Gillard & the Australian government directly responsible for the tragic drownings off Java

What a load of bullshit they have tried every thing to stop the boats, and the fuckwitts keep coming to jump the ques making people who have gone down the correct channels wait longer

What a cruel society that elects and cheers on politicians who do this and the ongoing crimes against Aborigines.

Free the Indonesian children from Australian prisons - end the hypocrisy - October 1, 2011.
Sun 16 Oct 2011
By Gerry Georgatos

Hypocrisy never ceases to amaze and often serves to highlight immoral predicaments.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is concerned about the rights of a 14 year old Australian child who was arrested by entrapment for possession of marijuana in Bali. The child is not in an Indonesian adult prison however he is in custody and within the appropriate jurisdiction. I feel for him however he has a journey before the Indonesian Childrens Court.

During July I spoke to Prime Minister Julia Gillard about the thereabouts 100 Indonesian children languishing in Australian adult prisons. They range in age from 13 to 17 years. It has been a long and arduous journey to have some of them released - some have been released via court proceedings and some by behind the scenes efforts. I contacted Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and he promised he would assist. He has not. When I spoke to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and as we held hands throughout the conversation, her warm smile froze to a worried silence in presuming another scandal-in-waiting.

Australia is yet to ensure appropriate age-determination protocols and adequate consular notifications so these children, some of the world's most impoverished children, do not finish up in adult jurisdictions with murderers, sex offenders and hardened criminals. How is it Minister Rudd is concerned about the plight of a 14 year old Australian who is before the appropriate jurisdictions in Indonesia and yet he is not concerned about 100 Indonesian children in Australian adult prisons?

The mantra of "breaking the people smugglers' model business model" has caused much damage and perceptually modified public views. Is "people smuggling" a reality or is it a myth, and is the assisting in the passage of an asylum seeker immoral and criminal?

I was stunned when a GetUP! campaign against the Malaysian option quoted, "it's understandable that the Minister cannot offer a blanket exemption to any class of asylum seekers, for fear that people smugglers will exploit it to their advantage." There are many Asylum Seekers who cannot find safe passage from persecution and oppression without the assistance of others.

I do not question that there maybe some who have profiteered in assisting asylum seekers, however is this a crime? Migration agents get paid for their services. Who doesn't? Let us remind ourselves that much of what is paid to so-called people smugglers is also spent on ensuring their safe passage.

If Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Minister Chris Bowen want to break what they perceive as the people smugglers business model they should listen to the Director of Refugee and Asylum Law at the University of Michigan, James Hathaway, "Canada and other developed countries created the market on which smugglers depend by erecting migration walls around their territories. The more difficult it is to get across a border to safety on one's own, the more sensible it is to hire a smuggler to navigate the barriers to entry. Smugglers are thus the critical bridge to get at-risk people to safety. Which one of us, if confronted with a desperate need to flee but facing seemingly impossible barriers, would not seek out a smuggler to assist us?"

Perceived people smugglers are actually people who save lives and if we could remove ourselves from the racism and xenophobia we would appreciate them and their brave daring as we do Oskar Schindler and Nancy Wake.

Humanity has a history of heroes who have smuggled people to safety and to destinations throughout the world where human advancement can prosper. 250,000 Hungarians were assisted by 'agents' to flee the Stalinist persecutions following the 1956 revolt. Oskar Schindler took monies to pay monies to help thousands of individuals to freedom. Recent tributes revered the life of Australian Nancy Wake, a 'people smuggler' who during German occupied Europe saved many lives.

Many people smugglers were asylum seekers and refugees and they understand the predicament of their peoples. Iraqi Ali Jenabi's brother was killed by Saddam Hussein's forces. He arrived in Indonesia penniless and to earn passage for his family to Australia, and which included his mother, sisters, brothers and an uncle he worked for perceived people smugglers. His family finally arrived in 3 separate boats.

Ali Jenabi's humanity continued and he has since helped many others seek passage, including those with no money. He is a hero to the Iraqi communities of Australia however a perceived people smuggler to Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He could face ten years jail whereas Oskar Schindler and Nancy Wake have received every tribute.

Australia's misrepresentation of those who assist asylum seekers in their safe passage and their labelling as people smugglers has now caught up young children, who were no more than cooks and deckhands on the boats lawfully seeking asylum to our shores. There are now over 400 of Indonesia's impoverished fisherpeople serving five year sentences in Australian prisons. Many of them are children. There are hundreds more waiting on remand and others in immigration detention.

The method used to determine the age of the children, the wrist-bone age scan, has been widely discredited by paediatric endocrinologists and by the Australian Medical Association, and is unlawful in the UK as a means to determine age, however the Australian government continues to rely on it.

Lawyer, David Manne set a precedent by challenging the Australian Government in the High Court over the lawfulness of the Malaysia option. At this time in the Victorian Courts, and what may finish up in the High Court, lawyers are arguing that asylum seekers have a legal right to come to Australia and that perceived people smugglers in fact have a legal right to assist them, and in fact they have never done anything unlawful. Indeed paragraphs 232 and 233 of the Migration Act support this argument. A few years ago 27 legal experts explained to a Senate Estimates Inquiry that indeed there is nothing unlawful in assisting people with safe passage to foreign shores. The incarceration of people as 'people smugglers' is unlawful, and the incarceration of Indonesian youth and children as 'cooks and deckhands' is a human rights abuse.

If the Victorian Courts uphold the arguments that there is no such thing as people smuggling per se in regards to the 'business model' then this will have a wide reaching implication and may expedite the freedom of many. Australia would be best served by working with those humanitarians who risk their lives trying to help others to our shores, and by pulling down the migration walls and by raising our humanitarian quota for refugees to for instance 50,000 and set an example world-wide.

Gerry Georgatos - 0430 657 309
gerry_georgatos@yahoo.com.au

End the hypocrisy

By Gerry Georgatos

Hypocrisy never ceases to amaze and often serves to highlight immoral predicaments.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd was concerned about the rights of a 14 year old Australian child who was arrested by entrapment for possession of marijuana in Bali. The child was not in an Indonesian adult prison however he was in custody and within the appropriate jurisdiction. I feel for him however he had a journey before the Indonesian Children's Court.

During July I spoke to Prime Minister Julia Gillard about the thereabouts 100 Indonesian children languishing in Australian adult prisons. They range in age from 13 to 17 years. It has been a long and arduous journey to have some of them released - some have been released via court proceedings and some by behind the scenes efforts. I contacted Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and he promised he would assist. He has not. When I spoke to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and as we held hands throughout the conversation, her warm smile froze to a worried silence in presuming another scandal-in-waiting.

Australia is yet to ensure appropriate age-determination protocols and adequate consular notifications so these children, some of the world's most impoverished children, do not finish up in adult jurisdictions with murderers, sex offenders and hardened criminals. How is it Minister Rudd is concerned about the plight of a 14 year old Australian who is before the appropriate jurisdictions in Indonesia and yet he is not concerned about 100 Indonesian children in Australian adult prisons?

As a result of ordinary people campaigning the house down for justice, the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has presented cases for review to the Commonwealth Attorney-General, and the AHRC has initiated a National Review. As a result of the same ordinary citizens Australian Greens Senators have finally asked our questions about these children in the Senate Estimates and as a result a Senate Standing Committee is taking submissions so as to amend legislation to protect children. As a result of our campaigning, 36 children have been released from prisons this year and 69 all up.

The mantra of "breaking the people smugglers' model business model" has caused much damage and perceptually modified public views. Is "people smuggling" a reality or is it a myth, and is the assisting in the passage of an asylum seeker immoral and criminal?

I was stunned when a GetUP! campaign against the Malaysian option quoted, "it's understandable that the Minister cannot offer a blanket exemption to any class of asylum seekers, for fear that people smugglers will exploit it to their advantage." There are many Asylum Seekers who cannot find safe passage from persecution and oppression without the assistance of others.

I do not question that there maybe some who have profiteered in assisting asylum seekers, however is this a crime? Migration agents get paid for their services. Who doesn't? Let us remind ourselves that much of what is paid to so-called people smugglers is also spent on ensuring their safe passage.

If Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Minister Chris Bowen want to break what they perceive as the people smugglers business model they should listen to the Director of Refugee and Asylum Law at the University of Michigan, James Hathaway, "Canada and other developed countries created the market on which smugglers depend by erecting migration walls around their territories. The more difficult it is to get across a border to safety on one's own, the more sensible it is to hire a smuggler to navigate the barriers to entry. Smugglers are thus the critical bridge to get at-risk people to safety. Which one of us, if confronted with a desperate need to flee but facing seemingly impossible barriers, would not seek out a smuggler to assist us?"

Perceived people smugglers are actually people who save lives and if we could remove ourselves from the racism and xenophobia we would appreciate them and their brave daring as we do Oskar Schindler and Nancy Wake.

Humanity has a history of heroes who have smuggled people to safety and to destinations throughout the world where human advancement can prosper. 250,000 Hungarians were assisted by 'agents' to flee the Stalinist persecutions following the 1956 revolt. Oskar Schindler took monies to pay monies to help thousands of individuals to freedom. Recent tributes revered the life of Australian Nancy Wake, a 'people smuggler' who during German occupied Europe saved many lives.

People smugglers should not be mixed up with traffickers in human labour or in slavery. If the migration walls are brought down then people smugglers, or organisers, can be allowed to better do their job, which to many of them is a calling, and openly be able to work with public authorities and agencies as to ensure the sea worthiness of a boat. If this humanity is understood we would not have had the SIEVX where 353 drowned, 146 children, 142 women and 65 men. We would not have had the Christmas Island tragedy where at least 50 drowned, and the many others in between these two tragedies and since, and the tragedies that will surely come - as I can sadly guarantee that hundreds more will drown, and when once again it is as numerous, in human lives, a tragedy as the SIEVX only then will people once again discuss the issues, the migration walls, the inhumanity.

Many people smugglers were asylum seekers and refugees and they understand the predicament of their peoples. Iraqi Ali Jenabi's brother was killed by Saddam Hussein's forces. He arrived in Indonesia penniless and to earn passage for his family to Australia, and which included his mother, sisters, brothers and an uncle he worked for perceived people smugglers. His family finally arrived in 3 separate boats.

Ali Jenabi's humanity continued and he has since helped many others seek passage, including those with no money. He is a hero to the Iraqi communities of Australia however a perceived people smuggler to Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He could face ten years jail whereas Oskar Schindler and Nancy Wake have received every tribute.

Australia's misrepresentation of those who assist asylum seekers in their safe passage and their labelling as people smugglers has now caught up young children, who were no more than cooks and deckhands on the boats lawfully seeking asylum to our shores. There are now over 400 of Indonesia's impoverished fisherpeople serving five year sentences in Australian prisons. Many of them are children. There are hundreds more waiting on remand and others in immigration detention.

The method used to determine the age of the children, the wrist-bone age scan, has been widely discredited by paediatric endocrinologists and by the Australian Medical Association, and is unlawful in the UK as a means to determine age, however the Australian government continues to rely on it.

Lawyer, David Manne set a precedent by challenging the Australian Government in the High Court over the lawfulness of the Malaysia option. At this time in the Victorian Courts, and what may finish up in the High Court, lawyers are arguing that asylum seekers have a legal right to come to Australia and that perceived people smugglers in fact have a legal right to assist them, and in fact they have never done anything unlawful. Indeed paragraphs 232 and 233 of the Migration Act support this argument. A few years ago 27 legal experts explained to a Senate Estimates Inquiry that indeed there is nothing unlawful in assisting people with safe passage to foreign shores. The incarceration of people as 'people smugglers' is unlawful, and the incarceration of Indonesian youth and children as 'cooks and deckhands' is a human rights abuse.

If the Victorian Courts uphold the arguments that there is no such thing as people smuggling per se in regards to the 'business model' then this will have a wide reaching implication and may expedite the freedom of many. Australia would be best served by working with those humanitarians who risk their lives trying to help others to our shores, and by pulling down the migration walls and by raising our humanitarian quota for refugees to for instance 50,000 and set an example world-wide.

This is an interesting article from Gerry:

http://www.safecom.org.au/gerry-georgatos.htm

and these too:

http://indymedia.org.au/2011/08/10/discovering-the-truth-gerry-georgatos

http://workersbushtelegraph.com.au/2011/10/10/rank-hypocrisy-on-child-de...

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/45591

http://de.indymedia.org/2011/10/319065.shtml

http://indymedia.org.au/2011/09/12/hra-release-australia-in-danger-an-ob...

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/42486.html

http://linksunten.indymedia.org/en/node/49468

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/44739

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/report-says-detention-...

All pretty sad and I agree the Gillards, the Abbotts and even the Greens when they talk down people smugglers are directly responsible

listen to today's rhetoric by Jason Clare, Home Affairs minister, it's racist

HRA media release: All three major political parties caused the drownings off Java - and more

Moral leadership is not being represented by any political party or its leaders.

None are prepared to lead that far from the front that the others behind them can leverage solutions. Instead they are on par with each other and merely casting blame and aspersion and portraying themselves as being able to do the job better.

Ministers Bowen and Clare, Minister Morrison and Senator Bob Brown are all speaking very much alike and none of them is effecting any difference, or any leadership that can leverage any real and significant ways forwards.

The four of them have attacked the organisers of the boats for our Asylum Seekers as 'people smugglers' and have convoluted their practices and assistance as 'trafficking'. These people are not traffickers of indentured human labour or slavery or of illegal immigrants - they are assisting in the passage of Asylum Seekers, which according to International Conventions is lawful and humanitarian.

It is these misrepresentations by Ministers Bowen, Clare, Morrison and Senator Brown, and by Prime Minister Gillard, Foreign Minister Rudd and the Coalition's leader Tony Abbott which has directly led to people drowning at sea.

Migration walls need to be dismantled. People should not have to work in clandestine ways to seek Asylum. People Smugglers should be seen as humanitarians, and they should not be criminalised which if so will allow them the freedom to ensure sea worthy boats and to liaise with various public agencies. And Australia should work regionally and with a moral leadership to raise refugee resettlement numbers in regional nations with a high social wealth and human development index.

Australia has a capacity for 50,000 refugees resettled each year, and without impact on its social wealth - and for more than this number.

Australia has a capacity to develop points of contact in Indonesia and other regional locations with our Asylum Seekers to best assist them and in conditions that are humane. However political leadership, leading far from where we are at this time, is requisite.

The boats will stop in this event - they come because they are denied expeditious assistance - if this changes and if conditions in interim locations are developed then our Asylum Seekers will wait and work with those that care about them.

The only other way to stop the boats is to do what John Howard did and cruelly turn them back and let people languish in dire and abject conditions. They fled persecution, and they fled adverse conditions, most have families they care about, of course many will risk the high seas when there is no humanity on tap, and instead they seek to find themselves face to face with us so we look into their eyes and into their pain.

Our days our numbered, we need not waste them with sickly parochialism, self regard, inhumanity. Our politicians need to scrub up and get their act together - yes they are directly responsible for sinking boats, for drownings, for self harms, mental breakdowns and suicides in detention centres.

Political heavyweights must lead from the front in the very least, and for those, such as the Greens who once claimed to care about humanity at all costs, they need to lead far from the front, and not become like those they once argued against and who asked us for our goodwill to get them into government.

Those who assist in the passage of Asylum Seekers are not criminals. However Australia's political leadership is criminal.

Gerry Georgatos
Convenor, Human Rights Alliance
humanrightsalliance.org
0430 657 309

The tit for tat between Labor and Liberals is sickening
and the Greens have joined in with the bullshit
Who will meet with you and letters back and forwards just stupid
Okay Labor if the Liberals want a proposal in writing then write the
damn thing and if they don't meet then they will look stupid as they are
and lose the votes they think they have in the bag
all this is just self and childish
Anthony

Noel they have to get what they can in respect to boats. If they didn't have to this behind everyones back then maybe they could openly hire or buy better boats. The refugees are so desperate they are getting on boats they know are overcrowded so they can get to a hell of better life even though they know the risks.

I googled around and found this between Gerry and Matt Taylor exactly a year ago!

Stop the boats

21/Dec/2010

Matt Taylor, Willagee

Comments: 1 reader has left a comment

DURING the recent Federal election campaign when I was the Liberal candidate for Fremantle; Labor, the Greens and the local “independent” paper heavily criticised our priority policy to “stop the boats” that carry asylum seekers to Australia.

My non-rhetorical question seeking a public response from all three is that now that your previously perceived moral high ground has been destroyed by the predictable reality of this devastating incident (not to mention all previous innocent boat-related deaths not caught on camera), do you now believe stopping the boats is the right policy morally or is the sustained loss of many lives still acceptable to you?

And please don’t be so disrespectful as to hide no answer within a deflective, false argument claiming political opportunism.

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What everyone else is thinking
Gerry Georgatos

31/12/2010

The reason 'boats stopped coming' under John Howard was because he instructed the Australian Navy to turn them back, in the spirit of Abbott's "we'll tow them back out to sea". In the preceding three months prior to Howard's Pacific Solution, 13 boats arrived, however after the Pacific Solution, in the next three months 14 boats that had left for Australia were turned back by the Australian Navy. It is not the Pacific Solution, which was just a detention centre on Nauru, that 'stopped' boats it was the inhumane policy to turn them back - people drowned on the return trips of up to another two weeks at sea - this is what happened, what sort of policy is this, other than inhumane, other than cruelty, other than selfishness? There are 42 million people displaced in our world, 16 million of them refugees, with only half of them cared by UNHCR, the rest have no help, no queues, so what else can they do other than risk all? Australia's record is disgusting. Kindly, Gerry.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/12/21/letter-moral-leadership-no...

It is Robert Manne not David Manne but suppose it doesn't matter!

Now we have a tug of war about nothing obsessing the media about whether the pollies will speak about a solution that is not a solution!

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/12/24/letter-time-personal-refor...