Shame on you Australia. Are you really going to let your government deport a child from the only home he has ever known just because he's autistic? Where is your humanity, your empathy, your basic human decency?
I simply can't understand why more people are not up in arms about this, but on the assumption that the lack of discussion this case has generated is a result insufficient media attention, not of apathy or acceptance, I have to do what I can to bring attention to this travesty of justice.
Maria Sevilla brought her two and a half year old son to Australia in 2007. Over the past 8 years she strove hard to educate herself, working part-time whilst studying and eventually qualifying as a nurse. She now holds a senior position at a regional Queensland hospital. From the accounts of people who know her, she is a productive and committed member of her community.
Maria Sevilla applied for a skilled working visa (489) and was denied on the basis that her son, Tyrone, has an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Tyrone's diagnosis lead the Department to conclude that the family did not meet the health criteria as candidates whose condition could cost the country in excess of $40,000 during their lifetime are excluded.
Ms. Sevilla appealed the Department's decision to the Migration Review Tribunal, who last week upheld the Department's original decision. Assuming that she has the financial and legal support, which is by no means a given, she can apply to appeal that decision through the Tribunal. In the meantime, she is also asking the Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, to step in and exercise his discretionary power and grant her visa.
Even if we were to be so callous as to simply focus on the economic aspects, Maria Sevilla is a tax-paying member of our community and moreover she contributes by nursing her fellow regional Queenslanders back to health so that they can also return to being tax-paying members of our community as well. She is not sitting back expecting the people of Australia to support her and her son - she is actively supporting us.
The potential costs to a society of accepting migrants who might require additional social support during their lifetime is a valid concern, but we must be careful of putting a dollar figure on someone's worth. How can we simply say 'nah, you're going to cost us too much'! At the age of nine, we have effectively determined that this child will
be a drain on society and told him that he is unwanted, that he'll never amount to anything, and that we're not willing to waste our time on him. Are we really a country that has so little compassion?
In this case, we're talking about a child who moved to Australia when he was two and a half years old. Note that this was before his diagnosis, so there can be no suggestion that his mother tried to 'rort the system' by bringing him here or any such thing - we accepted him when we thought he was healthy, but now that we find out he's not we want to send him away again. How is that not discrimination?
Tyrone's now nine, and he knows no other life than his life in Australia. His maternal grandmother is here, as are his maternal uncle, aunt and cousins. His mother reports that she has no family support in The Philippines. Tyrone does not know the language there. The nature of his condition means that adapting to change is incredibly difficult for him.
It is completely within the realm of possibility that being ripped away from his extended family, his home, its language and the routine that he has come to know would be such a great distress to him that he would never fully recover. Leaving aside what care, education and opportunities might be available to him to him in The Philippines, the disruption caused to him by the deportation itself should be sufficient for us to ask ourselves how we can even consider subjecting a child to that level of distress.
I want to say more about the nature of Autism Spectrum Disorders, and the potential of people with ASDs to contribute to their society, but that point is better made by those who have greater knowledge on that subject than I do. I also don't want to unnecessarily limit this discussion to a particular type of perceived 'dis'ability, as that would focus solely on what one assumes someone cannot do, rather than focusing on what they can.
I think that's actually the crux of the argument. We can't just look at someone and know what they might be able to achieve. We can't take a diagnosis and assume that a human being is nothing more than the label that a doctor has placed on them. And while we technically 'can' create legislation that places a dollar limit on how much we as as a society want to spend on the people we let live here - the question is, should we?
If we do so, we focus only on what we assume a person can't do and discount what contributions they might be able to make. We also dismiss the value of the contributions that the rest of their family can bring to our society simply because their family unit includes someone who we summarily judge to be unworthy. Moreover, as this case highlights, we risk abandoning a member of our community and causing a child untold distress simply for the sake of saving a few bucks.
This is an appalling situation and this is not the Australia that I want to live in.
Please support Maria Sevilla's petition here: https://www.change.org/p/the-hon-peter-dutton-mp-please-don-t-deport-my-9-year-old-son-to-a-land-he-doesn-t-know-because-of-his-autism
Sunday 5 April 2015
Thursday 19 March 2015
Invoking Godwin
I went to the Bolt blog today and I do have to admit to visiting it from time to time. I'm pretty sure there's no way on earth I'll ever agree with him, but I'm always curious to hear other perspectives. I'm not so set in my ways that I'm not open to other ideas.
What I found though was perplexing. From Bolt himself there was the usual. He was defending the PM in saying that Shorten was an economic Goebbels. The line was to be expected - that Labor has also invoked Goebbels, so therefore what the PM said was ok. Sorry Bolty, but two wrongs don't make a right.
Bolt made no distinction between Dreyfus saying that a media campaign was Goebbelian in scope and nature, and the PM saying that Shorten was like Goebbels. They are different things - the PM played the man and not the ball. The PM was wrong, he knew that he was wrong and immediately withdrew his comments.
On the other hand, Bolt wasn't entirely wrong. No, of course I don't agree with the way that Goebbels was invoked today, but I don't necessarily have a problem with the invocation itself. This is our history, and it does us no good to sweep it under the carpet and pretend it didn't happen. On the contrary we should be raising it repeatedly so we can learn from it and ensure that it never happens again.
I admit though that I was surprised when I read the comments on Bolt's blog - because a sentiment that was repeated was that the Labor party were Nazi-like. It went kind of like "why would they be upset about being compared to their heroes" and "well if they didn't want to be compared to Nazi's then they should change their ways".
I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would think the Labor Party are like the Nazis. I asked the question Bolt's blog but, unsurprisingly, my comment was not published.
Without having the benefit of a reply from those who made those accusations, I've been left to come to my own conclusions - and I can only come up with the idea that the Labor party are perceived to be Socialist, and there is some resulting confusion between Socialism and Fascism.
I actually can't expend any intellectual effort to justify that position - it's too fucking hard to engage in the mental gymnastics needed to make it work, because it doesn't, because it's just not logical.
I will say, however, that one of the things I learned during my Arts degree (which according to this government is completely useless, but that's another story!), the political spectrum does not exist on an horizon - its a sphere - when you get far enough to the right, you meet up with the far left.
So I do kind of understand how Bolt's bloggers will perceive something so far left that they see it as far right. The Nazi's fascism is far right. Socialism, as it exists within our political discourse, is moderately left. We've really not seen anything since Marx that was far left - certainly nothing worthy of challenging our capitalist assumptions. Yet the political centre has moved so far to the right that anything left of centre is seen as socialist.
I'm not here advocating communism, but surely a little more social cohesion is not a bad thing. Apparently in this day and age anything less than advocating a complete and total free market is seen as socialist. And that's the only way I can logically connect Bolt's bloggers assertions that the Labor Party is in any way Nazi-like - if they appear anything less than completely free-market, then they must be socialist/fascist - far enough left to seem far-right.
I could try to explain that National Socialism is not Socialism. I could try to explain that Socialism is not Communism. I could try to distinguish an economic philosophy from a political one, but in all honesty, I think I'd just be wasting my breath. I would have tried if Bolt had published my comment and his bloggers had engaged with me, but it didn't serve their purpose and so I was shut out.
It's sad that dissenting voices can be so easily shut out. I certainly don't claim to have all the answers, but it would be nice to have a robust debate.
What I found though was perplexing. From Bolt himself there was the usual. He was defending the PM in saying that Shorten was an economic Goebbels. The line was to be expected - that Labor has also invoked Goebbels, so therefore what the PM said was ok. Sorry Bolty, but two wrongs don't make a right.
Bolt made no distinction between Dreyfus saying that a media campaign was Goebbelian in scope and nature, and the PM saying that Shorten was like Goebbels. They are different things - the PM played the man and not the ball. The PM was wrong, he knew that he was wrong and immediately withdrew his comments.
On the other hand, Bolt wasn't entirely wrong. No, of course I don't agree with the way that Goebbels was invoked today, but I don't necessarily have a problem with the invocation itself. This is our history, and it does us no good to sweep it under the carpet and pretend it didn't happen. On the contrary we should be raising it repeatedly so we can learn from it and ensure that it never happens again.
I admit though that I was surprised when I read the comments on Bolt's blog - because a sentiment that was repeated was that the Labor party were Nazi-like. It went kind of like "why would they be upset about being compared to their heroes" and "well if they didn't want to be compared to Nazi's then they should change their ways".
I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would think the Labor Party are like the Nazis. I asked the question Bolt's blog but, unsurprisingly, my comment was not published.
Without having the benefit of a reply from those who made those accusations, I've been left to come to my own conclusions - and I can only come up with the idea that the Labor party are perceived to be Socialist, and there is some resulting confusion between Socialism and Fascism.
I actually can't expend any intellectual effort to justify that position - it's too fucking hard to engage in the mental gymnastics needed to make it work, because it doesn't, because it's just not logical.
I will say, however, that one of the things I learned during my Arts degree (which according to this government is completely useless, but that's another story!), the political spectrum does not exist on an horizon - its a sphere - when you get far enough to the right, you meet up with the far left.
So I do kind of understand how Bolt's bloggers will perceive something so far left that they see it as far right. The Nazi's fascism is far right. Socialism, as it exists within our political discourse, is moderately left. We've really not seen anything since Marx that was far left - certainly nothing worthy of challenging our capitalist assumptions. Yet the political centre has moved so far to the right that anything left of centre is seen as socialist.
I'm not here advocating communism, but surely a little more social cohesion is not a bad thing. Apparently in this day and age anything less than advocating a complete and total free market is seen as socialist. And that's the only way I can logically connect Bolt's bloggers assertions that the Labor Party is in any way Nazi-like - if they appear anything less than completely free-market, then they must be socialist/fascist - far enough left to seem far-right.
I could try to explain that National Socialism is not Socialism. I could try to explain that Socialism is not Communism. I could try to distinguish an economic philosophy from a political one, but in all honesty, I think I'd just be wasting my breath. I would have tried if Bolt had published my comment and his bloggers had engaged with me, but it didn't serve their purpose and so I was shut out.
It's sad that dissenting voices can be so easily shut out. I certainly don't claim to have all the answers, but it would be nice to have a robust debate.
Are political parties the problem with our democracy?
Well, that's a stupid question - of course they are!
There's nothing inherently wrong with like-minded people banding together to achieve a common goal, but something is very, very wrong with our system of government when those people forget that they were elected by their constituents to represent our interests, not the interests of their party.
Our elected representatives seem to have forgotten it, and so has a large swathe of the voting public who seem to think its an 'us' against 'them' proposition. I did not vote for a particular party - I voted for the person I trusted to best represent my interests, and the interests of my community.
The concept of a conscience vote should not exist - every vote should be a conscience vote. If it was a policy you brought to the electorate at election time, then you're on stronger ground, but one would hope that our MPs would still exercise the cognitive fortitude to consider all aspects of proposed legislation and not be blind 'yes' men and women. If they don't, then voting along 'party lines' is merely a euphemism for 'I couldn't be bothered to think for myself'.
I'm pretty sure that's what happened today, because I can't see, by any stretch of the imagination, that the data retention laws are in anyone's best interests. And yet the chamber during the vote looked like this:
It doesn't take much common sense to work out that the reason for that is because these data retention laws are not designed to stop terrorism, or kiddie porn, or any of the other justifications that have been proposed - they're designed to catch illegal downloaders.
The Labor Party learned that, when they try to go against Rupert, even in the very modest way they did under Rudd/Gillard, they will be crucified. Rupert gets what Rupert wants - cross him at your peril.
I wonder whether perhaps some of these MPs had the wherewithal to realise that and reasoned that perhaps it was better to give a little on this issue in order to gain or retain power to make broader changes. On the one hand I think that that reasoning was wholeheartedly wrong, on the other, I kind of hope that their thought processes did extend that far rather than simply brainlessly voting along party lines. Make no mistake, neither of them are good choices, but at least in one scenario they applied independent thought.
Yet looking at that photo of the chamber I just can't believe that every single member of the Labor Party applied independent thought and still decided to vote to pass these laws. Can they all really be so intellectually vapid that they actually believe that these laws are good for the people of Australia? I'm naive enough to hope that they're not all that dumb.
They do, however, appear to be dumb enough to think that if the party chiefs tell them to vote a certain way, then they should. That's not the way it's supposed to work. And guess what dummies - there is no higher purpose than our freedom. We're not going to reward you for selling us out. Sure, you might get a few more terms on the basis that you're just slightly better than the other guy - but more and more people are starting to wake up to your game, they're starting to wake up to the bias in our media, and they're starting to realise that you are in it for yourselves.
We're awake - are you?
There's nothing inherently wrong with like-minded people banding together to achieve a common goal, but something is very, very wrong with our system of government when those people forget that they were elected by their constituents to represent our interests, not the interests of their party.
Our elected representatives seem to have forgotten it, and so has a large swathe of the voting public who seem to think its an 'us' against 'them' proposition. I did not vote for a particular party - I voted for the person I trusted to best represent my interests, and the interests of my community.
The concept of a conscience vote should not exist - every vote should be a conscience vote. If it was a policy you brought to the electorate at election time, then you're on stronger ground, but one would hope that our MPs would still exercise the cognitive fortitude to consider all aspects of proposed legislation and not be blind 'yes' men and women. If they don't, then voting along 'party lines' is merely a euphemism for 'I couldn't be bothered to think for myself'.
The authorities can already subpoena your data, they can already access your history - but they need to get a warrant first and they need to have some basis on which to investigate you that justifies the issuing of that warrant. Under the new laws, even as amended, some government apparatchik is to decide what is an is not in the national interest, who is and who is not worthy of protection.
Apparently our current elected representatives know better, apparently they are more than happy to throw out hundreds of years of legal and political history and to undermine our entire system of government.
We have a separation of powers for a reason. The executive has claimed powers previously (and rightly) allocated to the judiciary. This is bad legislation and yet no-one, from either of the two major political parties, was willing to stand up against it.
It doesn't take much common sense to work out that the reason for that is because these data retention laws are not designed to stop terrorism, or kiddie porn, or any of the other justifications that have been proposed - they're designed to catch illegal downloaders.
The Labor Party learned that, when they try to go against Rupert, even in the very modest way they did under Rudd/Gillard, they will be crucified. Rupert gets what Rupert wants - cross him at your peril.
I wonder whether perhaps some of these MPs had the wherewithal to realise that and reasoned that perhaps it was better to give a little on this issue in order to gain or retain power to make broader changes. On the one hand I think that that reasoning was wholeheartedly wrong, on the other, I kind of hope that their thought processes did extend that far rather than simply brainlessly voting along party lines. Make no mistake, neither of them are good choices, but at least in one scenario they applied independent thought.
Yet looking at that photo of the chamber I just can't believe that every single member of the Labor Party applied independent thought and still decided to vote to pass these laws. Can they all really be so intellectually vapid that they actually believe that these laws are good for the people of Australia? I'm naive enough to hope that they're not all that dumb.
They do, however, appear to be dumb enough to think that if the party chiefs tell them to vote a certain way, then they should. That's not the way it's supposed to work. And guess what dummies - there is no higher purpose than our freedom. We're not going to reward you for selling us out. Sure, you might get a few more terms on the basis that you're just slightly better than the other guy - but more and more people are starting to wake up to your game, they're starting to wake up to the bias in our media, and they're starting to realise that you are in it for yourselves.
We're awake - are you?
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