I was interviewed on 17 August by Andrew West, the presenter of the Religion & Ethics Report, Radio National, ABC.
One thing I emphasised was the importance of leadership. If only Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten would shake hands on a deal to maintain and if necessary strengthen turnbacks and bring all the wounded souls in Nauru and Manus to Australia. That is the type of leadership and bipartisanship that we desperately need. They would be applauded for their wisdom and courage in breaking out of the cycle of fear and violence which accompanies our refugee policies. See link to interview below.
John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.
Comments
One response to “JOHN MENADUE. On Nauru and Manus, we need leaders who will appeal to the better angels of our nature.”
Why do we need this Writ of Mandamus? We are concerned about the indefinite mandatory detention of asylum seekers (including children) attempting to reach Australia by sea, offshore processing to asylum seekers, the reloading and turn and tow back of ‘life rafts’, the handing back of asylum seekers to their country of origin against the asylum seekers will (refoulment) and other unfair and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. We believe that International laws, human right conventions and refugee processing conventions are not being adhered to by the Australian Government.
We further believe that the only way the offshore detention centres can act as deterrence is if the souls who inhabit them are held permanently in custody.
This is unfair, unjust and unconscionable.
The only way this policy can be overturned is for the judiciary to intervene and later rule on its efficacy.
We should negotiate with our neighbors to establish the ability to process asylum seekers at our embassies and take a monthly quota of these by plane to Australia.
A larger share of our immigration quota should be used this way to actually establish a queue of our own. It is of course ridiculous to talk of an international queue because of the size of the numbers involved; leaving out internally displaced refugees, when one knows that there are 67 million people in permanent camps and 47 million in slavery somewhere out there ; and the free world only managed to only offer shelter to 102,000 souls last year. To claim there is a queue is to demonstrate ones ignorance of the magnitude of the problem. We should make our own arrangements to numbers of refugees of say 20,000 from UNHCR accreditation facilities and 25 or 30 thousand asylum seekers processed by our immigration officials in Thailand, Malaya, Indonesia, Cambodia for example.