Julian Burnside is a barrister who specialises in commercial litigation and human rights.
The failings of super-minister Dutton:
This article by Julian Burnside was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on Apr 28, 2018 as “A silk terse at a sow’s ear”.
Here are a few extracts from that article:
“. . . When Dutton took over the immigration portfolio from Scott Morrison in December 2014, he adopted Morrison’s misleading characterisation of boat people as “illegal”. Morrison had decreed that the people referred to in the Migration Act as “Unauthorised Maritime Arrivals” should in future be called “Illegal Maritime Arrivals”. Dutton has picked up the idea, even though it is a lie.
Dutton shamelessly uses the “illegal” tag.
At the very least, this shows ignorance of some basic facts; at worst, it shows dishonesty. Boat people do not commit any offence by arriving in Australia without a visa, without an invitation, seeking to be protected from persecution. On the contrary, they are exercising a right acknowledged in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 14 of the Universal Declaration starts this way: “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”
Australia made a significant contribution to the creation of the Universal Declaration, and it was Doc Evatt, an Australian, who presided over the General Assembly of the United Nations when it was adopted on December 10, 1948. More than half a century later, on July 27, 2017, Dutton wrote an opinion piece about Operation Sovereign Borders, which included these words:
“It’s now been three years since a people-smuggler’s boat loaded with Illegal Maritime Arrivals (IMAs) reached Australia …
“Had the Coalition not mounted OSB – the boats and illegal arrivals would still be coming.”
“. . . . Dutton told the public these refugees had received “an enormous amount of support” from Australian taxpayers for a long time, saying: “there is a very different scenario up on Nauru and Manus than people want you to believe”. Taxes cover the absurd cost of maintaining offshore processing arrangements. It costs about $570,000 per refugee per year to keep the men and women on Manus or Nauru. So in that sense, refugees receive support from taxpayers. . . . ”
“On April 7, 2018, Dutton called for “like-minded” countries to come together and review the relevance of the 1951 Refugee Convention.
So, here it is: Australia’s most powerful minister is wilfully mistreating innocent people at vast public expense. He is waging a propaganda war against refugees and against the people who try to help them. And he is trying to persuade other countries to back away from international human rights protection.
He tries to make it seem tolerable by hiding it all away in other countries, so that we can’t see the facts for ourselves.
Dutton has often expressed concern about people drowning in their attempt to get to Australia. But his concern about people drowning is a lie. If he were genuinely concerned about people drowning, he might treat survivors decently. Instead, if they don’t drown, he punishes them: he puts them in offshore detention for years. He does this in order to deter others from trying to seek safety in Australia.
Perhaps the most worrying thing about Dutton is not his dishonesty, but his propaganda war, which already has led the Australian people to accept things that would have been unthinkable even 10 or 20 years ago. He has blinded us to the fact that we are now deliberately harming innocent men, women and children, in ways that are completely inconsistent with our view of ourselves. After all, aren’t we the nation that believes in a fair go for everyone?
By small degrees Dutton is inducing Australians to tolerate the intolerable. His campaign to make cruelty acceptable has the potential to lead Australia to very dark places. Invested in him is great power to do so, more power than any minister has had before.”
Only reading about the burglary now. How terrible. Such a bad feeling when strangers have gone uninvited through your house. So sorry.
It happened to us before, Gerard. The last burglary we had was in 1994. We had become rather confident that we couldn’t possibly have another burglary. So after nineteen years it happened again. What a shock to come home after a quick lunch and find the place burgled. It was lucky that Caroline and Matthew were with us at the time. We had had lunch at a beautiful place in Wollongong.. Matthew had driven us home from Wollongong as fast as possible for I was in need of some rest after the operation the previous evening. Caroline was the first to enter the house. Everything looked all right at first. Only gradually did we find out that there must have been some intruders in the house. Then Caroline looked around a bit more and discovered the broken in bathroom-window!
During the following hours Caroline handled a lot of phone-calls for us, namely to the police and the insurance who all asked for a lot of details. In the meantime Matthew had gone with one of our neighbours to the back of our house looking in the parkland reserve whether they could still see any culprits around. On a bench they found a screw-driver, and then they noticed close by in the bush some of the contents of my handbag. They retrieved my wallet with all my cards in it! But of course all the cash had gone.
Gee, was I glad when they handed me all the personal things out of my handbag! 🙂
It was such a relief that I didn’t have to renew all my cards! 🙂
What a lousy act to have happened Auntyuta, at least you got some personal stuff back, but it still makes you feel sick to think someone has violated your home.
You look in great shape even with that arm wrapped up Auntyuta.
Cheers
Emu
Yes, dear Emu, that I got my personal stuff back was a real blessing. The surprising thing was the intruders left no mess behind. They just took a few things and escaped the way they had come in, namely through the bathroom window. Luckily they did not bother to take our laptops along. The cash that Peter left behind in a drawer in the living-room had gone. But we did not notice immediately. It was not apparent, that the drawer had been opened. I had a fairly new handbag (goat-leather). I did not get this back, only my purse/wallet (minus all my cash) and the personal papers and cards out of my hand {shoulder} -bag, well, luckily all this stuff was found in some bushes in the park behind our property.
We haven’t heard from our insurance yet what they are going to do.
But our daughter saw to it that we handed in all our claims.
Cheers, Auntyuta
. . . . .
When I found the above blog I was astounded to find nearly five years had elapsed since all this happened. I remember Caroline and Matthew had been staying with us overnight. After lunch in Wollongong they had planned on going back to their place in Sydney. Their things were already packed and waiting near the entrance door. Some things of Caroline and Matthew had been taken out of their bags. Caroline noticed some moisture in her bag. She asked herself, whatever could that mean? Later on we had the idea to get our bottle of vodka out of the freezer. It was not there any more! Gone. So maybe the moisture in Caroline’s bag had come from the bottle of vodka that the burglars had taken out of the freezer. We all agreed that this was the only explanation.
In due time the police and someone from the insurance came around. They looked at the broken in window, and we mentioned the screwdriver that was found on the park bench. The police woman explained that the screwdriver could not be counted as evidence even though my discarded purse was found nearby. Anyway, the police were very friendly. Also, the insurance were very good in handling everything. They assessed the value of all the stolen goods and gave us reimbursement in the form of money.
Postscript: My eyesight is not very good at the moment. I’ll send off my application form to Shellharbour Hospital tomorrow. This means they may put me on a waiting list, and in about 12 months I’ll get my operation on my right eye. My left eye is totally blind from a macular hole that was so bad 18 years ago that the operation at a hospital in Sydney was without success. Ever since I am somewhat scared that something might happen to my good eye too. But if the cataract in my good eye gets worse and worse, that does not help, does it? So I better apply for an operation. . . . .