. For political purposes humanity is the victim and it’s time that we stop to be silent and try everything possible to change these state crimes committed in our name. Not such a long time ago Australians were told that it was okay to remove aboriginal children from their families or babies from unwedded mothers etc. and place them in horrible institutions and unfortunately not many of us objected at that time. Isn’t it better to do something now instead of apologizing sometime in the future?

If you also think that something should be done then please come to our first public meeting on Sunday, 9th March at 3pm at 5 Church St to discuss how we can best support those incarcerated and stop the cruelty.

Walter Schwarz, Bellingen

15.7.14

Implications of Federal Governments attitudes to refugees


We should start a conversation of the extent to which the Federal Governments attitude to refugees reflects their thinking about people in general.
The following quote makes a good beginning 
"You can judge politicians by how they treat refugees: they do to them what they would like to do to everyone else if they could get away with it."
Labour MP Ken Livingstone, criticising the Government's new asylum policy

The definition of a bully in Oxford Dictionary is

"A person who uses strength or influence to harm or intimidate those who are weaker"

Could this definition be applied to the leaders of the Australian Federal Government? 

If you have any examples of how the budget cuts and or legislation reflect the negative attitude to groups who do not have the strength/influence to retaliate. 

eg cuts to funding for dementia patients  - click on dementia cuts

list from Sydney Morning Herald


LOSERS

1. The sick
$7 fee increase for GP visits and cuts to hospital funding
2. University students
3. Foreign aid
Reduction in foreign aid budget of $7.9 billion over five years
4. High income earners
Deficit tax rise of 2 percentage points for people earning more than $180,000 a year
5. Public servants
6. Video gamers
Abolishing the Australian Interactive Games Fund, saving $10 million
7. Pensioners
Pension age rises to 70 from 2035 and concessions cut
8. Families
9. Young unemployed
Under 30s face a six-month wait for a reduced dole
10. Motorists
More expensive petrol with a fuel levy
11. Indigenous people
A $500 million cut to indigenous programs over five years
12. Local councils
Cuts of nearly $1 billion over four years
13. ABC and SBS
Cuts of $43.5 million and Australia Network abandoned


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/federal-budget/federal-budget-2014-winners-and-losers-20140513-38802.html#ixzz37ZqkwZwr


Send your thoughts to bellingen.rar@gmail.com  

Asylum seekers - not a flood - analysis


Why Australia is failing on asylum seek seekers



The secrecy and denial surrounding the government’s asylum-seeker practices are anti-democratic, writes Guy Goodwin Gill.


Asylum seeker supporters at Parliament House. Photo: Getty
In the present controversy over Australia’s interception and forcible return policy, many facts are forgotten among the facile assertions of lawfulness and legitimacy.
We know, for example, that a significant majority of those reaching Australian waters by boat in the past had good reason to seek international protection – they were found to be at risk of persecution. We know, too, that all is not well in many a country of origin, and we can reasonably infer that refugees with a well-founded fear were among those just handed back by the Australian navy.

11.7.14

Free the Children Installation - prototype

Chilout created an installation in Sydney to allow a particpant to enter, collect a doll and take it out of detention.

They are encouraging communities to make their own installations and we have started expanding our ideas.

New variation on Chilout installation - Free the Children, with old teddy standing in for a baby.

A couple of dolls would be looking out and the rest huddled together at the back. 

The teddy (doll) can be taken out of the cot, and placed in a colourful area with flowers and cushions etc and the rescuing child would play with it and the parent would take the card attached and send the letter to the Minister (see the letter below cot photos).

Th installation uses a portable  cot which folds up into a small suitcase size container. The cot will sit inside a gazebo with the area to one side of the cot showing posters and the other side of the gazebo space would be decorated with colour and joy.


The name of the folding cot is particularly relevant




First prototype attempt

We would like the installation to be easily transportable, so we have started with a gazebo as a frame, the restricting fence is dog wire and it has an entrance and an exit.

The following are photographs of our first attempt with comments.



The gazebo is probably too large and high. The cover for this gazebo does not come off, so if the level is lower you cannot see anything inside. For this installation the fence is supported by star pickets - not a good idea if it is indoors.



Dog wire is used to make the fence.



We did not have any dolls, so a 50 year old teddy bear had to stand in. He is looking out waiting for someone to rescue him. The number reminds you that the teddy is being referred to by number and dehumanised.



Teddy looking out but with poster above reminding visitors that 1023 children are being held in detention

We went to the  Bellingen FREE MARKET  last Sunday in the hope of finding some dolls - no luck.

However in explaining our project to the organiser there (a mother with young children), it became apparent that there might be concern at upsetting the children if they understood the full implications. Of course the intention is to make the parent disturbed at the thought of what is happening to children in detention.

Perhaps the installation should be decorated to make it less frightening as well as having posters showing that detention is frightening.

Please email bellingen.rar@gmail.com if you have any ideas or structures that would help and dolls.

9.7.14

Silent Protest in Coffs Harbour Friday 4 July 2014

NBN television coverage of our Silent Protest on Friday 4th of July. Well done to everyone.


Play Video


click on photo to start video


More than thirty people took part in the silent protest in Coffs Harbour, parading through the streets to take up a 15 minute silent protest outside the office of Luke Hartsuyker.

NBN television and local ABC radio attended and interviewed John Pollock.

The parade received applause and being silent attention was drawn to the banners and posters

scroll down to see "still" photographs

The Power of Silent Protest - photos of the Coffs Harbour protest against persecution of Asylum Seekers 4 July 2014

More than thirty people took part in the silent protest in Coffs Harbour, parading through the streets to take up a 15 minute silent protest outside the office of Luke Hartsuyker.

NBN television and local ABC radio attended and interviewed John Pollock.

The parade received applause and being silent attention was drawn to the banners and posters








8.7.14

Letter to Luke Hartsuyker and Scott Morrison - return of 41 Sri Lankan asylum seekers - 8 July 2014

Dear Luke Hartsuyker,
The return of 41 Sri Lankan asylum seekers to Sri Lanka and the secrecy surrounding this action is both morally indefensible and in contravention of international law. Returning these people to Sri Lanka exposes them to risks of serious harm, including physical and mental torture.  
It appears that the refugee status of the people on board has been assessed by cursory questioning and with no concern for due legal process.
Sri Lanka is a refugee-producing country. Historically, 90% of Sri Lankan asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australia have been found to be refugees. Even in 2012/13, when the number of Sri Lankan boat arrivals reached its peak, a majority of arrivals were found to be refugees.

The same Sri Lankan security forces to which the Australian government has just delivered the asylum seekers stand accused of gross human rights abuses.
Detention is inherently dangerous in Sri Lanka. Torture and other serious human rights abuses are widespread in the custody of Sri Lankan security forces, including the police. Abusers are rarely, if ever, brought to account.

Any critics of the Sri Lankan government – be they journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers or opposition politicians – face serious threats to their life and personal security, including abduction, torture and enforced disappearance and death.

The simple but critically important promise at the heart of the refugee convention is that we will not return people to harm. The only way to ensure that we keep this promise is to give asylum seekers access to Australia’s normal refugee status determination process.The extraordinary secrecy that shrouded the fate of this boat, and that of another boat with 153 or so asylum seekers, shows the lengths to which the Coalition Government is determined to go to prevent people from accessing that process and their rights under International law.
The government’s policy diminishes Australia as a nation in the eyes of the world. The denial of information also treats the Australian public in a disdainful and dismissive way.
I wish to express my profound opposition to these actions and policies and would be most interested to have your own view on these issues.
Yours sincerely,
Marlene 
8. 7. 2014


letter from Marlene sri lankan boat 8 July 2014

Dear Luke Hartsuyker,
The return of 41 Sri Lankan asylum seekers to Sri Lanka and the secrecy surrounding this action is both morally indefensible and in contravention of international law. Returning these people to Sri Lanka exposes them to risks of serious harm, including physical and mental torture.  
It appears that the refugee status of the people on board has been assessed by cursory questioning and with no concern for due legal process.
Sri Lanka is a refugee-producing country. Historically, 90% of Sri Lankan asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australia have been found to be refugees. Even in 2012/13, when the number of Sri Lankan boat arrivals reached its peak, a majority of arrivals were found to be refugees.

The same Sri Lankan security forces to which the Australian government has just delivered the asylum seekers stand accused of gross human rights abuses.
Detention is inherently dangerous in Sri Lanka. Torture and other serious human rights abuses are widespread in the custody of Sri Lankan security forces, including the police. Abusers are rarely, if ever, brought to account.

Any critics of the Sri Lankan government – be they journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers or opposition politicians – face serious threats to their life and personal security, including abduction, torture and enforced disappearance and death.

The simple but critically important promise at the heart of the refugee convention is that we will not return people to harm. The only way to ensure that we keep this promise is to give asylum seekers access to Australia’s normal refugee status determination process.The extraordinary secrecy that shrouded the fate of this boat, and that of another boat with 153 or so asylum seekers, shows the lengths to which the Coalition Government is determined to go to prevent people from accessing that process and their rights under International law.
The government’s policy diminishes Australia as a nation in the eyes of the world. The denial of information also treats the Australian public in a disdainful and dismissive way.
I wish to express my profound opposition to these actions and policies and would be most interested to have your own view on these issues.
Yours sincerely,
Marlene Griffin
8. 7. 2014

Adrian Lipscomb's version of the poem now called "Morrison's Lament"

I wrote the following in November 2013 and posted it to FB when Morrison first decided to refuse to comment on "on water" matters. Since then its relevance seems to grow daily ...



6.7.14

First asylum seeker boat returned to country of origin, with Australian navy frigate guiding vessel back to Sri Lanka

THE mystery of at least one of two asylum seeker boats at the centre of a week-long controversy has been solved — all 41 passengers have already arrived safely on their home soil.
In what is the first operation undertaken to return asylum seekers back to their country of origin by boat, an Australian navy frigate acting under border protection command sailed the Sri Lankan group back across the Indian Ocean after immigration officials deemed them to be economic refugees.
The operation also marked the first attempt by Sri Lankan asylum seekers to reach Australia since last October.
The Daily Telegraph can now confirm one boat that set sail from Sri Lanka in late June was intercepted by an Australian customs vessel last week.
The government has been under siege from refugee advocacy groups, human rights lawyers and some sections of the media since last month, for refusing to comment on or confirm that two boats suspected of carrying up to 200 asylum seekers had made it to Australians waters off Christmas Island. But border protection sources have confirmed ­neither of the boats reached Australia’s maritime zone.
The first vessel, containing the 41 asylum seekers, was intercepted well outside Australia’s maritime borders — in the contiguous zone west of Cocos Islands, more than 1000km west of Christmas Island and halfway between Sri Lanka and the Australian mainland.

5.7.14

Change.org Petition

Petition from change.org Change.org: "UN Secretary General: Remove Australia from the Security Council unless IMMEDIATE action is taken to comply with international law".

http://www.change.org/p/un-secretary-general-remove-australia-from-the-security-council-unless-immediate-action-is-taken-to-comply-with-international-law/u/53b6514d176dce120702615e?recruiter=62964796&utm_source=share_update&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mailto_link_mobile

"The majority of the Australian population do not support their governments actions in treating refugees as "illegal" referring to them as "illegal" and refusing them the rights that are guaranteed under the Refugee Convention to which Australia is a signatory. Especially the specific action of handing refugees back into the arms of the Government from whom they are trying to escape.
The Humanitarian response to people fleeing persecution and threat to their lives is to offer support and safety until such time as the threat is removed and it is safe for them to return to their homeland.
There must be a clear and transparent process for the evaluation of their refugee status, the steps taken to record the process by which the decison to accept their status as Refugees has been accepted or rejected. 
UNHCR must explain why they have allowed the Australian Government to flaunt their constant breaches of the Refugee Convention, they must also explain their silence on the illegal actions of handing refugees back to their tormentors without conducting a full evaluation of their status."

2.7.14

Letter to Minister Morrison - Christian viewpoint on 50/50 chance of persecution 26 June 2014


From: Barbera 
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2014 10:28 PM
Subject: Refugees 50/50 chance.

Dear Minister Morrison,
I never write to Ministers, but upon watching your speech to refugees in detention centres I believe that as a Christian I must speak up.
I hasten to say that I have no objection to you sending back people who hail from countries at peace and have legal avenues of entry, but I strongly oppose  the return of people to their countries of origin, if these countries are known to be dangerous and are actively persecuting their people because of religion or ethnicity.
I am especially appalled at your proposed legislation that if people face a 50/50 chance of being executed they may be send back
Who will be the judge of this risk............... not you personally ......................but some twenty something year old government employee who has spent his or her whole life in the comfort of middle class Australia.
A 50/50 chance of persecution ...............................is a life hanging by a thread.  
I should know as I survived the Nazi Regime.
Your proposal is not a service to Australia, we are not in a war situation when lives sometimes must be sacrified, but this is purely  a breach of morality.
As a fellow Christian I implore you to exercise your Christian conscience and show mercy to these troubled souls. 
Yours in Christian Fellowship,