Here I am in the Senate on Thursday night, trying to reconcile what I am experiencing here with the Australia I grew up in... Removing rights to legal advice and appeals, removing review by Australian courts and judges so the Immigration Minister will have almost untrammelled powers, redefining babies born in Australian as unauthorised maritime arrivals to render them stateless, allowing the return of asylum seekers to face torture and condemning genuine refugees to live in perpetual limbo with temporary protection visas. And - in case that is not sufficient - re-writing the internationally accepted Refugee Convention to substitute our own version, so we can ultimately define less people as refugees. And the very same people who will vote for these laws will then wind up the parliamentary year by wishing us all goodwill and exhorting us to remember the true meaning of Christmas... For those of you who care, I need a bit of support tonight. Please help reinforce my belief that we are better than this!
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 07:43:36 +0000
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