Illusive Mind

I realize that one is not supposed to mention ‘refugees’ this election unless you are a covert agent for the Liberal party trying to wedge Rudd against the lefties and give mainstream (’racist’) Australian ‘battlers’ a reason to go back to the coalition.

Ross Gittins hit on the idea that Labor lefties sincerely hope Rudd isn’t as Howardesque as he is making himself out to be for the purposes of the election campaign.

One of the central issues in this election campaign is what Kevin Rudd would be like as prime minister. Much of John Howard’s campaigning is directed towards convincing us that, once he’d won, Rudd’s me-tooing would stop and the real man would be revealed.

But here’s the funny thing: what Liberal supporters fear, many Labor supporters hope for. They hope that once he’d won, Rudd’s me-tooing would stop and the closet socialist — any kind of socialist — would be revealed.

Michelle Grattan once wrote that the “sniff of power” would keep the left quiet during the election, so intense is their desire to see Howard ride off into the sunset, hunched over and dead with no-one shouting “come back!” Except perhaps for Peter Costello.

I think that nothing short of a ‘Howard-Lite’ candidate is capable of winning power in this country at this time. Perhaps there will be a time for a Goff Whitlam election but this isn’t it, not when the economy is on cocaine and Australian Working Families (AWFs) “have never been better off”.

But in earnest hope we cling to speeches made by Rudd such as the following made back in August 2006.

Industrial relations, asylum seekers and global climate change all needed the attention of Christians, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said at a Christian conference in Parliament House in Canberra.

“There are of course many other (issues).

“But none can dispute that these three are significant,” Mr Rudd said.

On industrial relations Mr Rudd said the government’s controversial Work Choices laws damaged families.

“The key to family life is relationships and the key to relationships is the time to nurture them.

“These industrial relations changes have a capacity to make our family life increasingly time-poor and therefore relationship-poor.”

A compassionate view toward asylum seekers, Mr Rudd said, was part of a long biblical tradition of welcoming strangers.

“That is why the government’s current proposal to excise the entire Australian mainland from the entire Australian migration zone and to rely almost exclusively on the so-called Pacific solution should be the cause of great ethical concern across the Christian churches,” Mr Rudd said.

He described global warming as one of the great fundamental ethical challenges of the modern age.

“For me it is ethically indefensible for this government to have spent the last decade not only refusing to ratify the Kyoto protocol, but actively working with the government of the United States to marginalise it.”

So maybe you don’t bring up refugees in an election campaign lest you scare working family xenophobes. Nor do you harp on or even really mention or refer to the 2.2 million Australians living below the poverty line lest you scare off working family mortgage belt cashed up bogans. But, you certainly talk up industrial relations as much as possible, this hurts working families. And you can whisper platitudes about climate change thanks to Al Gore making saving ourselves from self-annihiliation vogue. But don’t actually detail the sacrifices people are going to have to make or you’ll scare the CUB crowd. (Though he better bloody not have ethanol in mind.)

Rudd calls them ‘Christian’ values though as an atheist I call them ‘humanist’ values and some philosophers might very well call them, simply, ‘minimal human decency’. However, the best way to push Rudd to the left is to vote for the Greens in the senate, the party who understands the urgency of the climate change crisis. The party who doesn’t have to kiss the ass of big business by pulling some kind of phased withdrawal of Work Choices.

Today thank the proverbial ‘lord’ we learn:

A PREFERENCE swap between Labor and the Greens is “all but a done deal” for the Senate nationwide and marginal lower house seats in every state except Tasmania, Greens leader Bob Brown says.

This is after the ALP’s unforgivable act of putting Family First ahead of The Greens in their preferences which is the only reason Steve Fielding was elected in 2004.

How can Steve Fielding of Family First win one of Victoria’s Senate seats with just 45,260 votes?

In short, because virtually every other party - including Labor and the Democrats - preferred Family First to the Greens and practically every other party.

STEP 1 1st preferences

Liberal/NP 1,048,172
ALP 873,649

Greens 205,920

Family First 45,204

Democrats 44,099
DLP 44,084
Liberals for Forests 41,289

You can see how the deed was done in all it’s horrible detail here.

This time around, incredibly, it’s going to be a challenge just to oust the Coalition from the senate. Which is why the ALP, Democrats & Greens are putting up a united front.

It’s about time there was some scrutiny of Family First. There is sure to be some public investigation of this malignant growth on our political system now that FF has disendorsed one of their Sydney candidates, Andrew Quah. He clearly did not have the ‘values’ they were after.

Family First is the epitome of one Australia’s nastiest exports, Dog Whistle politics. From their website:

FAMILY FIRST’s top priority is the health and well-being of families;
FAMILY FIRST believes families are the most important thing in our lives;
FAMILY FIRST raises the issues that really matter to families;
FAMILY FIRST gives your family a voice in Parliament, so the needs of families are addressed;
FAMILY FIRST is independent and represents commonsense, mainstream values and ordinary Australian families.

I can hear dogs howling down the street, this is the most obviously coded bunch of bullshit I’ve ever read. “Commonsense, mainstream values” ? Presumably that means they are against dark people. Families are the most important thing in our lives? What does that even mean? We know they’re against homosexuality.

Family First disciplined one of its workers at Dayboro, in the marginal Brisbane seat of Dickson, for answering “yes” to a question about whether Family First supported lesbians being burned to death.

But, given how important families are and all, I would’ve thought they would support IVF treatment and adoption for lesbians not burning them to death.

How does a pro-family party reconcile children behind razor wire in mandatory detention, or refugees unable to reunite with their families in Australia (especially if they’re from Africa)? It doesn’t. Because for the religious right, Christian values mean only two things, anti-abortion and anti-homosexuals.

I wrote the following to Senator Steve Fielding but am yet to receive any response:

Dear Senator Fielding,

You represent a party that “recognises and supports Australia’s international and humanitarian commitments in regard to asylum seekers.” http://www.familyfirst.org.au/documents/ASYLUMSEEKERS.pdf

What action will you be taking to ensure Australia does not continue to flout it’s international and moral obligations as a signatory if the Refugee Convention, in regard to the 72 Sri Lanka genuine refugees who face the prospect of languishing for years indeterminately on Nauru?

Do you regard it as morally just to punish genuine refugees by refusing to settle them in Australia in order to send a symbolic message to a third party (people smugglers)?

So we come back to Rudd’s re-branding of Christian values (minimal human decency). They are of course informed completely by secular humanist values otherwise we would be promoting murder, genocide, rape and unholy acts of human indignity were we rely solely on the bible for our ‘values’. Jesus had some good stuff to say about social justice, let’s grab that and leave the stoning to death shit to the homophobic, anti-women fundamentalists.

My favourite quote about mixing religion with politics is this one:

Mixing religion with politics is like mixing ice cream with horse manure. It doesn’t hurt the manure, but it ruins the ice cream.

Of course you can guess which one I think is the ice cream, and which one is just a bunch of horse shit. Whatever you believe, the great moral crisis of our time, possibly of all time is climate change. It is not interest rates, it is not gay men trying to get married, it is not union thugs.

Right Wingers would have you believe climate change is an economic question, it’s not. There will be economic costs and in the most consumerist, self absorbed, decadent, selfish, short sighted generation in living memory, talk of *gasp* “self sacrifice” seems akin to promoting self-mutilation.

Either we decide that it is right to spend a lot of money seeking to prevent catastrophic climate change or we decide that it isn’t, but we must make that decision on the grounds of how much we value people and places as people and places, rather than as figures in a ledger.

Geroge Monbiot

Imagine the refugee problem brought about by a global food deficit, seal level rises and complete disruption of regular weather patterns. Billions of people will be affected and they will be disproportionately poor. Here in the comfortable west, climate change affects us last and effect us least. But the humanitarian disaster that awaits us is so great that only a sociopath could fail to grasp the urgency of action.

I’m not sure it’s wise for someone who believes in the literal story of Noah and the flood to be holding or co-holding the balance of power in the Senate!

Don’t be hoodwinked by so called ‘Climate Change Realists’, vote for The Greens, it’s about values.

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Martha Ojulo holds a photo of her son, Liep Gony.

A race issue on the eve of a John Howard election, we thought it might’ve just been the Aboriginal Intervention strategy or the Citizenship test or the Haneef debacle and leave it at that. Well, the polls just aren’t bouncing for the Coalition are they?

There aren’t any Tampa boats on the horizon either, so we’ll just invent one about these Africans that just can’t seem to integrate dog gone it. Boom, No Africans Allowed.

So let’s get a time-line going:

August 18th 07

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews announces the Refugee and Humanitarian Intake for 2007-08. It is reported that “It will cut the number of immigrants from Africa by 30 per cent” but is met with little media attention. Andrews’ announcement states:

The (decreased) intake from the Africa region reflects an improvement in conditions in some countries and an increase in the number of people returning to their country of origin.

The Refugee intake is adjusted towards the Middle East.

Intake from the African region will drop from 50 per cent of the total to 30, while the intake from the Middle East and Asia will increase to about 35 per cent. The number of new arrivals will remain at 13,000.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews says the composition has been adjusted to reflect the areas in greatest need.

“There are some millions of people displaced from Iraq and neighbouring countries such as Syria and Jordan and we will be taking an increased number of those people - many of whom are Christians who’ve been displaced by the conflict between the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq,” Mr Andrews said.

“We consult the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, we consult various refugee groups in Australia, and then we make a judgement based on where the need is as we best see it around the world, but also… in terms of how people will integrate into Australian society.”

It is met with bipartisan support. It seems that the ‘integration’ angle was not what they used to sell the numbers to the opposition. In his own press release he suggests that difficult integration is best solved by more funding and greater availability of settlement programmes:

I am conscious of the particularly traumatic experiences that many people coming to Australia under the Humanitarian Programme have experienced over a prolonged period of time and that this can make successful settlement and integration difficult. To increase the availability and range of settlement programmes available to recently arrived humanitarian entrants the Australian Government has committed an additional $209.2 million over four years.

I want to ensure every new entrant to Australia is given the best possible chance to successfully settle, become part of our community and contribute to our great nation.

This from the Refugee Council of Australia’s Intake Submission. You can read it here. It appears quite different to the composition the government decided upon.

August 19th 07

Amnesty International welcomes the changes with more people accepted from the Middle East.

The number of arrivals over the next 12 months will remain at 13,000, with fewer people accepted from Africa and more from the Middle East.

Amnesty International spokesman Graham Thom says it is a positive step to follow the United Nation’s recommendation to provide more places, especially for Iraqis.

“Australia is one of the few countries who have resettled people out of this region and so we applaud that commitment to protecting those at greatest need,” he said

September 28th 07

Liep Gony, a nineteen year-old refugee from Sudan dies after being found in a pool of his blood near Noble Park train station. Assistant Commissioner Paul Evans says inter-racial violence is not common in the Noble Park area but there have been a few incidents in Melbourne recently. “They seem to be assaults or issues involving the same nationality groups.” Police described the bashing as particularly violent and vowed to clamp down on gang activity in the area.

September 30th 07

Dylan Sabattino and Clinton Rintoull, both Noble Park locals (and not African) are arrested by South Australian police in Adelaide accused of murdering Liep Gony.

October 1st 07

Kevin Andrews is questioned about the death of Liep Gony and whether better settlement services are needed, he responds:

I have been concerned that some groups don’t seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope and therefore it makes sense to put the extra money in to provide extra resources, but also to slow down the rate of intake from countries such as Sudan.

Refugee Council chief executive officer Paul Power said Mr Andrews’ comments on Melbourne radio station 3AW undermined the Government’s refugee and humanitarian program and were particularly damaging to the Sudanese community in Australia.

MINISTER UNDERMINES REFUGEE PROGRAM WITH COMMENTS ON AFRICAN INTAKE

Mr Power said the Minister was undermining the Government’s own program, raising questions about the basis of the decision on the 2007-08 refugee and humanitarian intake.

“It is quite valid for the Government to decide to shift its refugee intake to include more people from very needy circumstances in parts of Asia and the Middle East,” Mr Power said. “That is a judgement a government is entitled to make, having reviewed current global needs.

“But, through his comments today, the Minister has raised questions about whether responding to humanitarian need remains the core objective of the Government’s refugee program.”

So it would seem that the Government decided after the fact that they would use the Refugee Intake numbers as a race card and an argument about “assimilation or integration, whichever word you want to use” as John Howard put it. Whilst simultaneously maintaining they are not being racist because the Refugee Intake numbers are about giving more support to Middle Eastern and Burmese refugees.

Have I mentioned lately that Kevin Andrews Must Resign?

So they get to do the old nod and wink to their racist support base (the evils of mandatory voting) whilst attempting to wedge Labor. Maybe I could even buy this idea that we are just slowing the intake of refugees from Africa until we ‘dealt with the problem‘ if they government said just one step they were going to take to increase support services for these refugees.

One study finds: Discrimination, language barriers, poor job opportunities and a lack of support are making it harder for African refugees to settle in Australia. Instead we are treated to this idea that there is just something wrong with these black people, especially the ones from Sudan, they don’t integrate properly.

The Reverend David Pargeter, director of the Commission for Mission at the Uniting Church, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania says the refugees need support, not vilification.

“When a government minister, on the eve of an election, connects violent action with one particular cultural group, we know we have reached deeply into the darkness of racial politics,” Mr Pargeter said.

Ain’t that the truth. But is this any more soul crushing and disgusting than Tony Abbot’s attempt to use a woman’s miscarriage in the New South Wales Royal North Shore hospital for political ammunition against the state government? This is a Government desperate for traction with the ‘heart-strings’ or perhaps the lesser-angels of the demos.

However, having pulled this trick one-too many times it is all too easy to spot the This is another Tampa routine. At least I continue to hope that the xenophobic, mortgage belt bogan swinging voters or “aspirational voters” aspire to something different after all these years of the lying rodent.

A spokesman for Andrews trotting out the ‘Africans have trouble settling here‘ line admitted she was using “anecdotal” evidence while “Citing media reports of some serious crimes involving Sudanese”. Meanwhile Victoria’s Chief Commissioner of Police, Christine Nixon, refutes the suggestion that African refugees are more violent than any other group.

CHRISTINE NIXON: When you look at the numbers we’re talking about, the young Sudanese who are actually coming in to custody or have dealt with us, only really make up about one per cent of the people we deal with.

So faced with evidence contrary to an assertion, what does the unbelievable dick of a man Kevin Andrews (who must resign) do? HE CITES A SECRET REPORT!

From The Australian:

IMMIGRATION Minister Kevin Andrews has accused senior police of trying to paper over a serious Sudanese gang problem, but has refused to release evidence to back up claims that African migrants were a major crime threat.

Despite Victorian Chief Police Commissioner Christine Nixon saying that Africans committed just a fraction of the crime in the state and were not a problem, Mr Andrews said anecdotal evidence suggested otherwise.

The Immigration Minister cited “cabinet in confidence” for not releasing a report that he said detailed a serious problem among African refugees.

“The advice on which we made the decision was largely material which was provided in submissions to cabinet and, as you know, cabinet submissions are confidential. But can I say there was widespread examination of this, including by an interdepartmental committee particularly in relation to the settlement issues.”

It turns out that these HIV infected Sudanese terrorists have weapons of mass destruction and are selling wheat to Saddam Hussein and throw their own children into shark infested waters. Given how well we have gone this century with “I was acting on advice” or “I was acting on intelligence” they might as well be the boogey men the government would have us believe. Well here’s an intelligent piece of advice for you, STOP LYING TO COVER YOUR OWN ASS. Take some responsibility because you are accountable to the people. Go on try to use the secret evidence ploy one more time you paternalistic cockroach, that is what the people are looking for in their leaders, good luck at the election.

Haha, as if elections in this country were about integrity, it’s the economy stupid. When ‘working families’ can read Bolt’s column “Some gangs are too ethnic for the police to see” without flinching you know we’ve got problems. That’s right Bolt, it’s far more likely that the police are engaged in a massive conspiracy to cover up the extent of ‘ethnic gangs’ in Victoria rather than the Government (bastion of honesty that they are) beating it up for their own (misguided?) ends.

But here is the nub. There is a kid, Liep Gony who was bashed to death in Noble Park. He fled war torn Sudan with what was left of his family looking for safety and opportunity. He was in our country, he was in our care, it wouldn’t have mattered even if his alleged murderers were Sudanese.

We have failed him, not the other way around.

To quote the Minister for Immigration:

“But the reality is that there’s evidence that this is occurring. The best way to deal with it is to name the problem, for a start. If you don’t name the problem, you’re not going to adequately be able to deal with it.”

I agree, and the problem in this country is racism. The reason is our leaders cultivate the fears, prejudice and bigotry of this nation. Australian soldiers dressed up as KKK are just “letting of steam” and race riots in Crounulla is a “law and order issue”, there is no widespread racism in this country.

I hope that Rudd leads the country out of this morass and puts the values back into the so-called Christian Values of this nation. Liep is another casualty in a long line of casualties of this country’s bigotry and fear. Let’s come together and do something to honour his memory not sully it by demonizing him and his countrymen.

Here is one letter to Kevin Andrews, why not write your own?

This government is compounding our reputation as a racist xenophobic country throughout the world.

Human Rights Commissioner Graeme Innes and national Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma:

The Australian Government should maintain its role as a principled and committed global citizen through a refugee policy that makes it a priority to respond to the worsening plight of refugees and their need for asylum from persecution and war,” Commissioner Innes said.

“The government’s decision to cut African refugee numbers because they are not settling and adjusting to the Australian way of life is at odds with the primary concern of the Refugee Convention, that is, providing a safe haven for people who are fleeing persecution in their country of origin. “Of course people fleeing war torn countries or cruel regimes may well have special settlement needs, but this is not a reason to reject them,” Mr Innes said. “Rather, it is the very reason we should embrace them and work towards helping them rebuild their lives.

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Labour under Kevin Rudd has adopted ‘me-tooism’ almost as a philosophy of action. Rudd has decided he will decide the issues to wedge his opponents and the time and manner in which to do so. On every other issue simply echoing Howard seems to have the effect that appeals to conservative voters (and there must be a lot of them) whilst the lefties bite their tongues because they can ’sniff’ victory (unlike Kim Beazley’s brand of hopeless ‘me-tooism’.)

That being said tomorrow marks the six year anniversary of ‘The Tampa Affair’ when Howard appealed to the better demons of our nature and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Many Australians such as myself continue to feel shame, embarrassment and outrage out this government’s conduct and its shirking of our international responsibilities and lack of human decency.

We get the sense that Rudd would lead a more compassionate Australia and appeal to true Christian values of social justice not exclusion and divisiveness. However, his me-tooism leaves us worried that this Howard-lite might not have the ‘right stuff’.

A report by Oxfam Australia and A Just Australia reveals the economic cost of the ‘pacific solution’ and the blatant waste of money for what amounts to a symbolic measure. We won’t let asylum seeker’s set foot on our soil to send a message to people smugglers. This policy has the moral equivalence of beating a prison inmate within an inch of his life to “send a message” to a third party.

I agree with George Monbiot when he dismisses economic arguments about approaches to the climate change crisis. It’s not that they are inaccurate but they deal with the wrong question. The effects of climate change make it a moral question not a financial one. You don’t decide to prevent a massive loss of human life because it makes financial sense, you do it because it’s the moral thing to do.

Similarly you treat refugees with respect and basic human dignity not because it’s cheaper than building a gulag archipelago and not even because we are signatories to the UN convention of refugees, but because it’s the right thing to do. That being said it’s time for Rudd to ‘out-Howard’ Howard on refugees. He is spending billions of taxpayers dollars on a symbolic gesture which could be spent on defense. The policy has crippled the morale of our navy and is diverting resources from defense. Hit him where he lives, the economy and national security.

Tomorrow would be an auspicious day to do it and would send a ray of hope to decent Australia even if it means appealing to our wallets rather than the better angels of our nature. But when was the last time politics was about that?

From The Age

‘Solution’ branded a costly flop

EVERY asylum seeker processed in offshore centres such as Nauru under the Federal Government’s controversial Pacific Solution has cost taxpayers more than half a million dollars, a report says.

The report, by aid organisation Oxfam Australia and refugee advocacy group A Just Australia, says the “flawed system” fuelled mental illness in refugees, failed to uphold Australia’s commitment under international law and squandered taxpayers’ money.

It says that since the Pacific Solution was introduced six years ago, the Government has spent $1 billion — more than $500,000 a person — to process fewer than 1700 asylum seekers on Nauru, Christmas Island and Manus Island.

“By comparison, the latest estimates from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship suggest that to process 1700 asylum seekers for 90 days each at the Villawood detention centre in Sydney would have cost around $35 million — around 3.5 per cent of the cost of processing them offshore,” it says.

Manus Island in Papua New Guinea had been empty since 2004, but was maintained at an annual cost of $2 million in readiness for new asylum seekers.

Under the Pacific Solution — introduced following the Tampa crisis in the lead-up to the 2001 federal election — asylum seekers intercepted before they reach the Australian mainland are processed offshore.

The report says the policy creates a two-tiered processing system, one for people within Australia and one for people offshore — which opens the way for discrimination and breaches of the international Refugee Convention.

Australia has said it is not obligated to accept asylum seekers processed offshore even if they are found to be genuine refugees.

“The Pacific Solution is neither value for money nor humane,” Oxfam Australia executive director Andrew Hewett said.

The report, A Price Too High, says medical studies, Immigration Department figures and testimony from staff and former asylum seekers on Nauru painted a shocking picture of psychological damage for detainees.

Cases included 45 people engaged in a serious hunger strike and incidents of self-harm and attempted suicide as a result of prolonged isolation in offshore detention centres, where access to mental health services were limited or non-existent.

The report documents long delays in resettling people found to be refugees, compounding post-traumatic stress disorder for asylum seekers.

The report says the Pacific Solution failed to uphold Australia’s commitment under international law, which forbids sending a refugee back to a place where they might face persecution. It recommends that the Pacific Solution be abolished and all asylum seekers processed on the mainland.

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Sri Lankan refugee at a camp, near Rameshwaram, India. Sri Lankan refugees are fleeing the country after renewed attacks by the armed forces. Photo: Ilankai Tamil Sangam, USA
Image from www.australiansall.com.au

From The Age

Mr Burnside, a Queen’s counsel and president of Liberty Victoria, said Mr Andrews had used innocent people as a deterrent policy when he made it clear the reason for sending the 82 Sri Lankans to Nauru was to send a signal to people smugglers.

“Mistreating innocent people in order to influence the conduct of others is morally beyond redemption,” Mr Burnside said in an article posted on the website of community group Australians All, which was co-founded by former prime minister Malcolm Fraser.

So I guess that means my plan to imprison children born out of wedlock to punish the parents would also be wrong.

Mr Burnside said Mr Andrews had acted in breach of international treaties.

He said that if the Sri Lankans were found to be refugees, which looked likely, they would not be offered protection by Australia.

“Instead we will hawk them around the world to see if another country will take them. The effrontery of this is awesome … if history and common sense are any guide the world community will tell us to look after them ourselves.”

Mr Burnside said Mr Andrews was a devout Christian who had ignored the parable of the Good Samaritan.

“He will need a powerful anaesthetic to dull the moral pain of what he has done,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Mr Andrews said that although the Government did not provide legal assistance to the asylum seekers, it did facilitate legal access.

“They have access to phones, faxes and emails, and if people want assistance on how to contact someone, phone numbers can be provided.”

Mr Andrews’ spokeswoman said Mr Burnside had made a number of misleading and inaccurate claims in the article.

She said his claims that the Federal Government initially intended to return the men to Sri Lanka were false.

Yes of course that’s false, the Federal Government initially only wanted to return the Sri Lanakans to Indonesia who indicated they would send them straight back to Sri Lanka. Completely different. Certainly a wholly morally relevant distinction, pulling a lever that allows a train to kill five people is not the same as killing those people myself.

Read Julian Burnside’s article here.

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Wouldn’t you know it.

The fate of 85 Sri Lankan asylum seekers is still uncertain as the Department of Immigration and Citizenship decides what to do with the men.

HMAS Success intercepted the asylum seekers in the early hours of February 20, 50 nautical miles off Christmas Island, near the West Australian coast.

…

Media reports have suggested that crew members from HMAS Success tried to repair an engine on the unseaworthy boat to turn the asylum seekers back.

The Immigration spokeswoman told theage.com.au, “I’ve heard that report but I can’t confirm whether or not that’s the case.”

Given the awfulness of our ‘Pacific Solution’ perhaps turning them back is more humane in a sick kind of way.

But why does this remind me of the SEIV-X incdent?

On 18 October 2001, a small, unnamed 19.5m by 4m fishing boat departed Bandar Lampung, Indonesia, with 421 passengers onboard. On the 19th the boat sank in international waters, within Indonesia’s zone of search and rescue responsibility, and also inside the Australian border protection surveillance zone. Approximately 146 children, 142 women and 65 men died. On the 20th 44 survivors were rescued by an Indonesian fishing boat, the Indah Jaya Makmur. A 45th survivor was rescued about twelve hours later by another boat, the Surya Terang [1].

Some survivors claimed that some passengers refused to board when they saw the state of the boat, but were forced aboard by Indonesian police.

From sievx.com

Why is it that the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) surveillance map of the day the SIEVX survivors were rescued by passing fishing boats does not show a rescue boat within 27 nautical miles of the rescue coordinates, when it appears that the RAAF Orion flew directly over the survivors as they were being plucked from the water?…

…

Australia is denying permanent residency to survivors living here unlike other countries who provided secure residency to those who survived SIEVX. On the eve of the second anniversary of the sinking, Democrats Leader, Senator Andrew Bartlett moved a motion in the Senate, which included a request to the new Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone to grant permanent visas on humanitarian grounds to the SIEVX survivors and those who had close family members who drowned on SIEVX. So far this request has been met with resounding silence.

Update: I bet Howard is thanking his lucky stars and hoping he can wedge Rudd on asylum seekers.

“They will not be allowed to land on the Australian mainland,” he told Southern Cross Broadcasting today.

Mr Howard said today Australia’s hardline policy of sending asylum seekers to offshore detention centres had not changed, and the latest arrival was a chance to reassert the government’s position.

“Clearly, sending them to Nauru is an option, but we are assessing all of the options,” Mr Howard said.  

“It’s an opportunity for Australia to send a signal to people smugglers that they needn’t think for a moment that our policy has changed.

“This is a demonstration that we still have a very strong, effective border protection policy.”

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