John Menadue

  • Azita Bokan. The tragedy on Manus – an eye-witness account.

    Azita Bokan was on Manus Island as an official Iranian interpreter during the recent violent clashes. What follows is an edited version of her interview by Richard Glover on ABC Radio Sydney on 21 February 2014.

    I came to Australia some 27 years ago and am a proud Australian.  My father was a writer and had a newspaper of his own. He was imprisoned in Iran as a political prisoner for his anti-government views. I escaped Iran and was forced to wait three and a half years in Turkey for my turn to migrate to Australia. At the time Turkey was unsafe and dangerous, rife with smugglers, drug dealers and organised prostitution but I had to wait there alone as a little child without a family. I was very grateful to Australia for rescuing me as a refugee which was why I recently enlisted to assist the Department of Immigration in its efforts to protect Australia’s borders.

    I was previously in Nauru and it is bad, but the situation on Manus is simply horrendous – the heat, the physical conditions, the malnutrition [mostly raw red meat without any vegetables] leading to diseases of many different kinds, and so much more. Oral hygiene is almost completely absent and what dental treatment is available results not in remedial attention but in the detainees having their teeth pulled out without anaesthetic. Most upsetting of all is the absence of anything for the inmates to do day after day and the fact that they mostly sit in dirt looking out to the surrounding fences, which have resulted in personal suffering with deep mental conditions which I can only describe as psychological numbness. When I became aware of this situation, my immediate reaction was that I would prefer to be dead than to live in a camp like this for a day.

    Until the recent troubles, I saw and heard no unruliness or misbehaviour still less violence on the part of the detainees. In fact I could not believe their calm patience, waiting seemingly for better days to come. They told me that they had been warned by departmental officials that if they misbehaved in any way or that something goes on their files suggesting that they were or might be troublemakers, their cases would not be processed and they would not be allowed access to lawyers.

    Then on the Sunday morning, with all of them holding onto the hope that they would one day get out of that hell, they were told by departmental officials that they will never see Australia, that no third country was volunteering to take them, and that because if its awful economic situation PNG would never be able to assist them.

    Despite the fact that most of the Iranians were well educated and their leader was a PhD who was against any protest or uprising, that news became a catalyst for the first real reaction among the inmates. Two guys climbed a fence even though there are many fences, each one further away than the others, and absolutely no chance of escape. The men had no weapons so they threw fruit at the guards, mostly peaches. The response of the guards was to use rocks and metal legs of dismantled tables destined for junking to attack the detainees. Some of the detainees may have thrown back the same rocks at the guards.

    On the Monday morning, we interpreters were told that there was no work for us as no lawyers were being allowed to enter and only the medical team was being admitted. After some delay, some of us were in fact allowed in to assist the medical team and from a distance of 6 or 7 metres, I saw one detainee pushing another guy in a wheelchair. The wheelchair guy was “brain dead” – his mouth was distorted, one arm was hanging down and he could not pull it back up. One of the guards called out to the man pushing the wheelchair – “Get out, get out!!!” The guy pushing the wheelchair held tight to the wheelchair and refused to let go. In very broken English, which I did my best to translate, he said that the guards had killed his mate the previous night and he did not trust them with the wheelchair man. He said he was going to stay with him in the medical room to wait for his turn with the doctor.

    Because of my efforts to interpret, the guards turned on me and accused me of interference and of sticking up for the detainee. This was nonsense as all I was doing was interpreting what he was trying to say. The man said to me that he feared the guards would kill the wheelchair guy if he left him. I offered to the guards that I would push the wheelchair or that they could get someone from the medical team to do so. There were many guards there at the time and one or more of them pushed me away and jumped on the guy pushing the chair. He was strong and would not let go of the wheelchair until 7 of the guards threw him to the ground and held him down. I pleaded with the guards to stop the violence but they and others in the pay of the Government turned against me.

    When my attention was again drawn to the guy in the wheelchair, I could see there was blood all over him. There was a needle in his arm as if for a drip but his arm was bleeding and there was no drip attached to it. No nurse would have done something like that. His head was injured, he had no eye movement and his mouth was hanging to one side. He was just hanging like a piece of meat. Any human being would want to help a person in that state.

    I remonstrated with the guards. I said that you cannot do this to people to whom you owe a duty of care. These people paid everything they had to a people smuggler, they put their lives on the line coming through a difficult journey. Many of them lost loved ones on the way yet they somehow got to Australia. Now you shift them to the most dangerous place in the world away from the media and from the eyes of good hearted Australians. I cannot believe that Australians support what you are doing to these people. You are killing them.

    This outburst had me escorted out and treated worse than a criminal. I knew I would lose my job but I refused to let them do such awful things in silence in the name of Australia so that people elsewhere can think of Australians as a violent people intent on killing innocents.

    While I was sitting in the interpreters’ room waiting to be deported myself, I heard the sound of shooting and a lot of noise and disturbance. So I went up on the roof where I saw some horrendous things. There were many people badly injured. I saw one man who had no brain, and nothing on his neck. His skull was crushed. Another man had his throat cut and a doctor was trying to push a tube through the hole in his neck but there was too much blood coming out. He could not find the man’s lung to get the fluid out while telling someone else to pump air in. I actually heard the doctor say that he was very tired after three days of constant work. I come from a country that went through a violent revolution. I have been through a war. But I have never seen anything like this. It was barbaric.

    I am for stopping the boats and the people trafficking but I want Manus and Nauru closed and the people treated properly. Australian taxpayers are paying a fortune to the Governments of Nauru and PNG to have these terrible camps in their countries. People who cannot pay their mortgages are funding these other Governments for this sinful activity. Bring them to Darwin or other places on the Australian mainland where we have ample facilities to house them. Those who are found not to be refugees should be sent back to their homes. But those who are genuine refugees should be introduced gently to the Australian way of life and culture and then into the community.

    The politicians do not like to admit they are wrong but they have made the wrong decisions here. I appeal to them – please be honest with yourselves. You have children and families. What would you do if your brother’s throat was cut? What if your children were starving, without water or showers, and standing in 50 degree heat? What if they are dehydrated, have diarrhoea vomit every day? Where are your consciences?

     

     

  • Fran Baum & Paul Laris. Beware of the crocodiles, they will keep you out of the garden!

    We interviewed  20 former Australian Federal and State and Territory health ministers about the extent to which they were able to focus on promoting health, health equity and social determinants of health during their tenure. Social determinants of health are the conditions of everyday life (income, housing, food availability, employment, education) and the structural factors that shape those conditions (distribution of wealth, taxation levels, extent of political empowerment) that combine to determine health outcomes and their distribution. Evidence from the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health showed that action on the social determinants are vital to achieving equitable health outcomes.

    One health minister told us of a public servant who advised: ‘Health has two components to it. There’s health services, which is like a swamp full of crocodiles, and public health which is like a very pleasant garden’. The public servant noted that most ministers try and spend as much time ‘in the garden’ as possible but warned the minster to “make sure there’s a fence around the swamp and the crocodiles can’t get out first”.  From our interviews it was clear that nothing detracts more from a focus on social determinants than hospitals demanding ever more resources and ensuring they get on the  front pages. The strategies our ministers reported included “divide and rule”, for instance make allies with GPs at the expense of other groups of doctor  and having a very well-articulated, evidence-based policy framework to “divert money away from this monster of hospital based critical care”.

    Part of the process of fencing in the crocodiles was trying to shift the system towards primary health care, which as one minister said is “the only way to ameliorate the galloping demands and costs of the acute health care system”. Health ministers who had achieved a shift in health care resources in the direction of equity frequently reported it as a politically difficult move, given the competing, often emotive, calls for funding for the acute care sector. The good news is that when they did make a shift in the direction of primary health care they reported it as a legacy of which they were proud.

    Our interviews were with health ministers who held office between 1988 and 2010.  In the current health policy context even fewer few health minsters appear able to fence in the crocodiles. In South Australia we have seen very significant reductions in spending on our community health services, all done under the guise of a health funding crisis. Yet last year the salaried doctors received 9% pay increases, which seems to be a case of the crocodiles running the show! It will be interesting to monitor what happens in Queensland where Minister Springborg appears to be trying to fence in his crocodiles by introducing more stringent contracts, despite threats from the doctors about mass resignations unless Springborg backs down.

    Our study showed that only really brave health ministers are able to stare down vested interests sufficiently to make changes that are likely to increase health equity and bring about action on the social determinants of health. One of the most important things that might drive this action is a strong commitment to social justice and redistribution and a rejection of the current commitment to market fundamentalism as the bible which drives policy decisions. It is tempting to speculate that the influence of  content- free managerialism has joined with careerism amongst politicians  to reduce the likelihood of any effective ministerial commitment to equity.   A number of the ministers we spoke to felt that a spirit of redistribution had been more event in the 1970s and 1980s before the religion of neo-liberalism occupied the state. The introduction of Medicare was possible because it was linked to the Accord between the government, unions and business.

    If we are to see health ministers in the future who are driven to pursue health policy aimed at achieving health equity then they are going to have to stand up to some very powerful ideologies and players. These include the organised medical profession, those pushing market fundamentalism as a basis for organising society and a powerful medical-industrial complex that lobbies for privatisation of health services. With such pressures it becomes easier to see why the compelling evidence on the social determinants of health equity quite rarely translates into enacted policy.

     

    Reference

    Baum, F. Laris, P. Fisher,M. Newman, L. MacDougall C.  (2014) Dear Health Minister:  tend the garden but make sure you fence the crocodiles. Journal Epidemiology and Community Health Published 2 January 2014,  doi:10.1136/jech-2013-203040 http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2014/01/02/jech-2013-203040.abstract.html?papetoc

    Fran Baum is the Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Director Southgate Institute for Health,Society and Equity, Flinders University. Paul Laris is Member Medical Board of Australia and adjunct researcher Southgate Institute for Health, Society & Equity, Flinders University.

     

     

  • Walter Hamilton. Calling a spade a spade in Ukraine.

    Ukraine, the U.N., the European Union and the U.S. have nine days in which to influence the tide of events in Crimea or witness the second (after the excision from Georgia of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008) expansion of Russia’s military and political control beyond its post-Soviet borders. Nine days. That’s how long the Sochi Paralympics will run – during which the prestige-conscious Vladimir Putin is unlikely to declare ‘Full Ahead’.

    Everything about the Russian takeover in Crimea suggests a carefully planned, long-term strategy. The concoction of excuses being offered by the Kremlin, the disinformation about ‘fascist threats’ to Russian-speakers and Jews, comes straight from the old KGB playbook. It is utter nonsense to suggest the special forces being used in Crimea were briefed, equipped and deployed in response to an appeal for help from ousted Ukrainian president Yanukovych contained in that piece of paper produced days after the troops were on the ground. An operation like this, requiring the coordination of many external and internal elements, had to have been in the making for weeks, if not months. The reason Russia refused last month to sign the negotiated political settlement in Kiev becomes apparent: Putin had another solution in mind.

    Sitting in Sydney, thousands of kilometres from Simferopol, never having visited that part of the world, I am little qualified to comment on the events unfolding there, I admit. But I have read enough history and heard enough of Putin lamenting the ‘disastrous’ break up of the old Soviet Union to sense that Crimea satisfies more than a passing ambition for the Russian leader. Some more knowledgeable observers believe he is acting out of a need to distract attention from weaknesses in his own country’s economy and social cohesion; that what we are witnessing is opportunistic adventurism. While adventurists are not necessarily less dangerous than methodical imperialists, the implication of their analysis, that Putin is riding the tiger’s tail, smacks to me of wishful thinking. And, anyway, successful adventurism often proves habit forming, and domestic problems, and the opposition movements that in normal circumstances coalesce around them, tend to melt away when the cause of ‘national survival’ is invoked.

    The Internet offers us a bewildering array of information, commentary and analysis on the crisis. What I did not know about the history of Ukraine, up until a few days ago, was a lot; for many people, I imagine, it has been a quick swot. Yes, Ukraine has been an independent country for only a short time. Yes, it is divided along religious, ethnic and linguistic lines. Yes, Crimea occupies a special place in the survival story of the Russian people. Yes, Nikita Khrushchev may have been tipsy when he ceded Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. But, so what? An invasion is an invasion, and no hastily organised referendum conducted under the guns of an occupying power can be considered a legitimate act of self-determination (first run a Russian flag above the parliament building, then ask the people whether they want to be part of Russia––an order of events reminiscent of the Nazi’s Lebensraum program). The use of thugs and militias to intimidate and threaten opponents––a further tool in the Kremlin’s kitbag, as we are seeing––is the present reality, and no amount of gesturing to former historical realities can cancel out what is happening on the ground today.

    Very few Europeans would welcome a return to the Cold War. Fewer still want a ‘hot’ war over Crimea. I suspect most governments would be satisfied if Putin stops there and does not extend his annexation to include eastern Ukraine. If so, there will be a touch of ‘Munich’ about the collective sigh of relief. (A Mark Twain quote is being used a lot lately: ‘History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.’) The planned economic and political sanctions are unlikely to have a deep or lasting effect. They’re already being be cited by the Kremlin as evidence of Western hypocrisy and anti-Russian animus; any chinks in the solidarity of the sanctioning states will be ruthlessly exploited.

    All nations bordering Russia, meanwhile, have been put on notice, especially those with significant Russian-speaking populations. Over the past 25 years, efforts have been made to draw Russia into the European sphere––under Putin now the tide is ebbing. The ancient contested ground of Central Europe faces increasing pressure to re-align national interests with Russian interests. The levers for this pressure from the east will include the threatened withdrawal of energy supplies, ‘nationalist’ agitation from within the Russian diaspora and blatant military power. There will be sweeteners, too, such as soft loans and trade privileges. All will be played out amid a geopolitical conversation about growing American irrelevance and impotency (see: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam). Such is the worst-case scenario.

    A best-case scenario might be something like this: the withholding of international recognition for a Russian-annexed Crimea (the example of Burma-Myanmar is instructive about what can be achieved through a lasting international resolve); a policy of engagement with Russia based on strict reciprocity (starting with strategic trade goods) that stays Putin’s hand from turning off the gas pipelines running west; immediate material support for open and fair elections in Ukraine, with sufficient independent observers on the ground to validate the process; and encouragement for a more inclusive political culture, which might assuage Russian concerns about creeping NATO-ism. A failed and bankrupt state in Ukraine would, after all, be a more immediate threat to Russia than any member of the European Union. It could be smarter for Russia to let the E.U. and its partners pick up the tab. Now that could be the starting point for a real conversation with the Kremlin.

    Walter Hamilton reported on international affairs for the ABC for 13 years.

  • National Council of Priests – Choosing a successor to Cardinal Pell – a pastor or a prince.

    In late February the National Council of Priests met with the Catholic Bishops Commission for Church Ministry. This is an annual dialogue. Fr Ian McGinnity who is the President of the National Council of Priests sent to his colleagues a record of the issues that were raised with the Bishops. The issues raised referred generally to the selection of bishops and archbishops. It has particular relevance to the process which will now be put in  motion for the appointment of a successor to Cardinal Pell. In its conversation with the Bishops, the National Council of Priests refers to comments by Pope Francis about the qualities he was looking for in bishops. The Council also described the issues which the Council believes should be followed in the appointment of bishops and archbishops.  John Menadue

    Episcopal appointments

    Ian McGinnity

    Since we last met two momentous events have occurred in the life of the universal Church. Firstly, the reigning Pope retired for reasons of age and health (only two other Pope’s have resigned from their post in the history of the Church, the first being St Celestine V in 1294; the last was Gregory XII, in 1415) sending a significant message to all involved in Church leadership that it was possible and also desirable to do so for the good of the Church.

    Secondly, we saw the election of a new Bishop of Rome, Francis, who has introduced a very different style of leadership in the universal Church which has given new hope and encouragement to many. Pope Francis has modelled and encouraged leaders at all levels in the Church to return to a more simple and Gospel aligned style of life.

    At the Holy Thursday Chrism Mass in Rome, Pope Francis delivered an appeal to priests to live simply, close to the needy and the suffering poor, instead of worrying about careers as “church managers”. He also said those who do not live in humility close to the people risk becoming “collectors of antiques or novelties instead of being shepherds living with the smell of the sheep”.

    On June 21 during a meeting with Nuncios and apostolic delegates he outlined the characteristics he wanted to see in candidates to serve as Bishops. He said he wanted “pastors who are close to their people, fathers and brothers, who are meek, patient and merciful, who love interior poverty and live that externally with a simple lifestyle and won’t have the mindset of a prince.”

    Candidates must be real pastors and shepherds “sustaining with love and patience the plans that God is working within his people. One who is wed to his diocese, the spouse of one church who is not constantly  seeking another.” He also stated “beware of those who are ambitious, who seek the episcopacy.”

    These criteria are challenging for all who assume this office. There is no doubt the selection process is difficult with fewer candidates and more onerous responsibilities. However a few issues still need to be faced.

    • The extraordinary length of time it takes to appoint a new Bishop, particularly in smaller dioceses.
    • The unfair expectation on elderly bishops to continue in office past the age of 75.
    • The movement of bishops between dioceses and archdioceses.
    • The lack of consultation of different groups (including the smelly sheep) in the selectionprocess.
    • The imposition of bishops with little past experience and smell of the sheep.We are aware that you have a major consultative role in the appointment of your brother bishops in conjunction with the Nuncio and the Congregation for Bishops.

      We respectfully suggest that you as a group express your hope that this process of selection will improve for the good of the people and priests.

      People rightly expect a more professional process for the selection of leaders the 21st Century.

  • Daniel Brammall. Financial advisers and the conflict of interest.

    In December last year the new government announced how it was going to ‘make financial advice more affordable’ by amending the previous government’s ‘Future of Financial Advice’ (FOFA) proposals (1).

    Recall that the FOFA legislation was introduced in response to hundreds of millions of dollars of Australians’ savings  being lost in the corporate collapses of investments like Opes Prime and Westpoint, as well as financial planners like Storm Financial. These spectacular corporate implosions and the actions of incentivised planners largely took place between 2005 and 2007 — in what we now remember as the good times, before the GFC. Of the nearly $400m invested in the Westpoint group of companies, nearly half was recommended by financial planners (2).

    Given that financial planners propose to advise us on the $1.5 trillion we have in superannuation (4), what do we do about the Financial Services industry’s pink elephant: is this a sales or advice industry?

    In 2009 this prompted an investigation into the Financial Services industry by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services (3) which asked the question “what is the role of financial advisers in this country?”.

    The answer was unambiguous: “On the one hand, clients seek out financial advisers to obtain professional guidance on the investment decisions that will serve their interest, particularly with a view to maximising retirement income. On the other hand, financial advisers act as a critical distribution channel for financial product manufacturers, often through vertically integrated business models or the payment of commissions and other remuneration-based incentives” (3). The ASIC, as Financial Services watchdog, was more strident: “Remuneration structures used in the financial advice industry create real and potential conflicts of interest that can distort the quality of advice (5).” The ASIC says that not only are conflicts of interest inconsistent with providing quality advice but they are often not evident to consumers. It believes the most effective way to deal with this is to remove the remuneration structures that give rise to these conflicts.

    What could that look like? Simple: to hold yourself out to be a financial adviser, you must be impartial. This means no links to product manufacturers, no commissions and no ‘asset fees’ (commissions by another name). This doesn’t necessarily mean that no one can work for a bank or insurer anymore. It just means that you can’t hold yourself out to be giving impartial advice.

    However on the whole the Financial Services industry is not set up that way. Of the 18,000 financial planners in this country, four out of five are owned by a bank or insurance company. Of the remainder, virtually all of them receive commissions or charge fees calculated on the size of your wallet. In fact, fewer than 30 advisers Australia-wide appear to meet these criteria (8). A small band of independents is gathering under the brand of the Independent Financial Advisers Association of Australia (IFAAA) which last year trademarked a ‘Gold Standard of Independence’, specifically forbidding these three conflicts.

    The big end of town, though, has influenced the new government to the extent that the issue of conflicts has been quietly brushed under the carpet. Last week the Assistant Treasurer said: “The current ban on conflicted remuneration captures a far wider range of circumstances than was originally intended and has resulted in significant compliance costs for industry” (7).

    Here’s the point …

    Many thousands of Australians collectively lost hundreds of millions of dollars – some of them their life savings – in collapses like Westpoint. Conflicts of interest was primarily behind it and the intention of FOFA was to avoid this ever happening again. However the new government is dismantling the reforms because industry has convinced them it costs too much. In doing so industry has successfully transferred the cost to the consumer because without reforms that squarely address conflicts of interest, Westpoint will most certainly happen again.

    — Daniel Brammall, Brocktons Independent Advisory

    References:

    (1)   http://axs.ministers.treasury.gov.au/media-release/011-2013/

    (2)   https://westpoint.asic.gov.au/wstpoint/wstpoint.nsf/byheadline/Actions+against+financial+planners?opendocument

    (3)   http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/committee/corporations_ctte/fps/report/report.pdf

    (4)   http://www.superannuation.asn.au/resources/superannuation-statistics/

    (5)   http://www.apesb.org.au/uploads/attachment-4-c-asic-submission-to-pjc-inquiry.pdf

    (6)   http://www.smh.com.au/business/profit-above-all-else-how-cba-lost-savings-and-hid-its-tracks-20130531-2nhde.html

    (7)   “Retreat on planners to hit investors”, AFR 8 February 2014.

    (8)   http://www.superguide.com.au/how-super-works/truly-independent-financial-advisers-in-australia

     

  • Arja Keski-Nummi. Offshore Processing in Cambodia – Really?

    The idea of Cambodia as a so-called offshore processing centre is not new. For a nanosecond I recalled the former government contemplated Cambodia as a likely candidate for an offshore processing centre. Thankfully saner heads prevailed, although to their discredit they did also contemplate East Timor.

    The scramble to avoid doing the decent thing and accept our responsibility to process asylum seekers quickly and fairly is mind-boggling.  This government is following in the questionable footsteps of the former government in shirking decency for short-term political gain.

    Just consider the countries we are using for off shore processing or the one, Cambodia, now being considered.

    According to the CIA publication The World Fact Book 2013, Australia’s population of 22.2million has a life expectancy of close to 83 years, a GDP per head of $US 42 000  We have 3.85 doctors available for each 1000 people and by international comparisons negligible poverty. Compare this with PNG which has a GDP per head of $US 2700, a life expectancy of 66 years, where 37% of the population live below the poverty line and where there are only 0.05 doctors per 1000 .In Cambodia the statistics show the following for a population of 15.2milllion: life expectancy 63 years, GDP per head $US 2400, and where there are 0.23 doctors per 1 000 population and where 20% of the population live below the poverty line.

    We live in different worlds. Not only should we be embarrassed.  We should be ashamed to think that this is even considered.

    If we were truly serious about regional security and building a sustainable and dynamic regional economy and societies then we would not be offshoring our responsibilities for a small proportion of the world’s asylum seekers. We would not be decreasing our aid efforts in poverty alleviation, health and education as we have done to the tune of $250 million in the Asia Pacific region while “bribing” poor, politically unstable countries to take asylum seekers for an unknown number of years.

    The Foreign Minister cited the Bali Process as justification for the approach to Cambodia. It is a disingenuous characterization of the Bali Process to see an arrangement with Cambodia as consistent with recent Bali Ministerial communiqués that endorsed the concept of regional processing centres. It would do the government well to know how such arrangements worked in the Comprehensive Plan of Action under the Indo China program to understand how regional governments might view such arrangements now.

    It would also diminish the Bali Process if the Government uses it as merely a people smuggling forum and not actively support the development of the broader regional arrangements that Bali Process governments have endorsed in recent years and which address in a more holistic way both the people smuggling dimensions of population movements as well as protection and support arrangements for displaced people.  Admittedly such arrangements are not “quick fixes” but in the long run are more sustainable and realistic.  The pity is that Australian governments seldom have a long-term strategy in mind and are limited by their lack of imagination, the political cycle and fear of an electoral backlash.

    In 2012 there was an answer in the proposed arrangement with Malaysia that the Abbott Opposition rejected because it suited them, not because they really believed it was wrong but because they did not want the former government to succeed in “stopping the boats”.  Well, now that the Abbott Government has succeeded in that they should be big enough to revisit the Malaysia arrangement. It should see if it can be salvaged, make the necessary legislative changes and get on with the job. That arrangement was sound, it was humane, it was supported by the UNHCR and importantly it addressed the issue of displacement “in situ” unlike the arrangements on Nauru, PNG or indeed if it happens Cambodia. None of these are countries of transit or in any appreciable way countries of first asylum. Indeed with the current arrangements we are exporting those problems to them!

    If the two parties were really serious they would do what two previous Governments, the Fraser and Hawke governments did when faced with similar issues and talk to each other, agree on a way forward and show leadership by dealing with these issues not as a political free for all that creates social disharmony but rather as a responsible and humane approach to address the circumstance of vulnerable people displaced by war and civil unrest.

    Arja Keski-Nummi was First Assistant Secretary of the Refugee, Humanitarian and International Division of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship from 2007 to 2010.

     

  • Andrew Babkoff. The human side of refugees.

    (*names have been changed to maintain privacy)

    There is a significant amount of misinformation and misunderstanding surrounding asylum seekers (in particular ‘boat people’) and refugees in Australia. In response, a number of people outside of the mainstream media have highlighted the need for refugees’ stories to be presented through mainstream outlets. My personal experience as a teacher of refugees and migrants has allowed me to see the human side of the refugee issue by hearing about the stories of people who have been granted asylum in Australia.

    Below is a reflection I wrote after a numeracy class I had with a group of refugees and migrants in Brisbane in 2013.

    We had our tests today in numeracy. I gave them the shopping docket test and the one on the ANZAC biscuits recipe. Attendance was good. I spent the first twenty minutes pre-teaching vocabulary and reminding the students to show their working on the test paper. When they started the test, a hush of concentration fell over the room, and I kept a lookout for anyone who needed help. Some students, especially the younger ones, worked quickly, only needing a little help with concepts and the wording of questions. A couple of the mature age students, Afghan men, lagged behind and needed a lot of explaining, although their maths skills were quite good. Hassan, who seems around seventy, laboured faithfully over his paper, scribing his working and answers methodically and accurately. Several times, when they were speaking to each other in Dari, I had to remind Hassan and Mustafa, a man in his late forties, to ask only me if they had any problems, as it was a test. I sensed their frustration building, but I had to keep it fair for all students and maintain the standards of the process.

    I ended up spending another half an hour with Hassan after class. Apologetic and grateful for my help, he felt compelled to explain his slowness. His wife, in a beginner English class, came in and, after seeing us talking, sat down at the front of the room facing us. In what most people would call broken English (which was a huge improvement from when I first met him), Hassan recounted to me how he’d been denied the opportunity of an education in Afghanistan. He said, “I couldn’t have an education. Neither could my wife. Many times I’ve thought, ‘Why am I alive? What am I living for? Wouldn’t I be better off dead?’”

    For many years, he had done business in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, so spoke five languages fluently, but he lacked the English to be able to work and support his family in Australia. He told me, with heartbreak on his weathered face, how in Afghanistan he and his sons had run a successful used car business and that, when he had refused to share his profits with the Taliban, they had killed two of his sons. As he spoke, tears ran down his face and his wife wept silently. Despite her very limited English, I felt she knew what her husband was talking about. After he told me they had brought their three daughters to Australia, he and his wife lit up with joy as they expressed their gratitude at being given a second chance at life.

    Hassan came to Australia by boat with his wife and three daughters. Sadly, his third son and daughter-in-law died en route to Australia.

    Many refugees have similar stories of escaping horrors such as the torture, rape and murder of people in their family or community. In many cases, the journey to asylum is long and painful. It can also include years enduring the conditions of overcrowded refugee camps. In some cases, mothers even resort to prostitution to attain limited food for their children while staying in a camp. Some asylum seekers have to go to several different countries before they are finally granted refugee status. For some, getting on an old boat to come to Australia is the last option for survival, not an easy way to a better life by ‘cutting the queue’. If someone is willing to leave their home country and give AUD20, 000 or more to a ‘people smuggler’ to make the perilous journey across the sea to Australia, then it must be an act of extreme desperation to escape a situation that promises dangers such as persecution, even death. Some families send their eldest son with all their savings, a gamble for safety.

    In my nine years of teaching, I have never seen such determination to learn as I see among my refugee students. People like Hassan have rescued their families from imminent danger, giving them the chance to have a full and productive life. Though they may have experienced or witnessed horrific abuse, they live with a spirit of resilience and profound gratitude.

    As Hassan told me, “Here, in Australia, I feel for the first time I am free. I have started to live here. I and my family are very happy here.”

    Andrew Babkoff was an English language teacher in Seoul for five years. He is now an ESL teacher in Brisbane.

     

     

  • Mark Gregory. NBN – ageing copper network and structural separation.

    The Australian telecommunication industry is in crisis and centre stage is an ageing copper network that some would have you believe is good for another hundred years and others argue it is time to move to an all fibre access network.

    But the problems extend far beyond copper versus fibre and go to the heart of what an industry needs if it is to be a successful contributor to the Australian economy. As Australia struggles to find out how this sorry saga will end, questions should be asked of our politicians and telecommunication industry leaders why there is no plan for the future.

    To understand why criticism can be levelled at the development of one of Australia’s most important industries it is necessary to wind back the clock to 1982 when the Davidson Enquiry recommended the introduction of a competitive telecommunications industry.

    At the time Australia had three telecommunication organisations. The Australian Telecommunications Commission (ATC), trading as Telecom Australia, was responsible for the provision of terrestrial telecommunication services within Australia. Aussat Pty Ltd was responsible for satellite telecommunication and broadcasting services within Australia, and the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) was responsible for the provision of international telecommunication services. Aussat was established with a restrictive license that prevented competition with Telecom Australia, and to ensure this was adhered to, Aussat was effectively prevented from raising the capital it needed to flourish and two directors of Telecom were appointed to the Aussat Board.

    The Davidson Enquiry’s recommendation was timely and if it was implemented carefully the Australian telecommunications industry could have entered a period of expansion, competition and prosperity. So what went wrong? Everything.

    The first mistake, which has never been corrected, was a failure to map out the future of the fixed infrastructure, which at the time was largely copper in the access network and coaxial cable, microwave radio or copper pairs in the transit links.

    Optical fibre was new in 1982 and the Telecom Research Labs had started the process of introducing optical links into the Australian telecommunications network. Enough was known about the potential future capabilities of optical fibre for forward network planning to incorporate it into all major trunk routes by year 2000 and access networks thereafter.

    During the 1950s the then Postmaster General’s Department expanded the copper network beyond urban areas and commenced an ongoing maintenance and upgrade program. A key reason the copper network expanded beyond the urban areas was the recently adopted universal service principal by government that resulted after a robust campaign by regional and remote Australians for telephone services.

    The modern Australian copper network was progressively rolled out in the 1950s, first in urban areas and then to regional areas, with an anticipated lifetime of 50 years. In some areas the copper network is now more than 10 years beyond the anticipated lifetime. Copper networks do degrade over time, due to the effects of water leakage, the environment and mechanical damage. Over the decades the cost of maintaining the copper network has been steadily climbing.

    In the period 1982 to 1992 the fate of the three monopoly telecommunications providers was debated within the federal government, and initially the focus appeared to be on how to ensure each organisation remained viable rather than how to promote competition. For example, proposals for Aussat and OTC to merge were rejected in favour of OTC being merged with the ATC which was renamed AOTC in 1991 and finally became Telstra Corporation in 1993. Aussat was sold to a new entrant, Optus, as part of a deal enabling it to share a duopoly with Telstra in 1991-97 as a first step towards national infrastructure competition.

    Guidance on how the fixed infrastructure network could be expected to change over the next 50 years was not provided and was put into the hands of the telecommunications market to best determine, within the constraints of an amended Trade Practices Act (1997). But the reality was and remains that the future of the fixed infrastructure remained largely in Telstra’s hands until the advent of the 2009 National Broadband Network (NBN) policy, though this policy was flawed and Telstra retained ownership of exchanges, pits, ducts, traps and other infrastructure to be utilized by the NBN.

    In 1997 the government made extensions to the Trade Practices Act 1974 that guaranteed access to Telecom (Telstra) infrastructure on terms that were to be negotiated and ultimately regulated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). In 1997 the Australian telecommunications market was formally opened to full competition in accordance with the Telecommunications Act 1997.

    Or so the government would have us believe, because by carefully restructuring the existing incumbents the government created two monopolies that remain today: Telstra (national copper access network) and Aussat (later Optus – satellite broadcasting).

    Whilst other companies have launched satellites, installed undersea cables, installed fibre networks and built mobile cellular networks, Telstra and Optus remain dominant because each was provided with public infrastructure and in Telstra’s case the public infrastructure included the thousands of telephone exchanges and tens of thousands of kilometres of pits, ducts and traps that house the copper network.

    So Australia slipped into a regime where “competitors” would pay Telstra and Optus to utilise their infrastructure at rates negotiated or set by the ACCC, which ultimately include a profit component that ensures Telstra and Optus remain viable. The degree to which Optus retains an anti-competitive advantage has diminished more than Telstra’s anti-competitive advantage.

    Telstra in particular has taken every opportunity to leverage its infrastructure to optimise profit, often arguably at the expense of competition. As mobile telephone networks became more prevalent Telstra was able to convince the government that the mobile network should be used to provide aspects of black spot remediation, provision of emergency information and services that might be considered to be better provided under the universal service for which Telstra was most recently awarded another contract for 20 years in 2012.

    What this means is that Telstra has been able to draw on local, state and federal government funds to assist in the build out of the Telstra mobile cellular network. The extent of public funding received by Telstra for mobile network expansion has been difficult to quantify.

    At the last election the government announced that $100 million would be provided to assist with mobile cellular network expansion and black spot remediation. Telstra will argue that its network is best placed to facilitate the government’s aims, but only if all the money or the greater proportion goes its way.

    By the early 2000s Telstra found itself with two infrastructure competitors in the mobile cellular market and about 10 infrastructure competitors in the provision of DSL over the copper network. Prior to 2008 Telstra charged DSL providers for fixed telephone connection line rental in conjunction with a line rental cost for the provision of DSL. Effectively for every DSL provider customer Telstra would benefit through the provision of a fixed telephone service ensuring Telstra’s profit related to the copper network remained high.

    The decision by the ACCC, which Telstra fought all the way to the High Court in 2008, to introduce unconditioned local loop provisions effectively ended Telstra’s ability to force DSL providers to include fixed telephone connections with DSL.

    The loss of this income and the ACCC’s ongoing review of the charges that Telstra could levy DSL providers for DSL only connections meant that Telstra put the fixed network infrastructure into a holding pattern whilst Telstra focused its investment on expanding and upgrading its mobile cellular network.

    In the Howard government years between 1996 and 2007 questions were asked of Telstra about upgrading the copper network to FTTN for broadband delivery, and as time progressed the FTTP option was also discussed. The Rudd government asked the same questions and received the same answers, which amounted to Telstra asking for a government handout to upgrade to FTTN or overbuild to FTTP.

    By the 2000s there was a dawning realisation that effective competition would only flourish if there was a way to do what should have been done in the mid-1980s and that was to split Telstra into retail and wholesale organisations, so that future privatisation would facilitate effective retail growth whilst ensuring the wholesale organisation could go to the market when demand dictated to upgrade or overbuild infrastructure.

    In the Australian context this means upgrading or overbuilding the entire network, no piecemeal approach, no urban cherry picking of high value areas, because the universal service legislation effectively enshrines the right of every Australian to fair and equal access to a standard telephone service (it does not dictate fair and equal access to broadband or mobile services, which are left to the market). The 2012 government review and update of the universal service obligation did not include the provision of data services in the legislation and for this reason the outcome was flawed. Any thought that regional and remote Australia would accept anything less than a socially acceptable national outcome would return us to the robust campaign days of the early 1950s that led to the universal service in the first place.

    Whilst not discussing the national broadband network at this point, but staying focused on the reasons why the Australian telecommunications industry is not truly open and competitive, it needs to be pointed out that by “leasing” access to Telstra’s infrastructure for the national broadband network the government has effectively ensured that Telstra will retain its market dominance, because it can undercut any provider using the national broadband network knowing that it can make up the income shortfall through the profit it receives through the infrastructure lease agreement and maintenance arrangements.

    So where to from here? Australia is long overdue for a non-political rethink of how to facilitate an open and competitive telecommunications industry that results in effective structural change that includes Telstra’s separation into retail and wholesale organisations and also provides forward looking guidance on what the industry’s infrastructures needs will be over the next millennium.

     

    Mark Gregory is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at RMIT University. His blog can be found here.

     

  • Walter Hamilton. The ABC and its Japanese Cousin.

    If the board and management of the ABC need to firm up their ideas about the proper relationship between a public broadcaster and the government of the day they might consider what is happening in Japan.

    NHK, that nation’s public broadcaster, is a $7bn enterprise largely funded from television licence fees, with a board of governors appointed by the prime minister. It exerts enormous influence through its highly rating news and information programs, but the situation in which it now finds itself––criticised for being a mouthpiece for the conservative national government––is in sharp contrast to the ABC’s predicament. In thinking about how to respond to the attacks of Tony Abbott and others, managing director Mark Scott and chairman Jim Spigelman might reflect on their Japanese cousin.

    There are direct parallels. The ABC has an international service that must report on controversial issues such as the Navy’s involvement in forcing back boats of asylum seekers from Indonesia. NHK has an international service that must report on issues just as touchy, including the territorial disputes Japan has with China and South Korea.

    On 25 January, at his first news conference after being appointed NHK president, Katsuto Momii (a former business executive with no background in broadcasting) was asked how the organisation should approach the subject of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands. He replied: ‘International broadcasting will be different from domestic programs. Regarding the territorial issue, it will only be natural to clearly present Japan’s position. It would not do for us to say “left” when the government is saying “right”’. In responses to other questions, he effectively endorsed the Abe government’s position on visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, the use of ‘comfort women’ during the war and the necessity of a new state secrets law.

    Though clearly embarrassed by this kowtowing performance, the government’s chief spokesman later excused Momii’s remarks on the basis that he was expressing his ‘personal views’––as if that made them irrelevant. (Former ABC chairman, Donald McDonald, while still in that position, continued his fund-raising activities for the Liberal Party according to the same logic, so there is an Australian precedent.) On Friday, summoned before a parliamentary committee, a nervous Momii heard an opposition member express the concern of some that NHK was becoming ‘the public relations department of the government’. Also last week, an economics professor quit an NHK radio program, on which he’d been a commentator for 20 years, after being told to refrain from criticising the nuclear power industry during the current Tokyo gubernatorial election. Keeping silent on the election issue, he was advised, was NHK’s way of maintaining balance.

    By some accounts, the man that Momii replaced at the top of NHK, Masayuki Matsumoto, decided not to seek a second term because of complaints from within Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party that NHK gave too much prominence to critics of nuclear power and the American military bases in Japan. It must be said, however, Matsumoto’s presidency was marked by other scandals and for most of his three years the now-opposition DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) was in office.

    Nevertheless, for someone who watches NHK daily (via satellite) a change in tone and content of its news and current affairs programs has become more apparent since the Abe government returned to power. Conspicuous has been the switch from prominent coverage of anti-bases activities in Okinawa to muted and irregular coverage of this issue. For such a thing to be apparent is significant because, for as long as I can remember, NHK’s news product has been predictably middle-of-the-road. Never flamboyant or opinionated, its programs could be boring through avoidance of controversy, and thus culturally conservative, but rarely did they carry political bias on their sleeve. Now, according to Momii, the policy is: what’s right for the LDP government is right for NHK.

    How this will play out with the Japanese public remains to be seen. Already one in four television owners is refusing to pay the NHK licence fee, for whatever reason. In this respect, NHK is more exposed to the public mood than the ABC, which is funded directly by parliament. It is easier for the Abbott government to punish the ABC by, for instance, taking away the Australia Network (which is funded separately through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade).

    There are some within the ABC who would welcome this step. They have always felt the international service sapped resources from the corporation’s primary, domestic functions and would rather have the battle-lines with the Coalition drawn along the issue of how the ABC serves its Australian audience.

    But this would be risky and shortsighted. Australia Network, if it is to project the nation’s values to the world, must be able to report without fear or favour, a core value in a society that embraces free speech. Here and now is the place to stand up and be heard. Secondly, the ABC’s critics obviously believe it is easier to make the case that the corporation has grown ‘too big’ than it is to win the ‘bias’ argument. (Donald McDonald himself took this line during a recent appearance on the ABC, though when asked for examples to prove the ABC was overstretched only mentioned seeing errors in Supers, the text that appears on screen identifying people during news items.) Chopping off the Australia Network, if achieved without great political cost, could embolden more and deeper cuts aimed at specific domestic services.

    In making a defence for the role of a vigorous public broadcaster the ABC’s bosses might look down the path NHK is sliding and take heart from the alarm being raised in Japan. The ABC’s journalists and other program-makers, meanwhile, though understandably eager to rush to the barricades to counter the apparent threat from the conservative side of politics should think again. It would be much better for them and for their organisation not to treat this as a partisan cause (Labor, when in power, also wants a co-operative ABC) and avoid openly siding with critics on the left (including on Facebook). The principles of free speech and openness that form part of the fabric of our democracy are, and must remain, above party politics. If the ABC, in upholding the highest standards of professional journalism, must sometimes say ‘right’ when the government says ‘left’, then the Australian public can be relied upon to know and respect the difference.

    Walter Hamilton, a former Tokyo correspondent, worked at the ABC for 33 years.

     

  • Walter Hamilton. A Strategy Less Than Grand: Where the ‘New Japan’ Goes Wrong.

    In a commentary published by the Lowy Institute entitled “Japan is Back: Unbundling Abe’s Grand Strategy*, Dr. Michael Green (Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic International Studies in Washington, DC) analyses the political and economic policies of Japan’s conservative government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and concludes that “the overall strategy could be quite effective” in enhancing Japan’s prestige and forcing the cooperation of China.

    The article is detailed, wide-ranging and informed by high-level contacts within Japan. The credentials of the author and the forum in which his views were aired suggest they are likely to be consonant with advice that Prime Minister Tony Abbott is receiving from his foreign affairs advisers. The article deserves a close reading because Green’s attempt to give Abe’s policies the status of a “grand strategy” unintentionally exposes their underlying contradictions.

    The author begins by arguing that Abe’s strategy does not represent a break with the past: “[His] national security agenda is not, in fact, a departure from the general trajectory established by his predecessors in the post-Cold War era.” Elsewhere, he asserts, “While scholars have emphasised the debate among different strategic schools in Japan, the real debates now are mostly about the timing and scope of change – not its direction.” Green wants to counter any suggestion that Abe is an extremist or maverick politician acting out of step with popular opinion. Later in the article, however, he states: “The policy and legal obstacles that Abe is now busy removing as part of his internal balancing strategy were erected by previous Japanese governments eager to build a buffer against involvement in US military plans in the Pacific.” There is an obvious contradiction. Is Abe building on existing policy frameworks or dismantling them?

    Green’s case that Abe’s policies are continuous with the past, on closer examination, is based mainly on the claim that “[his immediate predecessor, Prime Minister] Yoshihiko Noda…began the push for most of the key elements of Abe’s security agenda.” In other words, by “predecessors” he means principally Noda. While it is true the Noda government sought to shore up Japan’s alliance with the United States, this represented a swing of the pendulum back from the failed attempt of a former leader of his ruling Democratic Party of Japan, Yukio Hatoyama, to put a distance between Tokyo and Washington. Noda gave expression to one side of the historical “bi-polar” complex that has characterised Japan’s postwar relationship with the US. Furthermore, the Noda government––deeply unpopular because of its perceived incompetence––took strategic decisions (notably the purchase of the three Senkaku/Diaoyu islands that so enraged China) reactively, under duress and without a clearly articulated policy agenda. To posit a continuum between Abe and the panicked previous administration is curious, to say the least.

    Green refers to a former “left-leaning” Prime Minister Takeo Miki’s opposition to arms exports, without identifying him as a leader of the same Liberal Democratic Party Abe now heads. The LDP, like the DJP, has always contained competing views on whether rearmament or disarmament best serves Japan’s national interest, whether a look-to Beijing or a look-to-Washington posture is preferable. The current ascendency of the pro-Washington hawks within the LDP is just that: a phase in a cyclical power play. To suggest, as Green does, that a single continuity of views has existed within Japan’s leadership since the breakup of the Soviet Union is unsupportable. (The recent about-face by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, coming out against nuclear power and backing a rival to the LDP’s candidate in Tokyo’s gubernatorial election, is a further example of the volatility of Japan’s conservative mainstream.) While it is true that Abe enjoys a high level of support within the electorate––anything over 50% is extraordinary by recent standards––there is little evidence that the so-called “grand strategy” (which Green invests with a spurious coherence) goes more than slogan-deep in terms of public understanding. Indeed it is incapable of being comprehended, I submit, because of its internal contradictions.

    Another of the contradictions emerges when Green discusses regional responses to Abe’s policies. He states that the Abe Government “is pursuing foreign and security policies that are welcomed…by most governments in the region.” Yet he also says, correctly, that “the most striking thing about his diplomacy is that it has been focused on the near and far abroad rather than the immediate neighbours South Korea and China.” Given that the other key players in Japan’s region are, of course, China and South Korea, how does Green’s first statement stack up? He seems to believe that Australia, the US and other like-minded nations should support Japan in a diplomacy conducted over the heads of its nearest neighbours: “Abe’s preference for diplomacy with the states around China’s periphery also reflects his view that Japan’s natural partners are the democratic maritime states.” For Australia to automatically support Japan against its neighbours, rather than urge Tokyo to seek an accommodation with nations of vital interest to us, would be foolhardy.

    Green identifies within Abe’s diplomacy (correctly, as far as it goes) an attempt to present Japan as a bastion of freedom, rule of law and transparency, and thus a defender of “Western” values, as opposed to the alternative “Pan-Asian” version that defines Japan by cultural and ethnic affinities. Japan, however, has been down a similar path before, in the period 1900-1925, and that, as we know, proved unsustainable. Green concedes that “tensions between Seoul and Tokyo are indirectly hurting broader Japanese influence in Asia and even in Washington” but does not explain how, by facilitating a diplomacy that overlooks South Korea, the US or Australia would benefit. Green treats the disagreements over historical accountability, so damaging to regional relations, as “complications.” This happens to be the prevailing Japanese attitude, based on the calculation that since China and South Korea have not always been as strident about such matters in the past, they can be waited out. The danger of inaction, however, was underlined again recently when the new president of NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster, made light of the “comfort women” issue during a news conference. Every time the Japanese Establishment’s complacency and recalcitrance are exposed, the gulf widens. If Abe wishes to lead a credible world power he must embrace a credible and candid accounting for the nation’s past. More than a complication, right now it is the spanner in the works.

    In his discussion of Japan’s defence needs, Greens starts from the proposition that “China’s coercive pressure in the East China Sea…is most likely to spark a larger confrontation.” No evidence is offered for this one-sided view. He considers an increased Japanese military capability, including counterstrike deterrence, the sine qua non of a strategy to prevent Chinese coercion. Green’s account of why the country has lived for so long with a limited military capability is pure revisionism: “Japan’s deterrent capabilities are significantly less efficient and credible because of the numerous legal and bureaucratic constraints that have accumulated in the post-war period.” The language suggests that red tape, rather than a popular aversion to military adventures, has been the main constraint on Japan since 1945. The opposite is true. Japan’s war-renouncing constitution has been the central pillar of the nation’s postwar prosperity, and to dismiss it as a “bureaucratic” encumbrance is quite perverse. Certainly, various governments over the years have reinterpreted the basic law to enable Japan to maintain a modern military establishment but each step on that journey has kept intact a credible commitment to the principle of non-belligerence (though critics of Japan’s support for American military engagements in Asia and elsewhere would, of course, disagree). This is a whole-of-state issue, not a matter for backroom tinkering.

    Green reports a “growing interest in Tokyo in the concept that Japan might use the development of counterstrike capability as a source of leverage vis-à-vis the United States.” He argues that as a result of Japan embracing a broader definition of its right to collective self-defense “the SDF will be seen by allies, partners, and potential adversaries as a more effective fighting force within the confines of Japan’s renunciation of war as a means to settle international disputes.” A more effective fighting force, I suggest, is not necessarily the best advertisement for the renunciation of war. For the two to be possibly compatible would require a style of leadership––inclusive, disposed to listen rather than dictate, and sensitive to the concerns of neighbours––that Abe so far has not displayed.

    Green describes a view taking shape within the LDP that the government need not move immediately to revise Article 9 of the constitution in order to achieve its military-strategic objectives; it can do so through an administrative measure. But a change to Japan’s military posture to include a significant counterstrike capability, without a full airing of the issues that a debate on the constitution would enable, is not a development Australia should welcome. It runs counter to the very democratic values Abe insists link his nation to “natural partners” like Australia. The centralisation of power under Abe that Green identifies (and approves of), including the creation of supra-parliamentary organs, such as the new National Security Council and National Security Bureau, and the enactment of a wide-ranging state secrets law, might, to some, make Japan a “normal” country, but they seem unlikely to cast more light on the murky process of Japanese policy formation––quite the reverse.

    A final contradiction arises in Green’s discussion of the support he says the US, Australia and others should lend Japan in its confrontation with China: “The United States, Australia, and all maritime nations have a stake in Japan not backing down under Chinese military pressure. Ultimately, a modus vivendi might be reached in which Japan finds a way to acknowledge officially that there is a de jure dispute [over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands].” For Japan to acknowledge that a de jure territorial dispute exists, as Green surely knows, would to Abe and his supporters constitute a back down. Such a concession might be desirable; but to argue against backing down to China and, in the same breath, to advocate it is peculiar. Green gets into this pickle by failing to adequately acknowledge that Japan’s actions have contributed to the impasse with China. Japan’s friends would do better to denounce the hardliners on both sides and propose solutions that get beyond fixed positions implied by the term “back down.” Green’s proposal would lead to an untenable situation in which anything Japan says or does must be approved, or else. He writes: “Resisting Japanese requests for joint contingency planning or pressuring Tokyo to compromise in the face of Chinese coercion would do fundamental damage to the credibility of the [US-Japan] alliance and lead to more pronounced hedging by Japan. The result would be less US control over escalation in a crisis in the East China Sea and weakened dissuasion and deterrence all along the offshore island chain.” You can’t have it both ways. Either Japan is a partner who can be resisted and corrected, as well as supported, or it is a liability. The same goes for China.

    Green performs a valuable service by articulating issues that Australians should be considering as a matter of urgency. Without a doubt, Abe (who has compared current relations between China and Japan to those between Germany and Britain in 1914) is the strongest, most belligerent Japanese leader to emerge for decades. There are, however, flaws in his “grand strategy.” Diplomacy conducted over the heads of China and South Korea to engage supposedly like-minded democratic maritime partners such as Australia should make any modern Bismarck quaver. Resolving the historical grievances between Japan and its former colonial underlings is essential to future regional security. They will not fix themselves. To demonstrate its commitment to democratic values Japan needs a full-blown debate about the role of its defence forces within the constitution rather than increasingly centralised and elitist decision-making. Australia’s interest in a vibrant and peaceful Japan requires our leaders to oppose all measures that heighten regional tensions and undermine longer-term stability.

    * http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/japan-back-unbundling-abes-grand-strategy

    Walter Hamilton reported from Japan for the ABC for eleven years. He is the author of “Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story”.

     

  • Pope Francis – Message on Migrants and Refugees. January 2014

    ‘Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity.

    They are children, women and men who leave or who are forced to leave their

    homes for various reasons, who share a legitimate desire for knowing and having,

    but above all for being more.

    Contemporary movements of migration represent the largest movement of

    Individuals, if not of peoples, in history.

    As the Church accompanies migrants and refugees on their journey,

    she seeks to understand the causes of migration,

    but she also works to overcome its negative effects,

    and to maximize its positive influence on the communities of origin, transit and

    destination.
    While encouraging the development of a better world,

    we cannot remain silent about the scandal of poverty in its various forms.

    Violence, exploitation, discrimination, marginalization, restrictive approaches to

    fundamental freedoms,

    whether of individuals or of groups:

    these are some of the chief elements of poverty which need to be overcome.

    Often these are precisely the elements which mark migratory movements,

    thus linking migration to poverty.

    Fleeing from situations of extreme poverty or persecution in the hope of a better

    future, or simply to save their own lives,

    millions of persons choose to migrate.
    A change of attitude towards migrants and refugees

    is needed on the part of everyone, moving away from attitudes

    of defensiveness and fear,

    indifference and marginalization – all typical of a throwaway culture —

    towards attitudes based on a culture of encounter,

    the only culture capable of building a better, more just and fraternal world.

     

     

  • Arja Keski-Nummi. They are us … and the language of war!

    Why are we using the language and methods of war against civilians fleeing war and persecution?  Asylum seekers are not our enemies. Our real enemies are our complacency and a willingness to turn a blind eye to the spin we are getting. This reflects the Abbott government’s ability to drill deep into our collective psyche of fear with our settler past. What if we lose it all?

    It conflicts so dramatically with our other self-image of an open, caring and welcoming society.

    This debate is about much more than people arriving by boat, it is about reshaping an Australian narrative that excludes and rejects difference. “In our image or no image” is the message. The High Court action against the ACT legislation on same sex marriages and Christopher Pyne’s curriculum review are part of that same agenda.

    In trying to turn the page back to an Australia that no longer exists and never in reality existed the Abbott government is using the asylum debate to send a message of “them and us”.  At best it is elitist. At worst it is narrow minded, bigoted and opportunistic. The problem is that the “them” eventually become “us” as over 200 years of migration – illegal and legal – has proven.

    Governments and politicians carry an enormous burden of responsibility in helping shape how we react and welcome the stranger.  We are the community and society we are because by and large governments understood that most people did not feel comfortable with immigration but if we were to grow and develop and be prosperous we needed people. Nothing has changed.

    The language used about asylum seekers by both the previous government and the current one however has sought to divide our communities. Little compassion is shown or expressed to the plight of people displaced by war and human rights abuses. Rather the language is about people cheating a system and a vow to not “let them get their way”. Disturbingly in the last few months the language of war has started to be used with greater frequency.

    While this may be playing out well in the polling of today, we will pay a price for such demonization. A cornerstone of our success in settling millions of people in Australia over the past 70 years, irrespective of how they may have arrived in this country has been that we have genuinely subscribed to the ethos of a “a fair go”, helping create the opportunities for people to establish new lives and participate in the broader Australian community while at the same time valuing and cherishing their cultural heritage and giving some of it to our own uniquely Australian society. We don’t have an underclass at risk of exploitation nor do we have ethnic ghettoes. Our settlement programs have helped avoid that.

    We do have vibrant culturally diverse suburbs that reflect our cultural make up. It is true that for some the process of settlement is difficult and not trouble free and will be so for a long time but a generation on the children of those arrivals are politicians and in professions creating new wealth and opportunities for all Australians. They are us. That is the time when we need to measure how successful we have been in welcoming the stranger, and by any measure we have been truly successful.

    The previous government’s decisions to lock asylum seekers out of work and the continuation of this policy by the current government will have consequences. We are creating a new underclass. People will have to survive and it is disturbing to contemplate where this may lead and not just into a thriving black economy. It is an own goal we could well avoid if we just recognized and capitalized on the resilience, toughness and determination to succeed that asylum seekers bring with them.   It is on these qualities that Australia’s wealth has been built.  Rather than spending billions of dollars on detention centres and offshore processing centres (where is the budget emergency now?) a little helping hand will in the long run be rewarded a hundred times over. We have two hundred years of evidence to prove that.

    Our problem today therefore has been of our own making. Currently there are no formulated political structures to counter the governments’ opportunistic and increasingly militaristic approach. The Opposition is caught in its own appalling policy paradigm, one which cleared the way for the Abbott government when they reopened Nauru and Manus Island and went still further to announce that no people detained in those centres would be resettled in Australia.   They seem to have forgotten what they stand for!

    Likewise the Greens show no great policy nous in this area having a simplistic, emotive response that ignores the reality of multiple issues colliding with each other including the very difficult issues of how to manage mixed migration flows, return of non refugees, countering people smuggling and support for refugees. Their starting off point is that everyone is a refugee. It leaves no space to contemplate the harder elements of a refugee and asylum policy.

    Emotionalism is not a substitute for a good political strategy.  We cannot turn back the clock and bemoan missed opportunities but nor should we simply accept the mantra of war. It is disrespectful to survivors of wars and betrays the shallowness of politicians who have turned civilians, seeking sanctuary, into enemies.

    What we need is an approach that engages our international partners and regional governments in finding genuine regional solutions and not the Orwellian ones of Manus Island and Nauru). We need to recognize the humanity of people seeking asylum but we also need to have a process that quickly identifies who is and  who is not a refugee and be able to resolve the immigration status of a person who is not a refugee quickly and with dignity even if this means return to their country of origin. To do anything less undermines our obligations under the Refugee Convention, a protection tool that has withstood the test of time. We must compromise the system of international protection that we as a country have worked so hard to shape.

    We have done it before. We can do it again and we can be true to our own self image of a caring and open society.

    Arja Keski-Nummi was First Assistant Secretary of the Refugee, Humanitarian and International Division of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 2007-2010.

  • Pearls and Irritations – one year on. John Menadue

    I launched this blog in January last year. To date there have been 285 posts, just over 5 a week.

    I hope you have found some ‘pearls’ and been ‘irritated’ from time to time. Thank you for your support.

    I have enjoyed putting together stories that I believe are important for Australia’s future.

    I now prefer blogging to speeches and interviews.

    A feature of the blog has been the support of guest bloggers. This has introduced a range of people with interesting ideas and views. As a result, the blog is becoming more like an e-magazine.

    I am a beginner in blogging, as you will have noticed, but Susie has been a great help. We have made changes, including a better weekly summary with lists of posts. Much remains to be done.

    We have appointed a blog manager which will leave me with more time to work on content.

    The traffic is increasing steadily. In February last year, the first full month of the blog,  the number of ‘visits’ (not hits) to the blog was 7063  In December last year “visits” had increased to 33,539. In February last year 14,132 ‘pages’ were read. This has increased to 84,873 in December. The increase has been steady with almost 1,200 readers of the blog each day this month despite the holidays. Many of the readers are friends and contacts but include a considerable number in the media, churches and NGO communities.

    I hope we can be more influential in the years ahead. Your help in suggestions and passing posts and emails to friends is much appreciated.

     

  • Could we do more to offend the Indonesians? John Menadue

    Could we do more to offend the Indonesians? Yes, I think we could by appointing, as has been suggested, Peter Cosgrove as our next Governor General. He was the military Commander who led the INTERFET forces against the Indonesian military in East Timor in 1999.  This was much more than just a military defeat for the Indonesians. It resulted in Indonesia’s political humiliation in the eyes of the world. Indonesia had to withdraw from East Timor with loss of face.  I don’t think that Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, in their reading of the Lonely Planet Guide to international relations would be aware of this. Stopping the boats is everything regardless of the human beings involved or our relations with Indonesia.

    I believe the Australian-led intervention in East Timor was justified and in normal times the appointment of a former military opponent of the Indonesians would largely go unnoticed. But because of the Abbott Government we are not in normal times in our present dealings with Indonesia; the country that is more important to us strategically than any other.

    The Abbott Government has trod clumsily and provocatively in our relations with Indonesia. It should not add to the problem.

    The phone-tapping of the Indonesian President, his wife and senior colleagues by an Australian security agency occurred before the Abbott Government came to power. But the insensitivity and amateurish response by the Abbott Government really caused annoyance in Indonesia.

    More unfortunately there has been our provocative policy of turn back of asylum boats to Indonesia. There is no doubt that the Indonesian Government feels quite strongly that this action has breached and continues to breach its sovereignty. In the ‘war’ on boat arrivals, the Abbott Government has ignored the collateral damage it has done to our relations with Indonesia.

    The Abbott Government has portrayed the humanitarian issue of asylum seekers and refugees almost entirely in the vocabulary of war. It has established Operation Sovereign Borders, a military operation led by the military.  To justify secrecy Tony Abbott says “if we were at war we wouldn’t be giving out information that is of use to the enemy” Scott Morrison says “this battle (against boat arrivals) is being fought using the full arsenal of messages..” With this sort of terminology it is not surprising that the Indonesians are alert to crossings of their borders by Australian warships. This unfortunate militarisation and vocabulary of war would also be exacerbated by appointing a former senior Australian General as our next Governor General.

    Discretion is important particularly when diplomatic relations become fragile. Discretion suggests that the Abbott Government should not worsen the situation by appointing a former military opponent of Indonesia as our next Governor General. In the Javanese way, the Indonesian Government may be polite on the subject. But it would be wise to avoid more potential damage particularly as the anti-Australian drum is likely to beat louder in this Indonesian Presidential election year.

    It should be recalled that in his military career, Peter Cosgrove in 2001 was the Chief of the Army when the Howard Government put SAS troops on board the Tampa to stop asylum seekers coming to Australia. I thought at the time that this was a highly political and partisan act to use the military in this way and that when matters had cooled General Cosgrove would stand down. But not so.

  • The power of vested interests and why drugs cost so much in Australia. John Menadue

    Why does the widely used cholesterol reducing drug Atorvastatin cost $A19 in Australia and $A2 for the same package in NZ? Why does the widely used cancer drug Anastrozole cost $A92 in Australia when the equivalent drug in the UK costs $A3.30. The answer is the political power of Medicines Australia and how it twists the arm of governments.

    In a blog on January 7, I drew attention to the political power of vested interests to undermine the public interest and good policy development in Australia. I referred  particularly to the miners and their role in destroying the super profits tax, the polluters’ opposition to the carbon tax, the hotel and liquor industry which is responsible for violence on our streets and poor health in the community, and the gambling industry particularly Clubs Australia, that successfully opposed proposals to shield problem gamblers. Just consider how James Packer has been able, so easily, to use his political power to avoid any public process in obtaining a licence for his “high-rollers” casino in Sydney.

    What makes these vested interests so dangerous is their power to persuade or threaten politicians. The media is ill-equipped to contest their power. In some cases, The Australian and the Australian Financial Review newspapers become outlets for these vested interests.

    Medicines Australia (MA) is a classic case. It represents the pharmaceutical industry in Australia. Its members supply 86% of the medicines that are available in Australia under the Pharmaceuticals Benefits Scheme. (PBS)

    The Grattan Institute has pointed out how, with the cooperation of pliant governments, MA has been able to exploit Australian consumers and taxpayers. The facts are quite clear. For March last year, the Grattan Institute reported as follows:

    • For Atorvastatin, the cholesterol reducing drug, the PBS in Australia paid more than $51 for a box of 30 tablets. NZ paid $A5.80 for a box of 90 tablets.
    • Grattan also looked at the ‘top 73 doses that are prescribed most often in Australia’. It found that Australian wholesale prices were eight times higher than NZ’s. For identical drugs, NZ prices were six times cheaper than in Australia.
    • Grattan also compared prices in some public hospitals in Australia who buy drugs outside the PBS. It found that on average these hospitals obtained drugs eight times lower than the prices under the PBS.

    Those comparisons where for March last year. In December last year, under what is called ‘price disclosure’ arrangements, prices were reduced.  However, the Grattan Institute found that even with these reductions, Australia was still paying sixteen times more than the UK and NZ for seven key drugs. For example the cost of Atorvastatin dropped from $A30 to $A19 for a pack in Australia. The same pack sold for the equivalent of $A2.84 in UK and $A2.01 in NZ. For Anastrozole, the cancer drug, the wholesale price in Australia is $A92 and in the UK $A3.30.

    How can these outrageous differences occur?

    Before a drug can be registered on the PBS it has to be cleared by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for safety and efficacy. Then it is assessed by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee for cost effectiveness and clinical benefit. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority (the Pricing Authority) then determines the maximum price that can be charged and how much the Government will pay manufactures or importers under the PBS.

    The Pricing Authority, a non statutory body is set up by the Minister and is within the Department of Health and Aging. The Authority includes, amongst its six members, two representatives of drug companies. That is extraordinary-building vested interests into the price setting process. They should be excluded completely.  The whole process is opaque, and political. It is ready made for manipulation by vested interests.

    In NZ, politicians decide how much is spent by the government on drugs and an independent and professional expert panel sets prices. In Australia we have the process the other way round. Our politicians should determine the budget for drugs at the beginning of the process and then get out of the way and let market competition work and leave final price decisions to independent experts.

    The vested interests get their fingers all over the price of drugs on the PBS. In NZ they are excluded from the process.

    Grattan Institute estimates that Australia’s wholesale prices for identical drugs are now six times the prices paid in NZ. In some cases they are as much as twenty times higher. Grattan Institute estimates a saving of almost $A2 billion p.a. if we paid the same price as in other relevant jurisdictions.

    The Chief Executive of MA is Brendan Shaw. He was formerly a staffer for Dr Craig Emmerson. It is typical of the pedigree of vested-interests and their political lobby that they choose persons well-known and influential in the political corridors of power in Canberra. .

    In response to Grattan’s findings, Brendan Shaw in the Australian Financial Review made an irrelevant point that because of budget restraints in NZ, fewer new medicines were available in that country. He avoided completely the issue of price comparisons. I would rather rely on the professional advice of independent experts on what drugs should be on the PBS and the prices we pay.

    When will we seriously tackle the exploitation of the public that Medicines Australia inflicts upon us?

    The Department of Health and Ageing should be spending its time developing and implementing improved health policies. Instead it spends its energy and time placating the powerful rent-seeking vested interests in our health services – Medicines Australia, the AMA, the Pharmaceutical Guild of Australia and the Private Health Insurance companies.

    The Rudd and Gillard Governments did little to curb the abuse of political power by these groups in the health field. In fact they made the situation worse. The Rudd Government appointed a senior executive of BUPA, the second largest private health insurance firm in Australia, to head the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission enquiry.

    Ross Garnaut described the power of vested interests in Australia as a ‘diabolical problem’.  He is right. If the Commission of Audit wants to save some real money and curb rent seeking it could start with vested interests like Medicines Australia.

    Governments and particularly conservative ones extol the virtues of markets. But all too often this is a diversion, designed to advantage corporations, like the members of Medicines Australia, rather than letting markets work and promote competition and lower prices.

  • Violence is on the decline. John Menadue

    If you watch the tabloid television and the Murdoch press, you would certainly believe that violence is increasing. It seems counter-intuitive to suggest that we are moving away from violence.

    Over the holidays I have been reading ‘The Better Angels of our Nature – the Decline of Violence in History and its Causes’. It focuses particularly on the West. The book was written by Steven Pinker (Penguin 2011). Pinker is an experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist. He is a Harvard College professor

    It is a long read, but I found it encouraging.

    He examines violence in its worst manifestations in war, murder, rape and domestic violence, racism and hate speech. He argues that we are more aware of violence because of modern communications. That is why we aren’t so aware of the global decline in violence.

    In his preface, Pinker states his thesis

    This book is about what may be the most important thing that has ever happened in human history. Believe it or not – and I know that most people do not – violence has declined over long stretches of time and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species’ existence. The decline, to be sure, has not been smooth; it has not brought violence down to zero; and it is not guaranteed to continue. But it is an unmistakeable development, visible on scales from millennia to years, from the waging of wars to the spanking of children.

    The book’s essential message is that over thousands of years, despite the setbacks of  eg WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, tribalism has given way to expanded and inclusive relationships and that we have developed more appropriate and effective institutions to contain violence, despite their shortcomings.

    Pinker gives us a glimpse into the viciousness of the cultures and customs from 8000 BCE to the 1970s.

    In human pre-history we find graves and prehistoric remains that reveal people ‘strangled, bludgeoned, stabbed or tortured’. In this period he says that a person had a high chance of coming to bodily harm.

    In Homeric Greece, war was waged against the entire population. For the heroes of the Illiad, female flesh was a legitimate spoil of war. Achilles ‘spent many sleepless nights and bloody days in battle, fighting men for their women’.

    Pinker describes the Hebrew Bible as ‘one long elaboration of violence’. Cain slew Abel. Noah’s ark saved only a select few. The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt and the Egyptian army was drowned in the Red Sea. Samson became a hero in slaughtering 1,000 Philistines and killed over 1,000 with the jawbone of an ass. Captured, his eyes were burnt out and in revenge he crushes a building and kills 3,000 men and women. The warrior Saul’s Court sings that ‘Saul has killed by the thousands, but David by the tens of thousands’. Fortunately a lot of this never happened, but it offers a window into the lives and values of the civilisation in the first millennium BCE.

    An architectural symbol of the Roman Empire was the Colosseum. Gladiators fought others to death for public amusement. Animals tore flesh from humans. The most frequent means of Roman execution was crucifixion. It was an orgy of sadism. Saints were put to death by barbaric means.

    Infidels were put to death in the Spanish inquisition by burning at the stake and drawing and quartering.

    The medieval Christian knights may have treated the ladies well, but their intervention in the Crusades resulted in probably 1.5 million deaths, particularly of the Saracens. Jerusalem was allegedly left “knee deep in blood.”

    In early modern Europe Henry VIII had two wives beheaded. Bloody Mary had 300 religious dissenters burnt at the stake. Elizabeth I had 123 priests drawn and quartered.

    Despite the awful events in recent centuries, Pinker commented that the declines in violence unfolded over vastly different scales of time.

    ‘The taming of chronic raiding and feuding, the reduction of vicious interpersonal violence, such as cutting off noses, the elimination of cruel practices like human sacrifice, torture-executions and flogging, the abolition of institutions such as slavery and debt-bondage, the falling out of fashion of blood sports and duelling, the eroding of political murder and despotism, the recent decline of wars, pogroms and genocides, the reduction of violence against women… the protection of children …’  all point to a reduction in endemic violence.

    Pinker describes the factors that have not helped the decline in violence. These include technology and weaponry, the quest for power and resources, affluence and religion.

    In a chapter entitled ‘On Angels’ Wings’, Pinker describes the pacifying process. He says ‘Declines of violence are a product of social, cultural and material conditions’. He describes certain broad forces that have pushed violence down. These include the civilising process with the consolidation of law enforcement; the humanitarian revolution with improved literacy, urbanisation and access to mass media; the ‘rights revolution’ away from tribalism to national authority and freedom of speech; the benefits of international commerce and feminisation.

    Pinker concludes:

    Yet while this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, the [human] species has also found ways to bring the numbers and incidence of violence] down and allow a greater and greater proportion of humanity to live in peace and die of natural causes. For all the tribulations in our lives, for all the troubles that remain in the world, the decline of violence is an accomplishment we can savour and an impetus to cherish the forces of civilisation and enlightenment that made it possible’.

    I found the book encouraging- to think that our struggle against violence, war and denial of human dignity is worth the effort, despite the doomsayers and what our 24/7 media keep telling us.

  • Mission accomplished? Be careful which war you wish for. Travers McLeod

    “We are going to hold the line, we are going to protect the borders”, Scott Morrison, Federal Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, told the 44th Federal Parliament in its first sitting week. “This battle is being fought using the full arsenal of measures”, he wrote elsewhere. Last week, the Prime Minister defended the secrecy of the ‘battle’, saying, “if we were at war we wouldn’t be giving out information that is of use to the enemy just because we might have an idle curiosity about it ourselves”.

    Whatever the wisdom of Operation Sovereign Borders, Australia’s “military-led, border security operation”, if it is going be described as a military campaign we should assess it like one. When we examine military campaigns we often reflect on two interrelated questions: what is the strategy, and are the tactics appropriate and adapted to achieve that strategy? Strategy is important because it declares the intent and links ends and means. Tactics are also important. As the military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz, explained, “only great tactical successes can lead to strategic ones”.

    On strategy, Operation Sovereign Borders has been explicit: “We are going to stop the boats.” In the first of the now discontinued weekly briefings, the Minister said “those seeking to come on boats” would be “met by a broad chain of measures end to end that are designed to deter, to disrupt, to prevent their entry” and “to ensure that they are not settled in Australia”.

    The tactical waters have been muddied. One tactic offered but discarded was to buy the boats. Another tactic, begun by the former Government, is to ensure certain persons arriving by boat cannot be settled in Australia. A new tactic – gifting patrol boats to Sri Lanka – was announced last year. The tactic most discussed has been to turn or tow back the boats.

    Determination not to comment on “on water” matters has marked the campaign. This approach, too, can be evaluated from the perspective of a military campaign. The Australian Defence Force (“ADF”) has defined information operations (“IO”) as “the coordination of information effects to influence the decision making and actions of a target audience and to protect and enhance our decision making and actions in support of national interests”.

    Can this campaign be won in part through an absence of information? In 2007, Lieutenant Commander Chris Watson wrote “the key for IO is choosing to release information to the media on one’s own terms, for example as regards the timing and quantity of material released”. He described IO and “Shaping and Influencing” as “potent but underutilised tools available to government” during peacetime. The Minister appears to share this view.

    One difficulty for Operation Sovereign Borders is multiple target audiences: Australians, regional governments (not least Indonesia’s), asylum seekers and people smugglers. A lack of footage from the High Seas and detention facilities also makes it problematic for actions to articulate a message in and of themselves. Those in charge would prefer no boats, and therefore no actions. No information means no boats. No boats means mission accomplished.

    It is worth recalling debates in the United States during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In 2006, then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded the U.S. deserved a “D” or “D+” for its job in the “battle of ideas”. What became apparent was the moral dimension of the information battlespace. The need for accurate, regular information became paramount, informing the directive given to commanders not to put “lipstick on pigs”.

    Taking stock, one might observe Australia has a strategy supported by at least one tactic, and that its information operations are under siege. This observation is made without considering whether the current strategy is the ‘correct’ one. The Jakarta Declaration on Addressing Irregular Movement of Persons, signed by Australia and 12 other countries from the region last August, and endorsed by the UN Refugee Agency, offers other approaches.

    Tellingly, new members of Parliament have cautioned against ‘Fortress Australia’ in their maiden speeches, making the case for new arrivals and new markets. Clare O’Neil, Labor Member for Hotham, described how immigration has “brought more than 150 cultures” to Australia peacefully. Angus Taylor, Liberal Member for Hume, said Australia “must boldly expound and stay true to a narrative that explains the benefits of openness”, which includes a “generous humanitarian program”.

    Clearly, ‘Fortress Australia’ bears multiple meanings, whether we think about trade, immigration, or border protection. But they are all related. Militarising some of the issues and some of the discourse may not be a constructive development. It may not help Australia’s diplomatic and civil-military relations. It may not help Australia’s openness to trade and immigration, which is vital to continued competitive advantage in the global economy. But as long as any government continues to treat Operation Sovereign Borders as a military campaign, we should continue to assess its strengths and failures as such.

    One would hope militarisation has not been pursued in order to control the flow of information. At the end of the day there are human beings on these boats. Their “on water” stories will emerge. It just might be that many have fled countries undeniably at war to join the long list of migrants who have helped build and shape Australia for the long term.

    Travers McLeod is the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Policy Development. He holds a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford.

    An edited version of this article was published in the Melbourne Age on January 14, 2014.

     

     

  • Health workforce reform. Prof Peter Brooks

    As we draw to the end of the holiday period and contemplate the challenges for us in 2014 we might take a moment to think about the big questions in health. We are continually reminded by politicians,  media and other  (self)  interested groups  about the cost of health care, the need for more doctors and  nurses, more  beds, more money -all of which will blow out the health budget even more . We are told that patients will have to pay more (the proposed $6 fee for GP visits) but rarely do we look at what are the real ‘drivers‘ in the costs of health care. Doctors have a very privileged position in society but we are responsible for generating the bulk of costs of healthcare – every time we order a test, prescribe a medication, recommend a procedure, and admit a patient to hospital costs are generated, so surely we need to look at this side of the equation.  This is particularly so in the context of the Australian health system which is based on fee for service – every time there is an interaction with the medical profession the cash register tinkles!

    So overall doctor numbers are important – because we –the doctors – generate the bulk of these costs. The ‘system’ is set up so that many things that doctors do which could be done by someone else at less cost – pharmacist/nurse practitioners writing repeat prescriptions, doing vaccinations  and other minor procedures are not well  supported. The most recent data from Health Workforce Australia present a number of scenarios on doctor numbers from having 2,700 too few in 2025 if we make no change in how we deliver health services (we couldn’t be that silly) to having 2,800 too many if we make a modest improvement in doctor ‘productivity’. This could be  easily achieved  by transferring some tasks to other members of the health care team and  better utilising  telehealth and other communication technologies. If we really got serious about health promotion and disease prevention (now that is a novel thought) and reduced demand by just 2% (which is really not very much) we would have a surplus of over 18,000 doctors in 2025- what a waste of talent.

    Now proponents for having more doctors say – “but it is so hard to see a GP when I need one” and rural general practice is still undersupplied – true – but there may be other ways of incentivising doctors to work in rural areas or using different models of care – linking local nurse practitioners or physician assistants with GPs /Specialists in regional centres to provide appropriate geographical coverage across this wide brown land.   Health care is very complex – we don’t think about it till we need care and then it is often too late to even think about choice. With the ageing population all of whom will have chronic disease we have a great opportunity to plan better than we have up until now – to think about a health system that is fair and  equable not just for those who can afford it but for all.

    We also (and the medical profession needs to be at the for front of this particular issue ) need to clearly evaluate what should  be provided for an individual patient – not just because the procedure or intervention is available – but ask if it will really improve that patients health – and ensure that the patient can be involved in that decision.

    But fundamental to the future of the health system in Australia is how we pay for health services – fee for service needs to be reviewed since it is not sustainable in the medium to long term. There are many other systems we might consider – salaried (and interestingly America now has more salaried doctors than non-salaried), a variety of insurance schemes including health savings accounts, capping fees in some form – so why don’t we talk about this in a serious way?

    Tinkering around the edges in the form of a $6 payment for GP visits which is estimated to save around $700 million over a 4 year period out of a $130 million annual health budget and creating real pain for many less well-off Australians is a bad idea – but it does provide an opportunity to start a real community debate on what the other alternatives are – and there are many. This should be about real change in the health system – to ensure one of the better health systems in the world remains accessible to ALL Australians and that patients are fully informed of their health options and are engaged in those individual health decisions.

    Peter Brooks MD FRACP – Professorial Fellow, School of Population and Global Health University of Melbourne

     

  • Repost. Refugee advocates and offshore processing. John Menadue

    This is a repost from 23 September, 2013. 

    The insistence on onshore processing for all asylum seekers is damaging the case for humane and sensible refugee policies.

    The blanket opposition to any offshore processing is understandable but it is just not working. Just look at the election result on September 7. The important issue is not where processing occurs but whether it is just, fair and efficient. Many of the asylum seekers who claim protection in Australia are not in direct flight from persecution. Most transit Malaysia and Indonesia. Some are asylum shopping.

    The major political parties  now compete with each other to deter and punish boat arrivals. In the public debate the preoccupation with boat arrivals by both politicians and the media has dramatically reduced support for an increased humanitarian intake and the end of mandatory detention.

    For many years I was a strong supporter of all asylum seekers coming to Australia  being processed in Australia. But I have changed my mind as the facts have changed, with over 17,000 boat arrivals in the six months to June this year. In world terms the numbers are small but the political mood has gone very sour which is threating the humanitarian case for generosity. Before the High Court decision on the Malaysian Agreement boat arrivals were about 300 people per month. They quickly quadrupled after the High Court decision and have continued to increase ever since. The High Court decision striking down the Malaysia Agreement undoubtedly gave oxygen to people-smugglers and many desperate people who were prepared to risk dangerous sea voyages. We cannot ignore their human rights.

    We need to urgently think again about transfers and regional processing.

    The UNHCR in a statement to the Australian Parliament on 30 September 2011 welcomed the transfer and regional arrangements with Malaysia. The Greens and refugee advocates cooperated with Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison to reject amendments to the Migration Act to allow the Malaysian Agreement to proceed. Asylum seekers are paying a heavy price for this unity ticket between the coalition, refugee advocates and the Greens

    There is a long history of UNHCR support for transfer of asylum seekers in appropriate circumstances. In 1998, the executive committee of UNHCR recognised that irregular migration, people smuggling and asylum flows are complex matters but concluded that a return to a transit country like Malaysia may occur provided there are appropriate safeguards, accepted international standards and effective protection against refoulement. Whilst such conclusions are not binding in law they do guide the work of the UNHCR and governments in what are acceptable international standards of behaviour towards asylum seekers.

    The UNHCR in Australia has just issued a ‘Guidance Note on bilateral and/or multilateral transfer arrangements of asylum-seekers’. It can be found on its website.

    Paragraphs 1 and 2,  say ‘It is UNHCR’s position that asylum seekers and refugees should ordinarily be processed in the territory of the state where they arrive or which otherwise has jurisdiction over them. This is also in line with general state practice. The primary responsibility to provide protection rests with the state where asylum is sought. Nevertheless there are an increasing number of initiatives in various regions involving the transfer of asylum seekers from one country to another for the purpose of processing their asylum claims. Such arrangements have typically involved the transfer of asylum seekers either (a) to the state where they first sought (or could have sought) asylum; or (b) to other countries with which the asylum seeker has no previous links. They have also involved both bilateral and/or multilateral (regional) arrangements.’

    The Guidance Note then went on to outline the principles against which any transfer arrangements should be assessed.

    In a joint article with Arja Keski- Nummi, published in the Melbourne Age on 13 December last year, we outlined a system of ‘practical protection’ that should apply to any transfer arrangements in our region. We set down several steps.

    • All countries should commit to the principle of non-refoulement.
    • Provide people with a legal status and access to work and education.
    • Work to help not only displaced people but also host communities.
    • Increase our refugee intake from our region.
    • Work with partners in the region in association with UNHCR to create an atmosphere of safety and trust.
    • Amend the Migration Act to assert the principle of ‘effective protection’ as outlined above.

    We badly need a political compromise based on effective processing whether onshore or offshore. This is necessary if we are to put an end to the political poisoning of the well of public support for asylum seekers and refugees, and to discourage desperate people making dangerous and fatal sea voyages.

    We need to rethink our blanket opposition to offshore processing. It is not helping the people most in need of our help. It has played into the hands of those, who for political reasons want the boats to keep coming as thick and fast as possible and in the process encourage us to fear and even hate asylum seekers.

    We need to fight harder and more astutely to help those in need of our protection. This is not the time to throw in the towel.

     

  • Asylum seekers – Tony Abbott and I share a Jesuit education. John O’Mara

    Like many Australians, I look on the way the Abbott government is handling the matter of asylum seekers with ever increasing dismay. Tony Abbott’s mantra “stop the boats”, is unprincipled, contrary to signed UN agreements and impractical. It is hard to erase the pre-election memory of the Western Sydney interviewee..”I’m going to vote for Abbott, because he’ll stop the boats “.

    What dismays me most is that Tony and I shared an educational experience at the hands of the Jesuits and then a friendship that reaches back almost 40 years.

    Like Tony, I’m very grateful for my time at a Jesuit school. In our day a substantial number of our teachers were Jesuits and we had the benefit of their highly trained minds, sharp moral sensitivities and educational method that always emphasized evidence over rhetoric. Even though the Jesuits were strong on presentation skills in argument, the argument had to have substance.

    Their clarity of thought and pursuit of learning for its own sake sets them apart from all other educators especially those I encountered at Sydney University. Their ability to look at all sides of an argument prior to coming to a conclusion was both stunningly simple, and at the same time extremely thought provoking.

    Surprisingly, our religious education in latter years included a look at many religions…Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, Protestantism and others. We were shown the merits of these religions and taught an all encompassing view of life and peoples.

    We were taught quite simply that the major requisites of Catholicism were: love, inclusion, and protecting or looking after those more needy…of any denomination. Fr Gerald Drumm went further, stating that as we were boys starting life from a privileged position in a Jesuit School, we owed it to our God, the Jesuits and ourselves to put our teachings in to practical effect if we were ever in a position to do so. It was as black and white as that!

    Tony and I were, from our earliest days taught people had an inherent dignity and to use them as a means to an end is the antithesis of anything the Jesuits taught us.

    Tony and I were both members of the SRC and had many battles with “the lefties”, both verbal and physical. We both enjoyed playing Rugby for Sydney Uni, if not for Australia. It was a time of great frivolity and for forging life-long friendships. But those playful undergraduate days are long gone. And now in government, the play is for real.

    Instrumentalizing desperate human beings for political advantage is absolutely unacceptable. As I said to Tony a couple of years ago over dinner…”Mate, you and I would be the first in a boat with our families were we to encounter the atrocities they have had to face“.

    The solution is again very simple. We must embrace these poor desperate souls, get them in to our communities and enrich our lives, and theirs. Give them the dignity to live without fear, give them the dignity to work and pay tax. Let us take the lead in a regional resettlement program to accommodate these people. No more detention centres, political bottom feeding, refugee camps or queues. Let’s get the Australian psyche back to where it should be.

    As Tony should know, playing to the xenophobes in Australia just flies in the face of well known facts about people movement and its cause in our region.

    Asylum seekers ARE NOT ‘ILLEGALS” they are our brothers and sisters.

    Tony’s and my Jesuit teachers are turning in the graves for the lack of logic, human sympathy and compassion let alone any reflection of what Jesus had to say about welcoming the stranger and going the extra mile. Bad luck for the Good Samaritan. He was a mug and would never get endorsement as a Coalition candidate.

    John O’Mara is Managing Director of Big Image Sydney Pty Ltd

  • Journalists are not welcome in Nauru. Elaine Pearson

    Dramatically increasing the cost of visas to enter Nauru places severe restrictions from the ability of journalists and others to let us know the truth about asylum seekers being held there. John Menadue

    Here’s an innovative way to discourage foreign media scrutiny of a touchy human rights issue: jack-up the cost of a journalist visa 40-fold, from A$200 to A$8000 (US$178 to US$7108). That’s precisely what the government of the small Pacific nation of Nauru has done, dressing up that skyrocketing increase as a means to “increase revenue.”  The fee is non-refundable even if the visa application is rejected.

    The real impact of the visa gouging will be to deter foreign media outlets and freelance journalists from seeking to report on Nauru’s main story of foreign interest – its treatment of asylum seekers. Currently, there are more than 700 people including pregnant women and dozens of children detained on the island, transferred from Australia in an offshore processing arrangement paid for by the Australian government.

    So what might Nauru have to hide? Poor conditions at the detention facilities, for starters. Asylum seekers are housed in tents, often with inadequate ventilation. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is unequivocal, stating that the “harsh physical conditions… not only do not meet international standards – they also have a profound impact on the men, women and children housed there.” Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has praised the conditions in the detention camp in Nauru as “certainly better than in Australian mining camps.”

    So far the Australian government has refrained from commenting on the move, with an immigration official saying “This is a matter for the government of Nauru.” But Nauru’s new measure is in line with Australia’s secrecy about asylum seeker policy and information on boat arrivals, claiming that national security permits its broad restrictions on access to information. It has been politically convenient to ship asylum seekers to isolated Nauru, far from the public view, where Australian media and voters can ignore their plight. It’s time for that approach to end.

    The new fees are nothing less than an attack on media freedom, intended to leave the world, and Australians in particular, with little way of holding the government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott accountable for its refugee policies. With no stories or pictures to present factual accounts of their treatment, the Australian government can continue to demonize those who seek asylum there. The Abbott government needs to make clear that it’s not a party to this outrageous infringement on the right to freedom of expression, by publicly demanding that Nauru drop this fee so that the world can know what is happening there.

    Elaine Pearson is the Australian Director of Human Rights Watch. HRW has just opened an office in Australia. See HRW.org. 

  • Repost: Don’t tamper with the Refugee Convention. John Menadue

    It would be dangerous to open up the pandora’s box of the Refugee Convention. It has served us well. Who would seriously suggest that persons facing persecution should not be protected. Given the world wide agitation against refugees and ‘outsiders’, a review of the Convention would be a great opportunity for extremists to run their campaigns against foreigners. It would be a field day for the Scott Morrisons of this world.

    This is a repost from 19 July, 2013.

    When will the nonsense stop on boats and refugees? A few days ago Foreign Minister Carr suggested that too many economic migrants were being accepted as refugees. He produced no evidence. What public information I have seen suggests that he is wrong. I would discount the advice he gets from his own department.

    Now the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is saying that the Refugee Convention needs revising, presumably to make it harder for asylum seekers and refugees.

    Where is this mistaken advice coming from? Unless Minister Burke is careful, he will become the fourth Labor minister in a row who has failed in the Immigration portfolio.

    There are sound reasons, both humanitarian and practical, why we should leave the convention alone.

    • Historically Australia has a proud record in protecting the persecuted and the vulnerable. The 1951 Refugee Convention was signed and ratified by the Menzies Government. The 1951 convention dealt largely with the holocaust and refugee problems in Europe in the aftermath of WWII. The 1967 protocol also endorsed by a Liberal government in Australia extended the convention beyond Europe to the rest of the world. The convention is no longer just a post WWII document. It is current and covers refugees around the world. 150 countries or states have signed the convention or protocol.
    • No-one has suggested that the convention is irrelevant although the dog-whistling leads one to the conclusion that some people think it is too soft. I have not heard anyone suggest that a well-founded fear of persecution should be put aside. No-one has suggested that fear of persecution on such issues as political thought and activity, membership of a social group, ethnicity or religion should be discounted. Does anyone seriously suggest that we should reduce protection in these areas?
    • A fundamental and sacrosanct part under the convention is of course ‘non refoulement’ – not returning persecuted people to their country of origin where they could face torture or death. Does anyone want to change that?
    • Why should other countries be sympathetic to our bleatings about revising the convention when our problems are so small? Only this week the UN High Commissioner for Refugees called on more international cooperation to assist the 1.8 million who have fled Syria. Most will want to return to their homes when the civil war and sectarian violence ends. But some will have to be resettled. 200,000 Coptic Christians have fled Egypt since the downfall of President Mubarak. Many will claim protection under the Refugee Convention. In our own region, 250,000 people, mainly Rohingya Muslims, have been forced to flee Buddhist Myanmar. Australia has sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. We must accept responsibility for persons fleeing those two countries as a result of our participation and occupation. In 2012 Pakistan had 1.6 million refugees, Iran 870,000, Germany 590,000 and Australia 30,000. In that same year, South Africa had 97,000 asylum seeker applications, France 98,000, the US 66,000 and Australia 29,000. Our problem is exaggerated out of all proportion for cynical political reasons. The media must bear a heavy responsibility for the manipulation of public prejudice and ignorance. Other countries are amazed at the cynicism of our political debate and the failure of political leadership. Why should other leaders around the world cooperate in our futile attempt to amend the convention?
    • If Australia, with such a small problem, believes that the Refugee Convention needs changing, what is there to stop other countries wanting to try to manipulate other conventions, particularly the Geneva Convention that protects our troops in places like Afghanistan? Do we want to be part of an unravelling process?
    • I am also concerned on practical and political grounds. Starting a process to amend and presumably soften the Refugee Convention could open a “Pandora’s box”. It would give the Scott Morrisons of this world free-kicks to continue their attacks on asylum seekers and refugees. (See my blog of March 5 in which Scott Morrison in his maiden speech said ‘From my faith I derive the values of loving kindness, justice and righteousness’). In the present anti-immigration environment, encouraged by the political right in Europe, Australia and elsewhere I fear we could be unleashing further attacks on refugees and would cement what Pope Francis has diplomatically called ‘the globalization of  indifference’ to refugees.

    The Refugee Convention is not broken. We should leave it alone and work with it. Let’s stop being side-tracked by nonsense about economic migrants and changing the Refugee Convention.

    The one area where Kevin Rudd should employ his considerable diplomatic skills and experience is to help negotiate a robust regional arrangement. Everything else is fifth-rate. A lot is also nonsense.

    ( Arja Keski Nummi and I have written extensively on this subject)

  • A place of refuge: responses to international population movements. Arja Keski-Nummi

    For over 60 years Australia has played a vital role in the development and strengthening of a system of international protection for refugees. It was one of the earliest signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention. It has been an active member of the Executive Committee of the UNHCR and has held the Chair on several occasions. Australia was one of the key countries in the development and implementation of the Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indo Chinese Refugees (CPA). Two Australians have been awarded the UNHCR Nansen Award for Refugees: Sir Tasman Heyes in1962 and Major General Paul Cullen in 1981.

    Australia has one of the largest humanitarian resettlement programs globally and contributes substantially to international efforts in support of displaced people and refugees. Despite this, in the past decade, Australia, like other developed countries, has grappled with the increasingly contentious nexus between asylum, irregular migration and secondary movements. The public debate is now so polarised that it has become difficult to have a rational and constructive dialogue on the best ways to respond to such movements.

    This essay reviews recent developments and focuses on some practical strategies that could be taken by Australia in strengthening the regional and international protection system.

    Globalisation is testing the tolerance levels of developed countries regarding population flows, immigration and asylum. We know we need immigration, but in the asylum context we just don’t like the apparent self-selection that occurs. It offends both our sense of a fair go and an orderly process. Alongside this concern is the emergence of organised people smuggling activities (a low risk /high profit venture) that facilitate the movement of people when migration systems fail them or do not accommodate their needs. Finally we are often suspicious of the motivation for such population movements, particularly secondary onward movements. Is it opportunistic? Is it out of fear for safety or merely economic? Is it because legal channels have been cut off? The answer probably lies in a complex mixture of all of these.

    These various strands of concern have coalesced into a sense of crisis regarding the perceived uncontrolled onward movements, especially by boat, and the capacity of the international protection system to respond effectively in a way that addresses both States’ legitimate concerns and individual protection needs. In our domestic policy context we see this being played out with ever-changing and often more restrictive policies on asylum, immigration, border control, interception and attempts at disruption, arrest and prosecution of people smugglers

    While such policy responses may temporarily have some impact, they fail in essence to tackle what is at the heart of the issue – the need by people forced to flee their countries to find a place of safety.

    This has been compounded further by the shrinking protection space for displaced people globally. For the past 60 years the complementary elements of an international protection system have been:

    • asylum – the obligation under the Refugee Convention that States provide protection to refugees who are in their territory, and
    • burden-sharing – the concept expressed in the preamble of the Convention whereby States contribute to the protection of refugees who are in the territory of other states.

    However after thirty years of mass outflows of people because of wars and civil unrest, from the Vietnam War to Syria today, the international system has struggled to find an effective way to balance these dual responsibilities.

    We do know it can be done. The Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indo Chinese Refugees in this region, and in Europe the airlift from Kosovo, shows what is possible when national and international interests come together. Despite being controversial and contentious at the time, both achieved their objectives of keeping borders open and providing at least some protection in the region until durable solutions were available.

    However the examples of failure to act quickly are horrific: the hesitation to intervene in Rwanda that saw over one million people killed; and the current indecisiveness on Syria where over two million have fled across the borders and where, the UNHCR estimate, there are some 4.25million people internally displaced.

    For over a decade there has been intense discussion on enhancing international cooperation and yet no consensus on a framework has been achieved, largely because governments have not seen what is in it for them (1) The reality is that any framework that is developed must take account of States’ national interests or it will not succeed. This is not Australia’s “problem” to fix but, as in the past, we have an important role to play in finding regional solutions because until we do we cannot hope to reach a reasonable response to the complexities of such population movements.

    To achieve this, three complementary approaches that build on current arrangements are examined here.

    1. Building a strategic policy dialogue

    The foundations already exist, but they often appear ad hoc and uncoordinated with little appreciation by others of what is being done. This includes the Bali Process and its various working groups as well as the Regional Support Office; the Regional Cooperation Framework endorsed at the last two Bali Process Ministers conferences, and in civil society, the work of the Asia Pacific Regional Refugee Network (APRRN) (2).

    The missing link in these arrangements is a mechanism that engages government and civil society in a strategic policy dialogue. There is an urgent need to start the work of establishing such a process and creating a framework that brings Governments and civil society in the region into a structured and constructive policy dialogue.

    One approach could be modelled on the “Track 2 Diplomacy” dialogue that has been effectively used in the Asia-Pacific region on security related issues. The objective of this unofficial dialogue would be to develop a shared understanding and a shared acknowledgement of the problem and the role of diverse players. This would include people working in immigration, security, intelligence and border protection areas of government as well as refugee and asylum experts in civil society.

    Done well, this approach has the potential to be transformational in breaking down the unproductive suspicions of the different parties, the current dynamics of which are self-perpetuating and so reinforcing of the stalemate that exists.

    While building a track 2 dialogue takes enormous effort and commitment the dividends can be many:

    • It can remove the discussion on asylum, people smuggling and displacement from public contention to a neutral space;
    • It can give greater freedom to explore alternative perspectives and formulate new (joint) ideas as well as giving all players a stake in the partnership and responsibilities in addressing the issues;
    • It can present an opportunity for those players outside Government to influence new policy thinking and for government officials, often stuck in rigid roles and with less flexibility, to explore and test new policy models which gives them the opportunity to “think aloud”;
    • It can promote a rational public discourse using facts and reason and can strengthen the voices of moderation;
    • It can kick start a process that could lead to a new framework balancing the complementary concepts of asylum and burden sharing regionally.

    If successful such a dialogue could conceivably be expanded into a regional approach sitting alongside or under the Bali Process.

    2. Alternative Migration options

    A central focus of the international discussion on population movements and asylum has been the concept of mixed migratory movements. The literature and research on such movements highlights the complexities inherent in making simple assumptions. A migration path that on the face of it might have started principally for “economic” reasons might, when more fully probed, have compelling refugee dimensions as well. In a 2004 study on mixed migration the absence of alternative migration pathways was cited as one possible reason for the growing “asylum” populations because no other alternatives existed (3). We should understand these dynamics better and examine ways to use extant visa programs as one way of easing the pressure on asylum systems as the only migration option available.

    We have faced such dilemmas before and responded with arrangements such as the Orderly Departure Program from Vietnam or the Special Assistance Category visas created for specific circumstances to release migration pressures that could otherwise have moved into an irregular migration pathway.

    The government, therefore, has in its toolkit a number of visa options that could be considered, and there is a persuasive case for the creation of a negotiated Orderly Departure and/or Special Assistance Category program from targeted countries such as Afghanistan or Sri Lanka. In the case of Afghanistan it could be incorporated into the discussions on the changing nature of Australia’s engagement with Afghanistan in the wake of the draw-down of our military presence. Other vulnerable populations that could be considered are, for example, the Tamils in Sri Lanka or Rohingya in Burma.

    While there will always be difficult bilateral issues with such arrangements these can be addressed through robust diplomatic engagement and discussion, as they have been in the past.

    3. Building a Regional Protection Space.

    Most people displaced by war and conflict will largely remain within their region of displacement (4). People continue to move when the protections in the country of first asylum become precarious or where processing is taking so long that they start to lose faith in return.

    It is important to provide a humane and responsible way to for people to search for alternative protection arrangements elsewhere. We need to work with host countries along the displacement corridors to support populations so as to minimise the need to move on or use smugglers for their onward movements. Such support includes timely registration and processing of claims, access to shelter, education and health services, as well as some capacity for self-sufficiency pending a durable solution.

    In this context the need to pursue regional processing arrangements through which resettlement or return can occur is urgent. Such an arrangement needs to be regarded in the broader context of supporting the continued development of a regional framework. If done well, it could assist in developing a common asylum processing system and infrastructure in the region.

    Balanced with a commitment to resettlement and appropriate alternative migration pathways, as well as safe and transparent return for people who are not refugees or who do not qualify for other visa programs, this would go a long way to restoring the spirit of international cooperation envisaged in the refugee convention.

    References

    1. See for example James Milner, Refugee Studies Centre Working paper No4 Sharing the Security Burden: Towards the Convergence of Refugee protection and State Security, May 2000.

    2. A key NGO umbrella organisation that brings together civil society and regional NGOs to identify and work out practical ways to support the development of a protection framework in the region for displaced people.

    3. Crisp, Jeff and Christina Boswell Poverty, International Migration and Asylum; Policy Brief No.8, UNU- WIDER 2004.

    4. See for example UNHCR Global Report 2012.

    Arja Keski-Nummi was formerly First Assistant Secretary of the Refugee, Humanitarian and International Division of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2007-2010. This article was published as a contribution to ‘Australia21’. It was part of a series of articles on refugees and asylum seekers.  See www.australia21.org.au. 

     

  • Is Pope Francis a Marxist?

    On 16 December last year, Eureka Street carried an article by Neil Ormerod about Pope Francis and his economic, social and political message. That article can be found on the link below.  John Menadue

    ​

    http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=38645#.Us8a9j0XBt8.email

  • A 100 billion dollar tale of piracy in the Timor Sea. Michael Sainsbury

    Although it sits on a vast undersea gas reserve, Timor-Leste remains deeply impoverished.

    Deep under the Timor Sea, there is a huge reserve of gas. Geologists now believe it is worth upwards of US$100 billion; a figure more than twice the amount estimated by Australia as recently as 2006. It is perhaps ironic that the nation with the strongest claim to ownership of that gas, by dint of proximity to it, is Timor-Leste, which is also among the world’s poorest nations.

    But will it ever get the benefit of it?

    There have been numerous treaties over the last 42 years between Australia, Indonesia and Timor-Leste, regarding the fate of the gas. All of them have heavily favored Australia. None of them have been in accordance with international maritime boundaries and laws. Australia has sought to protect these favorable borders using means that have been illegal and unethical at times – not to mention mighty un-neighborly.

    The last treaty signed with Timor-Leste in 2006, known as CMATS, is now under dispute at the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration, the PCA.

    CMATS was based on two earlier treaties. These were inked with Indonesia’s Suharto dictatorship in 1972 and 1989, and since dismissed by many lawyers as illegal. The treaties carved up the seabed between the two countries at a time when Indonesia was illegally occupying Timor-Leste, an occupation that only Australia among its international peers recognized.

    There is much at stake. Impoverished Timor-Leste, which is 95 percent Catholic, would obviously welcome a massive boost in assets and income, as would any country, including Australia.

    But Australia has even more to worry about. Its greatest fear is that if its 2006 treaty with Timor-Leste comes unstitched, then Indonesia, its vast northern neighbor, now far wealthier and more powerful than it was in the 1970s and 1980s, may want to renegotiate its own maritime borders with Australia – and that has far reaching strategic and economic implications.

    “Well, they didn’t have to sign the treaty, no one forced them to,” Alexander Downer, Australia’s Foreign Minister from 1996-2007, now says of Timor-Leste.

    It was Downer who made the key decision, only two months before Timor-Leste’s independence in 2002, to “withdraw” Australia from the maritime jurisdiction of the PCA.

    Now that some gas revenues are coming in, and under pressure from UN negotiators, Australia has agreed to hand over a larger share of them to Timor-Leste. But it has refused to budge on a 50-year clause that prevents Timor-Leste from challenging the boundaries established with Indonesia; boundaries that one former Indonesian foreign minister described as “taking Indonesia to the cleaners”.

    Timor-Leste has long been unhappy with CMATS. But then last year, the dispute stepped up several gears when it went public with allegations of spying by Australia during the treaty negotiations.

    Timor-Leste claims that Downer authorized the installation of wiretapping equipment in the walls of the new cabinet room in the capital, Dili. The building was being constructed, ostensibly as part of an “aid project,” in 2004 as the treaty negotiations were commencing. The allegations originated from an intelligence officer who worked for Australia’s overseas spy agency, now known in the PCA case as Witness K, to his government-approved lawyer Bernard Collaery in 2008.

    Timor-Leste took the case to the PCA last April. Then on December 3, more than a dozen officials from Australia’s domestic spy agency raided Collaery’s office and removed many high-level, evidential documents relating to the case. They also raided Witness K’s home, canceling his passport.

    The government claims this was done for national security reasons. The following day, Australia’s attorney-general George Brandis, under parliamentary privilege, stated the raid had nothing to do with CMATS. But Collaery, an approved lawyer for both domestic and overseas intelligence officers, told ucanews.com this claim is rubbish; there were no national security grounds for the search. He added that Witness K “was simply fulfilling his obligation as a Commonwealth officer to report illegal acts”.

    At the time, Australian and Timor-Leste officials were debating how Witness K would be handled, including a possible witness protection program, so the December raid does look extremely pre-emptive.

    It was hardly surprising that later in December, Timor-Leste’s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao sent both an official letter and his foreign minister, Jose Guterres, to Canberra, demanding a re-negotiation of CMATS and an explanation for the alleged spying.

    In a piece of especially inept statesmanship the incumbent prime minister, Julia Gillard, sent diplomat Margaret Twomey as her envoy for a three-hour meeting in Dili. Twomey pleaded for the East Timorese to cease their legal actions but it fell on deaf ears. The fact that Twomey was the Australian ambassador in Dili when the alleged spying took place, and the Timor-Leste government nursed its own suspicions about her role, would hardly have helped.

    Looming over all this is the cozy relationship between Canberra and Woodside, Australia’s biggest home-grown oil and gas company. Woodside controls Great Sunrise, the largest gas field opened so far in the disputed territory. Woodside has been “saved” once before, by government fiat, from a takeover by rival Royal Dutch Shell in 2001. More recently it has also enjoyed consultancy services from Downer’s company, Bespoke Approach.

    There can be little doubt that the well-connected, armor-protected Woodside will have strongly lobbied the Australian government for the best deal in the Timor Sea; even less doubt that its requests would have been favorably heard.

    This furore is just the latest sign of the Australian government’s current struggle to understand or deal effectively with its Asian neighbors. In recent months it has fallen out with Indonesia on the question of illegal immigrants. More damagingly, it has emerged that Australia spied on Indonesian President Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono, his wife and others.

    Australia’s new conservative government, led by Tony Abbott, has also decided to slash its aid budget by a cumulative A$4.5 billion in coming years, the vast majority of which goes to its nearby Asian neighbors.

    And in Timor-Leste, Minister for Energy and Petroleum Alfredo Pires has said that the episode is turning hearts and minds against Australia, even though Australia’s defense forces came to its rescue in its desperate battle for independence in 1999.

    Referring to the spying allegations, Pires said: “It was all done under the cover of an Australian aid project. Now we are even suspicious of Australian aid. Many people, particularly young people, have become very disillusioned with Australia over this.”

    The bottom line is that once again the people of Timor-Leste, who have been through so much for so long, are just collateral damage.

    Michael Sainsbury is an Australian journalist based in Bangkok.

    This article was published by CathNews   on 8 January 2014.  See link below. 

  • People like us: personal reflections. Guest blogger Trevor Boucher

    One of my great-great grandfathers on my mother’s side was transported to Australia in the early 1840’s for stealing lead from a chapel roof. The lash and Van Dieman’s Land didn’t reform him, although marriage in Geelong to an Irish orphan helped- even though a couple of manslaughter convictions followed.

    Not that I knew about this as a child born in 1936 in remote eastern Victoria. My family historian brother later extracted the information from a reluctant Mum (a crusading Salvationist’s daughter). Her opinion was, “We don’t need to talk about that sort of thing.” With hardworking and upright Dad being a Methodist local preacher, the numerous local Catholics (of Irish origin) were to be treated with some reserve –not really people like us. For their part, they probably saw us as “wowsers”. The hundreds of Chinese alluvial gold miners who once dug up the place had long gone. They didn’t meet “White Australia” prescriptions anyway.

    During the Second World War years Dad returned from a visit to relatives in the Western District with stories of how a companionable Italian POW assigned to them sat at the family dinner table.

    A few years later Dad employed on our farm one of the “Balt” refugees then coming into the country. Although he spoke funny, he seemed to be a decent person to have around.

    Both my parents had limited educational opportunities. In Dad’s case it was through family and financial circumstances, in Mum’s because she was a girl. They wanted their kids to have a better chance.

    So they sent me off to boarding school in Melbourne in 1949. Boarders included Chinese “boys” sent by the Missions from Rabaul, people whose wartime internment by the Japanese had delayed and interrupted their schooling. They were great fella’s; impromptu and illicit after hours Chinese tucker in the boarding quarters provided a great introduction to different food. Another student was the daughter of a Jewish refugee doctor from central Europe.

    Then came teenage hitchhiking around north-east Victoria. I was a bit of a problem for my mates. Being blonde and blue eyed, I looked too much like a “reffo” from the Bonegilla migrant camp. The word was out that they, not being “people like us”, were a problem if you let them into your car. So I was hidden away from the edge of the road while the mates did the hitching.

    Back at the school I was elevated to dormitory master. There were different faces in the streets as the mass immigration recruiting ground of Arthur Calwell (he of “two Wongs” fame) was moved from northern European climes to the warmer Mediterranean, bringing in “wogs” and “dagoes”. A Greek kid arrived at the school with not a word of English, and was fluent within weeks.

    By then the melting pot of the Snowy scheme was a great demonstration of how Australia could manage the welding together of many diverse cultures. The term “New Australian” was coined in an attempt to get away from derogatory references to newcomers. It worked for a while.

    Like others, I was caught by National Service Training requirements. I spent my twenty-first birthday with the Melbourne University Regiment in the bush at Puckapunyal, helping set up a jungle training shooting alley as part of national preparations against the “coming hordes from the North”.

    In late 1972, another brother escaped being Vietnam fodder. Malcolm Fraser later let in Vietnamese boat people; something I remember each time I visit my highly competent Vietnamese dentist.

    Through most of my early life, people of aboriginal descent were in the shadows around my old country market town, Bairnsdale, having come from nearby Lake Tyers Mission settlement. The lawyer in me found the Mabo decision when handed down by the High Court a road to Damascus, yet despite formal constitutional and judicial recognition, attitudes of other Australians generally remain apathetic towards dealing effectively with the continuing profound disadvantage that stands in the way of First Australians being “people like us”.

    My elder daughter Katherine has married Colin, an ethnic Chinese from Malaysia. They have three gorgeous and talented children – Nicholas, Hannah and Julia. What a gift!

    A few years back I took Bryce, the elder son of my younger daughter, Nicole, from Canberra to the cricket in Sydney. Going up the afternoon before, we walked down a Sydney suburban shopping street. I was struck by the fact that nearly all shop signs were in Chinese or another non-English language. There was scarcely a Caucasian face. I said to Bryce, “Do you notice anything different around here?” He said he didn’t and we walked on. A few minutes later he said he had spotted the difference. “What is it?” Bryce’s answer: “They’ve all got I-pads.”

    Some days on after- school pickup of his young blonde brother Trent,  I meet the latter’s best mate, a refugee kid from deep in the Sudan- someone with the best smile and the brightest dark eyes, the best rugby player in the team.

    Waiting in the schoolyard each day are parents from all over the globe. Among them are modestly dressed mothers who I take from their dress to be Muslims. Happy kids mix with each other. At a well attended school concert, kids dance as they sing a song in Arabic.

    As I chat about these things on the way home Paige, sister of Bryce and Trent, chimes in from the back seat to say matter-of-factly that her school friend (from Indonesia) has been fasting all day because of Ramadan and will be away, at prayers, the next day. This leads me to reflect on how religious observance and practice were a major part of my upbringing, my Protestant Mum going to great lengths to ensure that we ate fish on Good Friday.

    Travelling interstate, I can’t remember the last time that the taxi driver from and to the airport was someone who once would have been described as “dinki-di”. Someone has to do that tough and not greatly rewarding job, just as other immigrant people work hard at jobs that are not appealing to the “mainstream”.

    Names in today’s telephone book, like names of players in sporting teams, strongly demonstrate a world-wide spread of family origins of Australians.  On the other hand, when I indulge my pastime of attending country clearing- sale auctions I don’t see the faces of a typical urban Australian street, just faces reflecting the time of my childhood.

    Last weekend a couple, friends of over 50 years, visited. We got talking about the latest drownings of boat people – this time of people trying to get into Europe from the African continent and the Middle East. Leaders overseas have called for broad solutions. Our friends tell us that they are both offspring of boat people. Both sets of parents came by ship as “10 Pound Poms”.

    It strikes me that ten quid is not much compared with the amounts desperate boat people are reported to be paying to “people smugglers” or (dare I say) as air fares for a “legal” arrival followed by a visa overstay.

    The old Protestant/Catholic divide has gone but religious prejudice stays around. It seems funny that proposals for a Muslim school, a mosque and even recently a Muslim cemetery in the country still meet with NIMBY- type objections (for example, adverse traffic effects). Sadder still to me (now an agnostic) is that if one follows the claimed lineage of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths, they all lead back to the same “big fella”. Were I to choose to be buried, which denominational section would I be put in? Would it matter?

    While my great-great grandfather came involuntarily to a continent then little changed from the way it had been managed by indigenous people for centuries, succeeding waves of boat people –people seeking a better life-  and their descendants have created a diverse society that is rightly envied elsewhere. People once feared as being “different” have not only fitted in, widening the sense of “us”, but greatly enriched Australian life.

    My granddaughters, Gracye, Ellanor and Maddison, sing the National Anthem at morning line-up at their little country school at Numeralla. They are too young to catch the irony in the words that “for those who come across the seas” we have “bounteous plains to share”.

    Australian society and its composition have changed and pressures for further change will not go away. Sitting on our island we would be both foolish and inhumane not to recognize that there are many more at-risk human beings beyond our shores who are desperate for somewhere to go and who, on any analysis, are simply people like us.

    The great thing is that kids of today don’t see the differences between people that my generation did.

    The Australia of my childhood has changed. It is still changing. But is it better and does it hold more promise?

    You bet!

    PS  The daughter of the great-great grandfather referred to earlier married a man (my great grandfather) who had changed his name on arrival in Australia. He was a Swedish seaman who jumped ship in Melbourne. That means that I am a descendant of someone who today would be classed as an “illegal maritime arrival”.

    Trevor Boucher was Commissioner of Taxation for eight years. This was followed by two years as Australia’s Ambassador to the OECD.

    This article by Trevor Boucher was published before Christmas in ‘Australia 21’. For further information see www.australia21.org.au.

  • Repost: The scourge of special interests. John Menadue

    A REPOST FOR HOLIDAY READING.

    Lobbying has grown dramatically in recent years, particularly in Canberra. It now represents a growing and serious corruption of good governance and the development of sound public policy. In referring to the so called “public debate” on climate change Professor Ross Garnaut, highlighted the  ‘diabolical problem’ that special interests brought to bear on public discussion on that critical issue.

    ‘What is in it for me’ is not just a problem of self-interest by voters and consumers. That self-centredness has been taken to a high art form by powerful vested interests that extract monopoly rents at the expense of the national interest. The media and particularly News Ltd and the Australian Financial Review are part of this growing corporate influence and the propaganda that they bring to bear.

    Look at some facts.

    • There are over 900 full time independent lobbyists working in Canberra. That is over 30 for every Cabinet minister. On top of these ‘third party’ lobbyists, there are the special interests who conduct their own lobbying, e.g. Australian Pharmacy Guild.
    • These lobbyists encompass a whole range of interests eg mining, clubs, hospitals, private health funds, business and hotels that have all successfully challenged government policy and the public interest. Just think what the Minerals Council of Australia did to subvert public discussion on the Super Profits Tax and the activities of Clubs Australia to thwart gambling reform? With its lobbying power over the major parties the hotel lobby effectively determines hotel operating hours in the states. Violence and crime are a clear result.
    • With journalism under-resourced, the media depends increasingly on the propaganda and promotion put into the public arena by these special interests The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at UTS found in a survey of major metropolitan newspapers published in Australia in2010 that 55% of content was driven by public relations handouts from lobbyists and their associated public relations arms. 24% of the content of those metropolitan newspapers had no significant journalistic input whatsoever. It relied heavily on PR handouts.
    • The Media Council of Australia has just drawn attention to how media independence is increasingly compromised by ‘advertorials’, a deliberate confusing of advertising and editorial content. The Council also drew attention to trips financed by large corporations and organisations that were not disclosed. It’s not just travel companies that do this. Even the People’s Liberation Army of China provides trips for senior financial journalists to attend business conferences in China.
    • The health “debate” is really between the Minister and the Australian Medical Association, the Australian Pharmacy Guild, Medicines Australia and the Private Health Insurance companies. The debate is not with the public about health policy and strategy. It is about how the minister and her department manage the special interests.
    • Much of the policy skills in Canberra departments have been downgraded and much of the policy work is now in the hands of young staff in ministers’ offices that are much more inclined to listen to special interests.
    • Policy work within the government is now undertaken more in specialist organisations such as the Productivity Commission rather than in the departments. Departmental policy capability has been seriously denuded.

    What can be done?

    • Lobbyists have to be registered with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, but this is inadequate. They should also be obliged to promptly, publicly and accurately disclose the discussions and meetings that they have had with ministers, shadow ministers and senior public servants.
    • There should be a filtering mechanism such as the Economic Planning Advisory Committee which many years ago was an effective filter whereby special interests were forced to contend with wider community interests before advice went to ministers and departments.
    • All proposals by special interest groups must be accompanied by a public interest impact statement prepared by an independent and professional body This public impact statement would be attached to representations from the special interest group. Many of the major private consulting firms should be excluded from this process as many of them have shown themselves to be compromised in the interests of their clients.
    • Departments such as Health which are so influenced by special interests should have different governance arrangements. The traditional minister/departmental model in Health is a happy hunting ground for special interests that significantly influence outcomes in health. The Reserve Bank, composed of independent and professional persons has shown the benefit of such governance arrangements that keep special interests at bay and promote an informed public debate. We need such an arrangement in the health field particularly.
    • No minister or senior official should work with a special interest group that they have been associated with for at least five years after retirement or resignation.
    • There should be increased funding to the parliament to provide alternate public advice in key policy areas. The Parliamentary Budget Office is a good start. The policy vacuum that we presently have must be filled by independent and professional advisers. At the moment the policy vacuum is filled by special interests assisted in many cases by a compliant and under-resourced media.

    These proposals may seem draconian. But I strongly believe that we face a very serious problem – the diabolical problem that Ross Garnaut has mentioned. Special interests are handsomely winning the day at the expense of the public interest. A push-back against special interests is urgent.

  • Cricket – junk food and alcohol. John Menadue

    Over the holidays I have very much enjoyed watching on television Australia winning at last. The visual TV coverage is outstanding. The camera crews do a great job. I enhance my enjoyment by minimising the audio content. Except for the opening and closing of each session, and at the fall of each wicket, I keep my TV console on mute.

    But that is the good news. Unfortunately I can’t get away from the almost saturation picture coverage of junk food (KFC) and alcohol (Victorian Bitter and Bear-Wine-and-Spirits or BWS).

    Last year, the Australian National Preventive Health Agency (ANPHA) identified curbing alcohol use, tobacco use and obesity as the top three priority areas in preventive health. ANPHA considered that these three health risks accounted for 40% of potentially preventable hospitalisations.

    In addition to saturated fats, KFC gives saturated television advertising – KFC classic catches; Australian burgers vs English burgers; KFC trivia; Bucket-heads and a lot more. Yet only this week the National Health Reporting Authority for the Council of Australian Governments reported that our obesity rate had ballooned to 28% – with almost 11 million Australians classified as overweight or obese. Obesity is growing at an alarming rate and fast-food is one of the contributing factors.

    It is also hard to miss the seeming unending coverage of alcohol advertisements or promotion – on the sight-screens and on the scoreboards. We had BWS lunch and tea breaks. Yet only about a kilometre away from the Sydney Cricket Ground innocent people, police and hospital workers are battling alcohol-fuelled violence. The alcohol and hotel industry has enormous political clout and not just among politicians. Australian Cricket willingly plays their game.

    The Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice does not allow alcohol advertising before 8.30pm in order to protect children. But by some sleight of hand the alcohol industry is able to advertise any time of the day provided it is part of a live sporting event.

    In the 1980s the tobacco industry through Rothmans, Winfield and others fought a rear-guard action to continue advertising in association with sporting events. They used the hoary argument that if a product was legal it should also be possible to advertise it. In the end they had to withdraw from all advertising associated with sporting events. The same should happen to the junk food and alcohol industries. But who will challenge their enormous political and business power.

    In the meantime, Channel 9, Cricket Australia and players fill their pockets with the revenue derived from the advertising and promotion of dangerous products. That sounds to me like living off immoral earnings.

  • Repost: Pink Batts – facts and fiction. John Menadue

    The following is a repost from July 11, 2013. I wonder if it is necessary for the Abbott Government to rake over the past rather than concentrate on the future!

    The fiction is continuing in the uncritical media that only the Commonwealth Government should bear responsibility for the problems of the Home Insulation Scheme. We should consider the facts…

    • 1.1 million Installations were completed under the scheme. There was clearly a rush by the Commonwealth Government to roll out the scheme as part of a successful stimulus plan to provide work as the global financial crisis bore down on us.  Because of the stimulus plan Australia avoided most of the disaster that befell many other countries during the GFC. That should be recognized. But mistakes were made
    • In a column in Crikey of 26 April 2011, there were research findings by blogger Possum Comitatus, which were based on a CSIRO analysis of insulation fires.  (It was not about deaths.) Possum Comitatus concluded that ‘the HIS was three times safer than the industry it replaced in terms of the fires experienced within twelve months of getting installed’. He then looked at the rate of fires over the longer term and came to the same conclusion that the industry was safer following the HIS than it was before. He concluded ‘ultimately the HIS … was much safer in terms of the fire rate than what preceded it’.

    Certainly the number of fires was up, but that was perhaps not surprising given the major increase in installations. But the rate of fires was down.

    Ian McAuley in  New Matilda of 8 July 2003 has pointed out

    • Regulation of the home installation industry is in the hands of State Governments, not the Commonwealth. The states were and still are responsible for safety. In the recent coroner’s finding on a death in Queensland, he recommended that three managers from two insulation companies be referred to the Queensland Attorney General for breaches of the State Electrical Safety Act.
    • The Commonwealth Auditor General found that 29% of installations had deficiencies ranging from minor to series safety concerns. He found that the program was open to fraud, finding 4,000 cases of potential fraud and 67 cases of payments being made to contractors without any work having been done. This is clearly an industry which has attracted more fly-by-night operators than some others. The small industry sector has some downsides.

    Clearly the scheme was poorly administered by the Commonwealth and Kevin Rudd has apologised. But the safety/regulation issue is the responsibility of state governments. Further, the rate of fires was down following the introduction of the program.

    Under the rubric of small government the Commonwealth Department of Environment found itself unable to properly manage the programme. The necessary government skills and experience were just not there. Consultants Minter Ellison therefore advised the Commonwealth Government that the programme be outsourced which in effect limited the Commonwealth’s role to funding and not supervision.

    There is plenty of blame to go around, but it seems that some of the media have chosen only to focus on the Commonwealth Government and Kevin Rudd. The News Limited publications have been particularly sloppy and partisan on the issue. Once again, their political hectoring ran ahead of their  examination of the facts.

    On safety issues beyond the home installation industry, we find that workplace deaths across all industries has fallen by one third since the election of the first Rudd Government. These figures are from Safe Work Australia. Most deaths have occurred in agriculture followed by construction. This downward trend in workplace deaths has been occurring for many years. How much has been due to an emphasis on safety by Ministers Shorten and Albanese is hard to access. But the trend is certainly in the right direction.

    But the myths and the fictions of the pink batts continue.

  • People smugglers – villains and heroes. John Menadue

    In 2009 Kevin Rudd called people smugglers ‘the absolute scum of the earth … who should rot in hell’.  Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison echo and expanded this view.

    Others will point to people smugglers like Oskar Schindler who saved hundreds of lives.

    Life is anything but simple for people facing persecution. There will be grades of grey rather than black and white when we look at the history of people escaping from persecution to freedom. We know that some agents helping people flee may be driven by greed. Some will have genuine humanitarian concerns.

    The focus on people smuggling has the effect, partly by design, to divert attention from vulnerable and desperate people that need our protection. It is condescending for anyone to suggest that they know better what is good for people facing persecution and using agents or people smugglers. Scott Morrison has been reported as telling colleagues that he is genuinely concerned about deaths at sea. But is that the whole story? The focus on people-smugglers and the risks at sea is in many instances hypocritical humbug designed to hide the brutality of policies and actions.

    We wax indignantly about people smugglers who bring people by boat but ignore the people smugglers who help bring people by air. Some people smugglers are seen to be OK!

    Governments need to be concerned when asylum seekers use people-smugglers to take them on dangerous and possibly fatal journeys. But where there is persecution and violence and no legitimate or obvious way to escape, asylum seekers, if they have the money, will probably turn to people smugglers.  Hundreds of thousands of Jews who came to Australia and other countries during and after WWII paid people smugglers or agents to escape. In our own region, people smugglers provide a valuable service to help North Koreans escape into China across the Tumen River.

    If there is a need someone will provide a service to help people escape.

    It is also legitimate for governments to make a distinction between people trafficking and people smuggling. In the case of people trafficking, the object is usually the exploitation of persons in the country of destination. Prostitution is an obvious example. In many cases people smuggling does offer the prospect of freedom in the country of destination- at a price.

    Just look at some of the famous or infamous people smugglers in recent history. In all of them there was a mixture of heroism and perhaps some opportunism.  We all have better angels and darker angels. We are all likely to respond differently depending on the circumstances.

    OSKAR SCHINDLER is what we would describe today as a ‘colourful business identity’. He is credited with saving 1,200 Jews during the holocaust. He was initially an opportunist interested mainly in profit. His front was the Nazi intelligence service. He worked the black-market and bribed officials extensively. He had been a bankrupt and fined for public drunkenness. He was a well-known womaniser with a drinking problem. He was chronically in debt. Yet in the end he was a hero. He was named ‘Righteous among the Nations’ by the Israeli Government.

    CHIUNE SUGIHARA was the Japanese Consul General in Lithuania in the 1940s. He disobeyed his government in Tokyo and illegally issued visas for Jews to escape occupied Nazi territory. 6,000 Jews were thus able to escape via Vladivostok to Kobe in Japan on the trans-Siberian railway. After Soviet imprisonment, he returned to Japan and was forced to resign by the Japanese government. He was also named ‘Righteous among the Nations’ by the Israeli Government.

    CARL LUTZ persuaded German officials, including Adolf Eichmann, to tolerate his protection of Hungarian Jews. He is credited with saving over 62,000 Jews, the largest rescue operation of Jews in WWII. He was also named ‘Righteous among the Nations’ by the Israeli Government.

    RAOUL WALLENBERG is widely celebrated for the rescue of over 10,000 Jews from Nazi occupied Hungary. His family had strong commercial links with the Nazi government. He facilitated the issue of false documents and bribed Hungarian and German officials. He won the support of Adolf Eichmann. He was also named ‘Righteous among the Nations’ by the Israeli Government.

    These people were all people-smugglers. They did it for various motives. Almost all broke the rules, forged documents and bribed officials.

    When we join in the attacks on people smugglers we should recall the lessons of history. Hundreds and thousands of people both in the past and in the present owe their freedom to people smugglers.

    Last Sunday was ‘Holy Family Sunday’ which recalls the story of the plight of Joseph, Mary and Jesus to Egypt. That flight is often depicted in religious art as being assisted by a young guide. Perhaps the Holy Family was helped by a people smuggler wonder what Tony Abbott thought as he heard the gospel story!

    People smugglers exist because there is a demand for their services. Would any father with daughters facing the threat of the Taliban in Afghanistan refuse to pay a people smuggler if that was the only way to provide protection.

    We should choose our words carefully when condemning people smugglers. Unfortunately the attacks on people smugglers are often dishonestly designed to take attention away from the real issue – desperate people in need of protection.