Tag Archives: Peter Dutton

Turnbull and Dutton wage war on women

October 17, 2015
Written by: Dr Jennifer Wilson
57 Replies

When Tony Abbott was Prime Minister it was difficult to imagine myself feeling more contempt and loathing for any politician than the contempt and loathing I felt towards him.

The emotions one experiences for public figures are paradoxical: they can be fiercely visceral and at the same time entirely abstract, as the relationship is not a personal one and the individual is unknown, except superficially. Nonetheless, they can keep you awake at night if the anger provoked is strong enough.

Tonight my contempt and loathing meter has exploded with the news that Immigration Minister Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull have conspired to secretly remove a raped and pregnant refugee, brought here just a few days ago for an abortion, back to the scene of her rape and the purview of her rapist, whose child she is now almost certainly doomed to carry to term.

The woman had, on the advice of psychologists and doctors conveyed to her through her lawyers as the government did not permit her to see either professional, requested counselling for both the sexual assault and the termination of the pregnancy it caused, before she underwent the procedure.

No counselling was permitted by the government. The date set for the procedure passed as she repeatedly begged for precursory assistance. The government then disingenuously decided she had refused the abortion, and whisked her back to Nauru on a chartered plane without allowing her lawyers to speak with her.

If you have been sexually assaulted, if your body has been, against your will, violated by another, it is going to be traumatic to undergo any subsequent procedure that involves the penetration of your body, even if it is with your permission. Only people of immense stupidity or immense, unspeakable cruelty could fail to appreciate this reality.

What Turnbull and Dutton have done is truly horrific. It ought to make every woman tremble in fear and rage. This is what powerful men can do and will do to women, in the pursuit of their own interests. This is how they still despise us, devalue us, abuse us and use us. This is a war on women, expressed today and in this manner against a Somali refugee, expressed tomorrow against whichever woman who in some way they fear presents a threat to their hold on power.

I happened to be at Question Time yesterday when Turnbull gave a splendid performance of urbanity, sophistication, confidence, superiority, authority, intelligence and charm, self-deprecatingly admitting his financial privilege which he attributes to fate, and nurtures in the Caymans. Hockey and Abbott sat side by side on the back benches, grim as the two evil fairies at the christening. The contrast between Turnbull and Abbott could not have been greater.

And yet … Abbott was the iron fist in the iron glove. Turnbull is the iron fist in the velvet glove. Turnbull denigrates woman as much as does Abbott. He’s simply a lot more sophisticated in his ability to conceal the denigration. He’s simply a great deal better at paying lip service to women he believes will further his cause than Abbott ever was. Turnbull has as much of a double standard towards women as did his predecessor. There are still women of calibre, and then there’s the Somali refugee.

I can only hope the feminists in this country will stop fighting about who is allowed to call herself a feminist and who isn’t, and the eternally fraught questions of body hair and breast implants as symbols of hard-won choice, and instead turn their energies towards fighting Turnbull. With Abbott we at least knew where we stood. Turnbull will trash us with charm and blinding eloquence, and we won’t even notice until it’s too late.

This article was originally published on No Place For Sheep.

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Turnbull: women must be respected but only if they are of our tribe

October 10, 2015
Written by: Dr Jennifer Wilson
11 Replies

If you can take away the freedom of one man [sic] you strike at the liberty of all.

I don’t think the truth of that statement has struck me quite as forcefully as it has since I learnt of the young Somali refugee who was raped and left pregnant on Nauru some fourteen weeks ago.

Since her ordeal began, the woman has repeatedly appealed to the Australian government to allow her to travel to this country for termination of the pregnancy. Abortion is illegal in Nauru. A termination can only be performed in Papua New Guinea prior to twelve weeks. There is no option for this young woman, other than being brought to Australia.

While Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull patronisingly assures us that his government is in tune with the Somali refugee’s needs, and while Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has assured us that any asylum seeker in off-shore detention will be brought to Australia for medical treatment if deemed necessary, the reality is that a pregnancy waits for no man, and fourteen weeks is more than enough time for a woman to be flown to this country and receive the treatment she is owed, and so desperately needs.

It’s starkly apparent that Nauru is a most unsafe environment for women and children, in detention and out of it. Both the Labor and LNP governments bear the entire responsibility for attacks on women and children they’ve imprisoned in a country that has virtually no rule of law, and whose aid has been revoked by the New Zealand government precisely because of its lack of an adequate justice system.

Malcolm Turnbull’s politically opportunistic proclamation that women in Australia deserve respect and must be respected is entirely undermined by his government’s attitude towards women in off-shore detention. If you do not respect women other than those who are of your tribe, then you do not respect women at all. Your respect for women is conditional, and the condition is that they are women you consider worthy, (or of calibre) according to your own criteria.

The government’s ongoing willingness to subject women in off-shore detention to abuses, sexual assaults, intimidation, fear, and hopelessness tells me that its respect for me is subject to its approval of me as a member of the accepted tribe. Were I to fall outside those criteria, I would no longer be considered worthy of respect and protection.

This isn’t good enough. If you take away respect from one woman, you take away respect from all of us. Respect for women should have no boundaries, political, geographic, ethnic or national.

In this instance, what Turnbull’s government perpetuates, as has every government since Paul Keating built the first detention centres, is the patriarchy’s favoured myth of the madonna and the whore: there are women you respect, and there are women you rape. Men decide which of us is which. In the case of asylum seekers who arrived here by boat, their very situation has placed them in the latter category as they are perceived by the hegemony as other. Other means not quite as human, because not of our tribe.

What Turnbull is doing to refugee women in off-shore detention is a variation of what men who sexually assault us always do: dehumanising those they consider of less value than themselves, and the women they choose to protect.

No, Mr Turnbull, you do not respect me and you do not respect Australian women, and as long as you permit the ill-treatment of women in your off-shore concentration camps, your proclamations of respect will ring as hollow as a clanging cymbal.

Bring the Somali refugee to Australia for the medical treatment you owe her. She is suffering as you never have and never will suffer. Show her some respect.

This article was first published on No Place For Sheep.

The relevance of Tony Abbott

September 27, 2015
Written by: The AIM Network
64 Replies

By Paul G. Dellit

Now That The Lunatic Is No Longer In Charge Of The Asylum . . .

That’s unfair. Tony Abbott neither is nor was a lunatic. In the view of this writer, he was, at least as far as his Prime Ministerial persona was concerned, a brawling, misogynistic, serial-lying, duplicitous, incompetent, inarticulate, graceless buffoon. And he sought to mask all of these character traits with slogans and repetitions of slogans, and repetitions of repetitions of slogans said with animus as if to imbue them with the gravity they lacked . . . but he was not a lunatic.

We could go on, well into the night, reciting the many failings of this man in the role of Prime Minister and in the role of sensitised human being – but it would avail us nothing. It is not often wise to quote Senator Eric Abetz – in fact it is frequently impossible to quote the good Senator accurately, given the number of extra syl-lie-bles he finds for each word – but he said it all, ruby cheeked and trembling of hand, when asked about his prospects of a Ministerial position post Abbott. “The king is dead . . .”, he said. He didn’t add, “bur-i-ed, and cre-may-ted”. He didn’t need to. Former Prime Minister Abbott is now relevant to the current political scene in Australia only insofar as he is the exemplar of how not to do it.

However, it seems that life’s reversals are not learning experiences for Anthony John Abbott. He has already broken a post-Prime Ministerial promise to go gently into the night. He was, as he would have it, the victim of external forces, not personal failings, just as was Peta, she said, victimised because her name wasn’t Peter, even though she was responsible for the LNP winning the 2013 election.

But the purpose if this article is not to indulge in necrocide. Nor is it, in Shakespearean terms, to bury Tony Abbott without praise. And here I must crave your indulgence. The purpose of this article is to praise our most recently deposed Prime Minister.

It is easy to consider that man as little more than political carrion, but he did render a service to us for which we must be eternally grateful. It was for the fact that he was true to himself. From beginning to end, he was a shining beacon for right wing extremists in Australia (and Canadia). He gave them the status of having one of their own occupying the highest political office in the land. He gave the timorous within their ranks the courage to openly express their inner voices. He gave them licence to propose the policies and schemes, hitherto concealed, by which they would seek to transform Australia. And he gave them the belief that he had within his power the means to pursue those ends on their behalf. In short, the praiseworthy service Tony Abbott rendered to Australia was to expose the agenda of our extreme right wing while at the same time unwittingly laying IEDs along the road to their ultimate defeat.

Some of you may remember my article in May of this year, ‘Australian Democracy at a Tipping Point‘ which argued that Prime Minister Abbott was setting about the abolition of the rule of law and, given his way, would replace it, step by step, with rule by unchallengeable Ministerial fiat. The ratio decidendi of Ministerial decisions and the evidence upon which they were based would be kept secret, with any disclosure without Ministerial permission punishable by law. This attempt by the Abbott Government has largely been stymied by the effects upon the Senate of the outcries of respected lawyers and large sections of the public. While the rump of this Abbott initiative remains in play, a preponderance of legal opinion has it that these remnants to the original bill, if passed, would be struck down by the High Court. We seem to be out of danger on this score for now.

However, there are many precedents for democratic governments being overthrown by right wing movements. Their first item of business after gaining power is to restructure government in ways that would fit comfortably alongside the challenges to democracy proposed in the original Abbott bill. Had circumstances been different, had those with ultimate power in Australia decided they wanted that bill passed into law, its passing would have set a precedent for other such laws to follow. A clever strategist could then have set about introducing small changes, none of which would seem so egregious as to warrant a revolution, but by accretion would, like boiling frogs by raising the water temperature slowly so that they become inured to change, kill our Westminster system of government.

Minister Dutton and others attempted to promote the original Abbott bill by assuring the public that the LNP would never abuse the power it gave them. Yet there is evidence that even without the power of that bill passed into law, the extreme right wing abuse what power they do have.

A recent FOI request revealed a case in point: A man of some power and influence within business and politics in Australia, Maurice Newman, used that power and influence to arrange for The Australian newspaper to launch an attack upon the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). The willingly complicit Murdoch press manufactured evidence to claim that that the BoM had manipulated and falsified data to suit a left wing climate change conspiracy. With this campaign of misinformation successfully launched, Maurice Newman had provided the excuse for his close friend, Tony Abbott, to launch a Prime Ministerial foray into the data gathering and analysis functions of the BoM. The nature and tone of his intervention was manifestly designed to intimidate the BoM into toeing the Abbott/Newman climate change denial line – clear evidence of an attempt to smother science with extreme right wing ideology.

More importantly, the attempt to manipulate the work of the BoM demonstrated Prime Minister Abbott’s propensity for using the power of the Executive to covertly exert anti-democratic influence upon role of the Public Service to provide “frank and fearless advice”. How many other attempts, successful or otherwise, might he have made to pervert the fundamental principles upon which our system of democracy is based? We may never know, but, on balance, we don’t have to care. If there are further examples to be unearthed, they will be because, by his own actions, he has ensured that he will not be around to covertly carry them through. His interference with the BoM was undertaken before he had rendered the FOI legislation impotent. And all of his other assaults upon democracy in the prosecution of his extreme right wing agenda were committed before he had shored up his defences against the democratic backlash that was ultimately his undoing:

The appointment of his benefactor, Dyson Heydon to run the TURC (This is not to say that a TURC was not justified, whatever Abbott’s motives for creating it, but Dyson Heydon’s appointment ensured that the partiality of the Commissioner and his commitment to causing as much mud as possible to stick to the ALP was never in doubt).
The appointment Bronwyn Bishop (nee Setright) as a highly politicised Speaker.
Reposing in his unelected Chief of Staff the extraordinary executive power to control the actions of elected representatives, including Ministers, culminating in the directions issued from her Office which resulted in Border Force officers roaming the streets of Melbourne with the stated intention of randomly stopping and questioning members of the public under pain of arrest.
And of course, the law, passed with the supine collaboration of the ALP, that threatens whistleblowers with imprisonment for following their own professional standards and obligations – a law that allows the most egregious abuses of the human rights of people under the Government’s control without any legal means of exposure.

So I for one am grateful to Tony Abbott for dragging the extreme right agenda into full public view and epitomising, Pauline Hanson-like, the kind of irrational, ideologically driven, callous people who would prosecute it if they had the chance.

A letter to Peter Dutton

September 13, 2015
Written by: The AIM Network
20 Replies

By Vanessa Kairies

Dear Peter Dutton,

If your wife was raped in another country by foreigners and they fled that country to their homeland, would you expect their government to extradite them to face prosecution?

If your child was raped at a party, would you ever send them back to that location?

If an adult handcuffed one of your children while a group of adults looked on and laughed would you take action? If an adult struck your 4 year old daughter with such force that she fell over and grazed her elbows, would you react?

If friends of yours were bashed to death or died from an infection due to lack of inappropriate medical treatment would you expect an investigation to find out the cause to prevent it from happening again? Would you also expect that the murderers faced prosecution?

How do you feel about people who trade drugs and money to vulnerable people in exchange for sexual favours? Would you want this happening to members of your family?

If someone threw a rock at your child, would you act?

If your child’s pre-school recorded a “critical incident” at its centre once every 20 days, would you expect that centre be closed?

If your 5 year old child developed significant PTSD syndrome as the result of negligent treatment at pre-school, what would you do?

If your adorable little toddler, God love him, had tuberculosis, would you want diagnostic tests carried out immediately or would you prefer to wait for 3 months? Once diagnosed would you like to wait 3 weeks for the medication to arrive in your country before treatment could be carried out?

If someone was spying on your wife, how would you respond?

If your family had to flee their homes because of flooding due to rising sea levels from climate change, would you expect sympathy and a new home to live in or would you want to be imprisoned?

If you were studying your HSC in a foreign land, and due to be married to a national of that country, would you want to finish your education, get married and start a family or would you prefer to be dragged by your hair screaming and placed in a detention centre? Would you expect to have representation by a solicitor or would you prefer that that right was refused?

Just for fun, do you like to play the game of waterboarding and zipping on a Sunday? I could help cable tie your arms to a bed and my friends and I could throw you up into the air and let the bed land. Promise we won’t hurt you. After that we could try a few rounds of waterboarding.

Do you think that rapists should be caught, charged and imprisoned?

Do you think murderers should have the same fate?

If there were government departments responsible that could fix all of the things by closing these facilities, would you have expectations that the government minister responsible would act immediately, or would you expect that person to lie and cover up these human rights abuses?

On a different note, do you like to save money? Are you good with a budget?

Please let me know your thoughts, if you have lost your heart, conscience or soul, I can help you to find them. You could start by reading my article ‘Australia has a duty of care towards asylum seekers’. It might be a good place to begin looking.

Your sincerely

Vanessa Kairies

For more information about the Asylum seeker issue please see my cartoon folder in this link.

For more information about racism in Australia, please see my cartoon folder in this link.

Two things I have trouble with involving the Abbott Government … all right, three!

September 1, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
35 Replies

OK, I know it’s obvious, but I want to know why Justice Heydon can say that there was absolutely no reason for him to disqualify himself for accepting an invitation to be the guest speaker because – as he points out in his sixty seven page justification – it doesn’t demonstrate that he agrees with the politics of the organisation where he’s going to speak.

So there’s no problem with him accepting the invitation. Got it! Except now the question is why he felt that he had to change his mind about speaking there. It might be perceived as bias. But now his ruling on apprehended bias is that a “rational” person wouldn’t see it as bias.

I guess, from that, one could infer from that as Heydon decided to change his mind about speaking then he isn’t a “rational” person.

We also learn that Justice Heydon is famous for not reading emails.

Which seems a clear link to the Liberals who have a reluctance to read anything (as Kaye Lee pointed out in “Less Shovels And More Reading” a few days ago).

While not reading emails or anything going to their office has been a popular pastime for Liberals since Peter Reith and the children overboard fiasco, I suspect that it may become popular for unionists in the coming days.

“Sorry, Justice Heydon, but I’m well-known among my colleagues for not reading emails, opening letters, checking bank statements or anything else you wish to question me about. I wasn’t aware of any of this and I don’t see how any rational person would expect me to keep track of what I’ve been doing when – as a union leader – everyone knows that I’m a bludger who never does anything but wage war on those poor multinationals who are providing jobs for Australians as part of their charity program.”

But I’m more concerned about the Fairfax “jihad”.

Yep, that’s right. Minister for Not Reading Press Releases, Mr Peter Mutton told everyone that Fairfax were waging a “jihad” against the Abbott Government. Which if you look up almost any definition of the word, is a wee bit confusing. For a start, surely they need to be Muslims to wage a “jihad”. Although Waheed Aly does occasionally write a column for them, so perhaps he’s converted Amanda Vanstone and Peter Reith to the cause. And Paul Sheehan. None of those columnists ever show the Abbott Government in a positive light.

Yes, yes, I know. Allowing such people to give you their thoughts does make the Abbott Government look bad. Anyway, the Petester wasn’t finished, obviously concerned that he didn’t have anyone at “hello”. Or “jihad” for that matter.

PETER DUTTON: I think it would be helpful if some of the commentators in the area, in this space of politics, started reporting on the incidents, as opposed to being players themselves.

I think there’s a huge move by Fairfax at the moment to try and bring the Government down, that’s fair enough. But they aren’t, they aren’t….

They aren’t supposed to be political players, they’re supposed to be objective reporters of the news and I think many of them have morphed into frustrated politicians themselves.

Yes, they should get back to simple reporting of incidents the way the Murdoch Press does. Then we can see simple reporting of incidents like the fabulous: “We Need Tony” or “Kick This Mob Out”!

Although I seem to remember that we were told that News Limited were a private organisation and that they were allowed to be biased. Fairfax, on the other hand (sorry Andrew Hastie but that wasn’t directed at you!), should stick to reporting the facts because, well, they’re being “helped by the ABC” according to Pete the Insignificant.

But I find it strange that he thinks that “commentators” should stick to reporting “incidents”. I thought the whole idea of commentators was to commentate, but I’ve always been a bit funny about words and their meanings. You know, I’m one of those that thought that when Abbott said that there was no difference between him and Rudd on Education, I thought that meant that he was saying that he’d implement the same policy, not that they both had a university degree. Or that no cuts meant that he wasn’t going to reduce the funds to pensioners, not that he wasn’t going to take a knife to them.

Still to be fair, all our Minister for Operational Matters actually said was that “it’d be helpful” if they stuck to reporting incidents. Objectively. You know, factual reporting. Using last Friday’s events maybe he’d be happy with something like this appearing in Fairfax.

“Operation Fortitude was called off when a clumsy worded press release caused people to compare the Abbott Government with Hitler and Stalin and to make comparisons between the Border Force’s black uniform with the Nazi SS. The press release wasn’t read by the Minister’s Office because they don’t have anything to do with the day-to-day operational matters, so they didn’t think that it was worth reading something sent to them. The Prime Minister assured us that he knew nothing.”

Yeah, that should make him happy.

That, and a decision by the media to stop reporting that there’s disharmony in the Liberal Party, because it’s not really news. People leaking. As Dutton himself told us, people could have a pretty good idea who was doing the leaking, and they’re doing it for their own ambitions and they should be sacked. But there’s no disharmony, and any attempt to report disharmony is just due to the Labor/Green/ABC/Fairfax/socialist/Jewish/alien/Islam/foreign/World Trade Centre conspiracy to bring down the natural rulers by refusing to mention that all they think about is Jobs and Growth And Security, and if you think about something often enough, then it happens. We all know that, we’ve all seen “Field of Dreams” and we know that if we build it they will come.

Mm, perhaps I should apply for a job as Tony Abbott’s speechwriter.

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Abbott’s Ever Diminishing Campaign Options

August 30, 2015
Written by: John Kelly
58 Replies

I read online Friday morning that Australian Border Force were planning to conduct visa checks across the Melbourne CBD starting the same day and continuing over the weekend.

I read that the ABF would be “positioned at various locations around the CBD” and they would be, “speaking with any individual we cross paths with.” They warned Melburnians to “be aware of the conditions of your visa; if you commit visa fraud you should know it’s only a matter of time before you’re caught out.”

At first I thought it was a piece of satire but on closer view I realised it was wasn’t. What on earth did it mean? I don’t have a visa so if I went into the city should I take my passport with me? If I’m accosted and don’t have any identification on me, will I be apprehended?

The messages were very clear. The ABF were up for interrogating anyone on the streets. I decided I would stay home. Then later in the afternoon I learned that, in a ‘William Wallace’ type twitter call to arms, the concerned citizen response was swift and united.

A crowd of several hundred complete with banners, megaphones and plenty of spirit converged on Flinders Street Station. To borrow the now immortal words of one of our favourite sons, the late Ted Whitten, they ‘ stuck it up them’.

It happened, I read, because the Twittersphere went viral.

One can’t help feeling for the Victorian Police. A body the majority of Victorians view with the greatest of respect, was somehow blindsided, along with Yarra Trams, the Victorian Taxi Directorate and others, into playing ball with the Australian Border Force when the ABF had no real idea what they were doing.

As a result of the protest the entire exercise was cancelled and the blame game began. The MSM were in no doubt that the real culprit was Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. Whether he was or wasn’t became irrelevant when the broader reality dawned.

Up until yesterday national security was the only issue the Coalition had in their kit bag that they hadn’t already stuffed up in a monumental way.

‘Border Farce’ as it quickly became known, has taken care of that. While it’s anybody’s guess when the next election will be held, one gets the feeling that the government is fast running out of winnable strategies to take to the people.

National security was going to be front and centre. Having now missed that bus, one would think that all their efforts will be concentrated on the Trade Unions.

No, hang on, they stuffed that up too. Whether Dyson Heydon stays or goes won’t matter. His personal query directed to Bill Shorten that he was “concerned about his credibility as a witness” has sort of rebounded, quite spectacularly.

They can’t campaign on health, education or infrastructure without making people laugh. Nor on our reputation overseas which has gone from sound and steady, to mockery and derision.

Science and Technology are two more no-go zones for fear of the gasps that would come from an incredulous public. They could have a crack at renewable energy technologies but that would be a bit hypocritical.

They will also have to be careful how they play the ‘economy’ card. If you juxtapose their record over the past two years with their rhetoric leading up to the 2013 election, it makes for a litany of confusion and contradictions reminiscent of Joh Bejelke Petersen’s days as Queensland premier in the 1970s.

When Joe Hockey said he would produce a budget surplus in his first year and each year thereafter, he unwittingly demonstrated how ill equipped he was for the job. We all know how that’s working for him now?

Both he and the Coalition are also seriously compromised on the ‘How are you going to pay for it’ wedge. Joe Hockey is presently unable to tell us how he would fund the intended tax cuts he so desperately wants before he reveals any other goodies he might be contemplating.

They can hardly campaign on their overall performance either because they haven’t done anything…oh wait..yes, they got rid of the carbon tax and the mining tax and stopped the boats.

In the meantime they doubled the budget deficit, added $1 billion to the national debt for each week they have been in government and broken so many promises that any promise they make this time around, will only be met with more fits of laughter.

If Tony Abbott is still at the helm when the election is called, it is difficult to see them mounting much of a campaign at all. If Scott Morrison is the new PM then the extreme right wing of the party will have shot themselves in the foot.

If it’s Malcolm Turnbull, there will be some hope but given everything else that has transpired, it is hard to see him restoring enough confidence back into their copper veins any more than Kevin Rudd did for Labor in 2013.

Turnbull’s performance with the cost blowout of the now second rate NBN has left him looking quite sheepish and vulnerable. He’s also a republican which won’t help. Then we have Julie Bishop who has never been seriously tested and, I think, would not cope with the pressure.

They have, in fact, limited their options so severely that their only weapon will be fear. That might work but then again, they wouldn’t want to promote the ABF as the nation’s great protector.

Their last resort would be to try and convince the more gullible within the electorate into thinking that no matter how bad they are, the alternative will be so much worse.

Given how bad they have been themselves, that would really stretch the limits of our imagination, wouldn’t it.

Introducing finger number 3, community safety

August 30, 2015
Written by: Kaye Lee
32 Replies

Jobs, growth and . . . what was the other one . . . oh yeah, community safety. Has anyone got anything?

The government’s backpedalling explanation of Friday’s Border Farce debacle raises more questions than it answers.

The press release was sent to Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s office but nobody bothered to read the document.

Last year it was revealed in Senate estimates that the Immigration and Border Protection department employs more than 95 communications staff and spin doctors, costing taxpayers at least $8 million a year.

Morrison defended this saying ”These are large organisations which require a significant amount of internal and corporate communication work on behalf of these agencies.”

And none of them thought they should read a press release before it was issued? Are they using the Heydon defence – I didn’t open that attachment?

In typical fashion, a spokesman for Mr Dutton said “The nature of the operation was the same as activity and operations conducted when Labor was in Government.”

Are they ever going to be able to own any action without reference to Labor?

As PDuddy ducked for cover we were told “the Minister was not made aware of the Media Release. The Minister does not direct ABF operational matters.’’

The Prime Minister emphatically denied knowing anything about the operation.

So who does direct ABF matters?

Has Abbott created a rogue secret service that is answerable to no-one, that is deciding for themselves what to do with no direction from government?

“I think there’s a bit of hyperventilating going on here,’’ Abbott said. “All sorts of press releases go out all the time but they go out under the authority of the relevant officials … and that all happens at arm’s length from ministers.’’

“Obviously it was a mistake. The press release was clumsy. It was over the top and wrong.”

The Prime Minister warned those who sought to demean the role of Australia Border Force on the basis of a “badly-worded press release” should be “a little ashamed of themselves”.

What about the Department who failed to read it? Shouldn’t they be just a little ashamed? And I do not think it hyperventilating to be concerned that unapproved statements of this nature are put into the public arena.

The press release still appears on the official government Department of Immigration and Border Protection website.

“While the ABF regularly conducts a range of compliance field-work, this is the first time we’ve been involved in an inter-agency operation of this nature and we’re very proud be able to support each of our organisations to achieve our common mission of promoting a secure and cohesive society here in Melbourne.”

“ABF officers will be positioned at various locations around the CBD speaking with any individual we cross paths with,” Mr Smith said.

“You need to be aware of the conditions of your visa; if you commit visa fraud you should know it’s only a matter of time before you’re caught out.”

The inter-agency outfit will continue to work together on an ongoing basis to target crime in and around the Melbourne CBD to make the city a safer place for everyone.

Is Abbott suggesting that Don Smith has been misquoted?

There seems little doubt that this was a very deliberate action to fit in with Tony’s “community safety” slogan.

Dual citizen? Beware the Border Force street patrol

August 29, 2015
Written by: Eva Cripps
44 Replies

In many cases, buying into a conspiracy theory may result in an instant loss of credibility. However as reality becomes increasingly more absurd and Government policy more outrageous, what may once have seemed ludicrous now verges on genuine possibility. Friday the 28 August 2015 will go down in history as the day the citizens of Melbourne stood up against a police state and fascism. It will also be remembered as one of the most appallingly planned and ridiculously thought-out operations by a Government agency ever. And it demonstrates just why the instant revocation of citizenship in the proposed Allegiance to Australia Act is so incredibly dangerous.

Just weeks ago, the notion of Abbott’s paramilitary Border Force, prowling the streets of Australian cities and towns, searching for ‘visa fraudsters’ would have been laughed off as lunacy. The very thought of immigration and customs officials leaving their posts on the actual border of the nation and mingling among Saturday shoppers in the CBD of Melbourne would have been written off as an April Fool’s Day joke.

But no. Friday’s events showed that national security is no laughing matter for Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the now-missing-in-action Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton. The suggestion of potential identity checks of thousands of Australians meandering through the CBD was not so much of a suggestion, as part of an actual, real, planned inter-agency ‘safety’ operation with Victoria Police.

Astoundingly, the Australian Border Force issued a statement inferring that officers would be checking the visa status of people who crossed their paths on an ordinary weekend in Melbourne. There was no high profile event to warrant the operation, no actual security risk or suspected imminent incident of a terrorist nature. No. It was part of a crackdown on antisocial behaviour and outstanding warrants and to promote a ‘secure and cohesive’ community.

While Friday’s events were analysed, examined and ridiculed endlessly from every angle in the hours following the debacle, the whole concept of on-the-street visa checks ties in quite cleanly with another of Abbott’s new national security policies.

Earlier this year Abbott introduced the Allegiance to Australia Bill, which sets up a number of circumstances under which dual citizens may lose their Australian citizenship. While in some cases an actual conviction for an offence is required, there are many other cases where a person automatically renounces their citizenship by action.

Section 33AA of the Bill provides that where a person ‘acts inconsistently with their allegiance to Australia’ the renunciation has immediate effect from the moment the person does that action. Naturally, once the Minister becomes aware of the act and renunciation of citizenship, the person may be detained and deported.

The actions considered to be inconsistent with Australian allegiance include such things as engaging in terrorist activities; providing or receiving training connected with preparation for, engagement in, or assistance in a terrorist act; and financing terrorism or a terrorist. According to the University of Sydney’s Dr Rayner Thwaites and Dr Anne Twomey, a highly respected legal expert, the broadly worded provisions potentially apply to many innocent dual citizens. It means a law-abiding science or chemistry teacher, gym instructor or a member of a shooting club could inadvertently revoke their Australian citizenship if the skills they imparted or shared later helped a person commit a terrorist act.

As if this isn’t concerning enough, organisations such as Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd have been labelled as terrorist organisations, as have other environmental groups. People protesting against mining are considered such a threat, ASIO has reportedly spied on them.

Of course, the Allegiance to Australia Bill has not yet become law, but section 501 of the Migration Act 1958 already allows the Minister to cancel the visa of any Australian resident who is not a citizen on a range of ‘character’ grounds. The ‘test’ does not require any actual criminal convictions or any proof of criminality; not that the Minister has to provide the evidence used for a decision anyway if he can cite ‘national security’. The Minister basically decides a person is not of the calibre expected of an Australian resident and abolishes their right to live in the country – no matter how many decades they may have called Australia home.

With 28% of Australians born overseas, and an estimated third of Australians thought to be dual citizens, there are potentially millions of Australians at risk of detainment and deportation. Approximately 600 visas have already reportedly been cancelled by the Minister on ‘character grounds’ in the past year alone.

Which raises the question – just which ‘visa fraudsters’ was Mr Don Smith and his Border Force officers intending to intercept?

Many commentators have pointed out the absurdity of notifying visa over-stayers of an operation cracking down on illegal immigrants. Clearly those without lawful authority to be in Australia would have stayed clear of the Melbourne CBD.

But now, consider the operation was jointly between Victoria Police and other agencies, including the Border Force. According to Victorian Police Minister, Wade Noonan MP, it was a standard police operation focusing on antisocial behaviour and to ensure the safety of the community. He accuses Border Force of ‘unfortunate and inappropriate characterisation’ of the joint venture.

This may be so, but it does raise serious questions about how such an operation, if it had continued, would have been carried out. How many people, lawfully in Australia, holding permanent resident visas, would have been potentially caught up in the fishing exercise? How many would find themselves suddenly detained on the murky grounds of failing to meet the ‘good character’ requirements of the Migration Act? There need be no criminal offence committed, conviction or even evidence provided. What constitutes ‘antisocial behaviour’, and would suspicion of such warrant the immediate detainment and deportation of a New Zealand national, for example?

And if Abbott has his way and the Allegiance to Australia Bill becomes law, how exactly does Dutton intend to ‘discover’ those automatically renouncing their citizenship? Will the sight of Border Force agents patrolling shopping centres and malls be a regular and common occurrence? Will the Border Force be sent out to catch dual citizen commuters automatically revoking their citizenship by dropping a gold coin donation in a Wilderness Society tin? Will Border Force agents be pouncing on dual citizens buying chemistry sets from the National Geographic shop?

The ramifications of Friday’s aborted operation are huge. Despite Victoria Police seeing sense and cancelling the ridiculous event, the fact it was planned in the first place is cause for alarm.

The concerns about Border Force and Operation Fortitude has gone beyond racial profiling. Are we in the midst of a national cleansing program?

They don’t instil confidence any more than they display it

August 29, 2015
Written by: Kaye Lee
27 Replies

In 2012 Tony Abbott said “Imagine the reaction, for instance, had the Howard government sought to gag naval personnel after ‘children overboard’. But the principle of free speech badly needs reaffirmation now, because of the current government’s attempts to bully critics into silence.”

Yes, he truly said that!

This from the man who has been so highly critical of the ABC and the Guardian for revealing allegations of animal abuse in live exports, abuse of asylum seekers by naval and security personnel , spying on foreign leaders, and the payment of people smugglers by our government. Q&A has evoked hysterical overreaction and government interference with the independence of the national broadcaster.

This from the man who has silenced his own Ministers. He has gagged the public service, journalists, border force personnel, and all people who deal with asylum seekers under threat of gaol time. He has defunded the Freedom of Information Office which is now run by one man working from home. Whole departments no longer answer requests from the media. Reports paid for by us are not released. Advice that does not support the government’s political view is rejected. The phrases “operational matter” and “commercial in confidence” are flung around with gay abandon to stop stakeholders from having any input and the public from having information.

If you are so sure you are right, why keep information secret?

The Abbott government tells us that the adults are in charge but they have veiled their governing in secrecy and reacted ferociously to any criticism. Instead of confidently answering legitimate concerns, they dismiss, attack or ridicule the questioner.

When Obama spoke about the need to protect the Great Barrier Reef our Treasurer responded that Obama “hasn’t had great success” so far with his own plans to cut carbon emissions. Julie Bishop inferred that he didn’t know what he was talking about.

When the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, suggested that bushfires would get worse due to climate change and that Direct Action was a very expensive way to address it, Tony Abbott said she was “talking through her hat”.

When Gillian Triggs produced the Forgotten Children Report, she was mercilessly attacked as a partisan hack and her resignation was sought by the Attorney General.

“The Human Rights Commission, in my view, is an important national institution, but it has to be like Caesar’s wife, it must both be and be seen to be above partisan politics,” Senator Brandis said.

One wonders if he feels the same about Dyson Heydon and the TURC.

When Sarah Hansen-Young expressed alarm at allegations in a submission to a Senate inquiry that she was spied on by security guards at the Australian-run detention centre on Nauru, Peter Dutton slammed her as an attention-seeking “embarrassment to our country” with a record of making unsubstantiated claims that inevitably were proved to be wrong. We are still waiting for his apology.

When the Mackay Conservation Group were successful in court action delaying the approval of the Adani mine, they were labelled as traitors and called every name under the sun, my favourite being “vigilante litigants” – an oxymoron from the moron who holds the position of our highest legal officer in the country and who is now seeking to take away the right of citizens to object to developments on environmental grounds.

When East Timor sought to take the Australian government to court for bugging their parliamentary offices to gain commercial advantage for a private company, George Brandis authorised ASIO officers to raid the offices of East Timor’s lawyer and confiscated the passport of the key witness. This landed Australia in the dock at the International Court of Justice and dealt a serious blow to Australia’s global reputation as a nation that respects the rule of law.

When Tanya Plibersek drew attention to the plight of displaced people in Syria, suggesting we should be providing humanitarian aid, our Foreign Minister accused her of advocating for a “terrorists’ picnic” in Syria.

When the Labor Party sought to ensure that there would be mandatory labour market testing for developments under the Chinese Free Trade Agreement, they were called “racist” and “xenophobes”.

When they questioned the legality of stripping citizenship, Abbott accused them of “rolling out a red carpet for terrorists” whilst refusing to make public the legal advice he had received.

When his own colleagues complain about the excessive control by the unelected Peta Credlin, Abbott calls them sexist.

They even refuse to debate in Parliament the decision to go to war.

Calm confidence is something we should expect from our leader. It is their job to reassure us that everything is under control.

But misplaced confidence can be a very destructive thing.

An increasing trend towards secrecy and virulent attacks on anyone who dares to question does not instil confidence any more than it displays it.

Bravado is no replacement for convincing argument that can bear scrutiny.

Border Force Farce And The Abbott Government!

August 29, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
30 Replies

Well, the Border Force in Melbourne sort of confirmed it.

Either they have no idea, or else they think that they’re writers who believe that anything Clark and Dawe can do they can do better.

When Peter Dutton refused an interview with the ABC because it was an “operational matter”, the whole idea I had for a piece had been stolen by the minister himself.

And if you can’t laugh at something like this, you have to take it seriously.

We were assured by the head of Australian Border FORCE that this was a low level press release. Mm, it was quoting the regional commander for Victoria and Tasmania, which means that either what he was saying wasn’t meant for public consumption or else the person writing the press release was simply making it up. Sort of like Godwin Grech and utegate.

Either way, Don Smith’s statement had a lot of people making unfair comparison with Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Let’s break down the most controversial part of Commandant Smith’s – sorry, I mean Commander, bloody autocorrect – statement.

“ABF officers will be positioned at various locations around the CBD speaking with any individual we cross paths with.”

Well, it certainly is clumsily worded. I mean, everyone knows that you shouldn’t use a prepostion to end a sentence with. But hey, it only says speaking with. It doesn’t say that they’ll be asking to see papers and taking into custody anyone who can’t produce their visa, does it? People who’ve lost their wallet won’t be taken to a detention centre until they can prove their bona fides, will they? So what’s the big deal. Who wouldn’t like a little chat with men in such spiffy black uniforms.

Secondly, I infer that the use of the word “individual” means that they won’t be talking to anyone in a group. And, as we all know, anyone travelling by themselves in the CBD is just asking for trouble. The message was clear, if you’re someone who’s overstayed their visa or snuck in by boat before Abbott was elected and you needed to go to the CBD this weekend, make sure you take friends with you. Or better yet, go to St Kilda where you won’t have to speak to anyone liable to remind you that your days in the world’s most livable city are numbered.

And, while “positioned” makes them sound like snipers, and the words “cross paths” does have a potentially threatening sound, as in the phrase, “You better not cross my path today”, this is mitigated by the full reading of the sentence. As the officers will be “positioned at various locations” it means that they’re not going anywhere and therefore don’t have a path to cross.

Which I guess means that they weren’t going to speak to anyone. Which makes it a rather pointless exercise and a waste of money.

So it’s really great that it’s been called off. I’m surprised that Joe hasn’t been trumpeting it as another example of them saving money, like when they dumped their Paid Parental Leave scheme – it’s savings like that which have enabled them to get spending back under control, so that we have the money to drop bombs costing upwards of $100,000 each on Syria. Yes, I know some of you lefties think that there should be something in place which mandated every time our government drops a bomb that they’re obliged to pick a school or hospital in Australia and drop the cost of the bomb into its bank account. Ridiculous, we’d go broke if we spent money with that sort of gay abandon.

(“Gay abandon” now there’s a phrase you don’t hear much any more, unless you’re talking about the Same Sex Marriage Plebiscite after the next election, when Abbott argues that it’s unnecessary because the people knew his policy when they re-elected him. Yes, I’m being ridiculous. As if Abbott is going to be re-elected. As if he’s going to be PM if he doesn’t hold the next election before Christmas.)

Ah, I’m glad it’s all been cleared up. The AFB wasn’t going to randomly stop people, and they weren’t going to use racial profiling to identify people who were worth “speaking” to. The latter being of particular concern to me because my physical appearance does resemble that of a New Zealander or an American who are amongst the highest countries when it comes to overstaying your visa.

Which sort of does leave one with the question of what exactly were they going to do?

Apart from be involved in “operational matters”, and we have no right to be told what they are . . .

No word from our Freedom Commissioner about offshore detention

March 21, 2015
Written by: Kaye Lee
40 Replies

When George Brandis gifted the IPA’s Tim Wilson the high paying job of Human Rights Commissioner for Freedom despite his qualifications being “woefully inadequate”, he said it was to “restore balance”, believing that the HRC was too focused on discrimination.

Senator Brandis said Mr Wilson was ”one of Australia’s most prominent public advocates of the rights of the individual”.

But apparently that advocacy does not extend to the rights of asylum seekers illegally incarcerated by this government.

When the HRC produced their report on children in detention, the government’s response was to launch a very personal attack against Gillian Triggs.

Tim Wilson’s response was to say “I’m not going to get involved in fuelling the debate around this report.”

So what the hell is our freedom commissioner there for?

When reports of rapes and the sexual abuse of minors on Nauru surfaced last October, Scott Morrison’s response was to sack the people who made the allegations public and to report them to the AFP on the basis of “an intelligence report” by the security company running the detention centre that claimed it was “probable” that staff were coaching asylum seekers to manufacture situations where evidence could be obtained to pursue a political and ideological agenda in Australia.

“I have been provided with reports indicating that staff of service providers at the Nauru centre have been allegedly engaged in a broader campaign with external advocates to seek to cast doubt on the government’s border protection policies.”

Whilst saying “the allegations of sexual misconduct are abhorrent and I would be horrified to think that things of that nature have taken place,” Morrison seemed far more interested in pursuing the messenger and commissioned former integrity commissioner Philip Moss to conduct an independent review.

Released late on Friday after news of Malcolm Fraser’s death, the report found no proof of misconduct by the Save the Children staff, 9 of whom are now preparing to sue. I would suggest they have a far stronger case than Joe Hockey so if he wants to set a $1 million precedent, this could cost the government a lot of money.

The report, which the government has had for a month, did however detail many allegations against the security guards and the fact that 12 of them have been dismissed so far.

Mr Moss found compelling evidence that at least three women have been raped inside the detention centre and raised concern that sexual assault is likely to be under-reported due to a climate of fear and detainees worrying about their future refugee status.

“The review became aware of three allegations of rape (two female and one female minor), one which the Nauruan Police Force is investigating and two which the victims do not want to pursue by making a complaint. These allegations are concerning. They are also concerning because two of the victims do not feel able to bring forward these allegations to relevant authorities,” the report states.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said “Nauru would work to solve problems highlighted.”

The Australian Lawyers Alliance said the Commonwealth cannot outsource care of asylum seekers and could be liable for a “swathe of future compensation claims”.

“The nature of allegations raised in the Moss Review of sexual harassment, rape, trading sexual favours for marijuana and cigarettes and children being touched inappropriately, if proven, show that the Commonwealth has failed in its duty to take reasonable care of asylum seekers.”

So I went to our Commissioner for Freedom’s page on the HRC’s site to find what he had to say.

Tim Wilson’s latest article on March 11 begins well.

“Behind human rights is the still revolutionary idea that every human being is free and equal, that individuals own their own bodies and should be free to pursue their lives, opportunities and enterprise. Human rights provide the foundation for our liberal democracy, our market economy and our civil society.”

He goes on to say

“the biggest international frontier for human rights is ensuring the legal, social and cultural tolerance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people.”

Another article published the same day criticised an advertisement by the Australian Marriage Forum (AMF) against marriage for same-sex couples.

On January 19 he had written an article about Charlie Hebdo and Section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act and last October he wrote that it was time for the transgender talk.

I could not, however, find one thing about children in detention, or our continuing violation of human rights in offshore detention centres where we are legally liable for detainee’s safety and well-being.

Gillian Triggs, on the other hand, addressed the UN Human Rights Council yesterday.

Do ya do ya do ya really care?

October 13, 2014
Written by: Kaye Lee
39 Replies

I make this pledge to you the Australian people.

I will govern for all Australians.

I want to lift everyone’s standard of living.

I want to see wages and benefits rise in line with a growing economy.

I want to see our hospitals and schools improving as we invest the proceeds of a well-run economy into the things that really count.

I won’t let you down.

This is my pledge to you.

-Tony Abbott campaign launch speech, August 25 2013

Nice words but let’s face it – the Abbott government doesn’t give a shit about you. The evidence is overwhelming.

With one in seven Australians living in poverty, we have a Prime Minister who spends hundreds of billions on defence, security, and buying armaments. We have a Prime Minister who is so stage-managed he refuses to face the electorate on Q&A.

Our Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs has overseen the slashing of funding and the abolition of many successful initiatives that were working towards supporting our Indigenous people and closing the gap. But we have truancy officers aplenty, even if most of them are working for the dole.

We have a treasurer who feels those on welfare, the ‘leaners’, should be the ones to clear the country of debt. His justification for this is that he must cut spending and poor families get more money from the government than the rich, whilst steadfastly refusing to consider raising revenue by cracking down on tax avoidance.

He tells the world that our economy is in good shape while whipping up hysteria here about a non-existent emergency.

After coming to power on the promise of reducing the debt, Hockey has been borrowing so fast the net debt has increased from $178.10 billion when he took over to $217.55 billion at the end of August. PEFO numbers had net debt peaking at $219bn (12.7% of GDP) in 2015/16. The gross debt has risen from $290 billion to $345.035 billion – that’s extra borrowing of about one billion a week.

We have an education minister who has reneged on funding reform for schools, wants to make tertiary courses unaffordable, has closed down trades training centres, has insulted teachers, wasted money on a pointless review, and wants to rewrite history as a Christian crusade.

We have a health minister who is busily unwinding universal healthcare and preventative health agencies and who wants to discourage the poor from seeing a doctor.

On one hand we are warned about the alarming increase in obesity and diabetes, on the other we have the assistant minister for health, at the behest of her junk food lobbyist chief of staff, taking down a healthy food website.

Senator Nash insisted the health star site be pulled down a day after it was published in Febuary on the grounds it was published in error, despite freedom of information documents showing the minister was warned it would be published, and the states committing to spend $11 million on it.

In June, a watered down version of the site was reinstated, with the voluntary introduction period extended to five years from two and companies allowed to use the star ratings in conjunction with the industry’s daily intake guide. They also decided to continue voluntary pregnancy warning labels on alcohol, despite poor uptake by mixed drinks and so-called alcopops. Michael Thorn, the chief executive of the Foundation for Alcohol Research & Education, said it was “disgraceful” and put “booze before babies”.

“The alcohol industry will be celebrating that they have been able to successfully avoid introducing a warning label on their products for almost two decades,” he said.

One of the first steps of the minister for social services, Kevin Andrews, was to wind back gambling reform laws despite recommendations made by the Productivity Commission in its 2010 report into Australia’s gambling industry and the Victorian coroner’s report linking 128 suicides in that state directly to gambling..

This is the man who, along with our employment minister (he of breast cancer/abortion link fame), wants to see young unemployed without any income for 6 months of the year, and for the disabled to get out there and get one of those thousands of jobs that are just waiting for them if only they weren’t such bludgers. He also wants to lower the indexation rate of pensions which will cause the gap in standard of living to widen. All this while cutting $44 million from the capital works program of the National Partnership on Homelessness.

We have an environment minister who wants to cut down Tasmanian old growth forests and expand coal ports and dump sediment on the reef. He has wound back environmental protection laws and the right to appeal and gone on a spree of approving record amounts of fossil fuel production. At the same time, he has overseen the destruction of the renewable energy industry. They don’t even send him to world conferences on climate change because, after all, what could he say other than sorry.

Not content with these overt attacks on the environment, the government has quietly initiated a low key, unscheduled review into Australia’s national appliance energy efficiency standards. The only formal explanation offered to date is in the Energy “Anti-” Green Paper, which refers to “opportunities to reduce the red-tape burden on businesses”.

At least they were honest when our communications minister was appointed to “destroy the NBN” and he has done a damn fine job of it. Despite Tony Abbott’s election speech claim that within 100 days “the NBN will have a new business plan to ensure that every household gains five times current broadband speeds – within three years and without digging up almost every street in Australia – for $60 billion less than Labor,” the truth has emerged.

We will be left with a sub-optimal network, a mishmash of technologies, at a time when the world is increasingly going fibre. It will end up taking nearly as long and costing nearly as much as the all-fibre network it is replacing. The industry – and many around Turnbull – is increasingly realising this. But Turnbull will not budge.

Australia is the loser – all because of one man’s pride.

Scott Morrison, our immigration minister, is about as welcoming as a firing squad. He is like Hymie from Get Smart in his robotic determination to stop the boats at any cost. That goal apparently absolves him from any form of scrutiny, criticism, or human decency. He has a blank cheque and not one cent of it will be used to help refugees.

Despite our growing unemployment, he is also front and centre in providing Gina with her 457 visa workers – no rights, no entitlements, and if they complain they get deported.

Our minister for trade is working in secret, getting signatures on free trade agreements at any cost – it’s the announcement before the end of the year that’s important, not pesky details about tariffs and the fact that we no longer have the right to make our own laws without getting sued by global corporations.

Our attorney-general, the highest legal appointment in the land, thinks defending bigots is a priority. When faced with illegal actions by the government, steal the evidence, threaten journalists with gaol time and funding cuts, and introduce laws which remove official accountability. And while you’re at it, let’s bug the entire nation and make people prove themselves innocent. Even if they haven’t done anything wrong I am sure they have had evil thoughts.

Barnaby was last seen trying to hasten the demise of a few endangered species that are standing in the way of his dams.

Warren Truss is run off his feet planning roads, roads and more roads. Luckily they dumped that idea about releasing cost benefit analyses for any expenditure over $100 million. Thank god we got rid of that pesky head of Infrastructure Australia so we could get someone who understands our idea of what ‘independent body’ means. If the people want public transport they can build it themselves.

And how’s our girl doing? She’s looking tired to me. Making a case for a seat on the Human Rights Council whilst torturing refugees, or being sent in to bat at the world leaders’ conference on climate changed armed with nothing other than a rain forest conference, must shake even asbestos Julie’s steely resolve. The Armani suits and death stare can only get you so far. When in doubt, flirt.

I know you would like a mention Jamie Briggs but for the life of me, the only thing that comes to mind is your fawning introductions for our ‘Infrastructure Prime Minister’….

”To introduce our Tony, is what I’m here to do, and it really makes me happy to introduce to you…the indescribable, the incompatible, the unadorable….. Prrrriiiiimmme Minister!”

GP Co-Payment: Policy Analysis

May 25, 2014
Written by: Dr Victoria Fielding
25 Replies

Even Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey seem confused about their Great. Big. New. Tax on doctor’s visits, as announced in their horror budget two weeks ago. It’s still not clear exactly how this policy will be applied and who it will be applied to. While the government who introduced the tax go back to the drawing board to try to work out how it actually works, I thought it might be useful to do some policy analysis of my own, by interviewing my brother-in-law. I know this is a radical idea and one Abbott and his government clearly haven’t considered, but let’s throw in some facts from an expert. My brother-in-law can provide these facts in an expert manner since he is a GP:

Peter Dutton has said he decided the government should introduce the Medicare co-payment while visiting his doctor. Dutton explained that people should contribute to visits to a GP because this would make the health care system more financially sustainable. This doesn’t strike me as a consultative policy analysis process. If Dutton had chosen to investigate the effect of this policy in a more consultative way, who should he have spoken to?

Changes to the Medicare architecture should be undertaken through liaison between the Department of Health, the AMA [Australian Medical Association], the College of General Practice and State Health Departments.

As a practicing GP, what is your opinion of the Abbott government’s proposed Medicare $7 GP co-payment policy?

The proposed Medicare co-payment and its associated changes to Medicare have the potential to be very destructive to patient care for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it will deter people from discussing minor symptoms that they have with their GP, which often are a warning sign of more serious illness. This can lead to patients presenting with more advanced or severe disease, which may ultimately present a higher cost burden for the government.

Secondly, the capacity for general practices to be flexible in their billing to patients with limited financial resources is significantly reduced under the proposed changes.

Thirdly, hospital emergency departments will see a major increase in the volume of people with minor ailments presenting for care. Already, approximately 30% of patients presenting to an emergency department are non-urgent or semi-urgent conditions that could be managed in a GP setting. I suspect this proportion will increase significantly after the introduction of the co-payment.

Finally, the co-payment may influence doctors to manage their patients in a less-than-ideal manner, as GP’s may try to protect their patient from additional fees. For example, the GP may not undertake a planned review of an infected wound the next day to see if the antibiotics are helping. Or the GP may defer referring the patient for pathology tests that might have picked up the serious electrolyte abnormality. There is a significant potential for the quality of care to deteriorate.

What influence will the $7 Medicare GP co-payment have on the total price GPs will need to charge their patients rather than bulk-billing? Will there be an administration fee charged on top of the $7 fee?

This will vary depending on the way the practice currently bills. Some practices charge all patients a fee with a gap. The proposed Medicare changes will reduce the amount that patients get as a rebate and they will therefore have a larger gap (however, the co-payment per-se won’t be paid).

It is practices that bulk-bill patients who will see the most impact. For example, a general practitioner that chooses to bulk-bill a pensioner for a standard consult will have a 24% decrease in their income for that patient, and if they charge the co-payment without an additional fee on top, then their income will drop by 11%.

For example, here is the current situation where a standard consult for a pensioner is conducted:

Medicare Rebate ($36.30) + bulk-billing incentive ($6.60) = $42.90

And here are the proposed changes:

If no co-payment is charged then total income for consult is:

Medicare rebate ($31.30) = $31.30

If co-payment is charged:

Medicare rebate ($31.30) and low-gap incentive ($6.60) and co-payment ($2.00) = $39.90

As a general practitioner who runs a small business, these reductions in income have the potential to make the business unviable. My practice is considering its options but it is likely that we will simply have to charge concessional patients a gap of approximately $11 to maintain business viability (this will essentially keep our income stable). We are exploring other options such as reducing the duration of consults from 15 minutes to 12 minutes or reducing the number of supporting staff, but these options all have a negative impact on patient care.

What types of patients will this co-payment affect the most? Do you expect certain types of patients to visit their doctor less often?

This will have the most impact on patients who have chronic illness. In particular; the elderly, those with mental illness, diabetes, high blood pressure and children with recurrent infections. The impact will depend on how the medical profession and medical practices change their fee structure after the changes are introduced. It is unclear whether the large bulk-billing organisations such as Primary Health Care will continue to bulk-bill or whether they will charge the co-payment. I suspect that the overall impact of these changes will be much more severe than expected as many general practices like mine will change from conducting ‘mixed-billing’ (bulk-billing concessional patients and charging gap for non-concessional patients) to conducting private (gap) billing for all patients.

What types of illnesses and conditions will people suffer from more severely if they don’t see their GP as often?

Chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma, heart disease and those with mental illness are likely to be the hardest hit.

I also expect that some diseases will be picked up later. For example, a woman with a minor breast symptom who delays having it checked and it ultimately is found to be a breast cancer.

Another example is that if a patient reports an unusual mole early and it is excised and found to be an early melanoma, there is very little risk of the cancer spreading and cure is usual. However, if the melanoma is diagnosed after spreading, it is generally regarded as incurable and the costs of newer chemotherapies for melanoma are astronomical in comparison.

What affect do you think the GP co-payments will have on the overall health of the community and on the health budget bottom line?

There is likely to be a negative effect on general health in the community. I suspect that we will see some diseases that have been declining in severity, such as heart attacks or advanced breast cancer, either plateau or even increase in frequency.

I suspect the health budget will largely be unchanged, as while there will be a reduced number of general practice consultations and pathology/imaging rebates, there will be an increase in the number of more advanced diseases. There will probably be some cost-shifting as the more advanced cancers and heart disease will be cared for through the hospital system, whereas there will be less costs coming from general practice.

Do you think it was responsible of the Abbott government to use the revenue from the GP co-payment to build a future fund to fund scientific health research?

Increased funding for research is sorely needed. If there is a co-payment then I would support its proceeds going to research, however, I believe this funding should go to non-corporate research such as through the CSIRO or universities. I am concerned that corporate grants will be given for research by pharmaceutical companies that do not need government support.

The funding to the states for the provision of hospital care should also be increased if the co-payment is introduced as the further demand will outstrip already limited services in our public hospitals.

So there we have it. Not only some much needed facts, but clear analysis that shows the government haven’t thought through this policy. Either that, or they have and they don’t care about the detrimental impacts on our community. Sigh.

[twitter-follow screen_name=’Vic_Rollison’ show_count=’yes’]

Domestic violence disclosure schemes: part of the solution…

When Safety is a Fiction: Passing the UK’s…

The Newsman

Not good enough

University Investments: Divesting from the Military-Industrial Complex

Australian dividend payouts to shareholders rise 6 times…

The Wizard of Aus - a story for…

Anzac and the Pageantry of Deception