"Australian premier backs plan to take in more refugees" by MATT SIEGEL | New York Times, August 14, 2012
SYDNEY — Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia endorsed a set of sweeping immigration changes Monday that would increase the number of refugees the country accepts by nearly 50 percent, while also reopening a series of remote offshore detention centers that have been criticized by human rights groups as inhumane and ineffective.
And you thought you were fleeing to freedom?
Gillard made the announcement after the release of an expert report commissioned by her government in an attempt to find a way to stem the influx of refugees. More than 7,500 asylum seekers have arrived by boat since the start of the year, already shattering the previous record of 6,555 set in 2010.
Many such migrants travel to Australia on rickety and unsafe boats, leading to a growing number of accidents that have killed more than 600 since late 2009. Around 90 asylum seekers are believed to have died in June when their boat capsized south of Java, prompting fresh calls for government intervention but ultimately yielding no results.
Related: Indonesian Immigrants Flood Australia
The panel called for immediately increasing the intake to 20,000 from 13,700, as well as reopening immigration detention centers in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, a practice that was largely abandoned in 2007, when Gillard’s Labor Party came to power.
Gillard was quick to endorse the findings of the panel, led by Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, a former head of the Australian armed forces, even as it seemed unclear whether her minority government had the backing to push them into law.
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If you are lucky enough to touch land:
"Australia revives policies that discourage asylum seekers" by Matt Siegel | New York Times, August 16, 2012
SYDNEY — The lower house of Australia’s Parliament passed sweeping changes in immigration policy Wednesday that are meant to deter asylum seekers who try to reach the country by the thousands each year on rickety, overcrowded ships and boats.
In a major reversal, the measures would reopen a chain of offshore detention centers that human rights groups have criticized as inhumane and possibly illegal.
As if that ever stopped a government. They simply make it legal.
The Labor government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard largely abandoned use of the detention centers when it came to power in 2007.
The measures passed the lower house with the backing of both the ruling party and the opposition coalition, with only two lawmakers voting against them, and the upper house is expected to approve them this week. But the debate was emotional and contentious.
“This is not the end of the efforts to deal with what is the very, very, very, very, pernicious trade of people smuggling, which trades on people’s lives and gives people the expectation that in return for very significant sums of money, they can be brought to Australia for passage,” said Chris Bowen, the immigration minister.
Although the opposition coalition voted for the measure, it seemed determined to score as many political points as possible from Labor’s change of course. Many Labor members left the floor in protest as their rivals excoriated the government. The opposition leader, Tony Abbott, demanded a formal apology from Gillard for Labor’s previous policy, which he said encouraged risky attempts to reach Australia.
“After, tragically, almost 1,000 deaths at sea and after $4.7 billion has been blown because of the government’s border-protection failures, the prime minister has finally seen the sense of what the opposition has been proposing all along,” Abbott said.
And they are an island!
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Related: Australia Increases Refugee Quota
Wasn't fast enough to save these poor souls:
"Boat carrying 150 migrants sinks off Indonesia, at least 90 missing" by Matt Siegel | New York Times, August 31, 2012
SYDNEY — Ninety or more people remained missing Thursday after a boat carrying about 150 migrants sank off Indonesia, in another disaster this year for asylum seekers from the Middle East and Asia trying to reach Australia.
The Australian home affairs minister, Jason Clare, expressed grave concern for the passengers and said that a ‘‘massive’’ search-and-rescue effort was under way. At least seven commercial ships and one military vessel were searching waters about 40 nautical miles south of the Indonesian island of Java, he said, where the boat issued the first of two distress calls early on Wednesday morning.
Thousands of asylum seekers try to reach the remote Australian territory of Christmas Island each year on overcrowded vessels, leading to accidents at sea that have killed more than 600 people since 2009.
'Tis the season (sigh, frown).
Australia’s Parliament passed laws this month to let refugees be deported to offshore facilities to stem the arrivals, but the plan has not yet had any significant impact....
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I will report back if I find any related items in my ocean of stacked-up Globes.
Let's also lay these stories to rest:
"Long-dead crook to get family burial" Associated Press, August 03, 2012
SYDNEY — Ned Kelly, a man many Australians consider a folk hero, led a gang of bank robbers in Australia’s southern Victoria state before he was hanged in 1880.
The real bank robbers are the guys that run them.
The whereabouts of his corpse was long unknown, but forensic scientists identified Kelly’s skeleton last year after it was found in a mass grave outside a now-closed prison....
Find any outside those detention centers?
Ned Kelly led a gang that robbed banks and killed policemen from 1878 to 1880. Many Australians view him as a Robin Hood-like character who fought the British colonial authorities and championed the rural Irish underclass. Others dismiss him as a cold-blooded killer.
Well, history has hanged heroes.
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I wonder who we could get to play him in the movie.
Also see: Sunday Globe Special: Australia's Other War
More Australian heroes:
"5 Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan" by Matt Siegel and Richard A. Oppel Jr. | New York Times, August 31, 2012
KABUL — Five Australian soldiers were killed in southern Afghanistan within hours of one another Wednesday and Thursday, three of them at the hands of a turncoat Afghan soldier, making it the deadliest period in a decade of fighting here for one of the staunchest US allies....
From occupied to occupier.
With 1,550 troops in Afghanistan — most of them in Oruzgan — Australia has the largest non-NATO military presence in the US-led coalition here. The only other Australian military fatality in Afghanistan this year was in July. Last year, 11 Australian service members were killed here, according to data from Icasualties.org.
The five deaths stunned Australia. Prime Minister Julia Gillard called it ‘‘the most awful news’’ for the country.
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Another stunner: Happy About Australian Post
Maybe not so stunning:
"Australia orders federal child sex abuse inquiry" Associated Press, November 13, 2012
SYDNEY — Australia’s prime minister ordered a federal inquiry Monday into allegations of child sex abuse in state and religious institutions and community groups following a string of sexual abuse accusations against priests and allegations of a Catholic Church coverup.
Yes, it looks like wherever adults exercise some power of some children, be it in schools, sports, churches, or military have some sort of predilection towards perversion.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard had faced pressure to order a wide-ranging investigation after the New South Wales state premier last week ordered an inquiry into allegations of a sexual abuse coverup by Catholic priests in the Hunter Valley region north of Sydney.
Victorian officials are also investigating a separate series of priest sex abuse allegations in their state.
‘‘Any instance of child abuse is a vile and evil thing. Australians know that,’’ Gillard told reporters in Canberra.
‘‘Australians know, from the revelations that they’ve read in recent weeks, that too many children have suffered child abuse but have also seen other adults let them down.
“They’ve not only had their trust betrayed by the abuser, but other adults who could have acted to assist them have failed to do so.’’
The investigation will target religious and state institutions, schools and community groups such as sporting clubs.
It will also look into police responses to abuse allegations and is expected to take several years to complete.
Which explains why the story has been buried (frown) like an Indonesian immigrant.
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What they are currently concerned about in Australia these days:
"Australian court says motel can’t ban prostitute" by Rod McGuirk | Associated Press, August 09, 2012
CANBERRA, Australia — Prostitutes have the right to work from motel rooms in an Australian state, a court said after finding that the owner’s refusal to rent to a sex worker was discriminatory.
The ruling in the northeastern state of Queensland has stunned hotel and motel owners, who thought they had a right to decide what sort of businesses were operating from their premises.
The prostitute, identified as G.K., had taken her discrimination case against the Drovers Rest Motel in the coal mining town of Moranbah to the Queensland state Civil and Administrative Tribunal after management refused to rent her a room.
A lawyer for the 3½-star motel, David Edwards, said Wednesday that the court notified him this week that it had upheld the prostitute’s claim of discrimination. Edwards confirmed she is seeking damages, which The Australian newspaper reported to be $32,000.
The tribunal’s reasons for its decision have not yet been made public. But prostitution is legal in Queensland, and discrimination based on lawful sexual activity is outlawed.
Prostitutes are flocking to Outback mining towns such as Moranbah, where they base themselves for short periods to cash in on an Australian mining boom.
Janelle Fawkes, chief executive of the Scarlet Alliance, Australian Sex Workers Association, said the ruling was a major win for the prostitution industry throughout Australia.
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Related: Australian court rules that graphic images can appear on cigarette packages
Maybe you guys ought to be more worried about the adults preying on the adolescents, 'eh?
"Facebook page creates stir in Australia" Associated Press, August 10, 2012
CANBERRA, Australia — Facebook is under pressure in Australia to take down a page that insults Aborigines, with the government accusing the social networking company of using its US base to avoid Australia’s laws against discrimination.
The Aboriginal Memes Facebook page created a furor in Australia this week with its depictions of indigenous Australians as drunks and welfare cheats.
Australia’s media watchdog, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, is investigating complaints about the page, and the race discrimination commissioner, Helen Szoke, said it could breach the country’s antidiscrimination laws.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said late Wednesday that his office had called on Facebook’s Sydney office to take the page down.
But he said the page had recently been reclassified ‘‘controversial humor’’ and that Facebook maintained it did not adjudicate on humor.
Conroy said the creator of the page, who he believed was a 16-year-old Australian living in the west coast city of Perth, was getting around Australian antidiscrimination laws through US guarantees of free speech.
I'm all for that.
‘‘We don’t live by American laws here in Australia; we live by Australian laws and this is an Australian who is using the fact that Facebook is based in the US to get away from Australian laws,’’ Conroy told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television.
He said Australia had tried to get Australian court orders enforced in the United States against Facebook and other websites in the past, but ‘‘we’ve got nowhere.’’
Facebook said in a statement issued by its Sydney office that it sometimes restricts access to content that violates local law and was engaged in a constructive dialogue with Szoke.
‘‘We believe that sharing information and the openness that results invites conversation, debate, and greater understanding.
“At the same time we recognize that some content that is shared may be controversial, offensive or even illegal in some countries,’’ the statement said.
The truth often is, although I am not arguing that this is about Aborgines.
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Also see: Australian official rips GOP ‘cranks’
US doctor’s conviction overturned
Related: Men At Work in Australia
