Little bit of a catch-up

The photo above this post is a picture of some of the people who have been on nauru for the past 4 years, since the Tampa steamed into Australian waters and the you-know-what hit the you-know-which. This past week, all but two of the Nauru detainees have been brought to Australia and given visas - yay! This is wonderful news. But the two guys who are left on Nauru are not happy chaps. They are young Iraqi guys who have been informed months after their interviews with DIMIA that they were "unco-operative" during their interviews. Unfortunately nobody deigned to tell them that DURING the interviews! So it is with heavy hearts that they are now sitting on their bums in the Central pacific wondering what went wrong. I have recently come to have an email address by which the two guys can be contacted, so if you're interested in emailing them for some support, drop me a line and i'll hook you up.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what the refugee issue looks like these days. I spoke at a church in Heidelberg on Sunday night, it is a little house church with about 15 people, and it was so good. I haven't spoken about the issue for a few months, and it was so good to get back on the horse, to think about some of it almost in retrospect. There are no more kids in detention. The centres are emptying, thank GOD. Cornelia rau is the best thing that's ever happened to facilitate public awareness of issues of human rights in Australia! It's just crazy. But something i've particularly realised is that the laws which provide for mandatory indefinite detention are still there. Things have not changed because the law has changed - the law has in fact become MORE draconian over the past few years. The only reason things have changed is because of public pressure and a slow groundwell of public opinion... Which is great. But leaves me very very afraid that the next time a few boatloads of asylum seekers arrive (as is their right under Art 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), the same stuff is going to happen all over again. Why would it not? The only way we can prevent Episode 2 of Tampa and Children Overboard is by not standing for it as a nation. Which is why i'm convinced that public education on this and similar issues will never, ever be obsolete or past its use-by date.

It would also be fascinating to think about how this issue would change in the context of the enactment of a Bill of Rights. Obviously the Federal government would do almost anything to subordinate any prospective Human Rights instrument to pre-existing laws (Migration Act, the anti-sedition legislation etc), but the safeguards that a Bill or Charter of rights may represent would likely colour the Government's treatment of the issue... I'll write a bit more about BoR stuff soon.

Having been bled completely dry by two Baxter visits in quick succession, tonight I have renewed fire in my belly and it's great! Let's get out there.