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The Forum > Article Comments > The politics of punishment, and bi-partisan denial > Comments

The politics of punishment, and bi-partisan denial : Comments

By Paul Stevenson, published 19/8/2016

For Australia, we need to acknowledge we have a problem in the way we are treating asylum-seekers.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but every person in detention is free to leave and go back to where they came from or apply to another country for asylum?

So " this is the worst psychological abuse of individuals I have seen" is for all intents a purposes self inflected.
Posted by Cobber the hound, Friday, 19 August 2016 9:41:41 AM
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"I believe that those involved in the major political parties are good people"

If this psychological theory is correct, then Hitler too was a victim of childhood-trauma or something like that, but essentially a good person.

All politicians are evil because by definition, their career is about setting out to enforce their policies on their fellow, helpless, human beings.

---

Dear Cobber,

«Correct me if I'm wrong, but every person in detention is free to leave and go back to where they came from or apply to another country for asylum?»

They came from the sea, they had boats and these boats were taken away by the Australian-government pirates who robbed their freedom. Give them back their boats!
(and millions of dollars each in compensation for their wrongful detention and torture)
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 19 August 2016 10:01:40 AM
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Upon viewing the Nauru Files that the Guardian posted, I also found that a majority of the issues were asylum seekers either threatening to harm themselves, or actually harming themselves in attempts to enter the country, Which lends credence to the comment before me.

I did however find one legitimate case of assault which sounded horrific, but the Guardian reported it as over 2000 cases. Perhaps I missed something.

I think the quality of life experienced by the refugee's should be improved, and that greater transparency should be striven for in regards to media. However is it also possible that the Guardian has exacerbated the issue in order to appeal to emotions?

In cases of genuinely seeking asylum then I'd have to disagree with the previous comment, in that it perhaps ignores the necessity of some who are at Nauru.

However we must too wade through those who are simply illegal immigrants, in order to find the legitimate asylum seekers. And, as the article points out, this is not cheap.

I think there must be great emphasis (perhaps my ignorance precludes me from seeing that there already is) upon ones geographical proximity to the country in which they seek asylum. This means that those who bypass other viable countries for residency in order to get to Australia are not those we should most readily help.
Posted by LouisOneill, Friday, 19 August 2016 10:08:55 AM
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There are perfectly good stone buildings at Norfolk Island and Port Arthur where heritage of Australian values will improve the morale of prisoners and guards alike. British Protestant cold water , porridge, rum and the lash will make men from these drifters.
Posted by nicknamenick, Friday, 19 August 2016 10:44:25 AM
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Yes. We do 'have a problem in the way we treat asylum seekers'. We are far to soft on them. We should not be paying for their upkeep in detention centres. We should be repelling them, and not allowing their feet to touch land until they get back to where they came from. We should stop kowtowing to unelected organisations such as the United Nations, and start defending our country and ourselves from international hogwash.
Posted by ttbn, Friday, 19 August 2016 11:19:08 AM
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Ah yes, we must ensure folks claiming asylum are treated humanely!

As I understand it detainees are free to come and go on Nauru, attend school, sporting fixtures, shop and visit medical clinics at will. All on the taxpayer's chequebook!?

Even so, some of these folk come from medieval patriarchal cultures, where spousal and childhood abuse are customary or advocated?

Moreover, some of those accidents that saw kids flown to mainland Australia, may have been perpetrated by parents, who may have thought they could get here that way? And if successful may well have seen more of the same?

When people arrive seeking asylum, that's all we are obliged by UN conventions to supply. And given they're are safer there than where they escaped from? We aren't obliged to offer more!

Certainly not in the face of bogus claims or confected outrage?

Many of these con artists have woken up to the fact that they are never ever be going to be resettled in Australia, unless or until they apply from their places of origin or accepted transitory camps, for organised immigration backed by bona fide documentation, rather than ambit claims not supported by accompanying documentation given, to a generic man, these folk have deliberately destroyed theirs!? And consequently could be anybody!

Yes, we can make a case for more transparency and punishing evil doers, with the full force of the law!

And yes, we can make a cost benefit case for assisting these folk financially, so they can return and get a modest enterprise started as a superior outcome to the one they left?

As long as we remain determined to stay the course and deny these folk any chance of resettlement here, except via legitimate means, some of which could be a UN sponsored regional solution?

That'll prevent many from undertaking journeys to transit countries to begin with? Most of the problem and the principle source of customers for false promise illegal people trafficking, all too often, culminating in preventable mass tragedy!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Friday, 19 August 2016 11:30:16 AM
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Yes unfortunately the author is parroting the Greens standard "its all-Australia's-fault" mantras.

What must frustrate the author is that much of Western Europe now realises its invitation to illegal immigrants about 20 months ago was wrongheaded and merely led to deaths at sea.

Western Europe is keenly watching and emulating how Australia built up its successful anti-illegal, economic, immigrant policy.

Any of these illegal immigrant's rich enough to pay people smugglers $10,000 a seat should worry about the real refugees who have no money at all.
Posted by plantagenet, Friday, 19 August 2016 11:54:37 AM
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"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good". Samuel Johnson.

The question for the treatment of illegals for Australia, is how to balance help for them, and maintain a local reality of the impact of excessive immigration policies, at home among the locals.

And since Rohingyans are inherently Muslim, the West is turning a blind eye to the most persecuted ethnic group globally. This is very unfair!

http://weareiguacu.com/why-are-muslims-persecuted-in-myanmar/
Posted by diver dan, Friday, 19 August 2016 12:48:58 PM
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>The west is turning a blind eye?<

Well we have been all too frequently condemned for sticking our noses into regional conflicts, that are centuries old and centuries in the making!

Even so, other nearer neighbors are also turning a blinder eye? They include Malaysia and Indonesia, both of which are inherently Muslim and therefore less foreign to the muslim Rohingyas?

And indeed, considerably closer, whereas in the case of Indonesia, with a larger middle class demographic than Australia could resettle these landless folk/squatters, nobody seems to want? And Malaysia is hardly a third world country but a thriving Democracy!

What's patently unfair, is folk who think it's exclusively our problem! They look with envy at maps witch lead some to thinking we could take many more?

Not understanding that our arid interior is mostly desert that supports very little and even then, only spasmodically!

That all the economy, wealth creation and habitable land, is largely limited to a green fringe around the coast! And that's where we need to put the house already full sign!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Friday, 19 August 2016 1:28:48 PM
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What utter garbage from the depth of a pretend discipline.

What we are giving these boatpeople, genuine or fraudsters, is what they claim they wanted, a safe haven. We are picking up the entire cost of supporting them in this safe haven. Surely that is all that can be expected from us. Surely we can't be expected to like them, or want them amongst us.

Here we have a clown, who is either a fool, or a fraudster himself. Either he is so easily fooled that he actually believes the fraudsters & wants us to bleed for them, or is simply demanding we keep paying him lots of money to insult us with his trickery.

I don't give a damn which he is, I just want him doing something useful, perhaps driving a shovel in a road work gang. However if he is as stupid as you would have to be to believe this drivel, he may not be able to handle that, so perhaps the job on the broom.
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 19 August 2016 2:33:52 PM
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“In conclusion, my view is that, in the absence of knowing the right way to go in any situation, we cannot continue on the wrong way. “

The author is obviously in a quandary. He is in effect saying that there are only wrong ways to go, where there is no knowing the right way to go in any situation. Consequently, it is pointless assigning problem-solving to psychologists in those situations.
Posted by Raycom, Friday, 19 August 2016 4:35:57 PM
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A good article showing why difficult political decisions affecting the whole country should not be left to sincere but politically naive psychologists.
Posted by George, Saturday, 20 August 2016 12:26:59 AM
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Author. *...I want to give some reflections on my work and experience as a trauma psychologist in Australia’s asylum seeker detention centres, and some reflections on what has happened since I publicly spoke out about this... *

The author wishes the reader to "walk the walk" with him. This "walk" raises many questions, and none more relevant,(to the Australian public),than; who are the genuine refugees among the illegal arrivals on Australian shores? It's a vexed question

I don't pretend to know, and I didn't get the feeling, the Author was concerned with that question either. The question being asked is, how we as Australians, deal with people in Australian detention camps in a humane and caring way: In a way which takes into account the genuine refugee escaping from conflict, (such as the example I quoted above, the Rohingya from Burma).

The Rohingya are, in my opinion, a good example of a genuine refugee, with a dire need to escape ethnic cleansing and all its unimaginable trauma, and to use the most convenient means of travel, a boat! Paper-work? What paper work? A genuine refugee arriving by boat onto Australian shores with minimal, if any paperwork to prove identities. (I don't admit to knowing how many Rohingyans in number, actually do make this journey, since I believe their favoured destination is Malaysia). But the example suits the argument, and all the more so, since the Rohingya are ethnic Muslims.

Further reason for the Rohingya not fitting the "fluffy end" of the profile of an acceptable refugee, is their persecutors; Buddhists. Buddhists, those lovely cuddly Dali Lama types, forever in prayer and dinging little bells for peace, which we have been conditioned to believe, are above reproach!
Unfortunately, in their spare moments, are very apt at loping the heads off their ethnic rivals, with the able assistance of the Burmese Army.

The Author is correct to expresses concern that could only come from "hands-on" experiences, that we, the omniscient OLO poster children lack, IE: working with these people.

(Symbol; thumbs down)!
Posted by diver dan, Saturday, 20 August 2016 8:13:04 AM
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Australia may have to increase its detention centers, or it becomes overrun with refugees.

america is totally out of control, and now wants a war with Russia, China and Iran, as well as continue its wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

america is now moving its atomic missiles out of Turkey into Romania to be closer to Russia.

If the totally stupid americans are allowed to continue their wars it will result in millions of refugees wanting to get out of their countries, and a likely place to head for will be Australia.

Not withstanding that, Turkey could implode resulting in many attempting to escape Turkey.

As well, there can be "reverse migration", where Europeans will attempt to leave Europe to escape the migrant takeover of Europe.

The mass migrations occurring in the world are likely to continue, unless the totally stupid americans can be reigned in.

Australia has to have in place systems to detain millions of refugees, and Australia also has to learn to claim the costs of refugee processing.

Foe example, if stupid americans start a war that results in refugees coming to Australia, then Australia sends the stupid americans a bill for the refugee detention centers.
Posted by interactive, Saturday, 20 August 2016 11:07:28 AM
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The Rohingya are landless squatters, who have done what landless squatters have done since colonisation! Examplied en masse in the american west!

The Rohingya only need one small boat journey across a river to return to the land of their ancestors! And where they should be resettled! Arguably the last thing they or their ethnic cousins want? And why so is the most vexed question?

Similarly Jewish squatters (economic migrants) occupying purloined palestinian land, need to offered one way airline tickets to the places they left in russia, the american midwest or wherever!

Just because people choose to become deliberately displaced or squat uninvited on other folks traditional land as illegal migrants, doesn't confer refugee status; except as occurred via the highland clearances or being transported in iron chains, with little or no prospect of return!

As for those peace loving Buddhists, they can be just as violent and nationalist as anyone, when foreigners try to take their humble hovels and sustenance farmland/rice paddies from them; as seen in Vietnam and Cambodia!

But particularly, when the population is relatively large and the available arable land is severely limited? Which is the likely reason for the Rohingya incursions initially, a couple of centuries ago?

Moreover, Muslims and Buddhists may be very nearly as incompatible as Christians and the more violent Muslim sects, who invariably arrive determined to become the dominant culture, with little or no respect from the local traditions, or social mores?

And no different in most aspects than the forced expansion of Jewish settlements on traditional Palestinian Land?

While I have every sympathy in the world for these folk, particularly the females destined to a sub life of indentured servitude or pseudo slavery? Sorry, I would want them and their cultural norms as my neighbors!

As for documentation, if folk deliberately refrain from legally recording, births deaths and marriages, with the "host" country, then they likely as not find just as much difficulty in resettlement as folk who deliberated destroy their bona fide documentation! Perhaps they alone can do anything about that?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Saturday, 20 August 2016 11:56:07 AM
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Alan B.
I usually refrain from vective, but I must say, you are sounding increasingly like an empty vessel returning to port with a backload of an ignoramus!
Maybe Australia could open the borders a little wider for your more acceptable homosexuals, fleeing imagined oppression in Iran.
Posted by diver dan, Saturday, 20 August 2016 12:43:41 PM
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If you have too many people in a country, such that
they cant be sustained by that country and its resources.

Then you will see exactly what we are seeing now, with all the displaced
people.in refugee camps.

Nature will destroy those who overpopulate, either by famine,war,dirty water,sickness etc.

People are driven into refugee camps, because what land and resources there are
are taken from them by more aggressive humans, or in natures terms,the strongest
survive. And by the laws of nature on this planet, that equates to those
who are the most terrortorially agressive.

So what do the people in Africa do to curb the populations and stop these human
tragedies.

Sweet fanny adams,is what they do. Its all at the feet of the males, too.
Africa is the rape country of the world.
So are the Arab countries,although they cloak their sexual explotation of women
in the proverbial, religious sheep's clothing.

Well be the consequences on their own heads. Its not our doing nor our problem
to fix.
Posted by CHERFUL, Saturday, 20 August 2016 5:47:01 PM
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When you can't argue the irrefutable facts try vective? Feel better now you've got that off your hairy chest Diver? You have a nice day and remember all human progress has always been accompanied by robust debate and disagreement!

While the situation for the Rohingyas is deplorable, it has to be worse for the much more persecuted Coren eking out an existence for generations in much more primitive refugee camps.

If they had the humble resources and nearby ethnic cousins of the marginalized Rohingya? Many would have taken their chances on leaky boats. Particularly if the journey only involved a few hundred metres over open porous borders?

At last count there were over 60 million people waiting some sort of settlement or resolution in refugee camps the world over!

Those numbers are entirely unmanageable, and behooves us to take manageable numbers, which we do, hopefully from those whose cultures are more closely aligned with ours!

I mean we don't need to import the very problems that created all the problems to begin with, (Cologne) But rather need to address the issues at source that created the largest cadre of displaced persons the world has seen.

In any event, we cannot allow non Christians, who just don't believe or follow our belief system, to chastise us for not accepting them or their value judgements, religious/political motivated rancour into our midst?

If you differ, then argue your case and let the chips fall where they may, rather than jumping the gun and resorting to vective as the premature immature response? Have a nice day.
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Sunday, 21 August 2016 12:05:41 PM
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How much psychological damage did the 1200+ who drowned suffer?
Posted by Shadow Minister, Sunday, 21 August 2016 1:16:19 PM
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Dear SM,

«How much psychological damage did the 1200+ who drowned suffer?»

More than those who undergo an instantly-fatal car-crash but less than most of us who end up suffering from a rather-long and debilitating terminal illness.

The important thing about it is that their drowning is self-inflicted and/or nature-inflicted, rather than inflicted in my name as their current hijack, incarceration and torture are.

So long as those people have not asked you for asylum, they are not asylum-seekers - they are seafarers who are kidnapped by Australian pirates, supposedly in my name.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Sunday, 21 August 2016 1:36:03 PM
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You're right o0f course Yuyutsu. Until they ask for asylum they are an invasion force, & should be treated as such.

Instead of being picked up by the navy, they should be treated as any other invasion force, & blown out of the water.

This would be cheaper, stop the flow very quickly, & mean we no longer had a need fre detention centres.
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 22 August 2016 9:37:40 AM
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Before I commence, I should declare two interests - together with Paul I am a member of the Australian Democrats (Queensland Division) Incorporated, and together with Paul I am also a member of the United Nations Association of Australia, Queensland Division. I should also declare that I know Paul personally, and assisted with the editing of the article. With those disclaimers out of the way, I agree with many of the above comments to the effect that the issues of asylum and migration are complex ethical issues. I've published two essays which touch on this issue. See links below. These may be of interest (for the first, you may need to search-engine the title to access):

Fixing global governance (2015): https://e-publications.une.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/une:18764

Security, inclusiveness, and Australian refugee policy (20014): http://eprints.qut.edu.au/3645/
Posted by Dr James Page, Monday, 22 August 2016 11:08:06 AM
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You're right of course Hasbeen.

Blowing those people out of the water would be more humane than the way they are currently treated by the former invaders of this continent.
At least it would be more honest and show the true face and nature of that gang which now controls by force the whole of this continent and its good people.

This is God's land, we are all but guests here and no man or a group of people have a right to declare exclusive ownership over it.

Your ancestors also came by boat, uninvited!
Posted by Yuyutsu, Monday, 22 August 2016 1:30:40 PM
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You're right again Yuyutsu, a long time ago, & the population when we came was too damn weak to defend the place, so lost it. This is the history of most countries after all.

We are quite strong enough to defend the place against this invasion, but lack the guts to do what should be done.

If you want to believe in some god, good for you, but don't expect intelligent people to do so. The only beings in control of Australia should be us, if we had the guts. As we don't, I expect we will lose it, just as the last lot did.
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 22 August 2016 11:47:42 PM
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Dear Hasbeen,

If you are after a Christian culture in Australia, here is what the First Christian said: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth".
Posted by Yuyutsu, Tuesday, 23 August 2016 7:03:41 AM
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Y,

I am surprised that you command a gang of pirates.

P.S. Stopping people traffickers on the high seas is legal in international maritime law, dating back from slavery and is not piracy as idiot greenies have claimed.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 23 August 2016 10:31:17 AM
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Dear SM,

A gang of pirates counts me as one of them, whether I like it or not. If I were their leader then I would disband the gang.

Had the gang calling themselves "The Commonwealth of Australia" been openly declaring themselves a dictatorship, then I would have been able to relax and just mind my own personal affairs to the extent they allow me. However, since they publish themselves as a "democracy", presumably doing what they do also in my name, it becomes my duty to resist and let everyone know that what they do, both within Australia and on the wide ocean around it, is not on my behalf, never been.

Now regarding people traffickers:

First, just because a human-made law is labelled "international" does not make it valid, legitimate or moral.

Second, "people trafficking" refers to slave-trade, especially in helpless youngsters being sold as prostitutes: it does not apply to free people who hire a captain of a boat/ship to take them where they want.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Tuesday, 23 August 2016 1:57:20 PM
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Y,

I didn't use the term human trafficking which is most widely understood as coercive, rather the term people trafficking which is the illicit smuggling of people across borders. The international maritime treaty which most sea faring countries have signed, recognises the right of countries to intercept, people traffickers, drug dealers etc.

If you don't recognise international treaties, what laws do you deign to adhere to?
Posted by Shadow Minister, Wednesday, 24 August 2016 3:01:16 PM
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Dear SM,

«what laws do you deign to adhere to?»

The laws of God or otherwise you can call them the laws of nature.
This includes the laws of physics (such as gravity, speed-of-light, thermodynamics, etc.) and the derived laws of chemistry, etc. It also includes the law of karma and the laws of spiritual evolution and morality.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 25 August 2016 12:35:17 AM
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Y,

So essentially whatever you feel is OK at the time?
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 25 August 2016 4:58:08 AM
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Dear SM,

One should not follow their feelings blindly.

The universe has laws by which it operates: man can discover those laws - not make his own and certainly not impose his own laws upon others.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 25 August 2016 8:18:46 AM
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really?

Most governments would disagree.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 25 August 2016 1:38:09 PM
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Dear SM,

«Most governments would disagree»

But of course - their whole existence is about gaining pleasure and profit by afflicting the public with their laws.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 25 August 2016 11:51:53 PM
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