John Menadue

  • Xanthe Emery: Family violence and immigration – is the message getting across?

    Family violence in Australia is at epidemic levels, with some horrific high profile cases dominating the news in 2014. Migrant women in Australia are extremely vulnerable to violence from their partners. Threats to cancel a woman’s visa are used to frighten, intimidate, and coerce her to stay in a violent relationship. More could be done to ensure that migrants are aware you don’t have to remain in a violent relationship to obtain a visa.

    Visas for family members of Australian citizens, permanent residents, and some eligible New Zealand citizens will make up 32% of the migration programme for Australia in the 2014-15 financial year. Partner visas (including spouses, de facto couples and fiancés) make up the vast majority of the visas in the family stream. In the 2014-15 year, the government has planned for 47,825 partner visas.[1] Generally, partner visas are granted first as temporary visas. After approximately two years, temporary partner visa holders can move to a permanent partner visa, once they have satisfied the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (“DIBP”) that the relationship with their sponsoring partner is genuine and continuing.

    However, in certain circumstances, a person can be granted a permanent partner visa, despite the fact that the relationship with their sponsoring partner has ended. One of these exceptions is where a visa applicant can demonstrate that they have experienced family (or domestic) violence at the hands of their sponsoring partner during the relationship. Very specific evidence is required to satisfy DIBP that violence has occurred, and the burden of providing the evidence remains with the visa applicant. These are referred to as the ‘family violence provisions’, and are part of measures to ensure that vulnerable migrants (predominantly women) don’t have to choose between their visa and their safety. 

    A number of recent high profile cases of family violence have caused politicians, the media, and the public to turn their attention to an issue that is a national disgrace. In 2013, there were 27,000 domestic assaults reported to NSW police.[2] And this only reflects assaults actually reported. An Australian Bureau of Statistic study in 2005 found that 82% of women who experienced violence from a current partner did not report it to police. Globally, intimate partner violence is one of the leading causes of death for women.[3]

    For migrant women in Australia, social isolation, lack of English language skills, unfamiliarity with Australian law, or dependence on sponsors, means they may be particularly vulnerable to domestic violence, and less able to take steps to leave a violent relationship. One of the most powerful tools partners use to suppress and control migrant women is the threat to have her visa cancelled or have her “kicked out” of Australia. Many women disclose a fear of immigration officials appearing at their front door and escorting them straight to the airport. Coupled with this, is the fear many women have for their futures if they return to their home country, separated and shamed. Additionally, the fear of losing access to children influences women to remain in violent relationships.

    In the 2012-13 financial year, there were 867 family violence claims made to DIBP. This is a small proportion of the number of partner visas but likely doesn’t reflect the true number of women at risk because many women do not report violence to police, let alone to Immigration.

    Family violence is not unique to particular ethnic groups or people from low socio-economic backgrounds. Migrant women from a variety of countries, ethnicities, religious affiliations and economic standing experience family violence from their sponsoring partner.

    So are we doing enough to ensure that migrant women are aware they can access protection in Australia and don’t need to choose between an abusive relationship and being forced to leave Australia? Many victims do not know that their partner has no power to cancel their visa and are unaware of the existence of the family violence provisions.

    The challenge for DIBP and Australian policy makers is to protect the family violence provisions from fraud, whilst ensuring that migrant communities are aware of the existence of the provisions and the help that is available. Abuse and misuse of the family violence provisions will have the biggest impact on genuine family violence victims. If the family violence provisions are viewed as a loophole for gaining residency, genuine family violence victims are likely to be viewed with suspicion. Seeking and then accessing help, as well as speaking up about their experiences, can be an extremely difficult ask for migrant women. Adding to this a sense that they must prove what they have been through is real, can be too much for some to cope with.

    Additionally, many women are unable to access legal assistance during this most difficult time. Financial vulnerability, and limited community legal services, means many women must try to fumble through complex immigration regulations unguided. For example, providing a letter instead of a statutory declaration, or a social worker failing to name the perpetrator of the violence in their evidence, can mean a person’s visa is refused. The consequences for mistakes here are serious. What is also important to remember is that while negotiating their immigration status and dealing with DIBP, many migrant women are also suffering from the trauma of their experiences, homelessness, and abject poverty.

    Funding has been cut to women’s refuges in NSW and a number of refuges are closing down. This is a big problem because many women are referred via the refuge for further help, including legal assistance. Often, a victim’s first point of call is the Domestic Violence Crisis Line and/or the police. Victims who are then homeless are usually assisted to find accommodation in a women’s refuge. The refuges have great staff and social workers who then assist their clients to sort out their various issues. There are serious concerns that without refuges, many women will become homeless, but also this vital referral ‘hub’ will be lost. This will mean more women are unaware of what to do about their immigration situation if their relationship ends with their sponsor.

    Australia’s migrant community, particularly women at risk of social and cultural isolation, would benefit from a targeted campaign that makes clear what their rights are once they arrive in Australia, and that violence need not be tolerated in order to hold on to a visa.

    Xanthe Emery is a solicitor at the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre, a community legal centre in Sydney.

    [1] Migration Programme statistics from the Department of Immigration an Border Protection: https://www.immi.gov.au/media/statistics/statistical-info/visa-grants/migrant.htm

    [2] ‘Time to act on domestic violence’, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 March 2014: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/time-to-act-on-domestic-violence-20140307-34cqt.html

    [3] K.M. Devries et al, ‘The global prevalence of intimate partner violence against women’, June 2013: http://www.cugmhp.org/gamma/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/TheoVos2013-article3WomenViolence.pdf

  • Peter Day. An Open Letter to Cardinal Pell

    Dear Cardinal Pell,

    In the lead-up to next month’s Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family you and a number of your confreres are re-asserting the church’s longstanding exclusion of divorced and remarried people from communion.

    Your foreword to The Gospel of the Family appears to leave us with little doubt: outsiders are not welcome.

    As you have said, “The sooner the wounded, the lukewarm, and the outsiders realise that substantial doctrinal and pastoral changes are impossible, the more the hostile disappointment (which must follow the reassertion of doctrine) will be anticipated and dissipated.”

    Respectfully, I have a number of questions I’d like to consider with you; conscious, of course, that neither of us in our grappling can claim to really know the mind of Christ.

    So, what was it that our Lord had in mind when he instituted the Eucharist with these self-emptying words, “This is my body, this is my blood?” Whose hunger was he responding to? Who was welcome? And what are the implications for our Sunday worship and beyond? 

    Well, we do know this: The tax collectors and sinners were all crowding round to listen to him, and the Pharisees and scribes complained saying, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them …’ (Lk 15:2-3) 

    And this: It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: ‘Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice.’ And indeed I came to call not the upright, but sinners. (Mt 9:12-13)

    And this: Let anyone who is thirsty come to me!

    Let anyone who believes in me come to drink! (Jn 7:38)

    And this: When he arrived at the Pharisee’s house and took his place at table, suddenly a woman came in, who had a bad name in the town … She covered his feet with kisses and anointed him … the Pharisee said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know … what sort of person [was] touching him and what a bad name she has …’ (Lk 7:36-39)

    And this: They were at supper … and he got up from table, removed his outer garments … and began to wash his disciples’ feet … (Jn 13:2, 4, 5) 

    And this: Peter said …‘You know it is forbidden for Jews to mix with people of another race or visit them; but God has made it clear to me that I must not call anyone profane or unclean … God has no favourites … and who am I to stand in God’s way?’ (Acts 10:28, 34 & 11:17)

    Could it be, given the exclusivity of our Communion, that when we proclaim these words we are potentially condemning ourselves as well?

    Just think: Jesus, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of sinners (Lk 7:34), real and present in our Breaking of Bread. Wow. Extraordinary. Out of this world. We actually believe this … don’t we?

    If we answer in the affirmative, there are profound consequences: are we not also compelled to look beyond the in-crowd and welcome outsiders; are we not also compelled to take risks: like the risk of being labelled and pilloried for sharing our table with those we are not supposed to; for doing something that is forbidden by law. I am not thinking here of people who do not care. I am concerned for those who are hungry for love and long to share even the crumbs from the table.

    Can any of us truly look at our Lord and Master and say without a profound sense of foreboding: ‘Yes, I am a follower; but you must understand there are rules …’

    His disciples were hungry and began to pick ears of corn and eat them. The Pharisees noticed it and said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing something that is forbidden on the Sabbath’. (Mt 12:1-2)

    If the Eucharist is essentially an encounter with the real presence, rather than essentially an institutional-cum-cultic event, then surely the Master’s social interactions make it abundantly clear: hunger, not worthiness underpins Table Fellowship. To allow the law, cultic statutes, and theology to take precedence over mercy and love and encounter, is tantamount to perpetuating the hard line rigour of those Pharisees who complained bitterly and moralised pompously about so many things.

    Their approach fostered a cold, superficial temple-based religion. But Jesus invited his followers to a change of heart, a heart oriented to the one called, Abba – Father : a relational, God-based faith.

    Indeed, if Jesus himself was bound by the strictures of his religious tribe and the social mores of his day, he would never have encountered the woman at the well because ‘Jews, of course, do not associate with Samaritans’ (Jn 4:10). Thankfully, he was not. Thus, a women consigned to the margins, and thirsting for love, was afforded one-on-one time with the One who risked everything to offer her living water.

    Yet, despite the extraordinary inclusiveness and openness of our foot washing Master; not to mention the accusations his behaviour attracted – blasphemy, law-breaking, ‘prince of devils’ – there are still those who insist that the meal instituted by him who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave (Phil 2:7) be an exclusive, High Church event with all the accoutrements, pomp and ceremony, do’s and don’ts, and rules about who’s in and who’s out, as if the Holy One needs protection and distancing from an encounter with the great unwashed.

    If this non-relational Temple-centred worship takes hold, then we too leave ourselves open to the criticism:

    Now here, I tell you, is something greater than the Temple. And if you had understood the meaning of the words: ‘Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice’, you would have not condemned the blameless. For the Son of Man is master of the Sabbath. (Mt 12:5-8)

    And if, in the depth of our being, we believe Jesus is real and present at the breaking of bread, then how do we justify the exclusion of so many? Can we in good conscience continue to turn away those longing to drink from the well-of-life because Catholics, of course, do not break bread with …? 

    There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor freeman, there can neither be male nor female – for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:28-29)

    I do not presume to know the mind of Pope Francis either, but his musings on spiritual worldliness seem especially apt:

    [There] are those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelising, one analyses and classifies others, and instead of opening the door of grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. (Evangelii Gaudium #94) 

    In some people we see an ostentatious preoccupation for the liturgy, for doctrine and for the Church’s prestige, but without any concern that the Gospel have a real impact on God’s faithful people and the concrete needs of the present time. In this way, the life of the Church turns into a museum piece or something which is the property of a select few … The mark of Christ, incarnate, crucified and risen, is not present; closed and elite groups are formed, and no effort is made to go forth and seek out those who are distant or the immense multitudes who thirst for Christ. (Evangelii Gaudium #95)

    It prompts the question: has a simple, inclusive and profound ‘family’ meal been overwhelmed by an impersonal and, often times, sterile institutional sacrifice; one that tends towards mass exclusion?

    Peace and regards,

    Fr Peter Day, Parish Priest, Corpus Christi

    Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, Australia

  • Gaza, Israel and Palestine.

    In the link below from AlterNet, published on 9 September 2014, you will find a very important analysis by Noam Chomsky. John Menadue.

     

    http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-real-reason-israel-mows-lawn-gaza?akid=12222.32110.TSqdYT&rd=1&src=newsletter1018632&t=2&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

  • Will we ever learn?

    In an article in the Washington Post – see link below – Katrina vanden Heuvel says

    ‘Our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan should have made one thing clear: we have neither the patience, the resources nor the willingness to wreak the violence needed to suppress the regional sectarian conflicts. For more than a decade, we have spent trillions, sacrificed lives and rained bombs on assorted targets from Pakistan to Libya. And the civil wars, tribal rivalries and sectarian violence have only increased.’

    Tony Abbott said that he agreed with Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia. Tony Abbott spoke of ‘more Jakarta and less Geneva’.

    It now seems that we are pivoting back to the Middle East.  John Menadue

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-obama-reneges-on-his-foreign-policy-promises/2014/09/16/7490e1ee-3d0c-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html

  • Secrecy and Propaganda.

    Yesterday Richard Ackland in theGuardian.com highlighted the way that the media cooperated with the government in the propaganda about raids on potential Muslim terrorists in Sydney and Melbourne. Both the NSW and Commonwealth Governments spared no effort to highlight the raids. What a contrast this is to the secrecy of ‘on water matters’ in Operation Sovereign Borders.

    Richard Ackland’s article can be found on the following link

    John Menadue.

     

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/19/sydney-dawn-counter-terrorism-raids-why-now-and-why-so-few-answers

  • Richard Norman, Suzanne Robinson. Health lessons from England.

     

    While Australia and England share much of their cultural heritage, the countries have answered the challenge of funding health care in quite different ways.

    The Australian Medicare system is predominantly based around private practice and fee-for-service. The English National Health System (NHS) is based on capitation, in which doctors are paid a fixed amount to manage a group of potential patients irrespective of the actual level of care.

    Neither system is perfect, but each can learn from the other; after all, they both aim to achieve efficient, equitable, high-quality health services is the same.

    Fee-for-service vs capitation

    Australia’s emphasis on fee-for-service funding reflects both a strength and weakness. Paying for each consultation or service, mainly through the Medical Benefits Schedule, incentivises doctors to do more.

    But it can also lead to over-provision of care. Most of us have anecdotes about returning to the doctor for procedural issues, such as renewing prescriptions, or receiving test results, which might be more efficiently done over the phone, or by a nurse or pharmacist.

    The English system, with its focus on capitation, may be too far in the opposite direction. Under capitation, doctors are paid an amount to manage a set of patients, this amount usually determined by estimates of need.

    If doctors are effectively paid no extra for providing additional care to a patient, then you can reasonably expect an average level of service below what is optimal.

    Both the English and Australian systems have tried various ways of blending fee-for-service and capitation, but the two systems continue to sit some distance apart.

    Pay for performance

    One possible way out of this impasse is to move towards a system in which doctors are paid for results, rather than activity.

    The English system has considerable experience in this area – good and bad – with its Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), which attempts to pay doctors directly for their patients’ health outcomes.

    Under this system, surgeries are awarded points for a range of outcomes including chronic disease management, practice organisation, positive patient experience, and the provision of extra services such as child health and maternity services. These points are then translated into a financial payment for the surgery.

    In England, there is mixed evidence about the appropriateness of this system. Design has proven a major challenge; in the first year, there was a cost blowout as surgeries achieved a much higher proportion of points than was expected.

    So, could such an approach be taken in Australia?

    The answer is that it would be difficult. Patients are registered to surgeries in England, meaning it’s easier to link clinical outcomes with the activity of particular doctors.

    But Medicare data does show us which patients see which doctors, so linking to outcomes might be feasible in Australia.

    However, as with much of the area of international transferability of health policy, the basic policy idea would need to be adapted to reflect the existing health system architecture.

    Keeping people out of hospitals

    Over the past decade, the English health system has pursued a policy of local commissioning of services. Led by local GPs, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are responsible for allocating their local community’s health budget on emergency care, elective hospital care, maternity services and community mental health services.

    CCGs place general practitioners at the heart of health care funding decisions, giving them a role previously undertaken by lay managers in primary care.

    The aim is to strengthen primary care and keep people out of hospitals. If you make one body responsible for purchasing primary care (such as GPs) and secondary care (predominantly hospitals), you’re likely to make better use intensive GP interventions that would reduce the use of considerably more expensive hospital care.

    In the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, the Conservative-led coalition placed £65 Billion into the hands of 211 newly-formed CCGs, 65% of a total NHS budget of £95 Billion. The English experience of commissioning is still a developing story. It appears to offer benefit, but the design of the system is crucial. Those doing the local commissioning must be supported both logistically and financially, so they have the time to dedicate to this work and it isn’t just passed on to bureaucrats.

    Australia’s fragmented system

    Our health system is funded from a mixture of state/territory and federal money. Primary care is predominantly paid for by Medicare, while much of the financial cost of providing hospital care is met by the states and territories.

    This poses a major problem for health-care reform. There is an incentive for both the states and the federal government to shift costs towards the other, which can be easily done by moving patients between primary and secondary care.

    Further, the incentive to keep people out of hospital by providing more high-quality primary care is weak, because the government level responsible for primary care (federal) does not reap any savings from this extra investment.

    Community-level organisations such as Medicare Locals are being given small pockets of funding to commission locally, and it is likely that this role will be included in the new Primary Health Networks (PHNs) when they replace Medicare Locals.

    One option is to give local commissioners more power through the PHNs and redirect some state government funding directly to the community-based organisations.

    But caution is required, as English history demonstrates high-quality commissioning requires substantial time and financial investment, as well as effective leadership and the willingness of clinicians to engage.

    Designing a better health system

    Like most other countries, Australia cannot continue to fund the increasing demand for health care, and we need to look for ways to strengthen the role of primary care and keep people out of hospital.

    In the endless debate around how to pay doctors in a way that doesn’t cause over- or under-servicing, adding payments for keeping people healthy is one possibility Australia should consider. But we need to keep in mind the possible negative consequences of such a policy.

    Similarly, Australia should consider supporting local clinicians to make decisions that benefit their community. But because our health systems are so structurally different, the design of such a system for Australia would be a challenge requiring considerable thought.

    This article was first published in The Conversation on 4 September 2014. Richard Norman is Senior Research Fellow in Health Economics at Curtin University, Suzanne Robinson is Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at Curtin University.

     

  • Philip Kokic, Mark Howden, Steven Crimp. 99.999% certainty humans are driving global warming.

    There is less than 1 chance in 100,000 that global average temperature over the past 60 years would have been as high without human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, our new research shows.

    Published in the journal Climate Risk Management today, our research is the first to quantify the probability of historical changes in global temperatures and examines the links to greenhouse gas emissions using rigorous statistical techniques.

    Our new CSIRO work provides an objective assessment linking global temperature increases to human activity, which points to a close to certain probability exceeding 99.999%.

    Our work extends existing approaches undertaken internationally to detect climate change and attribute it to human or natural causes. The 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report provided an expert consensus that:

    It is extremely likely [defined as 95-100% certainty] that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic [human-caused] increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.

    Decades of extraordinary temperatures

    July 2014 was the 353rd consecutive month in which global land and ocean average surface temperature exceeded the 20th-century monthly average. The last time the global average surface temperature fell below that 20th-century monthly average was in February 1985, as reported by the US-based National Climate Data Center.

    This means that anyone born after February 1985 has not lived a single month where the global temperature was below the long-term average for that month.

    We developed a statistical model that related global temperature to various well-known drivers of temperature variation, including El Niño, solar radiation, volcanic aerosols andgreenhouse gas concentrations. We tested it to make sure it worked on the historical record and then re-ran it with and without the human influence of greenhouse gas emissions.

    Our analysis showed that the probability of getting the same run of warmer-than-average months without the human influence was less than 1 chance in 100,000.

    We do not use physical models of Earth’s climate, but observational data and rigorous statistical analysis, which has the advantage that it provides independent validation of the results.

    Detecting and measuring human influence

    Our research team also explored the chance of relatively short periods of declining global temperature. We found that rather than being an indicator that global warming is not occurring, the observed number of cooling periods in the past 60 years strongly reinforces the case for human influence.

    We identified periods of declining temperature by using a moving 10-year window (1950 to 1959, 1951 to 1960, 1952 to 1961, etc.) through the entire 60-year record. We identified 11 such short time periods where global temperatures declined.

    Our analysis showed that in the absence of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, there would have been more than twice as many periods of short-term cooling than are found in the observed data.

    There was less than 1 chance in 100,000 of observing 11 or fewer such events without the effects of human greenhouse gas emissions.

     The problem and the solution

    Why is this research important? For a start, it might help put to rest some common misunderstandings about there being no link between human activity and the observed, long-term trend of increasing global temperatures.

    Our analysis – as well as the work of many others – shows beyond reasonable doubt that humans are contributing to significant changes in our climate.

    Good risk management is all about identifying the most likely causes of a problem, and then acting to reduce those risks. Some of the projected impacts of climate change can be avoided, reduced or delayed by effective reduction in global net greenhouse gas emissions and by effective adaptation to the changing climate.

    Ignoring the problem is no longer an option. If we are thinking about action to respond to climate change or doing nothing, with a probability exceeding 99.999% that the warming we are seeing is human-induced, we certainly shouldn’t be taking the chance of doing nothing.

    This article was first published in The Conversation on 4 September 2014.

    Philip Kokic is the Senior Statistician at CSIRO, Mark Howden is the Research Scientist, Agriculture Flagship at CSIRO, Steven Crimp is the Senior Research Scientist at CSIRO.

     

  • Rod Tucker. Broadband projects fail reality test.

    In an article in The Conversation on 8 September 2014, Rod Tucker points out that the broadband projections will fail a reality test.  He said ‘If they [the Vertigan report] had used realistic data for growth in demand, their cost benefit analysis may well have shown that a FTTP network will provide Australia with the best long term value for money.’  Rod Tucker is Laureate Emeritus Professor at University of Melbourne.  See link to full article below.

    http://theconversation.com/broadband-projections-fail-reality-test-31341

  • Gavan McCormack. Disturbing trends in Japan Part 4

    Friendship, states, peoples and Australia

    The government of Japan struggles to reconcile servile incorporation in today’s US hegemonic project with Japan’s own nationalism, but the circle is not easily to be squared. Nationalism is distorted, denied and channeled into a ‘correct history’ movement, beautiful Japan campaigns, and antagonism to China and Korea. The wave of xenophobic abuse of China and Korea, speculation about a possible war, and ‘hate speech’ bullying of Zainichi resident Koreans, helps consolidate Abe’s support base and justify frontier militarisation. It constitutes the reverse side of his stealth revision of the constitution and promotion of military-first, US-serving priorities. Furthermore, basic insecurity is exacerbated by neoliberal policies that for more than a decade now have functioned to replace regular jobs with part-time, temporary or other non-regular ones (now accounting for 19 million people, or 38 per cent of the total workforce).

    It is not as though the Abe agenda has widespread national support. He took office after the lower-house election in December 2012 delivered his party a substantial majority on the basis of 27.6 per cent of the vote in the national ‘bloc’ component (hardly different from 2009, when it took 26.7 per cent and suffered a humiliating defeat), and 16.62 million votes in the small electorate seats, more than two million fewer than the 18.81 million it took on the occasion of its 2009 defeat. Since then support levels have wavered, kept high through his first year of government by the rhetoric of Abenomics but suddenly dropping below 50 per cent (from 54 to 47 per cent] in July 2014 as the ‘collective self-defence’ doctrine was adopted.

    There is now a thick fabric of cooperation and exchange between Australia and Japan. In both countries, the image of the other is generally positive, and they are urged to the embrace by their key security partner and ally, the United States. However, official Australia has a distinctive agenda not necessarily widely shared or understood in the community. It has long favoured Japanese constitutional revision and showed no sign in 2014 of concern at the way the Abe government was going about accomplishing it. It also favours an expanded Japanese regional military role and closer integration of Australian, Japanese and American forces. Official Australia is not known to have any reservations about the way the government of Japan has gone about constructing a new facility on Okinawa for the US Marine Corps or to have any apparent qualms about moves to switch the Japanese nuclear power grid (frozen in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster) back on and promote the export of nuclear-power-generation systems as a core sector of the Japanese economy. Australian silence on issues such as Yasukuni and the ‘comfort women’ is also appreciated in Tokyo, and naturally taken to signify agreement, or ‘shared’ values.

    In short, Australia has yet to disentangle affection and respect for the Japanese people from identification with the values and policies of the Abe government. For the moment, few seem conscious of the distinction and so support for the Abe government and its agenda is scarcely challenged. However, those who believe they share values with the Abe government should look carefully at contemporary Japan’s complex crisis of identity, history and role; at the radical but contradictory agenda pursued by Prime Minister Abe; and not least at the burgeoning confrontation in Oura Bay in Okinawa, where the juggernaut of the state, with its monopoly of force and readiness to sacrifice nature to military ends threatens the local, non-violent, democratic and fundamentally ‘conservative’ citizenry.

  • Jane Tolman. I don’t want to get Dementia.

    Dementia is what many of us fear most, and the effective risk is largely related to age.   The statistics say that at 65 years of age, only 2% have dementia.  But this figure doubles with the passage of each five year period.  By 90, the risk of having dementia is about one in four.  Because of the “survivor effect” (those with the fewest risks will live to old age), the subsequent risk no longer increases at this rate.

    There is no guarantee that dementia can be avoided, whatever we do.  But what does the evidence say about what strategies can reduce the risk? Genes account for only a small percentage of those with dementia, especially among the elderly.

    There is now evidence that the risk can be reduced, and that this will lead to fewer people with dementia.  In fact, we think that if the onset of dementia could be delayed by five years, then the numbers would be halved (Dementia Risk Reduction, prepared for Alzheimer’s Australia, 2007).

    Despite much controversy in recent years about the exact cause of Alzheimer’s disease- the most common form of dementia in the western world- it turns out that the factors which protect against heart disease also protect against dementia. The UK Blackfriars consensus produced this year suggested that within two decades up to 20% of predicted new cases of dementia could be prevented with lifestyle alterations designed to reduce blood pressure, obesity, cholesterol and diabetes.

    So what can we do to minimise the risk of developing dementia?

    The brain is arguably the most important organ and should be treated with respect at all times. “Getting knocked out” sounds bad, and it is. We are now aware that episodes of concussion are bad for the brain and there are reports that head injuries contribute to dementia.  Protect your brain, and not just from toxic substances.

    It’s never too early to start with life style changes. Both physical and mental activity are critical, and the earlier they start, the better. Regular is good- say 30 minutes every day of sustained physical exercise.  Patterns established in youth are harder to break in old age.  When it comes to mental exercise, repetition of familiar tasks is not particularly useful (such as Sudoku or crosswords); there must be real stimulation and challenging to the brain. Learning a language or taking a university course in a new field is what’s needed.

    Connectivity is the new buzz word for dementia.  This relates to the structure of the brain (how nerves connect with each other) and the disruption of neuronal connectivity is emerging as a key component in the impairment of brain function. But it also relates to social connections. People don’t thrive in isolation and neither do brains. As we age, we lose social connections (people die) so it’s necessary to have a large social network when we are younger. Being with people- having relationships, joining groups, developing interests which involve human contact- these will all improve brain function and help to reduce the dementia risk.  Ideally, you should have friends who are younger than you are, but at least a mixture of ages.

    Nurturing the senses is about maximising the inputs to the brain.  Good vision and hearing are among the important predictive factors for a good memory in old age.  Fifty percent of older people have an incorrect prescription for their spectacles, and while most very elderly people have some deafness, hearing aids are often not worn. Now is the time- however young or old you are- to have a check and correct any sensory deficits as soon as possible.

    What should you eat? Moderation and balance will usually do the trick.    Having a healthy weight before old age is critical: in older age weight loss means losing muscle, and this is a sure way of triggering falls, impairing the circulation and immune function. For most older people, care needs to be taken to maintain weight, and to have protein at the centre of every meal.  Salt is bad for the brain as it contributes to hypertension which itself causes damage.  Fats are essential, but are best in balance; avoid saturated fats as these may double the risk of dementia.  Fruits and vegetables are associated with longevity, but also promote good bowel function.  Constipation in old age is the enemy of health, happiness and functioning well, each of which helps us to live the dementia journey better. Broccoli and cauliflower also contain Vitamin E which is thought to be protective against dementia. If you need more guidance, the Mediterranean diet has recognised benefits.

    Alcohol in moderation may be protective, but with excessive amounts (regular consumption in excess of two drinks a day or four in a single session) come increased risks for hypertension, cardiovascular disease and dementia.  Binge drinking may increase the risk of dementia three fold after 65.

    Smoking is a serious risk for a range of illnesses, and if you survive cancers, chronic lung diseases (especially emphysema) and vascular disease (heart attacks and strokes) then dementia is also more likely in your old age.

    Regular blood pressure checks and careful control are essential, as hypertension is the enemy of brain health. Avoiding diabetes, similarly dangerous for brains, means a healthy diet, weight control and regular screens.  See your doctor if there are any new symptoms, especially lethargy, blurred vision, increased hunger, unexplained weight loss or increased thirst.  If you have diabetes, keep the sugars under control.

    Your psyche should be as important to you as your physical health. The responsibility for your state of mind rests with you, and while stress might not be avoidable, how you deal with it is up to you.  If you need help, get it.  Whether you get dementia is not up to you.  But there are ways to reduce the risk, and to make the journey less traumatic if you are unlucky.  What is up to you, is what you know (keep up to date) and your attitude to your health (be positive).  Reducing your risks for dementia is a lifelong undertaking and will make you a happier and healthier person.

     

    Jane Tolman is Director of Aged Care, Royal Hobart Hospital.

     

     

  • Gavan McCormack. Disturbing trends in Japan (Part 3 of 4)

    Abe, the radical

    Nominally conservative, Abe’s political career has been devoted to an extraordinarily radical agenda, nothing less than revision of all three of the country’s basic charters: the Constitution (1946), the Fundamental Law of Education (1947) and Ampo (the 1951/1960 security treaty with the United States). He aspires to ‘liquidate the post-war regime’ and replace it with a ‘new’ and ‘beautiful’ Japan.

    Abe’s party has from its inception in 1955 been committed to revising the constitution, especially Article 9, the declaration of state pacifism. The current LDP draft constitution (of 2012) widens state prerogatives while narrowing citizen rights and transforms the existing Self-Defense Forces into a ‘national defence army’. But overt revision has never been politically feasible given the strength of public opposition. Abe has chafed especially under the constraint that all previous governments had accepted—that Japan might possess an ‘inherent’ right to collective self-defence, but the constitution ruled out its exercise. On the eve of his Australian visit Abe’s cabinet disposed of this problem by simply adopting a new interpretation, reversing the restrictive interpretation and freeing Japan’s forces for future global missions. The Japan that under its constitution from 1947 to 2014 could not go to war now can.

    The evasion of constitutional principle by the simple device of reinterpretation, praised by Abbott and by the Obama government, was widely seen in Japan as a constitutional coup-d‘etat. It was in keeping with Deputy Prime Minister Aso Taro’s encomium (in a speech to party faithful on 29 July 2013) that Japan should learn from the Hitler example, the people in Germany simply waking one morning to find that their constitution no longer meant what they had thought it did. The New York Times editorialised that Japan was ‘facing a genuine test of its democracy’.

    As for education, in his first term Abe succeeded in revising the Fundamental Law of Education, making it an educational requirement that schools promote ‘love of country’. Early in 2014, Abe’s Education Ministry announced that moral education was henceforth to be given a core part in the school curriculum and that history, geography and civics texts for junior and senior high schools would, from April 2016, have to ‘reflect the government’s official position on contentious historical issues’.

    As for the security treaty with the United States, revision in 1960 caused such political turmoil that it has not been formally revised since then. Instead, however, de facto revision has been unceasing and fundamental, in accord with high-level governmental and inter-governmental understandings, including the National Defense Guidelines (1978, 1997 and forthcoming 2014) and the 2005–06 Agreements on ‘Transformation and Realignment’ of US forces in Japan. The fullest expression of the Abe security stance is expected to come in the late-2014 National Security Guidelines, but it is indicative that he has already opened the door to the export of Japanese weapons, established a National Security Council that concentrates power in his office, passed a ‘secrets protection’ law that prescribes draconian penalties for whistleblowers and investigative journalists and reminds some of the infamous 1925 ‘Peace Preservation Law’, is planning or constructing new Japanese bases in the far-southwestern islands of Amami, Miyako, Ishigaki and Yonaguni, and is working on plans to establish Japanese versions of the CIA and the US Marine Corps.

    Australia has no known stance on educational policy, but it has long favoured constitutional revision and a ‘normal state’ (‘strong’ and war capable) agenda for Japan. The fact that Abe takes aim in particular at Japan’s democratic, citizen-based and anti-militarist elements, preferring instead a paradoxical mix of the Shintoist, the American, the beautiful and the new, seems not to have registered in the Australian consciousness.

    Though Abe offends and worries the United States on many fronts, his redeeming quality is the enthusiasm he brings to the security agenda, implementing a substantial military build-up, merging with and functionally subordinating Japan’s military to that of the United States and building major new facilities for the Marine Corps in Northern Okinawa (as well as, more recently, in US territory (Guam and the Marianas)). For the cash-strapped Pentagon the prospect of such largesse,and of a 225,000-person subsidiary force, all costs met by Japan, well-trained and -equipped and ready for action on the Pentagon’s behalf under ‘collective self-defence’ principles in future wars, is irresistible.

  • Mike Steketee. Politics vs Science.

    “THE laws of physics are non-negotiable,” observed Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organisation, this week. https://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_1002_en.html

    You wouldn’t think so listening to the often frenzied debate about global warming or, according to Tony Abbott’s senior business adviser Maurice Newman, what is really global cooling http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/were-illprepared-if-the-iceman-cometh/story-e6frg6zo-1227023489894 .

    Jarraud was commenting on the release of the WMO’s annual greenhouse gas bulletin https://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/documents/1002_GHG_Bulletin.pdf  , based mainly on data collected by 50 countries. It shows a 34 per cent increase in the warming effect of greenhouse gases between 1990 and 2013. Most of this is attributable to carbon dioxide, atmospheric concentrations of which have risen by 142 per cent since the start of industrialisation in the 18th century, “primarily because of emissions from combustion of fossil fuels and cement production”. The WMO recorded an increase of 2.9 parts per million in 2013 – the largest rise since 1984 – although it added the figure was subject to seasonal and regional variations, such as a changing balance between photosynthesis and respiration or the amount of biomass burned.

    The figures put the best face on things, more or less. The WMO’s bulletin reports on concentrations of greenhouse gases rather than emissions – that is, what remains in the atmosphere after the estimated 25 per cent of emissions that are absorbed by the oceans and a similar amount by the biosphere, particularly plants. That means we are producing around twice as much long-lived greenhouse gases than can be taken up by the earth and the oceans. Moreover, the increasing amounts of CO2 going into the ocean is causing acidification at a rate that “appears unprecedented at least over the last 300 million years”. The consequences are not fully known but include reduced calcification, relied on by corals, molluscs and other organisms.

    Jarraud said the bulletin “provides a scientific base for decision-making. …Pleading ignorance can no longer be an excuse for not acting.”

    So much for the science. Back in the world of politics, where just about anything is negotiable, apparently including the future of the planet, Australia has decided that it has been doing far too much to deal with global warming. The price on carbon emissions has been removed, despite the evidence, both direct and indirect, that it worked. Most of the sharp increase in electricity prices in recent years has been due not to the carbon tax but the cost of upgrading infrastructure – the poles and wires – often unnecessarily because of perverse incentives. But the response from consumers has been exactly what you would expect from a price rise, whatever its origins – they have reduced their demand for electricity. This has been one of the factors in the break since 2010 in the long-term trend towards rising electricity demand. file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Kate/My%20Documents/Downloads/IP%2014%20Power%20down_0.pdf

    Prices in the electricity market have responded in another way. In the words of the report https://retreview.dpmc.gov.au/ret-review-report-0 of the inquiry established by the Abbott government into the renewable energy target, “analyses suggest that, overall, the RET is exerting some downward pressure on wholesale electricity prices. This is not surprising, given that the RET is increasing the supply of electricity when electricity demand has been falling”.

    Indeed, if the reduction is passed on in lower retail prices, as it should be in a competitive market, and offsets the higher cost of producing renewables, it might be thought of as a positive outcome by a government that hails the reduction in electricity prices brought about by the abolition of the carbon tax. However, the inquiry into the RET, headed by businessman and climate change sceptic Dick Warburton, had another purpose: to find a way of scaling back or eliminating the RET. As a result, the report argued that “artificially” low wholesale electricity prices could distort investment decisions.

    Thankfully, the report did not ignore some other facts, even if it put its own peculiar interpretation on them. Modelling it commissioned found the net impact of the RET on retail prices was small, including into the future. It concluded that the scheme had broadly met its objectives, with output from large scale renewable generators, mainly wind farms, almost doubling and that from small scale systems, mainly solar, already exceeding levels forecast for 2020. The cost of renewables had fallen, particularly for rooftop solar and the small scale renewable industry was becoming commercially viable.

    All this might sound like good news but the report thought otherwise. It found the RET to be a high cost approach to reducing CO2 emissions – $35 to $68 a tonne and $100 to $200 a tonne for small-scale renewables.

    So it is but it depends on the alternatives. At the moment there are none. The Gillard government set the carbon price at $23 a tonne and the international market price has moved much lower since. The report suggests the Abbott government’s direct action policy would produce cheaper abatement than renewables. But that remains to be seen – that is, if the policy is ever implemented in a viable form, given that it currently is blocked in the Senate.

    The government says it remains committed to reducing emissions by 5 per cent from 2000 levels by 2020, although the Climate Change Authority, among others, argues that this is less than required for Australia to meet its fair share of the international effort. The RET is the only remaining significant mechanism for at least heading in the right direction. Its role is to increase the share of emissions-free electricity, not, as the Warburton report argues, to solve the problems facing fossil fuel generators because of falling demand by winding back the RET.

    According to Andrew Blakers, director of the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems at the Australian Natonal University, Australia could achieve 90 per cent renewable energy by 2040 by replacing coal and gas fired stations that are due to be retired over the coming decades http://theconversation.com/renewable-energy-target-review-experts-respond-31050 . Solutions would need to be found for storing power from wind and solar, given their intermittent nature, but developments in battery technology suggest that this is in prospect. Blakers offers another option that he says would be cheaper: “pumped hydro”, under which water is pumped up to a reservoir when there is spare electricity from renewables and then run downhill through a turbine when needed. http://theconversation.com/how-pushing-water-uphill-can-solve-our-renewable-energy-issues-28196

    In a world that gradually is doing more to address climate change but still not enough to meet the target of limiting warming to 2C, Australia  has become the international laggard, despite being one of the highest producers of greenhouse gases per capita in the world. The International Energy Agency has estimated http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/25recom_2011.pdf  that taking a range of measures merely to improve the efficiency with which we use energy can reduce total global energy consumption by 17 per cent by 2030, making a big contribution towards cutting greenhouse gases.

    But according to an American study http://aceee.org/portal/national-policy/international-scorecard , Australia ranks 10th out of 16 OECD countries in overall energy efficiency and last in transport. Under the Abbott government, it “has dramatically reduced its investment in efficiency and has rolled back its efficiency incentive programs, causing its score to decline.” An example is this year’s budget, which withdrew commonwealth funding of public transport projects and increased it for roads.

    Given the relentless long-term trend towards global warming (memo Maurice Newman: periods of short-term cooling have been declining http://theconversation.com/99-999-certainty-humans-are-driving-global-warming-new-study-29911?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%201899&utm_content=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%201899+CID_02ac31e1fe595615139d593549d1aefb&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=99999%20certainty%20humans%20are%20driving%20global%20warming%20new%20study ), it should be a case of all hands on deck. The opposition already has voted against direct action legislation in the House of Representatives on the grounds that it is a poor substitute for an emissions trading scheme. Perhaps it is but that does not mean the kind of projects that could attract funding under direct action, such as for increased energy efficiency in commercial buildings and industry, reafforestation and improved soil carbon, are not worth doing.  Labor should reverse its position and support the legislation in the Senate.

    As the WMO’s Michel Jarraud put it this week, “we are runnning out of time”.

    This article was first published in The Drum on 12 September, 2014.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Gavan McCormack. Disturbing trends in Japan (Part 2 of 4)

    Shared values

    Much was made during the visit of the ‘shared values’ that unite Australia and Japan. But are the values of Abe or his government really widely shared? From the time of his entry into the national Diet in 1993, Abe immersed himself in the historical revisionist cause, resisting moves towards formal apology for the war and compensation for war victims and objecting to what he and his colleagues refer to scathingly as a ‘Tokyo Tribunal view of history’. He believes Japan was unjustly blamed for the China and Pacific wars of 1931 to 1945. As his friend Hyakuta Naoki, Abe-appointed director of national broadcaster NHK, put it earlier this year, the Nanjing massacre of 1937 never occurred and Americans had ‘fabricated war crimes against Japanese leaders in order to cover up American atrocities’. He and most of his cabinet today belong to organisations that look back to wartime Japan for inspiration, with names such as Dietmembers Associations ‘for the Passing on of a Correct History’, for a ‘Bright Japan’ and ‘Reflection on Japan’s Future and History Education’, and the ‘Shinto Politics League’. The basic principle of Shinto politics was articulated in January 2000 by then prime minister Mori Yoshiro, who referred to Japan as an ‘emperor-centred country of the gods’—precisely the view held by those who led Japan to the disastrous wars of the 1930s and 1940s.

    The politician Abe professes to admire most is his own (maternal) grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke (1896–1987). Kishi was economic czar of Manchuria (Northeast China) in the 1930s, became minister for trade and industry in the Tojo Hideki cabinet from 1941 and signed the declaration of war against the United States, holding office in the wartime government till shortly before war’s end and being then held for three years as a suspected Class ‘A’ war criminal. Released, however, in December 1948, he became prime minister from 1957 (in which capacity he first visited Australia) to 1960. Tim Weiner’s History of the CIA refers to him as ‘one of the two most influential agents the United States ever recruited … [and who] helped carry out the CIA mission to control the government’ (which continued up to the 1970s). Commonly seen as nationalists, Abe and his grandfather are both better seen as servants of the United States posing as nationalists.

    Unlike Australia, in the United States it is clear some harbour serious doubts over what values are shared with Japan. When Tony Abbott extended the invitation to Mr Abe to address a joint sitting of the Australian parliament, one wonders whether he was aware:

    • that the US government has consistently denied the honour of a formal congressional address to Japan’s leaders, even though it has extended such an honour to successive Korean presidents (five in all).
    • that Abe in his first spell in government (2006–07) had been subject to formal rebuke by the United States on human-rights grounds (House of Representatives Resolution 101 of 2007) for failure to acknowledge and compensate the victims of the wartime ‘comfort women’ system, and that similar resolutions had also been adopted by Canada and the EU.
    • that while Abe in 2013 had to be satisfied with a businesslike White House lunch with President Obama, with no shared press conference, Chinese president Xi Jinping shortly afterwards got a respectful reception and spent a couple of days with Obama on a California ranch.
    • that, when Abe brushed off strong US objections and in December 2013 visited Yasukuni Shrine, the US embassy in Tokyo released a statement that ‘the United States is disappointed [sic.] that Japan’s leadership has taken an action that will exacerbate tensions with Japan’s neighbours’, and ordered him not to repeat it.
    • that President Obama himself directly rebuked Abe (in reference to his China policy) in front of a Tokyo press conference in April 2014. 

    In short, the present government of the United States has serious differences with the Abe Japanese government on both war memory and China (and Korea) policy. Japanese governments have striven desperately to secure from Washington the sort of honour bestowed on them in July 2014 by Canberra. Indeed it may well be that it was Washington’s ‘Japan handlers’—some at least of them also its ‘Australia handlers’—who put together the Australia honour. Much as the George W. Bush administration put together a visit by Prime Minister Koizumi in 2007 to the Elvis Presley shrine in Memphis to compensate him for the invitation to Congress he too desired but could not be granted, so for Abe Canberra would substitute for Washington. In its apparently unlimited enthusiasm over its new ‘special relationship’, Australia now is notably out of step with Washington, and Abe’s uncritical and extravagant Australian reception must have delighted him.

     

  • Gavan McCormack Disturbing trends in Japan (Part 1 of 4)

    These posts (published over 4 days) are extracts from an article by Gavan McCormack, entitled ‘Partnership 135 Degrees East’ which will be published in Arena.org.au. 

     

    Our best friend

    The current Japanese and Australian governments came into being in December 2012 and September 2013 respectively. Both are headed by conservative, neoliberal, climate-denialist, pro-American leaders, of similar age, who quickly established a close rapport. Following their first meeting, at an ASEAN summit in October 2013, Abbott declared Abe Australia’s ‘best friend in Asia’. In meetings that followed, in Tokyo in April and Canberra in July 2014, they resolved to transform the ‘strategic partnership’ into a new ‘special relationship.’ Both made unprecedented invited appearances at the highest-level national-security-council meeting of their counterpart country, and signed agreements for free trade and defence cooperation (including ‘trilateral security cooperation with the United States’) and closer scientific and academic links.

    Before the national parliament, Prime Minister Abbott delighted his guest and astonished many Australians by referring to the ‘skill and sense of honour’ of the imperial Japanese soldiers of seventy years ago. For his part, Abe resolved to ‘stay humble against the evils and horrors of history’, offering ‘sincere condolences towards the many who lost their lives’ and expressing his determination to do more to enhance peace.

    The Murdoch press waxed hot with excitement. The Australian’s Greg Sheridan declared the Abe performance ‘masterful … as intricate as a fine Noritake pottery work, with as many moving parts seamlessly working together as the robotics of a Nagoya car plant’, signifying ‘nothing less than the birth of a new Japan’.

    Abe’s expression of ‘condolences’ and his resolve to further the cause of peace were widely praised. Yet his ‘condolences’ were calibrated to convey sympathy while avoiding responsibility, and the greatest Japanese crimes—of Nanjing, Unit 731, and the sexual enslavement of hundreds of thousands of women across Asia—went unmentioned. It was as if those who ‘lost’ their lives at Kokoda and Sandakan had fallen victim to some mysterious ailment. Furthermore, by his references to peace, Abe plainly meant shedding the shackles of post-war constitutional pacifism and joining the United States in future wars because he sees it as heading the cause of global peace. Peace, in short, calls for war. It is a proposition worthy of Orwell.

    As for his professed commitment to settling disputes by dialogue and the rule of law, Abe in fact has ruled out discussion with China on the territorial issue that China sees as critical (contested sovereignty over the uninhabited islets known in China as Diaoyu and in Japan as Senkaku). There is, he insists, no dispute, no room for discussion or negotiation. What is called for is ‘not negotiation but physical force incapable of being misunderstood’ (brute force, in other words).

    Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor of the Australian National University, coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (http://japanfocus.org), and author of many books and articles on modern and contemporary Japan and East Asia.

  • David Isaacs and Ian Kerridge. Asylum seeker’s ‘brain death’ shows failure of care and of democracy.

    The news that Hamid Kehazaei, a 24-year-old Iranian asylum seeker detained on Manus Island, has been diagnosed as brain dead following his transfer to the Mater Hospital in Brisbane is a tragedy. That it is a tragedy for this young man and his family is unquestionable The news – but the extent of this tragedy may be much more pervasive than we realise.

    If the emerging details of his case are correct, Kehazaei developed septicaemia as a complication of cellulitis (skin and soft-tissue infection) arising from a cut in his foot. This, in itself, is disturbing.

    Severe infection can result in brain death – either from infection of the brain itself (meningitis, encephalitis or brain abscess), or from brain injury due to a lack of oxygen resulting from cardiac arrest (as appears to be the case here), or from reduced blood supply to the brain. Yet it is very uncommon, especially in a young, previously healthy man.

    Such a case could occur in Australia and has been described in 2012 in young Indigenous adults in Central Australia. Nevertheless, severe sepsis resulting from a foot infection is preventable. And a case like this occurring in an Australian national would raise serious questions about the appropriateness of the antibiotics used and the timeliness of care.

    Most cases of brain death result from traumatic brain injury, stroke or lack of oxygen to the brain following asphyxia, near-drowning, or prolonged cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

    What happened to Hamid Kehazaei raises concerns about the adequacy of care provided to him during initial treatment, including wound care and antibiotics, and how soon he was transferred to expert medical care, first to Port Moresby and subsequently to Brisbane.

    If this young man became ill and had his brain die while seeking asylum in Australia and while in our care, then we must examine the details of his case and ask ourselves not only whether it was preventable but whether our policies and processes actually contributed to his death.

    But how can we even begin to ask these types of questions when we know so little about the circumstances in which he became ill, and his subsequent care?

    Protestations that this is due to the necessity of respecting privacy and confidentiality, ethical principles that are core to the health professional-patient relationship, are to some extent correct. But they also obscure important features of this case.

    The government is simply wrong to claim that this issue should not be “politicised”. What is ultimately at issue here is the way in which domestic politics and border policy impose norms (rules of behaviour) that are antithetical to medicine and health care and, fundamentally, to democracy.

    Medicine, like biomedical science, requires transparency and honesty to be clinically and ethically sound. Peer review, clinical audit, root-cause analysis, family conferences, conflict-resolution strategies, case consultation, multidisciplinary team meetings, mortality and morbidity meetings, open disclosure policies: all rest on the importance of transparency and respect.

    In contrast, we know very little about the people who seek asylum in Australia. Everything is secret – their arrival, their situation, their medical need, their illnesses, and their death.

    This requirement for secrecy has largely overwhelmed efforts by many good people – legislators, human rights lawyers, refugee advocates, health workers, politicians and ordinary citizens – to shine a light on what is happening to people in detention.

    The Immigration Health Advisory Group has been disbanded, restricting the degree to which the health professions can critique the care available to asylum seekers. And even those tasked with providing medical care to asylum-seekers struggle to advocate for the people under their care.

    Policies restrict the degree to which they can care for their patients or refer them for specialist care not available in the detention centres. Contracts bind them to secrecy and many, often shocked by what they have seen, are prevented from speaking out by legal threats and intimidation long after they’ve returned to the mainland.

    The language of “border control” has been used to excuse political secrecy. But such secrecy is what we usually associate with autocratic governments and is the antithesis of democratic ideals.

    What this case illustrates, yet again, is that the asylum seekers detained on Manus and Christmas Islands and Nauru have been excised not only from the laws that determine access to Australia but from the care we should provide any vulnerable person for whom we are responsible. And from the ethical principles upon which medicine and our health system are based.

    If we care about these people, and if we truly believe in the humane values that ground medicine and the moral principles that ground democracy, then we need to do two things. The first is to hold a truly independent inquiry into the care of people in detention. And the second is to end off-shore processing.

    David Isaacs is Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at University of Sydney.

    Ian Kerridge is Associate Professor in Bioethics & Director, Centre for Values and Ethics and the Law in Medicine at University of Sydney. 

    This article was first published in ‘The Conversation’. 

  • Annette Brownlie. No new war in Iraq.

    Both major political parties are once again standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the US, in support of what amounts to a new military intervention in Iraq.

    The process began with the dropping of humanitarian aid supplies to the Yezidi. It has now moved on to the delivery of weapons and munitions to Kurdish Peshmerga forces. Meanwhile, Defence Minister David Johnston has indicated that Australian armed forces (Super Hornet warplanes and C130s) are to be made available to support whatever action the US decides upon.

    All of this has happened with scarcely any discussion – in or outside of the parliament. No questioning or dissent has been heard in this drive towards intervention and, possibly, eventual war. (However, a recent poll shows that 78% of the population opposes having Australian ‘boots on the ground’ in Iraq.)

    Even the proposal that there be a parliamentary debate about the intervention, so that the government could make its case to the Australian people, has been opposed by both major parties. There is no possibility for the parliament to take any part in the decision to send Australian forces overseas.  Nor has the Abbott government explained the sudden need to switch from aid to arms. And it has certainly not explained what Australia hopes to achieve.

    The horror in Iraq today is a direct consequence of the war on that began with the invasion of 2003. John Howard’s government joined that invasion on the basis of falsehoods and against the opinion of the majority of the population. It appears that the present government is eagerly waiting for a request to follow the US once again.

    The massive “shock and awe” bombing and the 11-year occupation of Iraq created huge numbers of civilian casualties – including more than 1 million dead – and massive internal displacement of people. The West’s propping up of the repressive regime that followed, laid the basis for the emergence of the Islamic State (IS) fundamentalists. IS has become the latest reason for intervention. Ironically, it is using weapons captured from the Iraqi army and originally supplied by the US.

    The lesson that should have been learnt from Iraq is that military meddling in the affairs of the Middle East does not work. There was a disastrous outcome last time and no evidence to indicate anything different this time.

    Australia and the US do not recognise Kurdistan as an independent state. Sending arms to the Kurds means that Australia is continuing to meddle – in this case within the movement for Kurdish self-determination.

    If the Australian government was serious about helping the Iraqi minorities, rather than following the US into military intervention, it would immediately:

    • Expand the refugee program and offer sanctuary to the displaced and traumatised
    • Send humanitarian aid – food; engineers; doctors and constructions workers. 

    Sending yet more armaments to the area, which is already wracked by years of warfare, will not reduce the level of violence it is experiencing. The area needs less weaponry, not more.

    Annett Brownlie is a member of IPAN (The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network)

  • Ben Lewis. The false advertising of mandatory detention and “Stopping the Boats”

    Spend any amount of time listening to Australian policy makers or reading Australian media and you’re certain to hear a familiar phrase: “Stop the Boats”. It has become such a political imperative within the Australian asylum seeker debate that “Stop the Boats” is rarely even challenged.  But putting aside the question of whether Australia should (or even can) “Stop the Boats”, there is a fundamental flaw in the logic . . . the key policy which underpins the “Stop the Boats” thinking—namely mandatory detention—has been shown to be false advertising.

    The truth is that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that harsh immigration policies such as mandatory detention deter irregular migration. That’s because, when it comes to human migration, countries by and large don’t have control over who leaves a territory or to where they are headed. Empirical research for decades has shown that immigration policies are predominantly responsive to, not determinative of human movement.

    According to a 2011 study conducted by UNHCR’s chief detention researcher, Alice Edwards:

    “Pragmatically, there is no empirical evidence that the prospect of being detained deters irregular migration, or discourages persons from seeking asylum. In fact, as the detention of migrants and asylum-seekers has increased in a number of countries, the number of individuals seeking to enter such territories has also risen, or has remained constant.” 

    For example, over the past three decades, many Europe countries have significantly expanded their use of detention in response to irregular asylum seeker and migrant arrivals.  The result?  European migration figures have increased from an estimated 49 million in 1990 to 58 million in 2000 to 70 million in 2010. The same can be shown in the United States. Despite decades of “tough on immigration” policies, including annual detention figures approaching half a million, and a Congressional “bed mandate” requiring 34,000 migrants to be in detention every single day, the period from 2000-2010 was “a record setting decade of immigration” in the United States.

    Detention policies don’t deter. So why then do Australian policy makers stubbornly cling to the assertion that mandatory detention of asylum seekers and irregular migrants isn’t simply good policy, but is actually necessary to curb irregular migration when it’s clear the facts don’t support it?

    Part of the blame undoubtedly lies with the Australian public. The Australian policy of mandatory detention—roundly criticized outside of Australia—remains overwhelmingly popular within. Even as recently as last week, Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison defended the practice of detaining asylum seeking children using the staid “stop the boats” rhetoric, and with the legitimacy of broad public support for the country’s mandatory detention policy.

    Part of the blame also lies with Australian policy makers for continuing to use anecdotal rather than empirical evidence to justify the mandatory detention policy. As the editor of this blog has rightly pointed out, this is “sloppy policy evaluation” at best. Experts are in agreement that mandatory detention policies have no measurable impact on the number of irregularly arriving asylum seekers and migrants. There are a number of common sense—and empirically established—reasons for this.  According to Robyn Sampson, a leading researcher from Swinburne University:

    “Several studies have been undertaken to establish which factors most impact the choice of destination of asylum seekers and refugees and irregular migrants.  According to this body of research, the principal aim of asylum seekers and irregular migrants is to reach a place of safety. Asylum seekers and irregular migrants often have very limited understanding of the migration policies of destination countries before arrival and rely on people smugglers to choose their destination. Rather than being influenced primarily by immigration policies such as detention, most refugees and irregular migrants choose destinations where they will be reunited with family or friends; where they believe they will be in a safe, tolerant and democratic society; where there are historical links between their country and the destination country; where they can already speak the language of the destination country; or where they believe they will be able to find secure work quickly due to a perception of the country as one of wealth and prosperity.” 

    So to recap—the principle determinants of the choice of destination country for asylum seekers and irregular migrants are:

    1. Safety;
    2. Family;
    3. Perceptions of democracy;
    4. Historical links;
    5. Common language; and
    6. Perceptions of wealth/prosperity. 

    Most migrants, it turns out, are just the same as you and I.  They want to go to the nearest safe place where they can be together with their families and not be persecuted—bonus points for a common language, culture, or job opportunities. A policy of mandatory detention fails to address any of these; it merely punishes those who arrive in the false belief that if asylum seekers and irregular migrants are punished badly enough, they’ll simply stop coming.

    To an outsider, the irrationality of the mandatory detention policy would be comical if not for all of the pain and suffering it is causing. You may be able to “Stop the Boats” by physically restraining asylum seeking children and families before they reach you, but you certainly won’t deter future arrivals by punishing them once they get here. And why would you want to—especially when the overwhelming majority have been shown to be legitimate refugees, fleeing for their lives? (By the government’s own statistics, since 2008, 92% of all asylum seekers arriving by boat have been granted refugee status.)

    What are needed are not more “tough” immigration policies, but comprehensive regional solutions that attempt to address the root causes of insecurity that prompt human movement. The good news is that better policies do exist; policies that can be supported by empirical evidence and that respect international human rights obligations. But one thing is clear: better policy making won’t be built on the continued justification of mandatory detention as a deterrent. Detention as a deterrent is just false advertising.

    Ben Lewis is the Advocacy Coordinator of the International Detention Coalition (IDC). He is an international human rights lawyer with extensive advocacy experience working with irregular migrant populations in the US and Latin America. The views in this blog are his own.

  • Walter Hamilton. Copy and Paste

    The Japanese have coined a new word, kopipe, from the English phrase ‘copy and paste’. It featured, for instance, in recent reporting of the discredited stem-cell researcher caught out copying images and data from one research paper to another. But the word kopipe has many possible applications, such as in the ongoing debates about history and Japan’s expanding security alliance with the United States.

    On the matter of history, let me do some copying and pasting of my own from the text of the San Francisco Peace Treaty which Japan signed in 1951 to formally bring to an end the Second World War. Here is what it says in Article 11:

                Japan accepts the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East [IMTFE] and of other Allied War Crimes Courts both within and outside Japan, and will carry out the sentences imposed  thereby upon Japanese nationals imprisoned in Japan. The power to grant clemency, to reduce sentences and to parole with respect to such prisoners may not be exercised except on the decision of the Government or Governments which imposed the sentence in each instance, and on recommendation of Japan.

    What are we to make, then, of Japan’s current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who patently does not accept the judgments of the war crimes tribunals? Abe, on the contrary, is a determined revisionist who apparently thinks that those responsible for making war on their neighbours and conducting or condoning systematic atrocities are worthy of celebration. (For the record, the President of the IMTFE was Justice William Webb of Australia.)

    During a parliamentary budget committee hearing last year Abe said the war crimes trials were a case of the Allies imposing their view of events on the Japanese. And in April this year Abe sent a message of support to a Buddhist event honouring Japanese who died after being convicted of war crimes. Abe wrote that they had ‘staked their souls to become the foundation of the fatherland,’ according to a report in the Asahi newspaper. The annual ceremony is held before a memorial statue that describes the war crimes tribunals conducted by the Allied powers as ‘retaliatory’ and calls executed Japanese war criminals ‘Showa Era (1926-1989) martyrs.’ Showa is the era name of the reign of Emperor Hirohito by whose authority Japan waged war in China and the Pacific. The memorial statue records the names of about 1,180 war criminals who were either executed or who died of illness or committed suicide in detention camps.

    It’s not the first time Abe has sent a message of encouragement to the event. Last year he wrote: ‘I want to establish the existence of a new Japan that would not be an embarrassment to the spirit of the war dead.’

    Abe’s maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, wartime Munitions Minister, was held as a suspected Class ‘A’ war criminal himself though never put on trial. He later made a political comeback and served as prime minister between 1957 and 1960. Abe could be described as a kopipe of his blood relation. But while Kishi’s unpopular policy of closer military co-operation with the United States eventually cost him the leadership, Abe’s pushing through of a new interpretation of Japan’s post-war constitution that effectively strips away its pacifist intention has come at little political cost. The Japan of 2014 is much less alert to its wartime responsibilities than the Japan of 1960. (It is worth noting that Abe’s language when addressing the subject during his speech to the Australian Parliament in July was not as conciliatory as that used by Kishi when he visited Australia in 1957.)

    The Japanese Government makes a lot of noise about the importance of observing international law­­­­ in its territorial disputes with China and South Korea, and over issues such as whaling. When convenient, however, it seems ready to bend or ignore laws and commitments. The official explanation that Abe was acting purely in a ‘private’ capacity when he honoured Japan’s war criminals is the usual ‘copy and paste’ for the double standard.

    Abe’s kopipe method was evident, too, during last month’s ceremonies marking the end of the war and the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war dead would be more than embarrassed, one imagines, if they had been able to hear the Prime Minister read out a statement in Hiroshima that was, in large part, identical to the one he made at last year’s ceremony. Some official had simply copied and pasted from the old speech and so little concerned was Abe for reflecting sincerely on the past he read the whole thing without either noticing or caring.

    Finally, and probably most importantly, there is the continuing ‘copy-and-paste’ militarization of Okinawa, the island prefecture that occupies less than 1% of Japan’s landmass but plays host to 74% of its US-only military bases. For decades politicians have promised the people of Okinawa that their disproportionate share of the burden would be reduced. A primary focus of groups campaigning for the pledge to be fulfilled has been the Futenma Air Station operated by the US Marines in the centre of Ginowan City. The facility is an obstacle to local development and seriously affects the lives of nearby residents with its noise pollution and constant danger of aircraft accidents.

    In 1996, the US agreed to return the land––but only on condition that another location was found in Okinawa.  As a result, work preliminary to the construction of a new facility recently began in Oura Bay at Henoko, Nago city, near the existing American base Camp Schwab. The city’s mayor and many others are fiercely opposed to the project, so the Japanese coast guard has been mobilized to haul in any protestors trying to breach a large exclusion zone in the bay proclaimed under a little-used provision of the criminal law.

    According to Professor Gavan McCormack of the Australian National University, Oura Bay ‘happens to be one of the most bio-diverse and spectacularly beautiful coastal zones in all Japan. It hosts a cornucopia of life forms from blue––and many other species––of coral…through crustaceans, sea cucumbers and sea weeds and hundreds of species of shrimps, snails, fish, tortoise, snake, and mammal.’ McCormack goes on to say: ‘If the project proceeds, it will rival in scale Kansai International Airport in Osaka Bay, take a decade or more to complete and cost somewhere in the vicinity of $25 billion. Those [foreign leaders such as Tony Abbott] who believe they share values with [Shinzo Abe] should look carefully at the burgeoning confrontation in Oura Bay between the Abe state, with its monopoly of force, and local, non-violent, democratic citizens.’ 

    Kopipe, rather than original thinking and genuine engagement, seems to be the fashionable way in Japan these days.

    Walter Hamilton is the author of Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story.

     

  • Clare Condon SGS. Sanctioned Violence: What does it do to our society and relationships?

    Some violent acts, depending on where and how they were perpetrated, are regarded as criminal. Others, however, are sanctioned by society, even applauded and cheered. Some are blatant; others are covert and subtle. Some are justified by cultural norms, by the blind eye or the deaf ear; they happen behind closed doors. Others are justified by official permission and approval, or even by public opinion.

    I wish to highlight four areas of sanctioned violence which I believe impact adversely on society and relationships. 

    Australia’s response to asylum seekers and refugees

    Currently in the Australian community, the government is justifying the use of violence to stop the smuggling of asylum seekers. This inhumane approach has bipartisan political support; it is driven by public opinion and generated by the politics of the fear of the stranger. The government’s actions are hidden from the public’s eye through secrecy and by holding people in detention in remote areas of Australia, or offshore in developing countries, such as Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea.

    The government’s often-used mantra “Stop the boats” demonises desperate people fleeing violence and persecution. By using emotive language, this policy is justified in a subtle but no less sanctioned form of violence towards humans. In letters from the government justifying this behaviour, people seeking refugee protection have been called “illegal maritime arrivals”. Their identity as humans has been expunged.

    Such demonisation sanitizes the reality for the Australian public. As a consequence, our societal and racial relationships are diminished and subtly eroded. We can begin to believe that some humans are more worthy than others, and that such actions are justified and normal, when in fact the government of the nation is engaged in sanctioned violence.

    Children are being held in detention centres. ..These children are exposed to brutal, negative and neglectful modelling. The consequences of such detention are likely to breed a dissociative reality for these children, leading to a spiral of hatred and evil within their own life experiences.

    As citizens we must ask: what behaviour do we propose for the future human development and relationships for these innocent children? Is society encouraged to be vindictive, self-serving, aggressive in all its relationships with anyone who is identified as a stranger, rather than a society which is welcoming, other-centred, and compassionate, respecting the dignity of the other in those relationships? One response from the government stated it would not be involved in “misguided compassion”. True compassion is a strong virtue. It is the antithesis of violence. There is nothing weak and soft about a well-guided compassionate response. 

    Sanctioned violence in sport

    Sport is a feature of a nation’s life and culture, especially in Australia. It has an essential role to play in a healthy society. Violence on the playing field and amongst spectators not only sets a bad example to impressionable young people, it is destructive of basic civil relationships. It can instil fear and anxiety, especially in children. . There are significant vested interests to subvert any attempt to study the area in a serious manner.

    It seems that violence in contact sports has increased. I suspect that the introduction of high monetary stakes, as well as sports betting, has influenced this increase. Do the normal expectations of civil behaviour cease once players step onto the field? Does the constant replay of violence and thuggery seek to justify this behaviour?

    One is not a ‘real man’ unless he is like these highly paid, macho stars. Is it not time for some extensive research on the facts and some community discussion on the type of role modelling that sport ought to be portraying to young people, and what kind of relationships society might expect to support and sustain in an advanced civil democratic society? 

    Domestic violence – the hidden nightmare for many women and children

    You might think it odd that I have placed violence in sport before one of the most hidden and often sanctioned – violence of the household or domestic violence – which impacts mostly on women and children. It is often hidden, excused and justified from a male perspective. The macho image often promoted by sport can become the macho image for some men in their daily behaviour. Are they connected?

    Australian research[1] indicates that: 17% of women aged 18 and over have experienced sexual assault since the age of 15; 87% have a relationship with the perpetrator; only 1 in 7 who experienced violence from an intimate partner had reported the most recent incident to police; women with an intellectual disability are 90% more likely to be subjected to a sexual assault than women in the general population.[2] Between 2010-11 and 2012-13, there was a 29% increase in the number of children who were subjects of substantiations of sexual abuse, thereby reversing previous downward trends.[3] Most of these are from the lowest socio-economic areas.

    These statistics are chilling. Domestic violence often leads to homelessness, further abuse of children, significant health issues for the woman and her children, ongoing economic hardship, unemployment, and social, psychological and family isolation. Thus, the capacity for building strong, healthy and mutual relationships in the future is undermined and damaged severely.

    Does media violence have an impact on human behaviour?

    There would be some who would say the jury is still out. Conflict is what makes a good story! Violence has always been part of the movie world, but now violence in movies, TV shows and electronic games has become the norm. They are louder, bloodier and more vicious. Some US research suggests that by the time a child is 18, he or she has watched some 200,000[4] acts of violence.

    There have been hundreds of reports with diverse views on the impact of media violence, particularly on children. However, there is reasonable consensus that long exposure of children to violence portrayed in the mass media leads to long-term aggressive behaviour.[5]

    My concern is the impact sanctioned violence has on society and our relationships. Some of the consequences can be corrosive and long-term. Where violence is sanctioned and regarded as acceptable and routine, then societal norms are being established for the future. Such acts become embedded in the cultural fabric of society.

    If it is acceptable for a government to treat strangers in a cruel and demeaning manner, then it becomes acceptable for the citizen to treat the stranger in a similar manner. If it is acceptable to use excessive violence on a sports field, then why not off the field in school yards? If it is acceptable to exercise violence in the private space of home, then why not on the streets? If it is acceptable to spend hours watching real or virtual violence on a screen, why not activate the same violence in ordinary relationships?

    My congregation of religious women follows the fifth-century rule of St Benedict, a way of life which helped to civilise Europe after generations of wars. Benedict’s dictum for his followers was that all should be structured so “that the strong have something to strive for and that the weak have nothing to run from”.[6]

    In those areas of our society where violence is sanctioned, we citizens need to actively participate in social engagement and collective action. We need to say no more, we can do much better. “Compassion is the very final possibility for saving the human person in his or her naked existence in the face of the direct negation of this existence”.[7]

    This is an edited version of an address delivered by Sister Clare Condon SGS at the Australian Human Right Commission https://www.humanrights.gov.au on August 13, 2014.

    Sister Clare Condon is the Congregational Leader of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict, Australia’s first ‘home-grown’ congregation of Catholic Religious women www.goodsams.org.au


    [1] Cindy Tarczon and Antonia Quadara, The Nature and Extent of Sexual Assault and Abuse in Australia, December 2012, The Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/statistics.html

    [2] CASA Forum 2014 Victorian Centres Against Sexual Assault

    [3] The Child Protection Australia Report 2012-13 of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

    [4] American Academy of Paediatrics, Media Violence, 19 October 2009 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/124/5/1495.full

    [5] The Australian Psychological Society in 2013 updated its report: Media Representations and Responsibilities: Psychological Perspectives

    [6] Rule of Benedict, Chapter 64:19

    [7] Walter Kasper, Mercy, Paulist Press, New Jersey, 2013, p.29

     

     

  • Richard Woolcott. Indonesia under President Widodo.

    Australia will be dealing with a new Indonesian government in just two months. This will involve challenges and opportunities for both countries.

    The Constitutional Court in Jakarta has now confirmed the election of Joko Widodo as President-elect with 53.15% of the eligible vote. The Court’s decision is not appealable and he will be sworn in as President on the 20th of October.

    All Australians, especially our political leaders and senior officials, should be in no doubt that no bilateral relationship will be more important in the future than that with Indonesia.

    Indonesia stretches across our north, a distance from Broome in Western Australia to Christchurch in New Zealand. It is a country of some 250 million people, 81% of whom are Muslims. It has a literacy rate of 94%, an increasing middle class, and its economy is growing rapidly.

    Prime Minister Abbott has described the relationship with Indonesia as “our most important relationship” in many respects. His policy that his foreign affairs approach would be “more Jakarta and less Geneva” was shorthand for this approach.

    Our relations with the United States, China, and Japan, as well as neighbouring New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, are also of great importance to us. The future stability and prosperity of a democratic Indonesia is, however, of paramount importance to us.

    President-elect Joko Widodo, 53, represents a generational change and the potential for a significant shift away from established Indonesian politics. From central Java, he is a businessman who made furniture. He was the mayor of Solo, and then served 18 months as the Governor of Jakarta. He has a reputation of being a nationalist and a relaxed and friendly “man of the people”.

    While his experience of politics and of foreign policy issues is limited, he has indicated that he wants to unwind corruption and patronage in Indonesian politics and focus on raising the standard of living of the poor. His vice President, Yusuf Kalla, has more experience having been Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s first vice President for several years.

    Our government will need to discuss in depth with Widodo and Kalla, and the foreign minister when appointed, bilateral and wider foreign policy issues. Widodo has said that he is looking to make professional rather than political appointments, and it may be that Marty Natalegawa will be reappointed as foreign minister because of his wide knowledge and experience of foreign policy issues, with which Widodo is not familiar.

    Joko Widodo has said he wants good and consistent relations with Australia, but Indonesian sensitivities about territorial integrity and earlier allegations of phone tapping are seen as irritants in the relationship. Joko himself has referred to a “lack of trust” and he is aware that many Indonesian politicians and officials consider Australia as unpredictable and untrusting of Indonesia.

    The Joint Understanding on a Code of Conduct to manage more effectively the reaction to allegations that the Defence Signals Directorate was monitoring the phones of the President, his wife, and members of his staff is hopefully an important step forward if it is implemented to the satisfaction of both parties.

    The reason for the Indonesian reaction was that SBY had understood from his discussions with then Prime Minister Rudd that Australia was seriously seeking a closer, friendlier strategic relationship with Indonesia. Indonesia therefore saw the allegations as undermining trust. It was not, foreign minister Natalegawa argued, the way to treat a major neighbouring strategic good friend.

    It would be unwise not to acknowledge that the relationship has been damaged. In the 2014 Lowy Institute poll, 40% of Australians polled considered the relationship to be “worsening”. According to the Lowy institute the priorities on which Australia and Indonesia will need to consult most closely are asylum seekers, security, and terrorism. This will be a prickly task, calling for a courteous, culturally sensitive, sophisticated, and professional approach to restore and maintain the firmly based relationship we need.

    In our future relations with Indonesia Australia also will need to avoid several approaches, which have been disruptive in the past. One is “gesture politics” that is making statements and appointments that are insubstantial gestures in response to perceived public opinion.

    Australia should also avoid making statements on foreign policy issues which are essentially made for domestic political reasons but which are criticized by Indonesia, for example the suspension of live cattle exports without any prior consultation and towing boats back to Indonesian territorial waters.

    I believe we should listen more and lecture less. We also need to avoid making unnecessary statements that are seen as unbalanced in the region, for example alleged “assertiveness” by China and Japan are widely seen in Indonesia as responses to United States and Japanese assertiveness towards China.

    Joko Widodo is likely to make it clear that Indonesia will not take sides in China/US disputes, in China/Japan disputes, or on the South China Sea claims. Indonesia is not a claimant and has been assured by China that it does not claim any Indonesian territory. This underlines the desirability for Australia of a more nuanced focus on the region we share, and the regional problems that we need to manage.

    In this context I believe Australia does need a fundamental change to our national psyche, that would focus more on Asia than our traditional and well established links with the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada (collectively the “Anglosphere”), and Europe.

    We do need a continuous and sustained approach to the main countries of Asia. In this context a key task for the Australian government, when the new government is formed in Indonesia next October, will be to determine an appropriate and updated balance with our relationships with the United States, China, and Japan and to reinforce the government’s rhetoric about our role in the Asia-Pacific region with action and funding. We should consult Indonesia on a range of political issues, such as the Middle East for example, rather than limit our consultations to the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe.

    There will be a major role for public diplomacy in that Australians and Indonesians do need to know much more about each other. It is regrettable that many Australians still regard Indonesia as a mysterious, chaotic, and corrupt country in which the rule of law is weak.

    According to the Lowy institute polls many Indonesians still see Australia as a potential military threat. This is largely because of historic fears, Indonesia’s size, its proximity, and its presumed potential instability as well as the situation in West Papua.

    While Indonesia, like Australia, welcomes a constructive and continuing United States involvement in the Asia-Pacific there is concern in Indonesia about the so-called “pivot to Asia” – now referred to as “rebalancing”. Many Indonesians regard Australian policy as too closely tied to the United States.

    The incoming Indonesian government can be expected to be concerned, for example, about close cooperation on the reported use of US missiles by the Australian navy and the purposes of drone flights from Australia.

    Also there will be concern that the Cocos Islands, so close to Indonesia and Malaysia, yet now part of Western Australia, might be used for security purposes in South-East Asia and the South China region. Such activities would be seen as directed at the containment of China, notwithstanding rhetoric to the contrary.

    To conclude, the importance of our bilateral relations with Indonesia, and regionally in the context of the Asian century, cannot be overstated.  As a nation we need to be genuinely and continuously engaged with the incoming Widodo government of our very large neighbour of increasing global and regional importance.

     

    Richard Woolcott was formerly Head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Australian Ambassador to Indonesia

  • Elizabeth Elliott. Compassion goes missing on Christmas Island

    When it comes to children in need, most Australians feel compassion.

    Most will applaud today’s announcement that ‘Boat Kids’ will be released into the community. However this decision does not go far enough. It includes only kids aged less than 10 years (excluding many vulnerable teens); only those detained on the Australian mainland (excluding kids on Nauru, Manus and Christmas Islands); and only kids who arrived before July 19th 2013. Furthermore, the number to be released includes kids already living in community detention housing.  

    Christmas Island is a remote tropical ‘paradise’ in the Indian Ocean, over 2600 km from Perth or Darwin. When I visited with the Australian Human Rights Commission in July 2014, as part of their Inquiry into Children in Detention, it was ‘home’ to 174 children, including 26 unaccompanied minors – all boys aged between 14 and 17 years.  Australia continues to detain kids, despite the United Nations Guidelines on the Detention of Refugees that ‘Children should not be placed in detention’ and that ‘Minors who are asylum-seekers should not be detained’.

    Compassion, it seems, has gone missing on Christmas Island.

    ‘Home’ for families in these immigration detention centres consists of a small metal cabin, some 3 x 3 metres squared in one of two rows of similar cabins separated by a wooden walkway. Add a bunk bed and a cot to the rooms and there remains little space for a child to learn to crawl or walk, or for exploratory play. According to the father of a 2 year old boy “the housing is dirty, sub-standard, hard to be there. The child keeps hitting his head on items in the room – the bed, the shelf – because of the lack of space.”

    Cramped conditions, a punishing climate and overcrowded living in close proximity to scores of families make for little privacy and dire health consequences. Childhood infections spread quickly. When we were there many children had a respiratory virus and there had been outbreaks of gastroenteritis. We repeatedly heard the refrain “my kids are always sick.”

    The air-conditioned environment exacerbates symptoms in the many children with asthma. Others have medical conditions requiring assessment, medical or surgical treatment on the mainland – and for some the long wait for transfer had been intolerable.  A two and a half year old with no speech, a 6 year old with deafness requiring grommets for glue ear, a child with a facial abscess needing surgical drainage, a boy with an undescended testes, a child with rotten teeth, a girl with sleep apnoea….

    Of greater concern than signs of physical ill-health, however, are the psychological symptoms we heard of from many children.

    They reflect past and ongoing trauma, including the depression and self-harm many have witnessed in their own mothers. Stress in young children was manifest by onset, in detention, of bed-wetting, nightmares and defiant behaviour. In older children we heard of refusal to eat, separation anxiety, regression of speech, development of stutter, mutism and social withdrawal. Some expressed their stress through their art. A 10 year drew his ‘family home in jail’ and a six year old drew herself behind bars, with the caption ‘I want go out’ . Crying was ubiquitous in these images.

    Conversations with teenagers, who could articulate their predicament, were particularly poignant.

    They became distressed, describing flashbacks of trauma experienced at home, during harrowing boat trips to Australia, and during their time on Manus, where some were sent as a result of incorrect age determination. According to one boy who went to Manus, ‘I saw with my own eyes one boy hung himself in a cupboard – they were taken to hospital.’ They talked of their fear of being returned to Manus when they turned 18. 

    All spoke of feelings of hopelessness, sadness and lack of a future. They talked of frequent crying, families missed, lost expectations, lack of education and feelings of guilt because they had not fulfilled their family’s hopes after more than a year in ‘Australia.’  One boy summed this up as ‘a horrible situation. I feel depressed, preoccupied with my misfortune. I have not smiled or laughed the last few months. There is nothing to make me happy or to tell my family to make them happy.’  Some talked of self-harm and some spoke of death. In the words of one 12 year old girl ’My life is really deth. I don’t know why I’m in the jail realy. I don’t kill any body.’

    Detention of children for lengthy periods is in contravention to the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. This states that ‘The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.’ The UN Human Rights Committee reiterates this: ‘Asylum seekers who unlawfully enter a State party’s territory may only be detained for a brief initial period in order to document their entry, record their claims, and determine their identity.’  Most people have now been detained on Christmas Island for over a year and the anniversary of their arrival came as a bitter blow for many.  One man asked ‘Is it the Australian government’s aim to make us all go mad?’

    As victims of a policy that dictates that any arrival by boat after July 19th 2013 will never be settled in Australia, many have accepted their fate of settlement offshore. But their arbitrary detention without assessment for refugee status has left them in an intolerable limbo. One father said ‘If they won’t have us in Australia, find somewhere else for us to go. We can’t go home.’ A mother expressed her anguish, ‘The criminals, at least they know their sentence – we don’t.’ Many felt guilty for placing their children in such a predicament. As one mother said, ‘Even if I did something wrong, coming here, why ruin the life of our kids?’

    As a reflection of their increasing despair and frustration about the adverse conditions for their children, a group of young mothers with young infants resorted to self-harm.

    When we visited 10 such women – deemed at future risk – were under 24-hour surveillance by guards, not nurses. Despite this mental health crisis the centre has no resident psychiatrist. ‘I swear the physical health is not so much a problem. It is the stress and the psychological impact of the detention that is getting to us,’ said one mother of two.

    It is outrageous to keep asylum seekers in the limbo of uncertainty. It is unacceptable to keep children in detention on Christmas Island, and it is unjust to deny children optimal health care and education.  One mother said ‘one of the most important concerns for my baby is he has not received his BCG vaccine – when everyone in the world should receive it. They say ‘we don’t have it’ or ‘later’ – the story changes.’ In the words of one child, ‘I not want to sit in jail? I want to go school….in here no have school everyday. Please help me?’

    Australians might well ask ‘Where is the compassion on Christmas Island?’

    If we are to retain our international standing as a civilised society, we cannot continue to persecute children seeking asylum as a deterrent to others.

    Elizabeth Elliott AM, is the Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health, Sydney Medical School and Consultant Paediatrician at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

     

     

     

     

     

  • An abuse of power by the Israeli lobby.

    In 1967 the Israeli military attacked the USS Liberty, an American spy-ship which had been monitoring Israeli transmissions about the conflict during the Six-day War. Intercepted Israeli communications indicated that the goal was to sink the Liberty and leave no survivors. 

    As the story reveals, – see link below – both the US President Lyndon Johnson and the Secretary of Defence, Robert Macnamara, did their best to ensure that this action by the Israeli military – an attack on the US navy – never became public. 

    This story is written by Ray McGovern who works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. After serving as an army infantry/intelligence officer, he spent a 27-year career as a CIA analyst. He is co-founded of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

    During the tenure of President George Bush, he provided daily intelligence briefings to the Vice President and the Heads of National Security.   John Menadue

     

    http://consortiumnews.com/2014/08/17/a-uss-libertys-heros-passing/

  • Jennifer Chesters. Private schools, fees and longer term payoffs.

    In a recent article published by TheConversation, Barbara Preston examined the link between type of school attended and progress at university. Barbara concluded that after controlling for tertiary entrance score, university students from government schools outperformed students from private schools. This finding suggests that paying for an expensive private school education may not be the best preparation for university study. If this is the case, perhaps parents paying private school fees are looking for longer term pay-offs for their investment.

    In this paper, I analyse data from the 12th wave of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) project to examine the longer term outcomes of attending private schools. For the analysis, I select one respondent aged between 25 and 34 years per household. The majority of young people have completed their education by the age of 25 years and are settled in their careers by the age of 34 years. The actual analyses that produced the findings discussed here is available (insert hyperlink to appendix here).

    Preliminary analysis shows that individuals who attended Catholic or independent schools were more likely to have completed Year 12 and to have graduated from university, after controlling for the effects of parents’ education, age and sex.

    But are there differences in labour market outcomes? Here the type of private school is important. Although those who attended a Catholic school were, on average, 1.3 times more likely to be employed on a full-time basis compared to those who attended a government school, former independent school students were no more likely to be employed on a full-time basis compared to those who attended a government school after controlling for the effects of level of education, sex and age.

    This result seems to suggest that paying private school fees is no guarantee of securing full-time employment. Given that women in this age cohort are in their prime child-bearing years, I also looked at the effect of interactions between sex and type of school attended; sex and age; and sex and level of education to determine whether there are differences between men and women. As expected, women were less likely than men to be employed on a full-time basis.

    Next, I examined the earnings of those employed on a full-time basis according to type of school attended controlling for the effects of sex, age and level of education. When it comes to weekly earnings, having attended a private school rather than a government school has no effect. So there would seem to be no return on the parents’ investment in terms of the earnings of their offspring.

    Perhaps parents were seeking to ensure that their offspring secured jobs with high levels of prestige in order to maintain their social status. After taking into account the effects of level of education, sex and age, having attended a Catholic school is associated with higher, on average, levels of occupational prestige than having attended a government school.  On average, attendance of an independent school is not associated with higher levels of occupational prestige.

    So why are parents choosing to send their children to independent schools?

    A closer examination of university graduates may shed some light on this paradox. Of the individuals who had completed a university-level qualification, those who had attended an independent school were more likely to have graduated from a Group of Eight (Go8) university compared to those who attended a government school. However, individuals who had attended a Catholic school were no more likely to have graduated from a Go8 university. Perhaps parents expect that graduation from an elite university would provide a pathway into a higher paying career.

    For university graduates employed on a full-time basis, graduation from a Go8 university had no effect on occupational prestige after taking into consideration the effects of sex, age and type of school attended. However, it is interesting to note that attendance of a Catholic school had a positive effect on occupational prestige. There was no pay off for graduation from a Go8 university in the form of increased earnings, nor did type of school attended have any effect, after controlling for the effects of age, sex and field of study.

     

    Summing up, these results call into question the wisdom of paying private school fees, particularly for independent schools. The massive growth in the number of private schools since the 1990s may be having the effect of diluting the advantages perceived to be attached to private schooling. If, as these results suggest, there is no long term advantage to be gained from paying to attend an independent school, why do parents stretch their family budgets to pay private school fees?

    Dr Jennifer Chesters is a Research Fellow at the University of Canberra. This article was first published in The Conversation on 13 August 2014. I also posted an article by Barbara Preston ‘State school kids do better at uni’ on August 13. This article was also first published in the The Conversation.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Saree Makdisi. The catastrophe inflicted on Gaza – and the costs to Israel’s standing.

    The Israeli public relations is almost as powerful as the Israeli military machine. An alternative view is expressed below by Saree Makdisi, a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA, and the author of ‘Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation’. This article was published in ‘Mondoweiss’ which describes itself as ‘a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective’.  John Menadue

    http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/catastrophe-inflicted-standing.html

  • Peter Sivey. Health budget: GP care isn’t the problem, costly specialist care is.

    The opening of eight new medical schools in Australia in the past decade has seen a massive increase in the number of new doctors entering the workforce. The number of new junior doctors graduating in Australia doubled between 2004 and 2011. But while fears of an overall shortage of doctors seem assuaged, we don’t have the right mix of doctors.

    A recent trend is the increasing specialisation of the medical workforce. In 1999, 45% of Australian doctors were general practitioners (GPs) but this proportion had fallen to 38% by 2009. Similar trends can be observed in the United States and United Kingdom.

    This trend is concerning because primary care, provided by general practitioners, is the most efficient and equitable type of health care, particularly preventive care and the management of chronic disease. These components of GP-provided care have the potential to improve health outcomes, lower costs and reduce the need for future more costly interventions.

    In contrast, specialists tend to be reactive and expensive, seeing patients only when a health condition has taken a turn for the worse, when surgery, expensive pharmaceuticals, or other intensive treatments are required.

    Of course, a modern health-care system needs a high-quality specialist sector; specialists are the doctors patients rely on when they’re sickest. But workforce planners should strike the right balance between primary care and specialist physicians.

    So what is causing the growing imbalance towards specialism in medical career decision making?

    Our recent study asked junior doctors in Australia about their job preferences. We did this using a discrete-choice experiment, where respondents made hypothetical but realistic choices about their future career. By analysing their responses statistically, we could tell what factors drove their choices.

    Our results show a range of factors affect choice of speciality. Opportunity to practice procedural work and academic opportunities are some of the factors that drive junior doctors to specialise rather than choose general practice. But the elephant in the room is money.

    Specialists in Australia earn almost twice as much as GPs. Survey data shows average earnings in 2012 of $194,000 for GPs and $360,000 for specialists. Even when adjusted for the longer hours that they work, specialists’ hourly wages are still 60% higher than GPs.

    We found expected earnings have a large effect on choice of speciality. But lowering the income gap could redress the situation. Our modelling shows that increasing GPs’ earnings by A$50,000 per year (a 28% increase from 2008 levels) would increase the number of junior doctors choosing general practice by 11%, or 247 more trainee GPs per year.

    So, how can policymakers increase GPs earnings relative to specialists?

    The main policy tool available is Medicare. Medicare influences GPs’ earnings via rebates for the consultations they provide. Increasing Medicare rebates for GP services would therefore be a simple way of increasing their earnings. Of course, this is entirely the opposite of current government policies to introduce co-payments for bulk-billed consultations and reduce rebates.

    Innovative payment mechanisms may provide a more cost-effective way of increasing GPs’ relative earnings. Introducing additional funding sources using capitation (where doctors are paid for looking after enrolled patients for a whole year, not just per consultation) and pay-for-performance would allow earnings increases to be linked to higher quality of care, rather than just the number of consultations provided.

    Increased earnings for GPs needn’t blow a hole in the budget either. Offsetting savings could come from targeted reductions to Medicare rebates for specialist services, which would reduce the earning power of specialists, especially those working in private hospitals on privately-insured patients.

    In 2012/13, the government spent $3.9bn subsidising private specialist consultations. A proportion of these Medicare subsidies could be redirected to GP consultations.

    Together, these measures could reduce the relative earnings advantages of specialists over GPs, encouraging more junior doctors into general practice.

    Peter Sivey is Senior Lecturer, School of Economics at La Trobe University. This article was first published in The Conversation on 7 August 2014.

     

  • Barbara Preston. State school kids do better at uni.

    State school graduates do better at university than private school graduates with the same end-of-school tertiary entrance score. That’s the clear finding in a number of Australian studies since the 1980s  and in England since the 1990s .

    The Australian research compared academic results at the end of first year at particular universities for cohorts whose entry was based on tertiary entrance scores (now ATAR) for the previous year in the same state. The most recent English research tracked all students who completed the end-of-school A-levels and went directly on to complete a full-time four-year degree course.

    The differences between graduates of state and private schools were substantial (though less pronounced among those who did very well at university). The Australian research found that, on average, graduates of state schools received the same marks at the end of first-year university as graduates of private schools who had tertiary entrance scores around three to six points higher.

    The English research found that at each A-level standard, on average around 7 percentage points more graduates of state schools than graduates of private schools received first or second-class, first division (upper second) honours.

    English results for graduates of independent schools and all categories of state schools, showing percentages that received an upper second or better degree by A-level achievement at the end of school.

    Research in both Australia and England also found that with the same tertiary entrance scores:

    • graduates of co-educational schools tend to do better than graduates of single-sex schools
    • graduates of lower-fee private schools (in Australia, Catholic schools) tend to do better than graduates of higher-fee private schools (in Australia, independent schools)
    • graduates of schools with lower average tertiary entrance scores tend to do better than graduates of schools with higher average tertiary entrance scores
    • graduates of (English) state comprehensive schools do better (to a small extent) than graduates of state selective schools.

    The general finding is that graduates of non-elite and co-educational schools do better at university than graduates of socially and academically elite and single-sex schools who achieved the same tertiary entrance score.

    Independent private schools have similar shares of enrolments in the final school year in Australia and the UK, but the state sector has a smaller share in Australia due to the large private Catholic sector (which at the secondary level has a socio-economic profile closer to the independent sector according to ABS Census data)

    So what can explain this difference?

    There are no definitive explanations for these findings, though there is some attempt in the literature, some indicative data, and much informed speculation. And there is, of course, great variation among individual students – and among schools, universities and university courses.

    Explanations tend to focus on aspects of secondary schooling and on students’ effort levels at university (associated with their cultures and aspirations), and any may be involved in particular cases:

    • Preparation for the end-of-school assessments in private schools, relative to state schools, boosts tertiary entrance results above “underlying ability”, and graduates regress to “underlying ability” level at university.
    • Preparation for life and learning beyond school in private schools (and single-sex schools) relative to state schools (and co-educational schools) is poor, resulting in university performance below “underlying ability”.
    • Graduates of private schools make less effort at university because of perceived long-term advantages of their secondary schooling and other socio-cultural reasons.

    It appears a reasonable assumption that tertiary entrance scores are boosted by a better quality of education at high fee private schools. Fee-based resources several times greater than those of state schools can fund smaller classes and other ways to enhance learning. In addition, selection and exclusion practices can ensure an academic atmosphere not disturbed by disruptive, difficult-to-teach students, or even students without high academic aspirations.

    However, there appears to be contrary evidence: state school students tend to do better in NAPLAN tests than private school students at schools of similar socio-economic status (especially at higher socio-economic levels), according to data on the My School website analysed by researchers Bernie Shepherd and Chris Bonnor for a forthcoming publication.

    Thus other explanations are likely. One involves a narrow focus on tertiary entrance results at many elite schools. Tertiary entrance results are a central aspect of the status and marketing of high-fee private schools – supported by high-visibility league tables and human interest stories in the media. High pressure, close supervision and narrowly defined learning leave little room for independent, self-motivated learning, and developing the personal and social skills required for success at university.

    Single-sex school cultures and practices may not prepare students well for university life. This is hinted at in the literature, but was “obvious” for a recent university graduate I spoke to who attended both single-sex and co-educational secondary schools and said many single-sex school graduates “do not learn to socialise at school, and when they get to uni they just party”.

    Other possible explanations relate to cultural class assumptions around success and entitlement. Some private school graduates may have an explicit belief (whether reasonable or not) that just having attended such an elite school will lead to employment advantages after university. Thus the incentive to work hard at university is diminished.

    Some may have a less conscious belief that they have innate superior intelligence that will get them though university without much additional effort. This sense is not properly tested in the “hothouse” atmosphere of closely supervised elite schooling, but is found wanting in the more open society of university.

    There may also be a lack of motivation for university among those from elite private schools where university is the norm. Those from state schools, where many different destinations are common, make a more deliberate choice for university.

    What are the implications?

    The government has set its sights on a highly differentiated fee and scholarship regime for higher education. Graduates of many universities are likely to have debts of over $100,000 for popular and socially important courses such as science, and debts of over $250,000 for longer courses such as veterinary science.

    Universities with high-demand courses and high fees will need fairer criteria for access to all courses and for the awarding of all scholarships based on entry-level academic merit. This is not just a matter of justice for individuals, but also for our future as a well-educated, productive and fair society.

    English education commentator Nick Morrison suggested that the disparity between state and private school graduates’ success at university ‘should provoke fee-paying schools to question whether they are doing all they can to equip students for university’.

    The Australian Financial Review recently urged people to “do the sums on the true cost of private schools”. It’s apparent that high private school fees may not be buying effective education. In the context of university debts upwards of $100,000, families should “do the sums” on comparable expenditure on schooling.

    Barbara Preston is an independent researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Canberra.

    This article was originally published in The Conversation on 17 July 2014 https://theconversation.com/state-school-kids-do-better-at-uni-29155. Full references are available in the original article.

     

  • David Zyngier. Senate committee backs Gonski.

    Gonski’s report on school funding has been backed by a senate committee even though the federal government isn’t backing it.

    (more…)

  • Kerry Murphy. The persecutions.

    In March 2001, the Taliban dynamited the ancient Buddha statues of Bamian because the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, claimed they were ‘idolatrous’ and idolatry is banned in Islam.  In July 2014, ISIL destroyed the ancient tomb of the prophet Jonah in Mosul for the same reason.[1]  This site was considered a sacred site for Jews, Christians and Muslims for centuries.  Tragically it is not just ancient cultural monuments that are being destroyed by ISIL.  Other accounts refer to smashing of statues in churches and the looting of churches.  What is especially worrying and amazing is their willingness to publicise their war crimes and not merely claim them for themselves, but boast about it.

    There have been Christian communities in the Nineveh plain of northern Iraq for possibly 1700-1800 years.  Some of the Christian communities in Syria and northern Iraq can trace their origins to the early spread of Christianity throughout the Middle East and then Roman Empire.  For nearly two millennia they have survived but ISIL is possibly the most dramatic threat they have faced.[2]

    Initially Christians in Mosul hoped they might be spared the sectarian attacks on Shia by ISIL.  Then on July 14, they noticed the Arabic letter ‘nuun’ ( ن ) for Nasriya (Christian) was daubed outside their properties.  Then ISIL gave the estimated 35,000 Christians an ultimatum to 19 July – convert, pay the jizya tax, or be killed.

    The jizya is a tax levied on non-Muslims in Sharia law.  In ISIL’s case, the jizya was clearly protection money mafia style, and its onerous level was beyond the capacity of many.  This left the Christians with no real option but to flee their homes and abandon their goods.  Some claim they were robbed by militants as they fled, an added indignity.

    ISIL also daubed the Arabic R ( ر ) for rafidah or ‘rejectors’ on the homes of Shia and minorities such as Shabaks and Yazdis and Turkman Shia.  This is a Sunni term used to denigrate those who do not follow their particular religious interpretation.

    More reports are coming out of stoning for adultery, beheading of Shia prisoners (often from the Iraqi or Syrian militaries) and even the execution of the Sunni imams in the main mosque in Mosul, who were seen to be not teaching ‘correct Islam’ and so had to be killed.  One ISIL posting bragged about the execution of ‘rafideh’ for Eid – with horrific pictures of the terrified men in trucks, then kneeling before open pits to be executed.[3]

    It was these type of extremist actions that alienated the Sunni tribes from Al Qaeda in 2007 and lead to the ‘Awakening’ movement whereby Sunni tribal leaders supported the US against Al Qaeda.  It is a disaster for Iraqis that the Iraqi Prime Minister al Maliki has become so sectarian in his policies and actions that the Sunnis feel they are better protected by supporting the Salafist extremists in ISIL than their own Government.  Some Sunnis see Maliki as an ‘Iranian’ and others refer to the ‘good old days under Saddam’.

    The willingness of ISIL to publicise their war crimes – beheading prisoners, shooting prisoners kneeling before ditches and smashing religious icons and statues – is extremely worrying.  They obviously are not afraid of facing war crimes trials for their actions and probably they assumed they are immune from such prosecution may well be sadly right.

    Sadly for the Christians and other minorities of Iraq and Syria, they will not be able to return to their homes for some time, if at all.  The fact that many Palestinians still have their house keys from their homes in Israel which they fled in what they call the ‘Naqba’(catastrophe) of 1948 gives no hope to yet another group of refugees from the Middle East.

    Iraqis tell me that this focus on religion and sect is new in Iraq.  Baghdadi Christians and Muslims would celebrate each other’s religious holidays and exchange greetings and presents for Christmas and Eid.  Intermarriage between Sunni and Shia families was not uncommon, especially in Baghdad.  Now the situation has changed dramatically and sectarianism dominates.  Militias are forcing out such Sunni/Shia couples from their homes, others are being forced to separate just because their spouse is a different sect.[4]

    The labelling of communities with letters designating their status will immediately create fears in our post holocaust world.  We have seen this before.  In an inversion of this, Iraqis in Baghdad and Irbil protested in the streets holding up signs saying things like ‘I am Iraqi and I am a Nasriyan’ or others said ‘We are all Nasriyans’.  There were also protests in London and Paris with people wearing T-Shirts with just the Arabic letter on them, just as it has been seen in the graffiti daubed on homes in Mosul. On Lebanese TV a well-known TV personality wore a T-Shirt with the letter ‘nuun’ ( ن ) and said ‘We are all Nuun’. Others are putting the symbol and letter on Facebook in solidarity with the persecuted. [5]

    Hopefully such intercommunal and intercultural/religious stands will become possible again in Iraq and Syria, though I fear it will take a long time before there is much progress and the extremists are isolated and disempowered.

    Kerry Murphy is a Sydney solicitor who practices in immigration and refugee law.

  • ‘The real danger to Israel comes from within’ interview with Eva Illouz and De Spiegal.

    This interview in De Spiegal is of interest and merit on the Gaza crisis. See link below.  John Menadue.

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-sociologist-eva-illouz-about-gaza-and-israeli-society-a-984536.html

  • Lisa Petheram. Listening to young people’s voices on Refugee and Asylum Seeker Policy

    “They are playing with our lives…every year I get older
    …I want to start a family but I can’t    ”.

    What are young people in Australia thinking about refugee and asylum seeker policy?
    Two youth roundtables recently held by Australia21 have given some insight into the ways that young Australians think about these issues, and their visions for the future. The youth roundtables were held as part of a broader project Australia21 has been undertaking in collaboration with other groups – Asylum Seeker Policy: A fair, just and effective approach. As part of this project, a collection of short essays and a discussion paper on the options have been compiled. Also, on the 11th of July, Australia21 co-hosted an expert roundtable on this topic at Parliament House, with the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Law (UNSW) and the Centre for Policy Development.

    The first youth roundtable was held in Canberra with support from the Crawford School at ANU, with 38 young people aged 18-30 from the public. The second youth roundtable was held with Settlement Services International (SSI) in Sydney with 35 young people of the same age group, specifically of refugee and asylum seeker background. In both workshops a rich picture diagramming approach was used—to understand participants preferred futures around refugee and asylum seeker policy. Discussions from both roundtables were remarkably wide- ranging and insightful and had much overlap in content and opinion, despite participants being from very different experiential and cultural backgrounds. Conversations reflected a strong desire for change in policy and practice in Australia, and a sense of disillusionment and disappointment about public perceptions and treatment of refugee and asylum seekers.

    At the Sydney roundtable, the overarching message was that the refugee journey is long and difficult. “I thought when I got to Australia the hard part was over, but now I have to start again from nothing. It is hard in a different way. I can’t seem to get a start anywhere and it is hard to have hope until I can.” After arriving in the settlement country most people need a range of personally targeted supports to settle successfully, particularly in communities where refugee status carries stigma. Some of the current policy settings seem designed to frustrate that journey rather than support it, and to waste human potential. People appeared to be resilient and energetic but sorely tried.

    Participants commonly expressed strong frustration at the inhumane ways refugee and asylum seekers are treated through restrictive policies, as well as the way they are often stigmatized in the media and by the general public. “We are not animals, we are human”. There was a strong yearning to be treated and to live like others. It was suggested there needs to be strong, empathetic leadership and programs to address stigma and encourage community engagement. “I want to live in an Australia where the Prime Minister has been a detainee and knows what it’s like”. Another participant used a picture of birds being fed, to communicate her hope that if Tony Abbott fed the birds he may develop empathy. One said he would say to the Government “Please make decisions like you are deciding about someone from your own family

    There was much disappointment about new policies that create more uncertainty and fear.  Many were frustrated by being unable to plan or make any goals and being in “limbo land”, especially around study, work and family. “I don’t have anything good to tell myself in in the mirror in the morning. I want to build my life in Australia, but I can’t…How can I ever ask anyone for their daughter’s hand in marriage?”. In particular the inability to work while being processed is excruciating for many of the participants. They talked of having much passion, experience and qualifications and wanting to contribute in Australia by working, but losing resilience and hope. There was also frustration by those that were allowed to work, where time and energy put into gaining qualifications and experience were not recognized “I want to share my skills with Australia”

    At the Canberra roundtable sadness and anger was expressed about the treatment of refugee and asylum seekers. There was much concern particularly around mental health of people in detention and in communities. It was emphasised that policy makers and public should be strongly encouraged to reframe their current ways of thinking about refugee and asylum seekers, and be more open, sincere and unprejudiced in their discourse on the topic. Calls were also made for ‘grown up’ and progressive leadership, and for Australia as a nation to be more cognizant of equality under the law, and our moral and international obligations.

    It was argued that refugee and asylum seekers are often dehumanised in these debates; they are generally not seen by the general public and policy makers as ‘real people’, but as statistics, or criminals who should be behind bars. It was suggested that greater attention needs to be placed on more appropriate and creative solutions to domestic processing, especially in terms of the location and speed of processing. In an ideal future, Christmas Island and Nauru would be closed, and the money saved could be directed towards supporting communities to be involved in the processing and resettlement of refugee and asylum seekers. There were also strong calls for policy modification to ensure that people can have opportunities to contribute more fully to society (e.g. allowing people working rights while being processed).

    Young people have been engaged by Australia21 as part of this project as it is believed they can offer fresh thinking and innovative solutions that are valuable contributions to the policy making process. The outcome from the youth roundtables was reported on at the expert roundtable by a youth representative and will also be incorporated into a full report that will be released later in 2014.

    For more information about Australia21’s project on refugee and asylum seekers and youth engagement, please see www.australia21.org.au