Cutting wages (ex Guardian article)

And it’s this interrelated policy context that suggests it’s actually the concept of the Australian “fair go” that’s “dead, buried, cremated” within the parliamentary Liberal and National parties. By cutting wages to fatten the margins of corporate profit, Coalition policy seems to be working towards the creation an Australian working poor. Allowing Australian workers to become every bit as exploited and miserable as our American cousins is this government’s most authentic policy agenda.

Manus Island: What will it take to shock us?

OPINION

By Julian Burnside

Posted about 3 hours agoFri 23 Jan 2015, 7:23am

PHOTO: Asylum seekers at the Manus Island detention centre have sewn their lips together in protest. (Supplied)

The reports coming out of Manus Island right now should be enough to shock us, but they aren't. What will it take? Barrister Julian Burnside has some ideas.

Reports about what is happening on Manus Island are mixed. According to inside sources, hundreds of asylum seekers are on a hunger strike, many have sewn their lips together, and tensions are high. According to Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, security levels have been high, as a precaution, and the hunger strike and lip sewing are the result of urging by refugee advocates. There has been little apparent public concern.

Some of the hunger strikers have said they are willing to die, and want to donate their organs to Australians. The public, in its post-Christmas torpor, was unmoved. Letters sent from Manus have been published, but this has provoked outrage only in that minority of Australians who are concerned about refugees. The public remain unmoved.

In February 2014, Reza Berati was murdered inside the Manus detention facility, allegedly by members of the staff who were supposedly keeping the detainees safe. I have been informed that eyewitnesses to the murder are still being held in solitary confinement. No one has yet been brought to trial for the murder. In September 2014, Hamid Kehazaei died of septicaemia after an infected foot was inadequately treated. Nobody has been held to account for his death in what looks like significant medical negligence.

Public reaction to these things has been minimal.

There are a few facts we all know, or should know. First (and arguably the most significant fact): the asylum seekers held on Manus and in other detention centres are not "illegal". They have committed no offence by coming to Australia seeking protection.

They are held in captivity without charge and without trial, because their conduct in seeking asylum is not an offence under Australian law. The government of Australia, and parts of the media, refer to them as "illegals" because it makes locking them up look faintly respectable. When they arrive in Australia asking to be protected from persecution, Australia takes them forcibly, against their will, to Manus. There they are held in uncomfortable, unhygienic conditions in tropical heat. They wait until their claims for refugee status are determined. Some of them have been there for about two years.

It should shock us to know how comprehensively the government has lied to us about Manus. It lies to us by calling asylum seekers "illegal". It lies to us about the conditions in which they are held. Maybe it would shock us to know that the people who are being mistreated by our government (and at vast expense to the taxpayer) are just ordinary people: human beings who have the same hopes and desires, the same frailties and fears as most of us.

Second: It is very clear that, if you lock up an innocent person in circumstances where they do not know how long it will be before they are released, they fall into hopelessness and despair after about 12 or 18 months. One very well-documented response to this despair is self-harm. Typically, they will cut themselves, or sew their lips together, or try to starve themselves to death.

Third: conditions in Manus are very harsh. In October 2013, the UNHCR reported on conditions on Manus. It noted:

Overall, UNHCR was deeply troubled to observe that the current policies, operational approaches and harsh physical conditions at the [detention centre] do not comply with international standards and in particular ...constitute arbitrary and mandatory detention under international law; ...and do not provide safe and humane conditions of treatment in detention...

There is not much doubt that our treatment of asylum seekers in Manus constitutes a crime against humanity. This is a matter of legal analysis, not political rhetoric. The hard facts about the horrific conditions on Manus Island that I've outlined above may not be enough to shock us, but the one thing that really might shock us is to see Abbott, Morrison and Dutton prosecuted in the International Criminal Court for those crimes. That's a pro bono case I would gladly prosecute.

Western Govts enemy of free speech

Crikey says: Western govts the enemy of free speech Many observers cried hypocrisy when leaders and dignitaries from countries like Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Palestine, Egypt and the Persian Gulf kingdoms -- all of which engage, as a matter of policy, in the persecution, jailing and often torture of journalists and activists -- attended the Paris rally to commemorate theCharlie Hebdo massacre. But the hypocrisy of Western politicians declaring themselves for free speech in the wake of the Paris murders is every bit as great. The US and UK governments are engaged in global-scale mass surveillance programs and have specifically targeted journalists and whistleblowers for harassment and prosecution. And the Australian government is no better. Despite pretending to be a supporter of free speech and a free press, the Abbott government has proven itself a committed enemy of both. Its draconian anti-terror laws introduced last year enable journalists to be jailed for a decade for reporting on intelligence operations. The data retention regime it has proposed ensures that police and intelligence agencies will have a rich trove of information with which to hunt down whistleblowers and the journalists and even politicians to whom they have provided public interest information. The government has attacked the ABC and slashed its funding, and used every power at its disposal to prevent the media from revealing information about its handling of asylum seekers, and freedom of information laws are now routinely abused by the public service. Attorney-General George Brandis approved an ASIO raid designed to intimidate the whistleblower who revealed our spying on East Timor; the whistleblower's passport was also seized to prevent him from giving evidence in an international court; the lawyer representing that whistleblower has been threatened by Brandis and his agencies with prosecution. Like most advocates of free speech, the Abbott government only likes free speech that it agrees with. Its idea of a free press is outlets that support it. Like its US and UK counterparts, it fears and attacks anything that doesn't suit its political purposes.