STOP

 March 2015 - children telling us to stop

Yesterday, this beautifully written piece by Australian author Tim Winton on Palm Sunday eloquently expressed all I feel on the issue of asylum seekers in Australia. My favourite section (and there were so many to choose from) was:

To those in power who say they're exiling and caging children for their own good, I say we've heard that nonsense before. So, don't do it in my name.

To those who say they're prolonging misery to save life, I say I've heard that nonsense before. You don't speak for me; I don't recognise your perverse accountancy. 

To those in power who say the means will justify the end, I say I've heard that nonsense before. It's the tyrant's lie. Don't you dare utter it in my name. [my emphasis]

To those who say this matter is resolved, I say no. For pity's sake, no. For the love of God, no. A settlement built on suffering will never be settled. An economy built on cruelty is a swindle. A sense of comfort built upon the crushed spirits of children is but a delusion that feeds ghosts and unleashes fresh terrors.

If current refugee policy is common sense, then I refuse to accept it. I dissent. And many of my countrymen and women dissent alongside me. I don't pretend to have a geopolitical answer to the worldwide problem of asylum seekers. Fifty million people are currently displaced by war and famine and persecution. I don't envy those who make the decisions in these matters, those who've sought and gained the power to make decisions in this matter. I'm no expert, no politician. But I know when something's wrong. And what my country is doing is wrong. [my emphasis]

And just like above, I really don't have any idea what the best political solution is but I really want this inhumane, unjust, foul, brutal and dishonest treatment of vulnerable people to stop NOW!

A bit of kick-ass

For the casual observer, reading this blog, they would think that my politics maybe more left than I acknowledge. As my introduction stated, I actually don't really get left or right in politics, but if I am agreeing with anything that comes out the Greens party, I realise that makes me a bit left.

As previously stated, I do not hold a membership to any political party and I don't really think I align with any.

But I loved Senator Scott Ludlam's final speech on 4 March, 2014, before Western Australia goes to the polls again to vote for the Senate. It's kick-ass to a Prime Minister who seems to be hitting hard against the 3 policies I am particularly interested in.

Read or watch the speech here:

http://greensmps.org.au/content/speeches-parliament/adjournment-speech-abbott-well-see-you-wa

My favourite lines are:

Mr Prime Minister, at your next press conference we invite you to leave your excruciatingly boring three-word slogans at home. If your image of Western Australia is of some caricatured redneck backwater that is enjoying the murderous horror unfolding on Manus Island, you are reading us wrong. Every time you refer to us as the 'mining state' as though the western third of our ancient continent is just Gina Rinehart's inheritance to be chopped, benched and blasted, you are reading us wrong. 

and....

Mr Abbott, your thoughtless cancellation of half a billion dollars of Commonwealth funding for the Perth light rail project has been noted. Your blank cheque for Colin Barnett's bloody and unnecessary shark cull has been noted. Your attacks on Medicare, on schools funding, on tertiary education-noted. The fact that your only proposal for environmental reforms thus far is to leave Minister Greg Hunt playing solitaire for the next three years while you outsource his responsibilities to the same Premier who presides over the shark cull has been noted too.

and this is just plain funny....

So to be very blunt, the reason that I extend this invitation to you, Mr Prime Minister, to spend as much time as you can spare in Western Australia is that every time you open your mouth the Green vote goes up. 

and my real favourite, because it reflects some of how I feel about the Abbott government's treatment of asylum seekers.....

And, perhaps most profoundly, your determined campaign to provoke fear in our community-fear of innocent families fleeing war and violence in our region-in the hope that it would bring out the worst in Australians is instead bringing out the best in us. Prime Minister, you are welcome to take your heartless racist exploitation of people's fears and ram it as far from Western Australia as your taxpayer funded travel entitlements can take you.

I wished I lived in Western Australia! (That maybe the only time I ever say that!) Voting happens on 5 April.

I don't know about anyone else out there trying to keep abreast of Australian politics but it's amazing how little I heard from the other political parties on the media. It felt like Tony Abbott's face was everywhere during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. But Bill Shorten is no where. I have actually had to subscribed to a certain Labour MPs FB just to get some of Labour's comments. Is there a government stranglehold on the media? (*conspiracy theory*)

And, no, I have not received a reply from my first letter to my local MP. It's early days though. I am gracious.