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Refugees and Immigration

Submitted by Craig Rowley on December 13, 2005 - 4:45am.
Show us your true colours: An adventure into the sea of Australian humanity

"Last week I set sail on this journey of a lifetime, an adventure into the sea of Australian humanity. My sights are set on discovering its true colours.  I see our island nation, Australia, my country of birth and that of my family lines running back near two hundred years, now culturally and linguistically diverse. At minimum one in five of the people on our island today were born overseas, and another had at least one parent born overseas. You can see it and you can hear it. Between us we speak nearly 200 different languages. It's a treasure, the wealth of opportunity that comes with diversity and you don't even need to search hard to find how enriched we all could be. You just have to open your eyes, your ears, your mind." Craig Rowley

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Submitted by Sue Hoffman on December 5, 2005 - 4:40am.
Postcard from Damascus

"The woman took my hands which are white and smooth and soft. Hers were brown and rough and worn. She stroked my face, my body, wanting some of my luck, my good fortune in having lived the easy life I've had - no wars, no dead children, no relatives who've just 'disappeared', no starvation, no grinding poverty. She'd fled from Basra in Iraq where she'd lost everything and no longer cared what she said or did or what others thought of her." Sue Hoffman

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Submitted by Jack H Smit on December 3, 2005 - 12:00am.
Petro Georgiou keeps up the pressure

"When Petro Georgiou MP - the leader of the now famous backbenchers' revolt over Australia's permanent jailing policies of refugees - met with refugee advocates in several locations around Australia, including the Baxter detention centre, at the end of 2004 and at the beginning of 2005, it was reported that he countered the desperate voices and the mood of extreme urgency in the representations made to him in almost a mantra-like way - in his characteristically low and sombre voice inflection, repeating at nauseam with a 'we'll get them out' ... 'we'll get ALL of them out.'." Jack H Smit

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Submitted by Jack H Smit on October 20, 2005 - 11:56am.
SIEV-X: still drowning in spin

Today four years ago a boat on its way through the sometimes treacherous waters off the Indonesian coast sunk within the Australian Government's Search and Rescue Zone for ships in distress. Some people were rescued. Several people cancelled their plans to board the massively overcrowded vessel - and are alive today as a result. Three hundred and fifty-three people, mostly Iraqi and Afghan asylum seekers, including 146 children, drowned. ... In memoriam...

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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 14, 2005 - 1:56am.
The fox and the Farmer are both responsible

"Bill Farmer has been nominated by Howard as Australia's next Ambassador to Indonesia, which is one of Australia's most important diplomatic posts. To be Ambassador requires judgment and management skills of a high order. Terrorism has created a new volatility in the relationship. A high order of diplomatic advice and judgment to the Australian government is required at all times." Bruce Haigh

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Submitted by Jack H Smit on October 9, 2005 - 8:10am.
The Migration Litigation Reform Bill 2005

"I think the Bill is a disgrace, but it is also an opportunity to show to the better informed how the fight to the death between politicians in the Howard administration and the "refugee lobby" is a callous one, and that for the politicians, backed up by the best of their legal advisors and legislation drafters, this fight is one they're fully prepared to fight - and it seems there's no limit to the budget. No doubt they, the politicians, are set for another win in the context of a Senate majority, but it will not necessarily be a win for public opinion of those politicians." Jack H Smit

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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 7, 2005 - 9:58am.
The circumstances of the Vivian Alvarez matter

The Commonwealth Ombudsman, Prof. John McMillan, today released the report, prepared by Mr Neil Comrie AO APM, into the circumstances of the Vivian Alvarez matter.

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Submitted by Jack H Smit on September 21, 2005 - 4:07am.
Amanda's Baxter backyard blitz

"It doesn't happen every day that a journo phones me to let off steam, but yesterday, following a press conference by Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone on the Baxter Detention Centre, it did. The journo just needed to let off the frustration of being subjected to an inordinate amount of government spin emanating from the mouth of the Immigration Minister... So I went hunting for a transcript, and that quest shows that Webdiarists would do well keeping and building a database of reporters and journalists. It took about five phone calls before another good reporter with one of Australia's better dailies sent the transcript." Jack H Smit

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Submitted by Guest Contributor on September 12, 2005 - 4:30am.
Tampa: A defining moment in Australia’s treatment of refugees

"We, the undersigned, believe that the Government’s policies abuse the human rights of the weak and needy, and contravene several international treaties to which Australia is a party. The policies are anathema to the concepts of basic decency and a fair go. We therefore call on you to ensure that Australia's refugee policy adheres, in all respects, to the terms of the international treaties to which our nation is a signatory and to provide permanent protection to all refugees." Tampa Anniversary Remembrance Committee's open letter to the Prime Minister

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Submitted by Jack H Smit on August 31, 2005 - 8:50am.
When the Baxter fence closes: life after permanent detention

"Australia's harsh measures of keeping people locked up 'forever' have permanently damaged hundreds of people and broken their trust in what Australia has to offer and the confidence in a belief in their own ability to engage with and in society on the deepest level of their being. Demand for life-long psychiatric and psycho-social support services for the long-term detainees was not a part of the Georgiou deals. Just like Australia ignores life-long support for those in the Aboriginal community whose broken personal cultures and lifestyles - damage entirely due to the encroachment of white culture in their regional areas and its violent superimposition on Aboriginal culture - have driven them into alcoholism, Australia ignores that the policies themselves are to blame for the fact that we owe it to the political prisoners of Howard's attempt to win the 2001 election to have a full program of restorative justice, no matter what it costs to the budget." Jack H Smit

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Submitted by Guest Contributor on July 22, 2005 - 7:28am.
Senate Inquiry into DIMIA needs public input

"In the final days of the old Senate, an inquiry was established to investigate the abuses of the Immigration Department. This provides an excellent opportunity for the community to raise objections to current immigration policies and instances of mistreatment and abuses of power by the Immigration Department, and put them on the public record under parliamentary privilege. There is a slight danger that the Government will use its numbers in the Senate to shut the Inquiry down, when it sits in early August, but public pressure and interest will make it difficult to shut it down. Therefore, The Greens are encouraging public involvement in this Senate Inquiry." Senator Kerry Nettle, inquiry member

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Submitted by Sue Hoffman on June 7, 2005 - 10:27am.
SIEV-X: an update

"Having travelled from Perth to attend the people smuggler trial at Brisbane Supreme Court with three Iraqi men who lost family on SIEV-X, I can offer a unique perspective on this chapter of the SIEV-X story. It was unbelievably hard, they tell me, to sit for hours listening to detailed accounts of how the asylum seekers were moved across Indonesia by people smugglers and ferried by small boat onto the SIEV-X, for this is the journey their wives and children took in the days and weeks leading up to their deaths." Sue Hoffman

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