Lordy, lordy, won’t you help me please, for I was about 41 or 42 when this conversation about refugees became the Australia’s Cup of political footballs, and I am almost 53 today, and this conversation continues, and it surely does exhaust my tired ol’ mind sumfin’ awful and wearies my chalky ol’ bones to the marrow, yes’m, indeed it do, amen to that and praise this day.

For I have worn out my last pair of rubber underpants and peed my last panicked puddle of despair over the dire straits of it all, I can pee and squeal no more, I’m plum all peed and squealed out, looks like they’re here and they’re here to stay and they’re coming, more of them, every day, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of whacked-out dingbats in bomb-laden dinghies to blow us all to that great brick shithouse in the sky, fuck our sheep and fill our pies with felafel.

By God in the almighty heavens above our tender heads, it is a sad truth today that the fabric of our society is indeed a torn and ragged rag of a thing now.

Yes, Sweet Jesus, it is but a pair of ol’, piss-streaked y-fronts on the spindly and spotted frame of an 80 year old digger with its arse all hangin’ out to buggery, and the people of this fair land ain’t havin’ none of it no mo’, they’s a souffle of social unrest a-risin’ in the heartland, all angry cheese and righteous dustings of outraged flour over the changing state of this nation and these seemingly endless series of vile upheavals that have seen our shores swarm with murderin’ beards and their murderin’ ways, smokin’ hookahs and bakin’ flatbreads and those little jelly sweets that are dusted with sugary shit, I quite like those and I don’t really have much of a sweet tooth.

…

…

Sorry, where was I?

Oh.

Yes …

5.30 on Channel 9′s “Today” show this morning opens with the headline story, “They’re here! More boats headed for our shores carrying potentially hundreds of asylum seekers and they could be here as soon as today!”, it’s Groundhog Day, I punch the mute button on the remote and wait for it to go away.

Lordy, lordy, won’t you help me please, for I was about 41 or 42 when this conversation about refugees became the Australia’s Cup of political footballs, and I am almost 53 today, and this conversation continues, and it surely does exhaust my tired ol’ mind sumfin’ awful and wearies my chalky ol’ bones to the marrow, yes’m, indeed it do, amen to that and praise this day …

Taxpayers to shoulder Julia Gillard’s ‘Malaysian Solution’

Taxpayers will fork out more than $50,000 for every refugee the Federal Government plans to bring to Australia from Malaysia under its new plan to stop illegal boat arrivals.

But they will have to pay more than $90,000 for every asylum seeker the Government now rejects.

I’m already have one cost cutting suggestion…

Sue Bolton from the Refugee Action Collective has another,

The costs of processing asylum seekers could be reduced, Ms Bolton said, by allowing some low-risk applicants to live within the community while they are assessed rather than mandatory detention.

So let’s say 5000 asylum seekers arrive by boat, 90% are accepted so 500 are found not to be refugees. Using the Herald Sun numbers if we just let to 500 found not to be refugees stay in Australia anyway, I just saved the Australian government $20,000,000. I imagine another several million could be saved by allowing asylum seekers to live in the community while being processed too.

Economic management!

Of course Scott Morrison was available for comment,

“Labor’s open borders and rolling detention crisis is consuming staff and resources at an insatiable rate, with taxpayers forced to write a blank cheque to underwrite the Government’s failure,” said Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison.

This was, and never will be, about money, Scott. I don’t believe in hell, but if I did I am sure the deepest, darkest circle of it would be reserved for you.

And Gillard is spending money to stop Asylum Seekers coming to Australia! (Outrage, etc…)

Australia is using Prime Minister Julia Gillard to spearhead an international advertising blitz with the slogan “don’t do it”, telling people smugglers and passengers in Indonesia, Afghanistan and Pakistan about its new plan to send asylum seekers to Malaysia, where there are 93,000 people already in the queue.

The PM’s warning – “the truth is if you spend your money, you get on a boat, you risk your life, you don’t get to stay, you go to Malaysia, and you go to the back of the queue” – has been translated into Farsi, Dari, Pashto, Arabic and Bahasa Indonesian, and already broadcast.

As fellow Groupthink-er, Brides said on Twitter this morning,

s_bridges Looked for the back of the immigration queue down the back of the couch. Found 20 cents and a crust of toast. 9/05/11 11:01 AM

And don’t forget the poll:

YES/NO

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ILLEGAL REFUGEE, YOU FUCKING IGNORANT AND/OR DISINGENUOUS ARSEHATS!

In Herald Sun, Julia Gillard just can’t win. She spends money to stop Asylum seekers coming and she is criticized. She spends money on allowing them to come, she gets criticized.

This isn’t about money, it was never about money. If it was about money Tony’s plans to drag boats back to wherever they came from would have caused more outrage than anything. This is just the Herald Sun using not-so-subtle racism and xenophobia to play dirty politics.

And all the while the public debate in Australia forgets that there are real people, with real lives and genuine fears for their life fleeing to Australia in the hope of a new life.

This is a fight the ALP can’t win. Torn between their progressive base and the conservative votes they need to win seats in NSW and Queensland. No matter how “tough” they talk on “illegal immigration”, Tony Abbott can (and does) talk tougher. No matter what crazy, expensive and inhuman scheme Gillard concocts to discourage asylum seekers traveling to Australia via boat, the News Ltd tabloids find a negative way to frame it as being too soft on Asylum seekers, or too expensive to the tax payer.

With the terms of the debate being set by Tony Abbott and the News Ltd outrage machine, Gillard doesn’t stand a chance.

But the alternative is to present a vision which cuts through the agenda driven ‘journalism’ of News Ltd, which seeks to inspire and educate. N0t to just cater your policies to the lowest common denominator of Australian society, but to present a compelling and persuasive vision that can win the hearts and minds of voters.

And I gave up on Australian politics providing anything like that a long time ago.

As the flashy pics in our shiny new Multiculturalism Policy shows, we truly live in a Salt’n'Pepa nation. And I’m talking pepper with all the fancy green, pink, etc corns as seen on Masterchef. Look at all the colours! Pretty!

But with the debacles and nasty verbiage surrounding last week’s funerals for the victims of the asylum seeker boat tragedy off Christmas Island, it seems that in addition to celebrating the good things that may be, there are a lot of bad things about our approach to race, cultural differences, and discussion of ‘the other’ that we really need to address.

And one of the really bad things is major newspapers who take it upon themselves to blow the dog vuvuzela whenever they get the slightest sniff of a story about immigrants. And escaped immigrants who were supposed to be detained at the pleasure of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, at that.

The simmering cultural melting pot is truly on the verge of boiling over, and, gosh, rightly so. The outrage that humans who are detained not for committing a crime but because they are about to get shipped off for not having the proper authorization to be in this country get taxpayer-funded trips to bowling alleys and aquariums is clearly a palable tension in our community that must be addressed at THE HIGHEST LEVELS. And WHAT DOES QUENTIN BRYCE HAVE TO SAY about the all expenses cross-country sight-seeing holiday we gifted that little Iranian kid (who, let’s not forget, arrived here on a pleasure cruise!) who’s parents died or were lost at sea or something. </sarcasm>

As Teh Hon Scott Morrison MP, Member for Cock and Opposition Spokesperson for Anti-Immigration pointed out last week:

…because these people, who tried to get into the country, and were allegedly asylum seekers – allegedly asylum seekers – we‘ve got to pay for that?

Scott Morrison MP, Squire of Teh Shire, allegedly a wanker (allegedly!), would probably get more ‘Whatta Man’ accolades if he started making sure his buddies at the papers (especially the Daily Tele’s Chief Political Reporter, Simon Benson) start using the word ‘allegedly’ a bit more liberally in their work.

I refer specifically to the yarn over the weekend about how many ‘detainees’ have escaped from detention centres, which was unabashedly splashed with the terms ‘refugees’ and ‘asylum seekers’.

The Tele’s editorial that same day on the need to ‘balance strength with compassion‘ on the refugee issue also made mention that DIAC is:

tracking down dozens of asylum seekers who have been strolling around the country for months. One of them had been on a bowling trip.

Luckily, the Benson’s article made the very decent effort to reassure readers that:

There was no evidence that any of those asylum seekers who had escaped had engaged in any criminal activity subsequent to their escape.

Whew. #thanksGetUp.

Here’s the thing, right: there was also NO EVIDENCE that ANY of those ‘detainees’ who had escaped WERE ACTUALLY ASYLUM SEEKERS.

O_o

And yet, Benson’s article about the Refugees On The Run And Off The Radar (let’s give the subs top marks for alliteration, shall we?) went gung-ho painting the subjects of the story as the very people that everyday Aussies worry have come here to (allegedly) take advantage of us and our respect for humanity and decency.

DIAC’s National Communications Manager Sandi Logan confirmed to me via Teh Twitters that none of the immigration escapees are or were asylum seekers.

The assumptions portrayed by the Tele in choosing to highlight refugees and asylum seekers breaking out of detention and being ‘on the run’ are hateful and vile. In addition to showing poor journalism in jumping to conclusions without bothering to check the facts, the way they took every opportunity to magnify the beat up of such a sensitive issue (and this week, of all weeks!) is just disgusting.

With deliberate trolling like that in the mainstream media, there is little hope that we can move beyond the ignorance and fear that leads to hate and intolerance.

There are some excellent warm & fuzzy ideas in the the People Of Australia policy document. But in addition to also querying the bureaucratic efficacy (sic) of a National Anti-Racism Partnership and Strategy, there it may be very difficult to get people to understand they actually have the wrong idea about this situation while they being fed shit like this down their throats.

The reaction within the community was as predictable as it was disappointing. Hundreds outraged residents crammed into the local community centre to “voice their concerns”. The leaders of the opposition to the plan insisted they weren’t racist and that they are simply concerned about the lack of community consultation and a strain on local services.

“I don’t think our anger has anything to do with race,” Ms Pitts said.

She said that even if the new arrivals were born and bred in Melbourne, the town would still protest against the strain on local services.

People at the public protest suggest otherwise.

The meeting on Thursday turned ugly with some in the crowd shouting anti-Muslim slogans as an Immigration Department official fielded questions about plans to transfer the families with their children to Woodside.

Cant we call a spade a spade? It seems that when a protest is clearly racially motivated politicians and commentators do anything to avoid the obvious. The unpleasant truth is that there is a section of our community that is outright hostile to certain races and religion. The “strain on the community” line was a furphy, the asylum seekers will be in low security detention so will not have general access to the community. Health and other basic services will be provided in the centre to prevent the locals being forced to see strange brown looking people in their community. The children will be enrolled in local schools, but the commonwealth will provide extra funds to make up for this.

And do you really think you would see a similar level of opposition if it were announced that the barracks was going to be used to house defence personal of a similar number? Of course not. Even though defence housing would put a greater strain on the community because they wouldnt be locked in a low security prison. This is entirely based on xenophobia.

So no members of Woodside, you don’t get to complain about a lack of courtesy by the government for not consulting when you have shown a complete lack of courtesy on your part. You don’t get to freely abuse and threaten immigration officials, shout racial slogans in public and fear monger about the terrible things a couple of hundred women and children will somehow do to your community and THEN complain that you are the ones that have been treated unfairly.

The Federal Government has announced it is immediately lifting the freeze on processing the refugee claims of Afghan asylum seekers.

The six-month freeze on processing was due to expire in early October.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says all Afghans affected will now have their claims assessed on a case-by-case basis.

“During the last six months, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has been working to improve its understanding of the situation of asylum seekers from Afghanistan, particularly the situation of Hazaras, who comprise the majority of Afghans seeking asylum in Australia,” he said.

We’re still going to lock them up in the desert of course. But at least people fleeing a country we are fighting a war in can now have their claims for asylum looked at.

Meanwhile, people who overstay their Visas or fly here and claim asylum are living in the community while their claims are processed and THE SKY HASN’T FALLEN IN.

Why must we link population growth to immigration? What does immigration have to do with population growth in Australia? Scott already discussed this in April. Why do these two discussions need to be linked when they so clearly aren’t? Australian politicians should stop using population as a smokescreen for discussing asylum seekers, and the Australian media needs to stop letting them.

But they are still at it. Stories like this one over at The Australian, that link the two discussions are part of the problem.

In an address to Brisbane think tank The Eidos Institute to launch the Building Better Regional Cities program, after a visit to a Welcoming the Babies function with Wayne Swan, Ms Gillard said that while urban dwellers faced traffic congestion and had trouble accessing doctors or finding seats on public transport, many regional areas were desperate to attract more workers. Her government would back them, she said, and in doing so relieve pressure on cities.

Let us ignore, for one moment, the fact that these problems in cities aren’t caused by population growth but by years of under investment in infrastructure from our governments. There is nothing wrong with discussing the population limits of our cities and there is nothing wrong with discussing population distribution. But in the very next paragraph is if it is somehow related:

The comments came as Tony Abbott – after a visit to western Sydney, an area under pressure from population growth – said the asylum-seeker issue was making Australians feel they were losing control of their own destiny. He promised annual reviews of immigration intakes and guaranteeing a Coalition government would ensure infrastructure development kept up with population growth.

They have nothing to do with each other! Abbott should stop insisting they do and The Australian shouldn’t re-enforce the connection by putting it in the same story.

Also, having Tony Abbott promise that a Liberal government would invest in infrastructure development is like hearing Joe Hockey promise he won’t eat all the Cheezles. He might mean it, but I wouldn’t want to leave him alone with them.

Bloody wogs on bloody boats,
The bloody border’s a bloody joke,
Bloody Rudd was a bloody clown,
The bloody cunts should bloody drown,
Bloody Turnbull was bloody fucked,
No one had the bloody guts,
To bloody do what needs be done,
And bloody shoot the bloody scum.

I’m bloody sick of spicks and wops,
And bloody chinks who eat their dogs,
The bloody coons and bloody gins,
Should have their bloody heads bashed in,
I’m bloody Wilson bloody Tuckey,
The bloody Party’s bloody lucky,
To have a true blue Aussie ’round,
Who’ll grind these bloody bastards down.

The bloody feminists are bloody Nazis,
The bloody greenies are bloody arses,
The bloody weather’s not bloody changing,
It’s bloody hot or it’s bloody raining,
To bloody build a bloody town,
Bloody raze the bloody ground!
This bloody country’s bloody lucky,
To bloody have Ol’ Ironbar Tuckey.

Our bloody miners are bloody legends,
Bloody Gillard should pull her head in,
Her bloody tax is a bloody shocker,
She’s bloody off her bloody rocker,
She’s bloody got no bloody children!
What bloody world do we bloody live in?
The bloody country’s bloody stuffed,
And I’ve bloody had e-bloody-nuff!

These bloody terrorists on bloody boats,
They’re bloody proof shit bloody floats,
I’d bloody bring the bloody Navy,
To blow their bodies to bloody gravy,
It’s bloody them or bloody us,
Never bloody mind the fuss!
The bloody bastards can bloody starve!
Now where’d I put that old iron bar?

There is no better example of the absurdity of Australian politics than the asylum seeker issue. The facts are clear. Australia has a relatively small number of people seeking asylum. The number is a fraction of Australia’s migration intake. There is a trickle of asylum seekers not a flood. And the situation is being well managed, though it could be better handled if the government wasn’t afraid to use detention centres on the mainland to process refugee applications. It shouldn’t be as big an issue, but it is because the Liberal Party has made an art form of turning it into a border security problem; while pandering to those concerned that the skin colour of those arriving allows for further fears about the impact on Australian culture. This bullshit could have been nipped in the bud a long time ago. Instead it has been allowed to fester because we have a media organisations that by and large doesn’t question such claims, but happily reports them to suit their own agendas.

What results is a chicken-egg situation where one side of politics thinks it has traction on a particular issue and runs with it. The media whips it up verbatim with little analysis apart from op-Eds that usually preach to the converted. The public is then made to think it’s a big issue and then add their own emotional comment further inflating the supposed importance. The politicians and media then turn around say this is an issue of great public importance. So, how can we expect a government to make decisions that do not have to take all this into account?

I once had the pleasure of spending a day with the great man Democrats founder Don Chipp who said that when he was elected as a Liberal MP the first thing he was told by the party whip was to forget about all his ideals about making Australia great – his duty was to the Party. And that’s what politics is about. It’s about winning. It’s not about making great policy that is open to being shot down by a vocal minority, but by making safe policy that’s seen as less shit than your opponent. Yeah that’s shit, but it’s true.

I’m amazed that people who follow politics closely don’t understand this and think Julia Gillard was in a position to come up with the ideal and humane asylum seeker policy without risking political suicide. Good practical and humanitarian outcomes sadly lose out to political realities. If we were allowed to treat this as an ongoing humanitarian situation rather than as a security concern, than both major parties would fall over themselves to be the most humane. Sadly the public put up with an unquestioning media which puts rhetoric and semantics before facts, which is why we get the policies we deserve.

Julia Gillard’s asylum seeker plan is shit, but less shit than the alternative. If it’s what she has to do to avoid an Abbott Government that would send boats back than so be it. Anyone who thinks she could have leaned further left on this issue in the current climate is sadly kidding themselves.

People

Cockroaches

See? They are quite different. So can we please, please, PLEASE stop talk about them as if they are the same thing?

Thank you in advance,

Spock…

I don’t want to patronise anyone, but earlier today I asked my wife what air was made up of. My wife is a university-educated woman but she couldn’t tell me the gasses that were in air. I reckon she’s like most people who don’t really know that sort of thing. Anyway, air is made up of — and excuse me for rounding the percentages here — about 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen. The nitrogen is a useless, filler gas, and oxygen is the stuff we need. There are also a bunch of trace gasses like argon. There’s also carbon dioxide, which is the gas we’re told is responsible for global warming, and it’s found in air in about the concentration of a tiny fraction of a percent. That’s air.

Now, when we breath in we take in a lungful of air — 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and a range of trace gasses including carbon dioxide — and our bodies use about a quarter of the oxygen. When we breath out can you guess how much carbon dioxide is in our breath? Remember, only a fraction of a percent of this global warming gas went it. Well, we breath out 4% carbon dioxide. That’s right, our bodies actually produce carbon dioxide which we’re told causes global warming. There are seven billion of us on the planet, each of us breathing ever five seconds, or three seconds for children, and each time we breath we produce carbon dioxide.

And you know what? I’ve never heard a single scientist talk about this.

Flushed with pride after pwning the world’s entire scientific community, Oldfield took a call:

Caller: I just think that if they come here they shouldn’t try to make it like it was at home.

Oldfield: Yeah, well you’d think that if things were so bad at home, and things are so much better here — which is why 99.999999% of them apply to come here in the first place — then they wouldn’t want to change this place once they got here.

Caller: Yep. This is not a Muslim country and they should stop trying to make it one.

Oldfield: Well, I don’t think that it’s so much Muslim culture as it is Middle East culture, and people shouldn’t come over here and try to build Middle East culture in the place of Australian culture.

Then Oldfield brought a news story to the attention of his listeners:

Four men have been charged over a credit card skimming scam. Three of them, it turns out, are boat arrivals who are now either citizens or have permanent residency. The government says that its vetting procedures are sound but obviously they’re not.

I just can’t believe this because what we have here is a case of three people accepting Australia’s compassion and then turning around and biting the hand that feeds them.

And finally, Pauline Hanson’s ex-colleague took a call and jumped on the dump button.

Oldfield: We have [caller] on the line. Hello, [caller].

[Caller] (with thick accent): Hello, David. I just wanted to talk about the Jews killing the Muslims.

Oldfield: Um, well, we won’t be allowing that call. We can’t broadcast racism. Racism is when you make sweeping perjorative statements about one group of people instead of restricting those statements to only those individuals for whom those statements might apply.

Got that?