Refugees in Australia - the fear drum gets louder as the election gets closer!

As predicted multiple times on this blog the fear drum is being hammered louder and louder as the days roll on toward a federal election. Every day members of Abbott's fear spruikers gang, both from within the Coalition and the MSM pamphleteer set, come out and hammer Labor on the 'failure' of its border protection policies.

That peculiar program, ABC Insiders, had Ackermann beating the drum this morning, apologizing for the Brisbane based Sunday Mail's front page firing up fear that 'boat people' are in the community, shopping at your shops - be afraid, be very afraid!

Why that nasty piece of work, Ackermann, gets a regular slot on a show that purports to showcase the views of serious political journalists defeats me. He is nothing more than a Murdoch press funded propaganda stooge of the Liberal party. His pronouncements on refugees, or "these people" (as he so subtlety puts it), should be examined by federal authorities as I'm sure they amount to vilification and hate mongering.

Mind you, he is in such bad company, with mainstream Coalition politicians doing the same dirty work routinely to whip up political support. Pyne's outing on Ch 10's Meet the Press this morning being a case in point. It goes on and on and it seems that hate mongering has become an acceptable political tool when you have little else to convince the electorate you are fit for government. It reminds me sometimes of an obscure party grabbing public attention in the beer halls of Munich in the 1920s. They banged a few fear drums too! May be the best thing is to laugh at these pathetic loons and sympathize with their obvious challenges!

Refugees in Australia: the idiocy of the 'boat people' scare campaign nailed.

This post from Pollytics nails the lie that is the fear campaign waged by Abbott and his merry band of drongos as they try to whip up support for their draconian approach to refugees.


In 2008, there were approximately 15.2 million forcibly displaced refugees around the world. The blue square in the corner is the proportion that tried to reach Australia by boat.


"In 2008, France, the UK and Italy combined had 96,870 applications for asylum submitted.

In 2008, 51 industrialised countries participating in the UNHCR statistics program had 382,670 applications for asylum submitted.

In 2008, there were approximately 827,000 asylum applications submitted across the globe

In 2008, there were approximately 15.2 million forcibly displaced refugees around the world.

Yesterday we had SBY address our Parliament – the leader of a country of 230 million people, heading a democratic government that struggles with serious economic and social development issues everyday. He was here to talk about development cooperation, security and intelligence sharing and international economic partnership in the forums of global power to boost living standards and enhance the social and economic ties between our two nations.

What did we bang on about?

Boat people."

Great post Possum....

Australian Federal politics - ABC Insiders does it again on the simple minded front - predicts one term for Labor!

I sent the following comment to Fran Kelly, who has written Labor off as a one term government on Insiders this morning. I don't know how David Marr et al cope with the mediocrity served up by some of these so-called 'insiders' and God knows what Fran is sniffing but it must be strong!

"I have been concerned about the shallowness of the political analysis served up by this show (Breakfast on Radio National) for some time, and I'm far from being Robinson Crusoe. While Michelle Grattan is always good value, your host is pretty limited on the subject. Her performance on Insiders this morning was woeful.

I don't think the worst of the pamphleteers masquerading as journalists among the Murdoch commentariat would proffer the prediction that Labor is looking like a one term government, although surely it is one of their wet dreams. Perhaps you need to read some of the better psephology and political blogs to get a handle on the polls. The Poll Bludger on Crikey tells us "The latest fortnightly Morgan face-to-face poll has Labor’s two-party lead at 57.5-42.5, up from 56.5-43.5 last time. Labor are up a point to 47 per cent on the primary vote, while the Coalition are down one to 37 per cent." If you continue to rely solely on the dodgy polling of Newspoll, the current figures still have Labor increasing their seats at the next election. I find Essential Report more cogent in its methodology and they have a ten point gap on the 2pp.

Abbott's Murdoch Press driven honeymoon (if that's what it is) will be relatively short lived, once the electorate work out what a truly despicable individual he is. His recent comments on homelessness should be enough to make even the most shallow of radio commentators blanch. But we keep hearing about what a straight talking, lycra-wearing good 'ole boy he really is and he's 'taking it up to the government'. Frankly, this guy is about control and shaping our body politic, with the help of his ilk of alpha male,with the result that Australia would become a much uglier place under his stewardship. His brand of socio-religious patriarchy would determine social policy parameters in such way as to make the previous 'brutupia' look positively benign.

Take the case of refugees. It seems the default position of the Coalition under the influence of Howard (and now Abbott) is to bang the fear and loathing drum at every opportunity. Bi-partisanship on such an important issue as migration and cultural inclusiveness is impossible whilst a major political party sees populist opportunity in scaring people. It is no accident that Hanson's erstwhile mentor, David Oldfield, used to work for Abbott. How did one commentator with a memory longer than yesterday's thought bubble put it? - Abbott is BA Santamaria's terminator sent from the past. Be afraid, be very afraid! And good 'ole Barnaby Joyce sings straight from the good 'ole League of Rights hymn book. Whilst keeping a concerted blow torch to Labor on key areas of social justice, where it is currently sadly wanting, it would be encouraging if political commentary on the ABC was to rise a little above the tawdry attacks on Labor coming from the Murdoch MSM and to do some serious analysis...Good luck with that!"

Human rights in Australia - Leader of the opposition Abbott signals new 'brutopia'.

Anyone following Australian politics could not have missed Tony Abbott's take on homelessness. Larvatus Prodeo has updated us:

" I was in Canberra last week and had the opportunity to ask Opposition Leader Tony Abbott whether a government under his direction would continue with the Rudd government’s goal of halving homelessness by 2020. His answer was no.

In justifying his stance, Abbott quoted from the Gospel of Matthew: ”The poor will always be with us,” he said, and referred to the fact there is little a government can do for people who choose to be homeless."

While Senator George Brandis tells us Abbott "believes in a settled, rooted society of families and citizens living in stable communities bound together by the gossamer threads of voluntary association", it might be more apt to consider "there might be as Brutopian a streak in communitarian conservatism as anything to be found in Kevin Rudd’s portrait of neo-liberalism."

Frankly, if Abbott is a communitarian then Josef Stalin was just a misunderstood libertarian. This guy is about control by his type of alpha male and Australia would become a much uglier place under his stewardship. His brand of socio-religious patriarchy would determine social policy parameters. Be afraid, very afraid....

Human rights in Australia - An Open Letter to Federal Labor

I have been a proud supporter of the ALP since 1972. I think the Rudd government is doing a great job responding to the GFC, but the current drift away from social equity as a guiding principle for public policy will see rusted on Labor supporters like me drift away from the party. At the time of the ACT school closures I wrote to the party about the risks of allowing econometrics to underpin public policy directions. You end up with outcomes skewed against the least advantaged. In the short term, it might appeal to yuppie ‘wannabees’ who sell their vote to the highest bidder, who distrust all governments, and who think public policy should be all about raising their disposable incomes, but you will alienate your base over the longer term, during a period when the right will be circling the wagons. The sudden spike in funds pouring into Coalition coffers should sound the warning.

It is clear Federal Labor is pitching to the so-called ‘aspirant’ mob in marginal seats who measure everything through the prism of ‘what is in it for me’, but it is a too cynical for me and I no longer want to be associated with the party. I expect Labor to stand for social justice and human rights and I’m afraid the drift away from these core values is corrosive and disillusioning. It is not just about being good managers of the economy, which I believe Labor is achieving with great aplomb. For example, the ABC 4 corners last night on the plight of carers for disabled in our society should make public policy makers hang their heads in collective shame! The Minister’s performance was weak and uninspiring.

Another great concern to me is the Deputy PM's strategy on school performance. The American school system is inferior in every way to our own, and that includes the NY paradigm. If you want to adapt lessons from successful countries look at the Finnish system. It is clear that the way to get improvements is through initiatives that genuinely support professional development, decent remuneration and other incentives, smaller class sizes and strategic mentoring of classroom teachers by the brightest and best of the teaching profession. Forget the corporate ‘Darwinism’ of the Americans. Facilitating comparative school performance information for public consumption is one of the most egregious scenarios I can contemplate.

A further example is Labor’s cynical approach to the indexation of APS and ADF retiree super pensions. From my perspective this is a broken undertaking with dire consequences for many families. Again, I detect a narrow econometric approach at work that fails to factor the cost-benefit of retirees under less economic duress, their contribution to voluntary social work and the downstream economic benefits of increased expenditure on goods and services and GST from their improved incomes. Get a grip...

Human rights in Australia - social darwinism raises its ugly head in 'my schools' website fiasco

Back in August 2009 I wrote the following to the Labor party on the apparent obsession of the Deputy PM with an American model of school performance management. Following is part of what I wrote:

"The American school system is inferior in every way to our own, and that includes the NY paradigm. If you want to adapt lessons from successful countries look at the Finnish system. It is clear that the way to get improvements is through initiatives that genuinely support professional development, decent remuneration and other incentives, smaller class sizes and strategic mentoring of classroom teachers by the brightest and best of the teaching profession. Forget the corporate ‘Darwinism’ of the Americans. Facilitating comparative school performance information for public consumption is one of the most egregious scenarios I can contemplate. Don't do it!"

Now, we have the 'my schools' website launched with glee by Julia Gillard. It is an unmitigated disgrace that will deepen social divisions in our society. The stigmatization of poor performing schools, the trumpet blowing by 'selective' schools, the idiotic lumping together of schools that have very little in common apart from some econometric number that exists in a parallel reality to real life. The unexpected negative consequences of this type of ham-fisted statistical measurement are too many to log here.

An article in today's SMH online 'National Times' is well worth a read. Here is part of what Jane Caro and Chris Bonnor have to say:

"So, if, as Gillard advises, there are any lazy teachers needing a kick up the proverbial, don't look for them in a government school. Clearly if the website is correct and government schools are, on average, outperforming many of their fee-charging equivalents, then government school teachers must be working very hard indeed, against the odds. They not only teach more students, they are given vastly less support to do so.

The urgent question is: how long can they maintain this performance in the face of such skewed staffing handicaps?

Some may point out that it may be private resources that are going into paying for this extra staffing in non-government schools, but that still raises the question of why we continue to generously publicly subsidize such well-endowed schools when so many government schools are doing it tough. Private funding drives divides between schools the world over but, as the My School website so tellingly points out, should it be the role of government to continue adding fuel through its funding policies?"

It will come as no surprise that the great majority of schools in Finland - one of the best performing countries in terms of education outcomes - are public funded. The public-private divide in Australia is harmful in terms of achieving social cohesion, particularly as so many private schools underpin an ethos of selective entitlement and economic elitism. The consequences of this type of education can be seen in the divisive and inequitable policies oft peddled by the graduates of such institutions.

For me, it beggars belief that the ALP has facilitated this social 'darwinist' clap-trap and it reflects poorly on its architects.

Human rights in Australia - Australian of the Year gets it right on mandatory detention

It was encouraging to hear the new Australian of the year, Prof McGorry, say "immigration detention centres were factories for producing mental illness and mental disorder''.

They are and it is about time the ALP stopped pandering to right wing fear mongering on this subject and enabled Australia to meet its international refugee and human rights obligations.

Today's Essential Report has Labor slipping in the area of national security. The silly season produces some daft polling numbers and 2009-10 has been no exception. Add to this a relentless campaign by Abbott and the right wing media to beat the border security drum, and it is likely those members of the permanently credulous, in thrall to these distorted fear messages, will respond by getting behind Abbott and his fellow bandwagoners.

Howard tapped in to the credulity of many Australians with devastating effect. I know as I was one of the benighted public servants dragged into managing his Pacific Solution. The Murdoch press bang the ‘border security’ drum relentlessly, and commercial TV stations like CH7 profile people from ‘mysterious’ places on shows like ‘Border Security’. So, you get a woman wearing a hijab looking suspicious as her bag is searched by a customs officer! Never mind that the great bulk of nasty substance smuggling into this country is orchestrated by home-grown villains.

The numbers of refugees arriving by boats is minuscule compared with the experience of many European countries. It is a sad reflection on the state of our body politic and lack of self-assuredness that the fear messages gain traction but there it is.

Racism in Australia - Leader of the Opposition (Tony Abbott) reveals his true colours

After a bit of a lay off the latest tawdry attempt by Abbott to create a wedge on 'culture' and 'citizenship' has got my blogging goat up in arms. True to form (it was only a matter of time) Abbott has thrown away the dog whistle in favour of the megaphone.

On the eve of Australia Day he has sounded a call to arms for those in the community in thrall to notions of exclusivity, cultural entitlement and border protection. Faced with fairly ordinary polls, Abbott is doing what Howard and Turnbull did before him - press the 'alert and alarmed' buttons on boat people, cultural diversity and 'Australianess'. We have seen it all before - the 'reds under the beds' mantra of the 50s has been replaced with 'we will decide who comes to this country'. It would be laughable if it was'nt so ugly, with nasty consequences for those caught on the wrong side of what Abbott decrees makes a good Australian.

Following is a little of what he had to say in Melbourne on Friday, as reported by Alexander Kirk on the ABC:

"TONY ABBOTT: To the extent that it is, a celebration of our nation, Australia Day is necessarily a salute to an immigrant culture. What's curious then is the ambivalence that many Australians feel about immigration, even though it's so central to our national experience.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Tony Abbott invoked his former leader John Howard's famous 2001 utterance to argue the need for a tough approach to boat arrivals.

TONY ABBOTT: John Howard's declaration about Australians controlling who comes to his country resonated because it struck most people as self-evidently and robustly true.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: He accepts Australia's obligation to help people fearing for their lives.

TONY ABBOTT: But this has to be balanced against our obligation not to become a soft touch for everyone seeking a better life.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: The Opposition Leader has issued a challenge to those who argue Australia's a big country that can easily accommodate the asylum seekers who've come by boat.

TONY ABBOTT: The critics of border protection policy need to ask themselves, at what point would the size of any unauthorised influx become a concern. They further need to explain why it's better to wait for the problem to become worse before tackling it. A strong border protection policy is perfectly consistent with a large and inclusive immigration policy and in fact it's probably essential if the public is to be convinced that Australia's immigration policy is run by the Government rather than by people smugglers."

It seems the default position of the Coalition under the influence of Howard et al is to bang the fear and loathing drum at every opportunity. Bi-partisanship on such an important issue as immigration and cultural inclusiveness is impossible whilst a major political party sees populist opportunity in scaring people.

We can expect more of this nasty nonsense from Abbott as electoral defeat stares him in the face. Frankly, his ilk, extremist bully boys, need to be flushed regularly from the clearing chamber of mainstream politics, or, at the very least, confined to a narrow well-lit down-pipe that is frequently decontaminated.

I recall Abbott was a dab hand with a megaphone outside Fisher Library during our shared days at Sydney University. He was peddling a nasty message back then as well. How did a commentator in the know describe him the other day? I think it was something like 'B A Santamaria's terminator sent from the past' to whip us into shape. I think the Liberal Party would be wise to heed the ancient wisdom - be very careful what you wish for...and watch out for all those nasty migrant gangs (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), you know what I mean!