Ok folks.... about whats happening at the moment to asylum seekers and refugees... Please take some time to learn about what is currently being decided on in parliament. IT AFFECTS YOU AND HOW YOUR COUNTRY MOVES FORWARD FROM HERE. Whether or not you know much about the issues faced by asylum seekers and refugees or what Australia is doing to them, whether you agree with general government policy on asylum seekers and refugees, and whether or not you agree with temporary protection visas, there are some important things you need to know about what the government is currently trying to introduce into Australian law. The government has introduced a piece of legislation called The Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014 ... and it is being presented as a piece of legislation about introducing Temporary protection for the thousands of refugees we currently have living in limbo in Australia. Temporary protection visas are in themselves extremely problematic and counterproductive, for Australias interests as well as for refugees, and worth opposing in their own right. They keep refugees in a constant state of limbo, prevent successful settlement and integration into the community, compound trauma and mental health concerns, and keep families separated and at risk of harm. The are extremely damaging to refugees, and they cost the Australian community. But this legislation does much much more than just introduce TPVs... so whether you agree with TPVs or not, you need to know about it, and what else it does. The legislation gives the government unprecedented powers, including in life and death situations, and changes Australias fundamental way of interacting with International law and the global community. It also changes the way that law and justice are carried out in Australia by changing the role of the High Court and removing the courts ability to intervene or hold our government accountable for their policies/actions that are in breach of Universal Human Rights and International law. It changes the way our government interacts with the law and the courts...putting the government above the law. This sets a very dangerous precedent for our government to abandon requirements to act within the law in other areas also. The legislation exempts our customs/navy/border force from having to comply with maritime laws, even if their actions could cause the death of refugees/asylum seekers. It gives them the power to literally take people to any location, with or without consent of another country they are taking people to, in breach of other countries sovereignty, and including the middle of the ocean or some isolated piece of land; and just leaving them there, with no food, water, communications or fuel to get themselves to safety...even with no hope of survival... and not telling anyone they are there...never having to be accountable to anyone under Australian law. This legislation gives them the power under Australian law to do this even though it could kill people. It allows our government to have total say over whether they return or send a person or group of people to a place where they could face persecution, death and torture...without having to take into account international law (and basic flippin human decency) that prohibits sending someone to their death or to torture. It removes from our domestic laws obligations to comply with non-refoulment laws...which is one of the most important laws in International law that offers the most basic protection from someone being deliberately and knowingly sent to their death. The legislation gives our government the choice of whether they happen to feel like complying with International human rights and other laws....and weve already seen them break many international and human rights laws on numerous occasions. They cant be trusted to choose to protect peoples lives if there is no Australian court that can hold them accountable. The legislation radically changes the definition of refugee and the process of assessing whether someone is a refugee, and removes Natural Justice and severely limits the right to review...drastically departing from International norms...ensuring that refugees, many who have already experienced torture and other trauma, and who will face further risk of death and torture if returned to their countries of origin, will be returned to their persecutors. And the government will not be able to be held accountable by our courts or domestic laws for returning them to their deaths... It sentences Australian born children of refugees to be indefinitely stateless, removing their right to protection as refugees, to citizenship, to a Nation, to a home, to safety and security....even though they were born along side our babies, and will grow up with our own children, as Australian as any other child, they will not be afforded the same rights, creating generations of children kept perpetually as a separate class of people, and all the problems that this creates. This legislation is more befitting of a country that is internationally known and condemned for human rights abuses than of a country that prides itself on being a land of the fair go. It is the kind of legislation that we expect to see come out of countries such as Iran and North Korea... countries that we like to think we are better than when it comes to how we treat our fellow human beings. One of the things that makes Australia such a great country is that, despite not having a Bill of Rights, we do have some safeguards in our judicial system to prevent our government having total power; to prevent the kind of heinous abuse of human rights we see in many places in the world. We have seen this government push those safeguards to their limits and beyond, and now any notion of those safeguards is under serious threat with this legislation. It specifically targets refugees and asylum seekers but opens up precedent for this kind of thing to be applied more broadly. Scott Morrison and this government are out of control. They are making deliberate attempts to give themselves total and unprecedented power; power to have complete control over the lives and deaths of thousands of people...radically changing the way Australia operates as a country and interacts with other countries, radically changing the way our rule of law operates in Australia, radically changing the values which we as a democratic and human rights based society operates from ...and all without having to tell the Australian people about what they do or be accountable... Please, please, please take just a few minutes to find out a bit about what is happening (more links and info below and on on my profile...) and have a think about the implications of this and the direction that we as a country are headed in. Have a think about what kind of people we want to be, and what kind of role we want to take in the global community of nations. And then please take some time to voice your objection to this legislation with the Senators who will decide whether or not to pass it and give the government unfettered power over lives and deaths. Talk to your friends, family, colleagues... this is important. Peoples lives depend on this.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 06:30:35 +0000
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