Australian Border Force - Is it really as bad as advertised?

In the last few weeks, first twitter, then on facebook, articles started appearing about this thing called Australian Border Force. According to social media this was a piece of legislation that prevented people working in detention centers, such as doctors, from reporting child abuse, torture, rape and bad living conditions by gaoling them for 2 years if they reported it.

I thought, hello this sounds a bit far fetched. I mean how could legislation like that get passed? Even if you believe the Abbott Government is the definition of evil, they don't have the numbers in the Senate; they would have needed to get all the cross bench senators onside to pass it. So I did some digging and found that the reason it passed was that the Labor Party supported it through the lower house and the senate.

So why would the Labor opposition support a Bill that did all these terrible things?

Since I am on holidays for a few weeks I decided I would read the Bill, so I got it off the parliamentary website and spent a few hours reading through it. The Bill is called Australian Border Force and sets up a new department that integrates the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service.

As far as the the social media angle goes it is true that there is a 2 year penalty for releasing protected information.

However it seems there is no way that it applies to reporting child abuse, rape and torture. There are already Federal laws protecting whistle blowers and there are also a number of exceptions built into the Bill. For instance the secrecy provision does not apply Section 41, Part 6 [subsection 2(c)] if "the making of record or disclosure is required or authorized by or under a law of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory."  So for instance there are already mandatory requirements for reporting child abuse and so reporting child abuse in detention would fall under this exemption I would think.

Then if you look at [subsection 2(a)] "the making or disclosure is authorized by section 43, 44, 45, 47, 48 or 49" now it you look at section 48 there is a clear provision for disclosing information about conduct that threatens life or health.

The first commissioner of Australian Border Force was quoted as saying the following by Fairfax Media after being sworn in. below is an excerpt of the article by Latika Bourke.

Shortly after being sworn in as Border Force Commissioner on Wednesday, Roman Quaedvlieg said the provisions had been "over-interpreted".

Asked directly if the signatories would be prosecuted, he replied: "I sincerely doubt that."

Crucially, Mr Quaedvlieg said he did not consider the quality of conditions in detention centres as "classified information".

"This is about the leaking of classified information that can compromise operational security or our sovereignty, it's not about people having a right to be outspoken in the community about a range of things," he said.

As far as I can see, you would expect there to be secrecy provisions when you set up a department that has to deal with everything from organised crime syndicates that smuggle drugs, guns and people to international negotiations and involvement of our armed forces.

It is also worth noting that the 2 year penalty for disclosing protected information isn't just a recent invention devised specifically for this Bill. In fact it is the same penalty that applies to the public service for disclosing protected information and this penalty has been on the books since at least 1914.

How Would You Feel?

In the wake of the death of the nurse who was tricked by the 2dayFM presenters there has been a lot of opinion some blaming the presenters for the death others exonerating them. I'm not sure I agree with either side completely, much of the blame seems to be knee jerk and to some extent only seem be countering the results of a public shaming by starting another one. Yet the defence worries me too. We are told that we shouldn't blame anyone because we don't know the full story; we don't know what other issues the nurse may have had, nobody could have foreseen it and they were just having a joke.

The fact is we don’t know anyone’s full story, how close to the edge they are or what mental frailty may exist. As for it not being able to be foreseen, it is true that after tricking someone into thinking you where royalty to the extent that they betray confidential information then publish the whole thing Nationally and subsequently Internationally no one could predict that the person who was tricked and shamed might take their own life. No one however would expect that she would have been feeling anything less than used, humiliated and upset. 

The trouble is these excuses are exactly the same ones that I used to hear from bullies at school when you had finally snapped. They didn't know you would be hurt like that or they were just joking around. And to an extent they are valid excuses, most bullies do not realize, do not seek to ruin or end someone else’s life. They just want a cheap laugh.

On the other hand the two radio presenters, small blame to them, did not expect what happened to happen on the reasonable grounds that most of the time, pranks do not end in a suicide. Yet they will undoubtedly be blaming themselves, and will probably continue to for the rest of their lives.

As I type the world of twitter churns as the backlash against the pranksters reaches fever pitch, demanding everything from sackings to suicides as the appropriate response.

This raises the question, why do people try to create cheap laughs? The most probable explanation is because there is a market for cheap laughs. Perhaps we all need to put ourselves in the other persons place before we get in the business of publicly shaming them.

Labor In Need of Divine Intervention

The new revised edition of The Labor Voter’s Prayer book is finally here. This handy pocket edition comes tastefully bound with a red and green cover. It is a must for any serious Labor supporter, backbencher or even cabinet minister in 2012. The Labor Voter’s Prayer book includes all the old favourites like Solidarity Forever, Moving Forward and many more. Below is one of the new prayers that have been included in the 2012 edition.

The PM’s Prayer

Our PM in Canberra,

Hallowed be your name,

Your re-election come,

Your will be done,

On earth as in Utopia.

Give us today our daily boats.

Forgive us our national debt,

As we forgive those in debt to us.

Lead us not into the polling booth,

But deliver us from Abbott.

For the Education system,

The Unions and the ABC are yours.

Now and forever.

Amen

Written by Nathaniel Mikhaiel, with apologies to the New Testament writers.

A Rare Insight at the NATO Summit

In another embarrassing Gaff for the US President, he has once again left his mic on while having a private discussion. This time with Australian PM Julia Gillard while at the NATO summit in Chicago. A transcript has been preserved and you can read it below:

Julia: So, how has your week been?

Obama: Well it’s been a disaster. My speech writers messed up and I said I had two sons instead of two daughters, any fool should have picked that up before it made it to the tele-prompter. Oh and there also seems to be some kind of thing going on in Europe...

Julia: I know what you mean. One of my Ministers was on twitter and he said that Spain and Greece were in the Southern Hemisphere..

Obama: Aren't they?

Julia: No, no, you must be thinking of somewhere else.

Obama: ...........anyway speaking of somewhere else, the Middle East is giving me a massive headache at the moment....

Julia: Iraq? Iran? Afghanistan?

Obama: No, not that Middle East, I'm talking about one of the flower beds at the white house. Michelle wants to plant it over with white roses and it will look as hideous as my poll figures when it's done.

Obama: Speaking of the polls, how are things at your end Juls?

Julia: Well to be frank, it’s been terrible, but there are some green shoots of hope...

Obama: Please don’t mention green shoots, I had a bad experience. Anyway what was the good news?

Julia: Well we are at 30% in the polls.

Obama: That’s the disapproval rating, right?

Julia: No, primary vote.

Obama:....................................... and the bad news?

Julia: Where do I start. Well my Foreign Minister is campaigning to legalize drugs, my Trade Minister spends all his time on twitter abusing people, my Treasurer keeps stalking through the corridors diving at anything shiny and then there’s Craig Thompson…

Obama: Who’s he?

Julia: Well you know Bill Clinton? Well think of him but with less charisma. 

Obama: Oh dear, and what did he do?

Julia: Well it seems he may have misappropriated about $500 000 of union money on travel expenses, prostitutes and campaign funding.

Obama: $500 000 you say, and I suppose everyone is up in arms about the whole thing?

Julia: Yes it's pretty serious. I could lose the leadership over it.

Obama: That is quite serious...... I was just wondering.... how will they react when they find out that you just pledged $300 million to the Afghan Government.

Julia: Oh, I wouldn’t worry about them finding out. It will probably only be published in the Murdoch press......

Obama: Murdoch... now who is he again?

Julia: You must have heard of him. He owns Fox News.

Obama: Oh, the "hate media."

Julia: Yes, precisely. Anyway, besides that, most of them can’t read anyway.

Obama: Do you mean to tell me that most of the Australian people can't read?

Julia: Who said anything about the Australian people, I'm talking about the ALP Caucus.

The Occupiers Better Be Careful What They Wish For

Here is a very telling picture relating to the Occupy Movement I found on James Delingpole's blog

Sure there are problems with the the big end of town, its full of fallen human beings but the big end of town doesn't have a mortgage on greed corruption and selfishness. You will find that all through society top to bottom but this movement seems to be less about lack of competition and corporate collusion and seems to  come more from the idea that there is only a certain amount of money in the system, that ''those'' people have wealth and I don't, and the reason I don't have it is because they have it. When in reality if the corporation didn't take risks and create the wealth nobody would have it, the reason they have the wealth is because they sell things people want, and they employ people to make the laptops, I Phone's and other paraphernalia that most of the occupiers seem to rely on. They seem to be in the position of the person cutting away the branch that they are standing on. After all, once you hand over your cash and receive your product you are hardly in a position to ask for your money back. 

Governments long history of failures comes with a very short memory

So after the Malaysian solution fell apart on Thursday we had this effort by the Prime Minister on 702 mornings with Deborah Cameron.

     "My view is that we should be implementing the arrangement with Malaysia, it would send the maximum deterrence message, it would be the greatest blow we could land on people smugglers and be the greatest deterrence to stop people risking their lives and getting on leaky boats."

      “unfortunately in recent years we've seen more than 400 people lose their lives trying to get too Australia by boat, so I remain determined to that we should implement the arrangement with Malaysia.”

     “Tony Abbott chose his political interest over the national interest and he has acted to wreck offshore processing. that means we are making appropriate arrangements for onshore processing and we will continue to do that. We are at real risk Deborah of seeing more boats and the person responsible for that will be Tony Abbott.”

So according to the PM offshore processing works as a deterrent and it prevents people from drowning at sea.

    On those two points she is totally correct but she is totally wrong in saying that it is Tony Abbott’s fault that we don't have an offshore processing system. The reason we don't have offshore processing is because Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard dismantled it in February 2008 and we don't have the Malaysian solution because it was rejected by the high court firstly and secondly because she didn't have the numbers in her own government to to pass the bill that would have allowed her 'Malaysian people swap deal.'

     But it gets worse, in admitting the truth that offshore processing does work as a deterrent, she is also admitting that for the last 3 years it has been their policy of weakening the laws that has caused the influx of boats and it is her governments fault that 400 people drowned she is admitting that the opposition has been right all along on this issue and also that for the last 3 years they have been lying to the electorate when they claimed that the increase in boat arrivals had nothing at all to do with their policies that it was all push factors and so on.

    Now to try and rewrite history and blame Tony Abbott for her Government's bungling of the issue is breathtaking. If anyone has been putting their political interest ahead of the national interest it is Julia Gillard in her blind opposition to Tony Abbott's preferred plan of Nauru.

   Remembering that she claimed it couldn't be used because they hadn't signed the refugee convention, then when they did sign it she went with Malaysia instead even though they have not signed the refugee convention. Try that on for hypocrisy.