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Tag Archives: The Age

Coalition Treachery Cannot Stand

Opinion:

As reported recently in various news outlets, including The Age and recounted here at The AIMN by Rossleigh, it is the Coalition’s intention to hand over decisions regarding the provision of information about Asylum Seeker boat arrivals to the military.

”That will be an operational decision, as part of Operation Sovereign Borders, for the three-star military officer,” Mr Morrison said. ”I don’t think those decisions should be put in the hands of politicians … I think those decisions should be made by implementation officers and I’m quite happy to trust a three-star military officer of our armed forces.”

I don’t especially care who you are prepared to trust, Mr Morrison. What matters is who the Australian people are prepared to trust. More to the point, why the hell is “trust” being mentioned at all?

The more you toss the word around, the more concerned I become. Whenever someone says, “trust me” you have to automatically wonder why. Usually, it means something is being withheld.

As things stand, under Labor, we are privy to all pertinent information regarding boat arrivals. That is how it should be. How can the population possibly make any informed decisions regarding public policy without information?

You are deliberately taking this whole matter, an explicitly humanitarian matter out of the public’s hands. That is utterly unacceptable. Your agenda is clear enough. You want to “solve” the issue by neatly removing it from public view. Out of sight, out of mind.

But it is nothing less than scandalous to attempt to remove the public’s ability to have an informed opinion about anything a Government is doing. You are seeking to exclude the Australian public from the political process.

I can already hear the words “We cannot release details of operational matters” resounding in my head. I assure you, lots of Australians aren’t naïve enough to think that a conversation about this hasn’t already taken place between the Coalition and General Three Stars.

Lots of Australians are not naïve enough to be unaware that every moment of the development of Coalition refugee policy has been an orchestrated affair aimed at making the problem magically disappear.

It was bad enough when you started characterising this human tragedy as an issue of “border security”. It got worse when you militarised our entire response to it. But to now go further and hide the thing under the cloak of a pseudo-military campaign is idiotic and gratuitous.

Make no mistake, that is what you’re doing and we know it. You have effectively declared war on persons seeking asylum. You have effectively put us on a war footing.

What is it about Conservatives that makes them unable to function unless they’re waging war against someone? The procedures and approach you are proposing, and what you have already set down as policy, is taking us down the path of turning Papua New Guinea into our own version of Guantanamo Bay.

Now, you may complain that the analogy is hyperbolic, but the parallels are there. You have consistently sought to dilute the legal rights of Asylum Seekers in direct contravention of established International laws and conventions. You now seek to cloud this whole matter in secrecy. You have expressed a preparedness to not only ignore International law and convention but to go so far as to remove this Nation from its status as a signatory to them. No, my analogy is perfectly reasonable.

In my view, this is nothing less than treachery. It cannot stand. This alone is reason enough not to vote for the Coalition. But more than that it speaks to a philosophy that will inform everything the Coalition would do in Government.

That philosophy is one that will send shivers down the spines of any Queenslander old enough to remember. It is the philosophy of, “Don’t you worry about that.”

Well, as it turned out under Joh Bjelke Peterson we had a great deal to be worried about and the same applies here. It’s a breathtakingly patronising, contemptuous and condescending attitude. You use the language of fear and emergency in an attempt to manipulate the minds of the electorate.

You know if you speak and act in such a way as to make people feel insecure, they will turn to those who offer them security. In such a situation you know you’ll get away with almost anything and that people will set aside natural humanitarian impulses, not to mention reason itself. There is, it must be said, no word in the English language that comes close to properly describing how deeply disgusting that behaviour is.

But perhaps I’m being unfair. Perhaps you really believe in what you’re doing and saying. Perhaps rather than disingenuous, you are just plain imbecilic. Either way, Australians suffer for it.

 

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The mainstream media has gone stark raving mad

It’s official. The mainstream media has gone stark raving mad.

This article was published in the Age today:

For the sake of the nation, Ms Gillard should stand aside

Let me preface this post by saying that I take great pride in writing a blog using my own name. I am Victoria Rollison and these are my opinions. For some people, writing under a pseudonym is their only option. I understand that. But what I don’t understand is why this piece of junk article has no byline on it. It implies it has been written by a newspaper. But we all know newspapers are just mechanisms for delivering words. They are where news articles are published. Newspapers can’t actually write, because newspapers don’t have a brain. Someone, or some people wrote this article and I don’t understand why they are not proud enough of their words to put their name to them. Perhaps they think it gives the piece more gravitas to sound like it’s been written by some higher force, some all knowing being which has more power than just some journalist, editor or media executive hack. I’m calling this out for the bullshit it is. There is no higher power and why the f*ck should there be in a democracy? This piece has nothing to do with the interests of Australia. It has everything to do with the interests of Fairfax media and their unrelenting campaign to bring down Julia Gillard, our first female Prime Minister. Emphasis on the word FEMALE. Also emphasis on the Prime Minister’s title which is, more often than not, left off Julia Gillard’s name in pieces throughout the mainstream media, including this one.

I would have thought this an obvious point to make, but it seems I have to make it anyway for the benefit of those people who decided to take it upon themselves to write this article: it’s not Fairfax’s role to decide who our Prime Minister is. Fairfax should be telling us the news. Not trying to make it. And since they’ve failed at telling us the news for many years now, who the f*ck do they think they are calling on the Prime Minister to resign as if it’s up to them decide? It reminds me of John Howard’s arrogant statement about asylum seekers:

‘We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.’

Fairfax are saying exactly the same thing to readers about our Prime Minister. They think it’s their job to decide. This failed media outlet with a failed business model think they are going to play king maker with Kevin Rudd. So it’s beholden to bloggers like me to remind Fairfax of one major flaw in their reasoning as to why they think the Prime Minister should stand down. After saying some complimentary things about Prime Minister Gillard’s performance over the past three years, they announce that her message just isn’t getting through and this is why they’ve decide it’s time for her to go. Excuse me if I just lie down for a moment because I’m overcome with the irony and ridiculousness of this concept.

Why is Gillard’s message not getting through Fairfax? Might it be because you’ve been on a campaign to cause a leadership spill for the past three years, which has completely obliterated any focus on Gillard’s policy successes and the amazing work she has done in reforming this country, and therefore you are saying that because you, and your mainstream media colleagues have ignored policy in favour or rumour and innuendo that undermines the Prime Minister, you have caused a situation where Gillard’s message isn’t getting through? If you don’t see how you’ve created this circular reference, the Mobius strip of leadership tension, then you don’t have the intellectual capacity to be commenting on this situation.

To make this article even more ridiculous, your campaign to undermine the Prime Minister is just making you look desperate. Not Julia Gillard. We know you have a week left to try to get Kevin Rudd back into the Lodge. There’s no news in the fact Kevin Rudd wants to get back into the Lodge. Despite this, and despite the one failed challenge where it was revealed Rudd didn’t even come close to having the support of his Labor Party colleagues and the second aborted attempt where Rudd didn’t even challenge because he already knew he didn’t have the support of his Labor Party colleagues, you still keep flogging this dead horse like a desperate dumped boyfriend who doesn’t get his calls returned.

Maybe if you provided a quality product – full of interesting facts, analysis and real journalism – your business model wouldn’t be in such a dire position. Perhaps if you had made some correct choices in your editorial narrative over the past three years, you wouldn’t need to now be disrespecting your audience to the point where you think you decide who leads this country, all in a quest to sell more papers.

 

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