So
many experts have warned the government about the effects of detention
on asylum seekers. The experts have been publicly denouncing detention
for years, yet we detain more and more people. Most sadly, we detain
children, a situation the Human Rights Commission has reported on, in
graphic and disturbing detail, this week in The Forgotten Children.
Here we are in 2015, incarcerating
innocent children in conditions worse than those in which we jail
convicted criminals. Julie Bishop cries tears of pain over the looming
deaths of two convicted drug smugglers, yet Tony Abbott’s response when
asked if he felt any guilt over the treatment of children in detention
was “None whatsoever”. While I do not agree with the death penalty and I
feel for the drug smugglers and their families at this tragic time, the
contradiction evident in the two responses is nothing short of
astonishing.
I left my country because there was a
war and I wanted freedom. I left my country. I came to have a better
future, not to sit in a prison. If I remain in this prison, I will not
have a good future. I came to become a good man in the future to help
poor people … I am tired of life. I cannot wait much longer. What will
happen to us? What are we guilty of? What have we done to be
imprisoned?87 I’m just a kid, I haven’t done anything wrong. They are
putting me in a jail. We can’t talk with Australian people.
(13 year old child, Blaydin Detention Centre, Darwin, 12 April 2014)
The Abbott government sought the
resignation of the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission
Gillian Triggs two weeks before it launched an extraordinary attack on
the commission over its report on children in immigration detention.
While The Forgotten Children report is
about children, it is also about detention. The effects of detention
don’t disappear the moment a detainee is released. The experts have
warned of this for years and I know from personal experience this is
true. There may be some particularly resilient individuals that are
released unscathed, but I suggest the vast majority do not find recovery
instant or easy. Sometimes the effects are not immediately apparent.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often doesn’t appear until
sometime later. A member of my family suffers PTSD as the result of a
life experience totally unrelated to detention. The PTSD did not reach
full expression until ten years after the event, although it could be
argued with appropriate professional intervention her PTSD may have been
detected earlier. There is considerable debate about delayed-onset PTSD
and research continues: a good reference article is A Quarter of Cases of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Is With Delayed Onset. The
article discusses patients suffering “subthreshold” symptoms after the
event but before full expression of the PTSD condition.
Of course PTSD is only one of the many
mental health issues that can result from detention. Anxiety and
depression are also common.
Not only are we risking the welfare of
vulnerable children while in detention, we are risking their future
welfare as well because there is a very high risk we are damaging
the mental health of their parents (those children who are not
unaccompanied minors). This means the parents will be less able to
engage with their children as parents at a time when the child most
needs their parents to support their recovery.
In Nauru, where more than 380 asylum seekers are
currently being detained, there have been reports of hunger strikes,
self-harm, aggression and suicide attempts.
Unfortunately this isn’t new – these signs of psychological
distress have been repeatedly witnessed in Australia’s immigration
detention centres since the early 1990s.
For several decades now, mental health professionals have
documented the psychological health of asylum seekers within mandatory
detention facilities. Findings from multiple studies provide clear
evidence of deteriorating mental health as a result of indefinite
detention, with profound long-term consequences even after community
resettlement.
I note “profound long-term consequences“.
So should our government. This report isn’t just about children. It is
about whole families. This report isn’t just about the conditions in
detention. It is about the future of the children, the future of the
families. The long-term effects will be different for each person. Many
may end up unable to be gainfully employed or to study to build a life
after detention. Society will, as society often does in many situations
such as rape and domestic violence, blame the victim rather than accept
responsibility for allowing the detention in the first place.
Abbott and his ministry should be
considering the lives of these people, not some “Stop the boats” slogan
that is well past its use-by date. The government need to deliver the
“good government” promised on Monday and act responsibly. Persecuting
innocent people is not responsible. More importantly, it is not humane
and is in contravention of Australia’s responsibilities under
international law. It has life-long effects on the imprisoned, long
after release.
Robyn Oyeniyi lives with the effects from detention on a daily basis. Robyn writes on Love versus Goliath.
A song I would like to think runs through Tony Abbott’s head every
night as he tries to go sleep, and I hope his failure haunts him for the
rest of his days.
Fox News: Go F*** Yourselves – Jon Stewart and gospel choir / The Daily Show Fox… you’re truly a terrible cynical disingenuous news organisation
– Jon Stewart – The Daily Show
Jon Stewart, the US comedian and parody news show host announced his was stepping down from his The Daily Show. This song from Stewart reflects an attitude that many people may have towards Fox and their owner Rupert Murdoch.
Sweeter Tomorrow – Margie Joseph So, you’ve been laid off baby, from the factory,
you’re car’s been repossessed by the finance company
The unemployment rate hit 6.4% this week, the last time it was this
high was in 2002, when Tony Abbott was the Minister for Employment in
the Howard Government. Life may be tough now, there will be a sweeter
tomorrow.
Good government begins now. No wait, Now. No wait… NOW! Chris Graham gives up.
In Parliament today, Tony Abbott managed what no national leader before him as ever achieved.
He’s somehow managed to offend every single sector of the Australian
community, with the possible exception of bogans. That’s no mean feat.
During parliamentary debate this afternoon, while attacking Labor for
a drop in defence job numbers, he decided to emphasize his point by
adding a metaphor.
“Under members opposite, defence jobs in this country declined by 10
per cent. There was a holocaust of jobs in defence industries under
members opposite,” our national leader said.
Naturally! Why Not? Because the death of six million people in death
camps in Europe – most of them Jewish - is, of course, comparable to a
drop in job numbers in Australia.
Sigh. Let’s recap.
Since coming to parliament, Tony Abbott has offended women by
questioning whether or not sex was theirs to withhold; by seeking to
restrict their access to RU486; by referring to them as ‘doing the
ironing’; and by asserting that his axing of the carbon tax left more
money in the household budget, and that was a boon for women. And of
course he described one of his female colleagues as vote worthy because
she had sex appeal.
He’s offended Aboriginal people, by describing Australia as ‘nothing
but bush’ when the British arrived; describing the arrival of the
British as the ‘defining moment in the history of this continent; and by
blaming them for their poverty this week in his annual Close the Gap
report Card.
He’s offended Canadians by referring to their country as ‘Canadia’.
He fell asleep during a war commemoration service in France. He
threatened to shirt-front one of the world’s most powerful leaders,
sparking a fleet of warships to head to Australia. He awarded a
Knighthood to the Queen’s husband. He claimed that Jesus knew that
asylum seekers weren’t necessarily meant to come to Australia. In
relation to the death of a soldier in Afghanistan, he remarked ‘Shit
happens’. He winked like a creep at a radio jock while an adult sex line
worker was calling into the show to explain why she had to work extra
jobs to pay for her healthcare.
He told colleagues that he diddled his travel allowance, a story that
leaked out of the partyroom. And of course Abbott has backflipped on
numerous policies.
Most of that was in the past year. It just goes on and on and on.
So the jury is back in folks, and the verdict is not good: Our Prime Minister is a gibbering idiot.
He is a fool of gargantuan proportions; a Tourette’s Syndrome leader with all the public appeal of a carcinoma.
Abbott is not even a full four days out of a leadership spill, and
his locker-room mentality is already back on display. He bought himself
time on Monday, and he pissed it up the wall by Thursday.
Abbott is a relic from 1950s Australia, and there’s precious little the Liberal Party can do to paper over those cracks.
The question is, how many more Abbott-moments will we have to witness before someone brings on another leadership spill.
Abbott apologises for 'holocaust of jobs' comment in question time (image from scoopnest.com)
From my younger days, I have this memory of someone pushing me.
They were heavier and there was no way I was going to win a contest of
strength, so I did the only thing I could think of: I moved back faster
than they were moving forward and did a neat little side-step. With
nothing to push against, they fell flat on their face.
Watching Tony Abbott over the past week, that memory suddenly flashed
into my head, because it works pretty well as a metaphor for his time
as PM. While there was a government to push against, he was very
successful, but now he’s the government the pushing just lands him flat
on his face.
If we had a dollar for every time we’ve heard the phrase “the mess we
inherited”, not only would the Budget be in surplus, but we could bail
out Greece (or “Greek”, as Alan Jones referred to it in an interview,
where he talked about the problems of “Greek, Italy, and Turkey.)
“Labor have no ideas for reducing the deficit,” moan the Liberals, as
if being in Opposition makes it mandatory for you to actually suggest
the proper way forward. Not that I don’t think that it isn’t reasonable
to suggest things from Opposition; it’s more that the Government would
repeat its “We have no choice” mantra to any suggestions from the
Opposition. (There is a rumour that Tony meant it when he said
“Workchoices” was dead – it’s being replaced with “Worknochoice, even if
you’re old or disabled because we believe in fairness.”
And speaking of fairness, I must say that Tony’s use of the word “holocaust” in relation to jobs had a certain element of … well, could I say a man under pressure:
“Under members opposite defence jobs in this country
declined by 10 per cent. There was a holocaust of jobs in defence
industries under members opposite.”
Before the Opposition could even raise a point of order, Mr Abbott continued, withdrawing the remark.
“That’s what there was Madame Speaker, jobs, jobs, jobs,
I’m sorry if I, I’m sorry and I withdraw Madame Speaker. There was a
decimation of jobs.”
I’m sorry if I, I’m sorry and I withdraw Madame Speaker.
One wonders what he was going to say with the “If I…” that wasn’t
finished. Oh perhaps it was just a pause and it should have no comma be
written as: “I’m sorry if I’m sorry and I withdraw, Madame Speaker”.
Of course, the PM was defending the rise in unemployment figures by
attacking Labor. One wonders what he’d do if Labor suddenly announced
that they’d taken everything he said to heart and were disbanding the
Party and there’d be no Opposition at the next election.
In fact, I wonder if we all said, we’re right behind you Tony,
nobody’s going to oppose anything you do. How long do you think you’ll
need to put your plan into practice?
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has accused Labor of causing a "holocaust
of job" losses but has quickly withdrawn the remark after immediate
outcry.
Mr Abbott was being pressed in question time about the
surge in unemployment and the government's plans to potentially buy
submarines from overseas, instead of commission Australian-built vessels
in Adelaide.
The opposition's workplace spokesman Brendan
O'Connor asked Mr Abbott: "South Australia's unemployment rate has now
reached 7.3 per cent. Prime Minister, when will good government
actually start and the Prime Minister deliver on his promise to build
submarines in South Australia?"
The Prime Minister went on the
offensive, telling Parliament: "Under members opposite defence jobs in
this country declined by ten per cent. There was a holocaust of jobs in
defence industries under members opposite."
Labor frontbencher Tony Burke got to his feet but before he raise a point of order, the Prime Minister withdrew his remark.
"That's
what there was Madame Speaker, jobs, jobs, jobs, sorry I... withdraw
Madame Speaker, there was a decimation of jobs," he said.
The
Executive Council of Australian Jewry's policy platform advocates
against any wider use of the word holocaust saying it "deplores the
inappropriate use of analogies to the Nazi genocide in Australian public
debate".
At the end of question time Mr Abbott rose to his feet to again apologise for his comment.
Mr
Abbott's gaffe caps off another ragged week for the Coalition despite
the Prime Minister's pledge on Monday that "good government" would begin
this week.
Since then, the Coalition has been mired in confusion over how it plans to buy new submarines.
South
Australian Liberal senator Sean Edwards says he was promised by the
Prime Minister that the government would conduct an open tender which
would allow the Adelaide based company ASC to bid for the contract.
But
the Prime Minister says he promised no more than a "competitive
evaluation process" sparking a car crash interview in which Senator
Edwards was left unable to clearly explain the differing accounts.
Senior
frontbenchers have also been at odds over the status of the GP
co-payment with the Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary Alan Tudge
declaring the policy scrapped. The Health Minister is still consulting
on the policy.
Abbott pleads: Please sir, I'll be better. Promise.
Every smarty pants schoolboy learns eventually that there comes a
reckoning, expulsion threatened, when there is nothing left for it but a
grovelling and a desperate pleading.
"I'll be better. Promise I will," is the time-worn entreaty.
And
so it was as Tony Abbott faced the music beneath a clouded sky in the
prime ministerial quadrangle soon after being let off with a final
last-chance warning.
Illustration: Ron Tandberg. Photo: rtanberg
"I have listened, I have learned, and I have changed….I accept
that every day I'm being tested. That's the way it is. I am determined
to do better in these tests in the next few months than I have in the
last couple of months," he sweated. No smirk today. No rocking on the
balls of the feet. No swagger.
Abbott, of course, is the Australian Prime Minister: national
headmaster, as it were, and, it turns out, self-confessed recalcitrant
head boy rolled into one.
It was an awkward juxtaposition; as awkward as his confession and his pleading.
He had, of course, avoided expulsion, but knew he was on probation.
His
problem was that he'd promised to be good before. He'd discovered
barnacles that needed scraping only late last year, vowed that he'd
start the year fresh and clean and new. He'd sworn again and again to be
more consultative and collegiate, only to prance off on his own strange
frolics. Sir Prince Philip, for pity's sake, as grown-up as a wedgie in
the locker room.
A third of his own classmates couldn't stand it
any more. Even without a clear replacement, they wanted to give him the
boot. He was saved only because the prefects felt they had no choice but
to show what passed as solidarity and weren't swept away by the thought
of supporting a lad they'd rejected before.
And there Abbott was,
forced out into the open, looking less a prime minister than a
caught-out adolescent, abashed and calling it chastened. The class clown
magically reformed, confessing and promising to be better. Everyone
would be better, including his dorm mistress, Peta Credlin.
"Look,
all of us have had to have a good, long hard look at ourselves over the
last few weeks...and all of us are resolved to be different and better
in the future than we have been in the past and that's true at every
level. Me, my cabinet colleagues, my ministerial colleagues, my senior
staff, we are all resolved to be and do better," Abbott babbled.
Which
didn't explain what he and his schoolyard gang had been up to for the
past 17 months. The final report remains to be written.
(image via Twitter) With just over one-third of his MPs willing to vote for a
spill motion and opinion polls at record lows, Tony Abbott's days as
prime minister are numbered, writes Dr Martin Hirst.
It is all over for Tony Abbott.
He survived a spill motion in today’s parliamentary Liberal Party meeting 61 votes to 39.
But the consensus is that he will not lead the coalition to the next election, due before September next year.
This is almost certain.
A NewsPoll public opinion survey released today has the ALP in an overwhelming position with a two-party preferred vote of 57 to 43.
Any election with those numbers would mean a wipe-out for the
Liberal-National coalition and a Labor government would hold a
comfortable majority.
Only a week ago Tony Abbott was addressing the National Press Club
to outline his Government’s agenda for 2015 and to push what has been
called the “reset” button in an attempt to reboot his personal
popularity and voter sentiment about the government he leads.
By the end of last week, two Western Australian backbenchers were so spooked by the negative reaction to Abbott’s NPC speech that they had called for a party room vote on his leadership.
After four days of speculation and furious lobbying, Abbott has held on to the party leadership and therefore the Prime Minister’s office, but only just.
Nobody expects this to be over.
With just over one-third of his MPs willing to vote for a spill
motion, when there was no publicly declared alternative candidate, this
is an overwhelming vote of “no confidence” in Tony Abbott.
He will hang on — for now.
But he is clearly a zombie prime minister, death marching towards the inevitable Abbocolypse.
How did it come to this?
The graphic below demonstrates very clearly why there has been a challenge to Tony Abbott only 16 months into his premiership.
He has never been popular with the Australian public.
Abbott’s net approval rating has never been above 10 per cent and for most of his political life it has been in minus territory.
The last time it was positive was in the period of the 2013 election
(held in September), but then it nose-dived quickly and now it is at
minus 40+.
That says it all really. No political leader can expect to survive when the electorate hates them with visceral loathing.
But why?
You can read plenty of profiles of Tony Abbott and many pundits (me
included) have theories as to why he is so unpopular. My view is that
he’s not only stiff, wooden and somehow slightly creepy, but he is also
so ideologically-driven in his attitudes that there is a dogged refusal
to face reality clouding his judgment.
Then there’s the policy questions.
Abbott made dozens of solid commitments prior to the election.
There were promises not to cut funding to education or health and to quarantine the ABC and the SBS from further budget cuts.
There was a promise that he would lead a “no surprises” government
and that he would be consultative and collegial and that he would govern
for “all” Australians.
He also (laughingly in my view) promised to be the “best friend” Australian workers ever had.
It turned out that these were just slogans – famously “three word” slogans – and that most of the promises would be ditched after the election.
They were ditched — and quickly too.
But Abbott has also made himself incredibly unpopular because of who he his.
He’s wooden and stiff and a backward-looking conservative.
He’s also prone to making stupid decisions – his famous “Captain’s Picks”
– such as giving an Australian knighthood to Prince Philip; making
himself the Minister for Women and, stupidly, threatening to
“shirtfront” Russian President Vladimir Putin over the MH17 shoot down
incident last year.
Abbott also does not understand the power of social media.
Well, that has been a monumental mistake. Twitter has been in
meltdown for the past 18 months with vicious anti-Abbott memes and
hashtags which go viral within hours of being started.
Abbott may have survived this and weathered the storm until the next
election if he’d managed to hold onto the core — his own party and
backbenchers.
But he’s failed there too.
According to insiders who’ve taken their complaints public
(and the number is significant) Abbott and his staff have bullied and
threatened MPs, refused to listen to advice and overruled their
decisions.
He has failed to consult them and he’s made some stupid decisions that have now come back to drop on his head like bricks.
He has made a fool of himself in the eyes of intelligent Australians and he’s become an international laughing stock.
If the pundits are correct, by Wednesday, the Liberal party could
have a new leader, and Australia could have a new Prime Minister.
Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, NSW), a former Opposition Leader who was
replaced by Tony Abbott, but patiently waited for his party to create so
much chaos they would beg for his return.
If the polls are accurate, by Wednesday, the man who faces the biggest challenge will be Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Polls suggest a 9% swing back to the Liberal-National parties if they install a new Prime Minister.
Since the day Tony Abbott began his disastrous reign as Prime
Minister, people have been saying that we need to keep Abbott as PM, in
order to give Labor the best chance of defeating the Liberal Nationals
at the next election. (People said the same thing about changing
Opposition Leaders before the 2013 election, reasoning Turnbull would be
harder to beat than Abbott, and look how that turned out).
However, if the best reason for keeping a PM as incompetent as Tony
Abbott is to make Bill Shorten’s job easier in the next election, then
that really doesn’t say much about the competency of either the current
PM or the alternative PM. The next election can be held any time on or
before 14 January 2017, just under two years away. The damage that
Abbott can do in that time, given what has already been destroyed, is
incalculable, especially for women.
We live in a time of #GamerGate,
of MRAs (Mens Rights Activists) who make a fortune on the international
lecture circuit telling desperate men how to sexually abuse women and
get away with it, of politicians and law makers in the US and the UK
advocating that sexual assault of drunk, unconscious or sleeping women
should not count as rape, we live in a time where a female Prime
Minister can be figuratively carved up and put on the menu at a Liberal fundraiser.
The world has become more dangerous for women when we have men like
Tony Abbott in power, men who see women as property and unpaid
house-cleaners and do not exist as human beings worthy of respect.
In the world which Tony Abbott lives in, it seems there are two types
of women – the mummies and the stepping-stones. Mummies are the women
who indulge his every whim – his family, his chief of staff, Peta
Credlin, who let him get away with anything he wants. There are also the
stepping-stones, the women Abbott walks all over to get whatever he
wants – all the women who aren’t the Mummy figures. If a woman does not
fit into either of these categories, Abbott will destroy her, especially
if she has something he wants, such as the keys to the Lodge.
Is this an over-exaggeration?
– In 1977, Tony Abbott was beaten by a woman, Barbara Ramjan for
Student Representative Council, he punched a wall on either side of her
head, then spent the year following his defeat calling her “chairthing”.
– Tony Abbott admits he indecently assaulted a woman when he was a
20-year old student, when he groped a female activist on stage in front
of a group of people.
– Tony Abbott does not believe women
should access higher education or paid work “While I think men and
women are equal, they are also different and I think it’s inevitable and
I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that we always have, say… an
enormous number of women simply doing housework.”
– Tony Abbott does not believe that when a woman says “no” she means “no”. He says “when it comes from Julia, ‘No’ doesn’t mean ‘No’.”
– Tony Abbott believes
that if men demand sex then women should give up their right to say No.
Abbott says “I think there does need to be give and take on both sides,
and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely
withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think
they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak”.
– Since becoming Prime Minister, Tony Abbott has slashed the funding
for domestic violence services. Even though approximately 1 woman a week
is murdered in family violence in this country.
These are just some of the reasons why Tony Abbott must go. This man –
who is also the self-appointed Minister For Women – has made women the
target of his rage, has made them responsible for his inadequacies. If
we listen to the Prime Minister, he is still blaming Julia Gillard and
her Labor government for everything that is wrong with his government.
If those in the Liberal party rallying against Tony Abbott get the
numbers for a spill on Tuesday, then there is a good chance we will have
a new PM. If the Left are hoping that Abbott stays on, just so that
Bill Shorten and the Labor party have a greater chance of winning the
next election, then the ALP had better step up their game. The lives,
the safety and dignity of women in this country should not be a play
thing for Tony Abbott during the next two years, just so someone can win
an election.
So
So
