Jane
You sure seem to have stirred up some parts of the community. There are many who fear (thanks to the line taken by the Howard government) that we are in danger of being swamped by millions of illegal migrants if we do not have harsh laws which enable us to imprison people for long periods without trial.
How many thousands are there in Australia who have overstayed their visas but have not been hunted down and imprisoned?

We live in a society increasingly governed by fear and so we tolerate the introduction of unjust laws in the belief that we will be protected.

I suppose that if the original inhabitants of Australia had had mandatory detention laws in place at the time of the arrival of the first fleet then things would have been different.

Dr Jane McAdam wrote of Australia's 'schizophrenic' implementation of international law'.

The inappropriate use of the term 'schizophrenic' distressed some readers by perpetuating the false notion that schizophrenia means 'split personality'.

SANE Australia StigmaWatch (www.sane.org) wrote to Dr McAdam on 27.01.06, encouraging her to use alternate language to describe a divided or opposite approach to law.

Dr McAdam replied by telephone on 01.02.06, thanking StigmaWatch for bringing the issue to her attention. She expressed concern that she had distressed readers and informed StigmaWatch that she would not be using the term 'schizophrenic' out of the medical context in future.