Wednesday, June 29, 2005

But Who Is Tony Burke?

Well, I'm not really sure. But I do know one thing. He had this to say in his maiden speech:

When we acknowledge the incredible strength and richness of the many cultures which make our nation so vibrant, from Indigenous Australians through to the most recent immigrant, it has an impact on how Australians relate to each other at the workplace, in the shopping centre and in the playground. When members of this chamber talk, very few people tune in and certainly none of the under-fives in that Greenacre playground listen to the broadcasts, but somehow the message gets out. When members here demean others, divide communities and vilify some of the most vulnerable people, those people do not have to be listening to feel the hurt.
I'm not sure what this means in terms of, like, you know, "illegals" and all them. But he's picked up on a key problem with The Old, whose disdain for his constituents did occasionally filter out to divide the broad community and vilify vulnerable people, like mentally ill detainee Peter Qasim:

"I don't bemoan, I don't assail the release of Peter Qasim," he said.

"However, I think there's quite a bit of debate about how co-operative he's been with the department in basically establishing identity and ethnicity.

"I say the question of defining people such as him as stateless is a worrying precedent.

"Statelessness is basically about those people who don't have documentation and can't be returned because of their situation.

"If it's a question of someone not co-operating, not signing documents, not really being definite about who they are and where they come from is a different matter."

Good to know that he's not bemoaning. I'd get a bit sick of unmedicated mentally ill people being un-cooperative with a department that I had no input into, too, if I was the shadow minister for immigration. I mean, like, God, if the government can't do it's job, it's because they're having a rough trot with all those illegals, and it's hardly his place to condemn something that he knows nothing about. Yeah. Yeah.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Against Indefinite Detention

Your say on the private member's bills to end indefinite detention for asylum seekers -
go here.

It's a real exercise, requiring your full name and address for verification reasons. You can state your opposition to the bill as well, if that's your yen.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Schapadlock II

The Schapadlock, reproduced faithfully on this site by our own Dibo, has been claimed.

On Thursday, the Daily Telegraph's very classy "Confidential" section ran a celebration of bad-taste Schappelle jokes that had been circulating amongst the city's young and technologically hip, including said Schapadlock.

The staff of Confidential were amused that afternoon to receive a note of thanks as well as an entire Ham from the David Jones Food Hall and a certificate for 'Mateship in Journalism' from comedy outfit The Third Degree, who had created the Schocking image.

I can exclusively reveal that an Unnamed Source from inside The Third Degree feels that Ham is the way forward in thankyou gifts.

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Shame, Laurie, Shame.

Margo Kingston is hosting a web forum on the mandatory detention bills, wherein punters can post their letters and replies from their MPs. Here.

I was horrified and shocked to read this reply to what seemed like a fairly inoccuous letter from one Justin Whelan.

Oh, Shame.