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Dutton has lost control

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has well and truly lost control of his portfolio. The past year alone provides a rich field of examples of Dutton’s incompetency. There are many instances which highlight the absurdity of his excuses, claims and justifications for the Coalition’s appalling policies. Yet despite a growing list of clear failures, there is a noticeable absence of demands for accountability. Dutton continues his awful attempts to defend the indefensible and the general public laps it up, convinced by the Government’s lies that it is all for the greater good.

Dutton has demonstrated many failures. A man with his level of ineptitude and incompetency in the private sector would have been fired a long time ago. A man in his position in any other institution, would be loudly condemned, and subject to a fiercely independent investigation at a minimum.

The latest in the string of absurdities must be Dutton’s reaction over the recent death of a person under his care and the following riot on Christmas Island. Dutton brushed off the seventh known death of an asylum seeker since early 2014, with little more than a ‘meh’, followed by loud accusations of violent, hardened criminals causing trouble for no reason at all in the remote prison. Not only does Dutton fail to recognise or even faintly appreciate the duty of care he owes to asylum seekers detained under this watch, but he loudly refutes the provable fact that violent criminals, minor offenders and asylum seekers have all been mixed together and none would be there at all if it wasn’t for him and his party’s policies.

The totally preventable death of Fazel Chegeni is the doing of Dutton. The riot, which looks to cost the Australian taxpayer $10 million dollars, on top of the $100 million dollar blowout in the billion dollar cost of offshore detention, is the doing of Dutton.

Dutton is responsible, and in being responsible, must be the most incompetent Immigration Minister since the equally appalling performance of former Minister Scott Morrison.

If Dutton was an employee in any private organisation, he would have been sacked long ago for gross incompetence. If any individual person was paying Dutton’s remuneration, he would have been sacked long ago. Yet the Australian public, every individual tax payer is paying for Dutton, and yet he continues, unchecked, with calculated, deliberate lies to try and cover up his incompetency. And Australia does not hold him to account.

The mysterious death of Fazel Chegeni, a refugee whose body was found after being chased through the Christmas Island jungle by guards, follows other preventable and inexcusable deaths. In October, out of fear of being returned to detention and dying a slow death at Dutton’s hands, Khodayar Amini doused himself in petrol and self-immolated. Leo Seemanpillai did the same last year. Asylum seeker ‘Reza’, fearing deportation on Dutton’s orders, was found dead at Brisbane airport. Earlier, Nasim Najafi was attacked while under Dutton’s care, placed in solitary confinement, and committed suicide.

Dutton is responsible for these deaths. Just like former Minister Scott Morrison was responsible for Reza Barati’s murder on Manus Island, and for Hamid Kehazaei who died from a septicaemia after a treatable infection on his cut foot was ignored.

Dutton holds the power to giving these people hope, freedom and a chance of a life. Dutton refuses.

Dutton, whose actions are slowly killing the people under his care, is doing his best to convince asylum seekers that it is better to return to their own countries and risk death in a warzone, than die a slow and lingering death under his watch. ‘Khaled’, who saw his own father murdered after they both worked as military interpreters for the US, was coerced into returning to the very city he fled from in Iraq. Officials from Dutton’s Department coerced another man, Eyad, to return to Syria, where he was tortured for twenty days by government officers, before finally making it to his home. A short time later he was injured in a shell attack, which killed his father on the spot. Dutton is responsible for this.

If any other person was responsible for so many deaths, so many atrocities, so much harm, they’d be imprisoned themselves. Not Dutton. No, he is being paid by the Australian tax payer to continue his torturous regime.

Who can forget the boatloads of Tamil asylum seekers Dutton returned to Sri Lanka, despite being subject to persecution? And his refusal to help rescue Rohingya refugees stranded at sea? Or the Vietnamese asylum seekers who were returned by Dutton, some of which were arrested and detained immediately on their return to Vietnam?

And of course there is Dutton’s implied admission that his Department paid people smugglers, in a clear breach of international law, backed up by an Amnesty International report finding enough evidence that it happened.

Dutton is determined to continue to expose children to sexual abuse, assault and torture. The Government-commissioned Moss Report, the Forgotten Children Report from the Australian Human Rights Commission, and a Senate Committee Inquiry found that offshore detention is not safe for families and children. Earlier this year Dutton ordered the transfer of a five month old baby, Asha, to Nauru, where her desperate mother is still gravely concerned for her health. Fully qualified, professional Australian doctors have labelled the Government’s treatment of asylum seeker children as torture. Dutton is unrepentant. Instead of addressing the shocking claims, he made it illegal for ‘entrusted people’ to report the abuse, threatening doctors, nurses, councillors and teachers with two years jail.

The Australian tax payer is financing this abhorrent situation. Every Australian is paying for Dutton to put in place laws to incarcerate anyone who tries to hold Dutton to account.

Dutton refused for months to help a woman who had been brutally raped while under his care. Abyan, another refugee who fell pregnant after being raped, was also denied treatment in Australia until a mass public outcry. Dutton, insistently lying to the Australian public and the world about the poor woman’s situation, despite even the Coalition’s biggest supporter, Chris Kenny, backing up her advocates, has not been held to account for his lies. Dutton only acted after a scathing press statement from the United Nations, yet he still insists that denying a traumatised woman access to a counsellor and expert medical care is appropriate treatment.

Dutton deliberately seeks to expose vulnerable men, women and children to further harm.

According to Dutton, pregnant women under his care who request to give birth in Australia are trying to blackmail him, are taking him for a ‘mug’, and are partaking in a racket to get to Australia. According to Dutton, it is acceptable to force women under his care to give birth in a third world hospital on Nauru, where a newborn baby is seven times more likely to die at birth, and the mother is fifty times more likely to die during childbirth. Dutton has ignored medical professionals and the Australian Medical Association who insist Golestan, a diabetic woman, must be immediately flown to Australia to give birth. Golestan is suffering a complex pregnancy, and despite medical staff expecting her baby will require specialist care, Dutton insists on risking the baby’s life. Will Dutton sacrifice the life of an innocent baby in his race to provide crueler conditions than those which the asylum seekers have fled from?

It is not just asylum seekers Dutton treats with loathing and contempt. A freedom of information request by Fairfax media revealed that Dutton deliberately misled the public when he said there was no way his Border Force agents would be doing random spot checks on unsuspecting and law-abiding Melburnians in August this year.

Spooked by a backlash to the press release that Government agents would stop and speak with anyone they came across during Operation Fortitude in Melbourne’s CBD, Dutton’s kneejerk response at the time was to deny all knowledge of such a planned venture.

What kind of Minister thinks it’s acceptable and lawful to expect people to carry, and produce on demand, their ‘papers’ while out shopping on a weekend? What kind of Minister then lies to say it was never planned? Obviously one who mistakenly thought Australia was a police state, or one who is grossly incompetent. Dutton forgets he is an elected representative paid for by the Australian taxpayer to represent the Australian people, not treat the very people who elected him as criminals.

Speaking of taxpayers, voters, and Christmas Island, Dutton demonstrates yet again his inability to tell the truth. Despite deliberately, unrepentantly and viciously detaining and deporting any non-citizens who have suddenly become socially undesirable, no matter how minor their wrong-doing, or the absence of any actual offence at all, Dutton is adamant only the most violent and hardened criminals are subject to section 501 of the Migration Act. Many of these people have lived in Australia for their entire lives. They have voted in elections. Many have paid their taxes and contributed positively to the community for decades. They have families, wives, husbands, partners, siblings, parents and children in Australia.

According to Dutton, a decorated New Zealand soldier, Ngati Kanohi Haapu, known as Ko, must be banished forever, despite having no criminal convictions whatsoever. Ko’s ‘character issue’ is that he is allegedly a member of a one percent motorcycle club. Despite no motorcycle club being proven to be a criminal organisation, and police and law enforcement agencies being unable to produce sufficient evidence of such, Ko has been detained and set for deportation.

Ko has committed no crime. Not like Dutton, who has paid people smugglers, enabled and condoned child abuse, rape, and torture, and is responsible for at least five of the seven known deaths of asylum seekers.

According to Dutton, a New Zealand born mother of six, who has served her time for minor drug offences is a violent, hardened criminal. If this woman had been born in Australia she would serve her time and move on with her life. But no, according to Dutton, she must be banished from Australia, despite serving her sentence, because a faceless bureaucrat has applied a mandatory provision enacted on Dutton’s command, that she be deported.

According to Dutton, a single mother of two, charged with shoplifting is such a threat to the Australian public, she should be incarcerated, away from her young child and teen daughter – banished forever from Australia, because of Dutton. There is no such thing as rehabilitation or having ‘done one’s time’ under Dutton’s watch.

According to Dutton, a quadriplegic man, who served time for self-medicating with painkillers, is such a threat to the Australian public, he must be deported, never to return to the land he called home.

According to Dutton, a British man, who has lived in Australia for fifty of his fifty-one years, who in a moment of stupidity lit a scrub fire in which no people or property were harmed, is a violent and hardened criminal. Because according to Dutton, only violent and hardened criminals are being held on Christmas Island.

Where are the cries for Dutton’s resignation? Why is the Opposition silent? Why is Bill Shorten not calling for Dutton to stand down or be sacked? Why is the mainstream media not demanding more answers?

No person in anything other than a criminal organisation, a fascist, police state or dictatorship would get away with such criminal behaviour, and wilful and deliberate lies to the domestic and international community.

How many more families will be ripped apart by Dutton’s arbitrarily applied laws? How many more people must die a violent, painful and preventable death under Dutton’s watch? How many innocent children will lose their parents, and how many parents will lose their children at Dutton’s hands? The Government and the weak opposition, the detention centre contractors, and all the faceless bureaucrats, are complicit in the deaths, torture, and inhumane treatment of people under Australia’s care. Every Australian who does not make a stand against the cruel regime, is complicit.

Enough is enough. Rape, murder, suicide, torture, child abuse, violent assaults, death from medical neglect, and wilful destruction of families is all in a day’s work with Dutton in charge. And every Australian is paying for it.

 

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75 comments

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  1. Sir ScotchMistery

    Eva, much of what you say is cause for concern. However, can I for the umpteenth time point oout:

    Not only does Dutton fail to recognise or even faintly appreciate the duty of care he owes to asylum seekers detained under this watch, but he loudly refutes the provable fact that violent criminals, minor offenders and asylum seekers have all been mixed together and none would be there at all if it wasn’t for him and his party’s policies.

    It is most definitely NOT just HIS party’s policies at fault for this outrage. It is just as much the fault of the Alternative Liberal Party, and their position not to complain or vote against the same policies. Policies they have supported since the first time an LNP government put them up.

  2. Eva

    I just saw that page, mars08.

    And yes, Sir Scotch – in the last couple of paras I have included the Opposition as complicit. However, the only people who can change this situation now is Dutton and the Coalition. If the ALP get in at the next election, its new Ministers will be copping it, you can be sure of that.

  3. mars08

    @Eva… “… the only people who can change this situation now is Dutton and the Coalition…”

    Well… maybe, perhaps, kinda, sorta…. OR…

    The ALP could start setting the groundwork for a more humane approach by not buying into the Coalition’s bluster and “border security” chest thumping… and validating the msm sensationalism. If there is any intention to build a more humane solution, the ALP could be making things easier for itself by moderating it’s language.

    Still waiting….

  4. Adrianne Haddow

    He may be minister for incarceration of asylum seekers and their innocent children, for oppressing sexually abused, vulnerable and pregnant women, for giving the nod to the slave labour of the 457 visa holders, for the deportation of people who have committed breaches of the law, in the past, present and future, but underneath it all he still has the mind set of a cop.

    The mind set that sees everybody as either a perpetrator or a potential perpetrator.
    Far too much power in the hands of someone with far too little intellect.

    Why are we saddled with an opposition that never opposes?

  5. Eva

    Shorten is the main problem with the ALP. There are a growing number of ALP MPs and Senators who are speaking out, and the Labor for Refugees movement has a strong following. In contrast, the Coalition has no-one with a conscience.

    I do agree with you, mars08. I’m still waiting for the ALP to moderate it’s language too, although there has been a change in language since Turnbull took over as PM. No change in policy from either side, but definitely a moderation of language. My local Labor MP’s and Senators regularly hear from me with my thoughts on their policy support.

  6. Matters Not

    Yes having Dutton as a Minister in any portfolio, and in particular, one that requires ‘judgement’ is a gross error. As a member of cabinet, Dutton will be forever remembered as the one who argued against ‘letting courts decide’ because judges might ‘let them off’.

    As Adrianne Haddow points out, Dutton has the ‘mindset’ of a ‘cop’ who invariable sees the judicial fraternity as ‘soft on crime’. Further:

    Dutton said visa cancellation for non-citizens convicted of a crime was unremarkable internationally and had been part of Australian migration law since the second world war.

    “If somebody is here on a visa … if they’ve committed a crime they have their visa cancelled. And they face the criminal penalty and administratively their visa is cancelled. In this case they’re taken into custody and they await deportation.”

    The number of people detained under section 501 rose more than 600% in a year, from 76 in 2013-14 to 580 in 2014-15

    rose more than 600% in a year‘. Just proves that Australia’s been ‘soft on crime’ for more than half a century until an ex cop came along and showed them how it’s done.

    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/nov/12/british-citizen-in-australia-for-50-of-51-years-faces-deportation-for-scrub-fire?CMP=soc_567

  7. Matters Not

    Nevertheless, I have some issues with this piece.

    A man with his level of ineptitude and incompetency in the private sector would have been fired a long time ago … If Dutton was an employee in any private organisation, he would have been sacked long ago for gross incompetence …

    You seems to have the mindset of ‘private sector’ is good while ‘public sector’ is bad. Hence the repeated use of the pejorative descriptor ‘faceless bureaucrat’.

    Here in Queensland the Royal Commission into Child Abuse heard evidence that teachers in two prestigious ‘private schools’ under the control of Boards and (previously) lauded Principals refused to act after being informed of that abuse which involved ‘hundreds of students’ over more than a decade. Ironic to think that these parents were paying for ‘high quality’ child abuse in their chosen ‘selective, private schools’.

    I could provide endless examples of ‘incompetence and ineptitude’ in the private sector but why list what is widely known.

  8. David

    Eva xcellent points made.

  9. captain51

    At the time of duddun‘s appointment as Immigration Minister, he said something about dealing with bikies. It was then treated as a WTF moment. Unfortunately it now seems he was serious

  10. Matters Not

    But your essay raises the issue of accountability/responsibility (including ministerial) more generally.

    In the recent by-election in Canning, Andrew Hastie came under scrutiny because he was in command of a ‘group’, (some of whom) mutilated a corpse. He was excused (in the court of public opinion) because he ‘wasn’t there at the time’ which seems fair enough because ‘proximity ‘ must be taken into account. A Minister or Principal shouldn’t be held responsible for a teacher who sexually abuses a child (assuming they were not in proximity.

    But, (and it’s a big ‘but’), the situation changes when one is informed and then fails to act . That action might be as simple as informing the ‘police’ and other authorities such as Registration Boards (in due course), revising or changing policies and procedures and the like. But a failure to act is inexcusable.

    In the case of Dutton he was informed and he did not ‘act’ as he should’ve. Worse still, he attempted to both ‘excuse’ and ‘cover up’. Yet, there are others who also ‘know’ the ‘ins and outs’ and choose to remain silent.

    We have some way to go re the ‘good society’.

  11. Terry2

    I cannot imagine that the electorate of Dickson can be saying to themselves that they are well served by Dutton and that they are proud to have him was their member .

    Either Labor or perhaps the Greens need to give this seat a real work over as this man, like his mentors, Howard and Abbott does not pass the character test for a federal politician – or perhaps he does !

  12. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    The Labor Party aren’t in control of this right now. Why is everyone getting sucked in to talking about them ? This is not about them anymore. The Labor Party is barely relevant.
    Thanks for that mars08. It’s a shame it is facebook. Most of that is inaccessible to me as I don’t have an account with them. I probably can’t as I have no mobile phone. I even lost my twitter account because I no longer could provide a mobile number and a land line was not accepted.
    Dutton has never been slightly competent as shown by Morrison continually ‘wheeled out’ to make statements on the issue. I’m sure he thought he had escaped responsibility but he can’t because the government still relies on him for ‘damage control’.
    Australia has become a kleptocratic fascist state.

  13. Kaye Lee

    Labor MP Melissa Parke is leading a call for action. Labor watered her proposal down significantly but she at least made progress.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-10/labor-pledges-to-improve-offshore-detention-centres/6926612

    “There’s a very strong group within the party that’s very opposed,” she said.

    “I think it’s obvious to any fair-minded person that conditions on Nauru and Manus are ghastly.”

    I think Anna Burke, Terri Butler and Lisa Singh backed her.

  14. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    ….And as far as the rioting and the death of Fazel Chegeni it was reported on ABC radio (possibly in a phone conversation with a detainee) that when a detainee asked questions of the guards about the death of Chegeni he was “punched in the face”(assaulted violently) and sent to isolation. The detainees do not even have the right to question their gaolers on anything it seems. This was given as the ‘spark’ that caused the rioting (sounds fair enough to me). That is a ‘concentration camp’ by any definition.

  15. Jamee Newland

    Can we please stop referring to people as asylum seekers and instead use people seeking asylum. It may seem pedantic but it isn’t

  16. Matters Not

    Jamee Newland, please explain. I don’t give any different meaning to ‘asylum seekers’ and ‘people seeking asylum’.

    But apparently you do. Where am I in error?

  17. mars08

    I remember when Reza Barati was murdered. The progressive blogs were outraged, and full of comments predicting the dismantling of the brutal detention system. It could not go on. Surely… the Australian people we not going to tolerate such cruelty.

    It didn’t take long to see that the system, far from being a failure…. was working exactly how the government intended. Asylum seekers were being kept from the mainland, the public was provided with regular proof of their violent disposition, their suffering could be obscured, the media could spin it any way they wanted and the minister had plausible deniebility.

    A magnificent success!

  18. mars08

    I think Jamee Newland is concerned about the omission of the word “people”. To those so inclined… it may further dehumanise those in detention and denies the reality of their individual suffering. Seems like a fair point…

  19. corvus boreus

    mars08,
    I think those so inclined are already quite happy with referring to people seeking asylum as ‘illegals’, ‘queue-jumpers’, and, in the driest bureaucrat lingo, ‘unauthorised maritime arrivals’.

  20. Matters Not

    Not for me. Can’t see how the ‘asylum seeker’ descriptor fits any category other than ‘humans’.

    But I have no control over the ‘meaning(s)’ individuals give to words. (Or, have I made that point before?)

  21. mars08

    cb… you are probably right. But it’s worth remembering that there are those still not lost to the current sensationalism and hysteria.

  22. Roswell

    I’ve now officially heard everything.

  23. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    I sincerely doubt you have, Roswell. Who wants to hear another cliche ? Not me.

  24. mars08

    I wonder what happens the day an Australian camp guard is killed in a riot?

  25. Matters Not

    Kaye Lee in your link the name Steve McGlynn appears and it’s not the first time Steve’s fronted the media mouthing the official line about ‘saving lives’ and the rest. A quick search sees him described as Assistant Secretary Legal Advice & Operational Support Branch, although the Organisational Chart shows a different occupant.

    I suspect he’s a recent appointment. Nevertheless, it’s strange that he’s become a ‘go to’ public servant when the Minister’s Office wants a trusted ‘mouth’. It’s not that he’s currently high in the pecking order, but I won’t be surprised if a rapid promotion comes his way. Just sayin …

    mars08 it won’t be an ‘Australian’ camp guard but an ’employee’ of Trans …

  26. Roswell

    You’re probably right, Chris.

  27. mars08

    @Matters Not…. I inserted the adjective to mean an Australian national. .. not an ‘indigenous’ employee.

  28. Kieran Butler

    I suspect Dutton ordered his staff to stir the pot. Beating up a detainee is a pretty obvious way to go about it. Maybe it was an order to kill – or the beating got out of hand. Either way it provoked the desired riot that meant Dutton could conflate the words ‘refugees’ with ‘criminals’ and ‘rapists’ which is what wins votes in Australia. Simple psyop. Part of the LNP playbook for some time now. Turnbull barely acknowledged it – but he has been around long enough to know it is a necessary part of what makes an Australian government successful. Job done. Phones confiscated. The truth is now buried.

    This sort of conduct is what a majority of Australians endorse and routinely expect from an immigration minister. That’s why he is still there. And why the ALP would never even dare to challenge him.

  29. Eva

    I suspect you’re right, Kieran, and it makes me so mad.

  30. Thug

    Excellent piece Eva!

  31. Kyran

    The complicity of both of the major parties in this travesty is well documented. It started with the premise that people seeking asylum are somehow a threat to national security. Presumably, if a boatload of refugee’s can make it to Australia, our borders must be vulnerable to invading hordes of some sort. Never mind that none of the boats have been laden with arms or munitions of any sort. Never mind that the numbers coming through airports are at least five times the rate.
    The current cretin is the same as the last cretin, and the one before that.
    Whilst I totally accept the premise that the taxpayer is stumping up for the costs, I don’t accept it’s a popular policy. After reading this article, I was disheartened. When I saw mars08’s comment at 12.40, I went and had a look at the site on facebook.
    At that time, about 1.50 pm on my recollection, there were just over 3,000 followers. There was also a story on the ABC, which is ‘trending’.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-13/asylum-seeker-children-on-nauru-use-social-media-to-reach-out/6938256
    Last check on the facebook site, the likes are now well over 9,000 and the story appears to have been picked up by overseas news carriers. I tried ‘sharing’ it with others on facebook and it came up with a message I had never seen before. Apparently it can’t handle the rate at which the page is being shared.
    I remain disgusted by our politicians and disbelieving of the sentiment that this barbarism is endorsed by ‘most Australians’. If you get the opportunity to visit the facebook site and read the comments, it is well worth the visit. Thank you, Ms Cripps (and mars08). Take care

  32. paul walter

    Its a nitty gritty thread.

    I think it is as much about average Australians getting our heads around aspects of the situation that are disturbing, such as the life and death nature of the situations refugees have found themselves in and the now revealed untrustworthiness of many of our own so called leaders, as refugees.
    Thus, speculationas to what you or I would feel and think and do in such an unfamiliar situation. Then comes the question of action and why somehow things dont get done.

    Then there is the Byzantine level of politics festering back in the shadows, black cynicism and callousness including comments from journalists and experts through to ordinary people in the streets. There are all these different reactions and what they say about human nature and about how Australia and Australians are reacting to what gives, the good the bad and the ugly.

    I had the privilege of talking to a young woman dying of brain cancer a little while ago and have been left stunned at the injustice of what has befallen Justine. I said, I should be dying instead of you. We talked a little longer and I reached where I was going and left her on the bus, off to work.

    But it jarred me because it was about the arbitrary nature of life, the unfairness and the sense in a situation of life seeming’cheap and the powerlessness that these situations which bring you back to where you again remember how things are.

    This is what the thread is about, feelings, the arbitrary nature of life and how short it is and how outcomes seem so unfair. I think many people still haven’t come to terms with how dark reality can be, but the problems of the world like refugee trails and efugees, poverty, war and the rest are real- many many people like us are copping it for no good reason and in the end there is a tension, because some things, like cabinet ministers and supposed leaders carrying on like fools, the fear in many people, the conflicted desires and anger as insticts clash, to the perplexed with too many things that seem anomolous involved, particularly when compared against what is actually happening.

    On the end the only thing I can think to write is that some times things are the way they seem, why I don’t know and its real with the cold consolation comes from understanding that is integral to the human condition and happens to all.

    What’s actually been lacking or missing has been a sense of urgency relative to what I think of or identify as reality and I wonder what this entails for the future also.

    Sorry for being windy, but I am trying to work it out as best I can, also.

  33. lawrencewinder

    What the Liarbrils and the MSM are proving is that Australia would not think twice about becoming a fascist dictatorship…

  34. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    Paul Walter, there is nothing arbitrary about this. It is nothing like cancer. It is our government committing crimes against humanity, covering up the crimes of its employees and not standing by international treaties it agreed to.

  35. paul walter

    Our government committing crimes against humanity..

    Yes, this lot seems different. I’m getting older and wonder at these things more? One very cardinal thing I’m having trouble coming to terms with is the problem you talk of- Australian government(s) not just stuffing up, not just not giving a dam but actually in a seeming punitive frenzy as things unfold.

    And this is human nature in the first part of the twenty first century in a relatively literate country and people blessed when so many others are cursed?

    It could be the dynamics of things, but just now it seems uncanny, rank and toxic.

  36. heatherex

    Can’t stand the man. Everything about him is disgusting.

  37. mars08

    Seems that Dutton is to our Sir Pentine Smugalot what Abbott was to little Johnny Howard….. the stupid, rabid attack dog…

  38. Kyran

    Mr Walter (@7.35), some things are inevitable. Some things are preventable.
    “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change. The courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference.”
    I tend to agree with ChristGD, and the sentiment of the article. How do you hold cretin’s to account or initiate change when there are no ‘complaints mechanism’s’? The Nauru facebook page is now over 12k. I don’t think I’m alone. Take care

  39. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    Yes heatherex and mars, he is a bad cop with too much power. I don’t imagine he was any good as a Queensland police officer and they already have/had a terrible reputation.
    They are a bad and nasty lot Paul.They are willing to use any politics of the lowest common denominator. That is no leadership any country needs.

  40. Matters Not

    paul walter you write:

    … different reactions and what they say about human nature … And this is human nature

    I suspect that ‘human nature’ as a concept is one of the most ‘difficult’ and ‘slippery’ in the social sciences, particularly when its use ignores, or at least, avoids an understanding of other ‘cultures’ or ‘social’ arrangements and also when it ignores the historical context. While many, if not most, people employ that concept to explain both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behaviours, for every example of the ‘good’ a counter example of the ‘bad’ can be also found.

    And those ‘understandings’ of human nature change over time. I find it best not to generalise about human nature.

    Too many pitfalls.

  41. Florence nee Fedup

    Most there now are longer refugees but those who failed character test under section 501s. I see the increase if 600% I would say something is terribly wrong.

    On the news tonight was video of fight that got the chap who died into trouble. Lasted less than a minute. He didn’t appear to start it. Nothing more than pushing and shoving.

    Solicitors made mistake advising them to plead guilty. They were sentenced to jail, which on appeal was considered too severe. The Problem was, the appeal judge left convictions in place.

    I think, may have it wrong, Labor has called for independent investigations into the whole sorry farce.

  42. Matters Not

    While Dutton is morally reprehensible in my view, let’s not forget in the last election he secured 48% + of the primary vote and 56% + of the two party preferred. He achieved a positive swing in an electorate that once elected Kernot (twice) and Michael Lavarch, despite Dutton’s efforts to abandon same and move to a ‘safer’ seat further south.

    Dutton is a valid ‘representative’. He is popular. Sad but true.

  43. mars08

    And every Federal government which has continued the inhumane policy was ‘valid’. But then so was apartheid and slavery…

  44. Loz

    If anyone should insist on an investigation into this appalling situation it should be Tanya Pilbersek. Tanya gave a very emotional speech in parliament about her husband’s previous drug addiction when young and who has since turned his life around and is a devoted family man and has a successful career. This speech was given in response to the two people who were given a death sentence in Bali. If these laws had been enacted at that time and if Mr Pilbersek had been a dual citizen he may very well have ended up on Christmas Island.

  45. Terry2

    The problem on Nauru and Manus is being compounded with the passage of time and the indefinite detention on these islands. It is almost inevitable that these people will be suffering mental heath conditions as anybody would when they are incarcerated with no prospect of release and when they are constantly lied to and told that they will be ‘settled’ on these remote and foreign islands.

    How that poor woman is surviving – being shuttled back and forth for a termination after having been raped – I just cannot imagine and as I believe that she is currently in Australia (?) I hope that she is receiving some care and love at this difficult time : she must wonder what was her crime to be subjected to so much suffering.

    Something has gone very wrong in the institution now known as the Department of Immigration & Border Protection and we need to have an enquiry into this organisation and shine some light into its management ; the mere fact that these people are marching around in black, braided uniforms with guns at the ready and a mentality that thinks stopping citizens in the street to inspect their ‘papers’ is acceptable,indicates that something is very wrong with the culture.

  46. mars08

    Of course those ‘people’ should be locked up indefinitely… look at wht they just did in Paris!!! Or something like that…

  47. Florence nee Fedup

    Those people in Paris are What the refugees are fleeing from. As for Christmas Island, the majority are not even refugees. They are people who have had various visas revoke, awaiting deportation under section 501s. Nothing to do with Islamism. Dutton has managed within a few months to increase the number 600%. Many are not serious criminals, in fact one might find, many are ill.Yes suffering from mental illness. Many have spent their entire lives here. Most have families who are Australian. Very few are a threat to anyone.

    Paris is terrible, getting worse by the minute. Truth is, very little could have been done to prevent this outrage.

  48. Philb

    Australians feeling sympathy for refugees fleeing Syria has just gone down by an order of magnitude. The latest attacks on westerners this time in Paris, for mine, is the straw that has broken the camels back. This attack will not go unanswered, the French President will have to do something, or he is out of a job. This planet is slowly spiralling into the Abyss. I despair.

  49. mars08

    Two suicide bombers killed 43 in Lebanon recently. Pretty sure those idiots weren’t targeting westerners…

  50. Florence nee Fedup

    Why should one lose respect for those fleeing with only the clothes on there back in millions from the terrorists that have attacked Paris? Shouldn’t the opposite be true?

  51. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    Good on you Florence, this should not be used as an excuse for ethnic cleansing, discrimination and spreading more hate. That only makes the situation worse and more dangerous. This is a problem of right wing politics’ making, along with arms manufacturers and intelligence agencies.
    We don’t need to risk radicalizing Indonesia because idiots can’t shut up with their hate speech and harassment of others.

  52. mars08

    Slightly off topic… This morning a Facebook friend sent me a message. He said that there was an American terrorism ‘expert’ on the BBC pointing thd finger at ISIS and Iran. Strangely, no mention of the Illuminati….

  53. mars08

    @Chris the Greatly Dismayed…. How ln earth could we radicalise Indonesia? Population of 140 million… Spread over hundreds (maybe thousands) of islands. All levels of education. All ages. Several ethnic groups.

    How would this “radicalisation” happen exactly? Are all Indonesians so easily turned? Are they all just waiting for an excuse to go nuts? Are they that close to the edge.

    Or do you generalise….?
    .

  54. Matters Not

    How did this happen when:

    France’s external intelligence agency the DGSE, intercepts signals from computers and telephones in France and between France and other countries in order to get a pictures of who is talking to whom, although, apparently, they do not randomly spy on the content of phone calls, the daily revealed on Thursday.

    Emails, text messages, telephone records, access to Facebook and Twitter are stored for years. “All of our communications are spied on,” read the article quoting unnamed sources in the intelligence services as well as remarks made publicly by intelligence officials.

    The DGSE allegedly stores the metadata from private communications in a basement under its Paris headquarters. All of France’s seven other intelligence services have access to the data and can tap into it freely as a means to spot people’s suspicious communications. Individuals can then be targeted by more intrusive techniques such as phone-tapping, it was reported.

    The collection of metadata in Australia draws criticism from many quarters with many claims that it simply doesn’t work. Where to from here?

    https://www.rt.com/news/france-spying-nsa-citizens-672/

  55. Florence nee Fedup

    That expert is worth catching up with. Very clear about one fact. If We attack Muslimism we will lose.

    If we attack extremists and support the moderates we will win.

    The hate that seems to have emerged today will lead us nowhere good.

  56. mars08

    How odd that the ‘expert’ didn’t throw the Illuminati into the mix!

  57. Terry2

    Mars

    Don’t sell Indonesia short on population :

    ‘According to projections by the United Nations (UN) with regard to the future absolute population, Indonesia is expected to have a population that exceeds 250 million inhabitants by the year 2015, exceeds 270 million by 2025, exceeds 285 million by 2035 and exceeds 290 million by 2045.’

  58. Philb

    Florence nee Fedup
    November 14, 2015 at 1:13 pm

    Agree. That’s not the reality unfortunately. The racists and bigots will have a field day with this, it is going viral on social media. I have lost friends over this issue being the bleeding heart do gooder I have been accused of. This war between the cultures is heating up anyone thinking there is a quick fix for this, is delusional. We started this, for mine the terrorists are going to finish it. We can’t kill them all. I despair.

  59. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    mars08 radicalization already exists in Indonesia. If Indonesians hear continual bigoted hate speech coming from our country and are only hearing of attacks on Muslims in our country, along with the mis-reporting of issues that relate to Muslim people(by the Western msm), the resentment felt by many Muslims is only bound to grow. It is not that complicated or unpredictable or ‘religious based’ or that hard to counter if we are reasonable people about it.
    It has been the foreign policy of many countries (including our own) to destabilize and invade/destroy countries that are considered as Muslim ‘homelands’.

  60. Florence nee Fedup

    Personally I believe Australians are better than what we are seeing on twitter today. We are not that stupid. What I have noticed, they are quick to abuse if one disagrees with them. Not nice people at all.

  61. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    We used to be……we are on our way to being the worst we have managed since colonization and extermination times, I fear.
    People have lost/are losing critical thinking skills and social media/commentary is encouraging more ‘groupthink’ (to put it in Orwellian terms). The heartless and brainless rule…..
    Ok, so I can be a bit harsh….the time for suffering fools is obviously over.

  62. mars08

    @ Chris the Greatly Dismayed…. Are you buying into the “easy to anger, volatile Muslim” stereotype?

  63. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    No, not at all mars, in fact I don’t strictly categorize this as any kind of religious issue. Some Muslims buy into the apocalypse prediction type garbage that IS promote but that is as much a conspiracy theory as any other that people buy into. It is all a political/perception issue as far as I see it (or have heard from many). People are being used and manipulated for political power not some ‘mystical purpose’. That said not everyone’s motivations are the same, anyway.
    A strange thing…..I bookmarked about 5 IS sympathiser/associate twitter accounts about 3 days ago….Today they are all gone (despite them being fairly established accounts). I was curious to see what their reaction was.
    Turnbull has already failed us as far as any real leadership. He is entirely painting this as a clash of civilizations and a religious war, as badly or worse than Abbott. That can only make this worse and drag more people into the conflict.
    Some anti-Assad rebel supporters have been trying to portray this as something done by Assad supporters….
    Like any major incident most of the initial reporting and statements are mostly pointless to pay any attention to.
    On Indonesia, there has been a number of images of Indonesian IS(or other) fighters in Syria http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-02/indonesian-officer-killed-fighting-for-islamic-state-in-syria/6591256
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/25/indonesian-police-blame-jihadis-returning-from-syria-for-chlorine-bomb
    The people involved in militancy of any kind are a tiny proportion of the Muslim population and shouldn’t be given any credit for representing any religion. That makes no sense. There is ample evidence for many fighters being not much more than mercenaries and many using amphetamines (Captagon) on the battlefield. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/saudi-prince-held-record-beirut-airport-drug-bust-151026160814780.html
    Sorry if I ranged over a few different subjects there in not the most ordered way. I couldn’t be bothered trying to edit it and set it out better.
    One last thing – I wrote to State and Federal MPs and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells about resettlement of Syrian refugees, of any religion or none, in my town, not far from a major centre and got replies from all except CF-W (unless you would call an automated response a reply). I still stand by those emails. People need help.

  64. mars08

    Some Muslims buy into the apocalypse prediction type garbage that IS promote but that is as much a conspiracy theory as any other…

    Amazing isn’t it? Just a few minutes ago I was on Facebook reading comments from right-wing American kooks ranting about being armed and prepared for the apocalypse. Oh, and quite a few were having a dig at France for not joining the invasion of Iraq.

    Sadly, rabid idiots, sensationalist media and opportunistic politicians are taking us further into the swamp

  65. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    Yes mars, very sad. I hope people are generally not as stupid as they are in youtube comments.
    I was the only South Australian arrested at the anti-Iraq war protest in Adelaide – for drawing a peace symbol, in chalk on the back of the Kangaroo Island Ferry bus. The driver reversed into the crowd and sat there with his engine running on more than an idle to put as much noise and smoke in peoples faces. I took that as participation in the protest…..all charges were dropped anyway. My arrest was on tv at least 10 times that night. Have never found it on the net though…. disappointment. ; )

  66. mars08

    My 22yo daughter has been sending me screenshots of what some boys in her social media circle have been jabbering online… truly aweful ignorant stuff. They are looking for any excuse to spread their bigotry and hatred.

    BTW… I was at the Sydney antiwar protest way back then. It felt worthwhile at the time, but the politicians and media wanted their illegal needless war of aggression… and made damn sure they got it. Now we are seeing the tragic results of their foolishness.

  67. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    I was at the front of the march in Melbourne protesting against Iraq War One (face covered with the anarchists, upsetting the socialists) and like I said in Adelaide for Iraq War Two with my partner (and Mother of my kids) and her Mother and my old dog. They still remember how I said that Iraq will precipitate a war that will still be going by the time our future kids will be old enough for military service. I’m not sure whether I will be right but my boy is 11…..and I’m fairly sure a conscientious objector. My daughter thinks there is possibly something wrong with people who vote Liberal. They are funny kids.

  68. mars08

    So, are we feeling safe yet?

    Frustrating, isn’t it? Back in 2003, there were MILLIONS of us protesting against the relentless drive to war by our ruling class. It was a truly global event.

    We were saying loud and clear that the reasons for war were bogus… fabricated. There were no WMDs, there was no link to Sept 11, there was no axis of evil. Osama bin Laden was a product of American foreign policy. We warned that our troops would not be welcomed as liberators, that a sanction starved Iraq would shatter, that Iraqi exiles wouldn’t be able to fool the Iraqi people, that rebuilding the nation was a mammoth task…. and that a needless war would destabilise the region!

    But we were either ignored, ridiculed or painted as traitors. All these years later, the ruling class still pushes the sleepwalking mob down the same path… and we are still dismissed by the media. Yeah… I’m dismayed too!

  69. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    All that and many people said “…As long as we get cheaper petrol !” I hope those people who were saying that remember that.
    I remember who some of them were but it was said by so many.

  70. mars08

    I hope those people drop dead…

  71. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    It was those comments and arguments with people that got me angry enough to be willing to get arrested. I had talked about it lots in the weeks up to the invasion.

  72. Pingback: Dutton has lost control. – » The Australian Independent Media Network | olddogthoughts

  73. Florence nee Fedup

    I wonder if Dutton should be sending out letters to all on visa’s pointing out he will be administering section 501s strictly to the letter of the law.

    No second chances will be given.

    Telling them he intends to apply the law in retrospect. Warn them the smallest mistake will see them deported.

  74. Marion Jones

    I think Dutton has been set up as the scapegoat and will soon be sacrificed.

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