Who’s This Georgatos, Who Puts Aussie Down in Foreign Media?
Australia is confronted by the tragic phenomena of detention center deaths, with five suicides in the last 10 months, over 1,000 suicide attempts and thousands of self-inflicted injuries among asylum seekers.
There have recently been two more suicide attempts at Darwin Immigration Center. There most likely be more to come.
One Hazara man suffered a heart attack following efforts to rescue him from his suicide attempt.
The answers to stopping these suicide attempts are not in diminishing the hanging points or in relying on a suicide watch. The answers lie in treating people with humanity, in assisting these folk in their rightful asylum claims, in allowing them unfettered contact with the Australian community, with various experts, with the media and in ensuring they are not indefinitely detained in these unlawful facilities.
The dramatic rise in self-inflicted injuries is in itself not surprising. When pushed to the brink of despair, people often cry out in pain in one form or another.
We have long warned of the rise of self mutilation, mental breakdowns, physical breakdowns of irreparable damage, acute and abject clinical disorders, the various categories of depressions, of trauma and chronic trauma, of suicide attempts and multiple suicide attempts.
We have always warned of more detention center deaths.
The government shall be culpable, as duty of care can be argued to extend beyond release and duty of care originates at the point of trauma, at the cause.
We have a duty to acknowledge impacts and the government cannot abrogate its responsibilities. There is a criminality within the practices of our government in the mistreatment of these peoples through a Gulag type experience kept almost clandestine from the rest of Australia.
There are high levels of unemployment for those released. There are horrific incidences of despair and suicide attempts among those finally released who were evidently damaged by their detention
center experiences.
The mere fact that someone is released does not immediately erase mental and clinical damage to the person. There have been scores of suicide attempts in Australian detention centers and there will be more, just as there shall be more post-release attempted suicides.
Over a recent period of time I have released various leaked statistics of self-inflicted injury, of medical incidences or suicide watches and of suicide attempts from Australian Detention Centers, of the training required by guards to “cut down” with “Hoffman knives” suicide attempts.
My observation is that the longer we incarcerate people in the manner the Australian Government is doing so at this time, and with the difficulties our asylum seekers endure without unfettered
communication to other peoples, it is clear that people break down and some will die in custody.
Those who eventually break down and die following their release will be even greater in number.
During the recent Christmas Island protests, our despairing asylum seekers were burying themselves in shallow graves. Many asylum seekers are coming out of the Australian detention center experience worse than before they went in.
Gerry Georgatos
Bridgetown, WA
Gerry Georgatos 10:53 on August 1, 2011 Permalink |
Hi, I am Gerry Georgatos. I love Australia, I love our world, however where there is an issue one must speak out, be it criticism or be it through other various mode. My friend, Australia incarcerates some of the world’s most impoverished children in our adult prisons, this is something we cannot remain silent about. Furthermore, I have different understands to you about our government’s maltreatment of our Asylum Seekers, and of our Aboriginal brothers and sisters, and of our most impoverished and vulnerable folk. My criticisms of Australia do not mean I do not care about Australia. I care about Australia equally as I care about humanity. In terms of your criticisms of me they are too all over the place for me to comment, and in the end I accept criticism, we all have a view of the world. Please consider accepting my criticisms in terms of my right to criticism, dissent and conscientious objections.
I am very keen always to engage in conversation with anyone at any time. Kindly, Gerry.
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ross1948 13:33 on August 1, 2011 Permalink |
Okay, Gerry, we obviously disagree on much, but I did give your letter full coverage in my crit.
I will leave it to the readership to debate, though if they are not forthcoming, I will in due course respond myself.
Glad you came straight back at me – I respect people who put their names to their assertions, which alas is not always the case with some blog-holders here!
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Gerry Georgatos 22:22 on August 1, 2011 Permalink
No worries Ross. Look forward to your responses, and I’ll reply to them where I can. With keeping my letter on your post and your comments around the letter I don’t mind at all, that’s fine with me, always is. Kindly, Gerry.
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Robert Elden 01:21 on August 2, 2011 Permalink |
Firstly, I am part of many causes Gerry is involved with and secondly I contribute to the cause known as Students Without Borders. Students Without Borders and The Human Rights Alliance are very separate. I respect Gerry and his commentaries because this man is not just a commentator and/or critic he is heavily involved in everything he has something to say about – he works with the homeless, he works with many Aboriginal communities, he works with Refugees, he is the creator of one campaign and program after another, he gives more than most and he is a highly educated man. He is not your average educated man with a degree, he has two Masters and a PHD and he knows his stuff. I have rarely heard anyone speak as well on the topics he speaks about as he does. He certainly understands better than most people what is racism, the refugee problems and Aboriginal issues and he is an expert on deaths in custody which his PHD is about. Gerry was one of the great voices when he was at Murdoch University, when he took on universities and governments and this man’s integrity is impenetrable, he stood up as a whistle at a couple of organisations and took on the hierarchy at his personal cost. If Gerry is describing how bad it is for refugees in detention and that they are coming out worse than they went in well this man has first hand knowledge and the expertise.
Robert
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Mohammad 04:30 on August 2, 2011 Permalink |
At any given time of a night there is 100,000 homeless and mentally ill Australians living rough and sleeping on the street with no shelter. Yet our government can spend millions of the taxpayers’ money to support people who will stop at nothing to force their way into our country. I think some Australians’ compassion is misguided by ideology forced on them by academics that have a socialist agenda.
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Robert Elden 05:08 on August 2, 2011 Permalink
Mohammad, Gerry works with the homeless and the rights of those he often refers to as downtrodden. The man was recognised by the state of WA for his work with the destitute, Aboriginal people and human rights. I don’t think falling for the old trap of blaming one group of suffering people for another group is the answer. I think mate you should focus on the government’s abuse of people’s rights and not providing a coherent, consistent human rights policy. Yes there are more than 100,000 homeless people however this has nothing to do with helping refugees. If the government wasn’t spending money on detention centres do you think they would be spending on the homeless, they never and never will. They spend it on big business and other defence and other stuff, so don’t get trapped by weakening the groups of people who should come together.
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Peter WIlkie 02:13 on August 2, 2011 Permalink |
Hmmn, so is the proposition by Ross1948 that Australia can do no wrong? Or that even if it does then it should not be held to account or even criticized? Ross1948 might like to reflect upon the fact that Australia is the only refugee convention country that practices indefinite mandatory detention without charge or trial of asylum seekers, indeed all persons in Australia without a visa. The only country mind you. By definition that places Australia outside international norms of behavior and makes our approach to asylum seekers extreme. We have tear-gassed children in detention centres, I’ve met ones who were gassed, happened at Woomera. We have deported seriously injured Australian citizens, because they did not happen to be white like in the Vivian Solon case. Even when the mistake was raised with supervisors in the immigration department, nothing was done. We have incarcerated mentally ill people and had guards perving at women in the showers. Happen in the Cornelia Rau case, a woman who was so ill while detained at Baxter that she was eating dirt. There are so many stories like this, well confirmed, well evidenced. There is a serious systemic problem with our whole approach to immigration and asylum issues. I personally know many people who have suffered such abuses.
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ross1948 03:55 on August 2, 2011 Permalink |
G’day, Peter. Just a few questions,
viz. an Australian citizen was deported purely on account of her skin-colour? Those were the grounds given for deportation?
Children were sitting innocently in their detention centre and somebody came along and tear-gassed them? I thought tear-gas was used in riot control.
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oigal 14:04 on August 2, 2011 Permalink
Yes Ross she was deported because of her skin colour because she could not produce documents to prove she was Australian. Not that any white Australian has ever had do this.
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ross1948 14:11 on August 2, 2011 Permalink
So she had no documentary proof of citizenship…sounds a bit more likely a reason for deportation than that she had dark skin.
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oigal 14:21 on August 2, 2011 Permalink
No Ross, since when did Australian Citizens have to carry documentation to prove who they are, its not your police state yet. The courts argeed and she was awarded a considerable sum as she should have been.
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ross1948 14:59 on August 2, 2011 Permalink
So she got a fair go. I know documents don’t have to be ‘carried’ but most people can get hold of suitable ID if required.
A fair go is NOT being given, as Jazpen said earlier today, to decent people who apply for the right to immigrate to Australia, not so long as ‘asylum-seekers’ can run amok and destroy tax-payer funded facilities, and still be approved for entry..
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JazPen 07:29 on August 2, 2011 Permalink |
These people won’t face up to the fact that they are helping queue-jumpers.
That’s your words, but everybody who legally immigrated to Australia or whose parents immigrated take the same view.
And after what those poor peace-loving refugees did to the detention centres, it is no way they are going to be useful citizens. Vandalism and violence we got enough of already.
Gerry sounds like he has some supporters quick to come in on his side, but the real numbers of supporters? Let’s have a referendum and find out.
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oigal 14:01 on August 2, 2011 Permalink |
Wrong Jazpen, in fact most asylum seekers are approved as refugees and the majority are already leading productive lives in Australia. Plentynof resources to verify same rathe than blogsthat just repeat the usual hate nonsense.
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Gerry Georgatos 19:08 on August 2, 2011 Permalink |
Jazpen, you are right that a significant number of the Australian population is ignorant of the facts, and is therefore distant from the common good. In terms of the mantra of tax payer funds well near two billion is wasted each year on the unwarranted network that is the system of mandatory detention which has only served to make Australia more racist and ignorant than it already is.
Secondly, I don’t have much sympathy for some so-called property damage which is usually tents and blankets and I do have sympathy for the more important damage to human beings – mental and physical – minds and lives are being destroyed by an incredible and clandestine set of imposts.
Till Australia unveils its racist layers it will continue to inhibit its identity with discriminatory imposts upon folk.
A referendum is merely the ascent of bullying when in fact the majority are ignorant, as we often argue of the rationales and majority views that led to a once upon a time disenfranchisment of Aboriginal peoples, Stolen Generation, White Australia Policy, Yellow Peril Policy, etc…
As a matter of fact 30% of the ALP at its last conference voted to end mandatory detention and what they tell me in person and what they put out in public are vastly different and a great shame for them, rather they should understand and live by the fact that politics is a calling.
Kindly, Gerry.
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ross1948 19:51 on August 2, 2011 Permalink |
You lefties rise early – it’s barely day-break in Oz, yeah?
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ross1948 04:18 on August 3, 2011 Permalink |
G’day, Gerry.
I am certainly not going to defend the ALP – they can speak for themselves.
But I must say I find your elitism somewhat disturbing.
To dismiss your fellow-countrymen as ‘ignorant’ is the antithesis of democracy.- if they can’t be permitted to have their say on an issue as widely-discussed and debated as immigration, why bother to let them vote at all?
That is classical marxism, the vanguard theory whereby only the PC class-conscious element should direct the nation. Hardly the Australian way, since referenda are explicitly included in its constitutional arrangements
I’m not saying you are necessariy a marxist – I don’t know to which brand of the left you adhere, though I’m sure you’ll tell us!
But if you carry your argument to its logical conclusion, there will be no popular control of politicians.
If tax-payer citizens, ‘ignorant’ or not, have to shoulder the immense cost of property damage inflicted by amok ‘asylum-seekers,’ then they are entitled to decide whether they wish to carry that burden.
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Gerry Georgatos 22:57 on August 2, 2011 Permalink |
I do rise early.
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Robert Elden 03:16 on August 3, 2011 Permalink |
I would actually like to hear some of the arguments against refugees and how us welcoming more to Australia would be a problem and not the divide and conquer diatribe of who is left or right of the political ideological spectrum. So far I am hearing bias and prejudice, and I am hearing weak arguments such as spite them because there is so called property damage.
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Jazpen 11:11 on August 4, 2011 Permalink |
Robert.
Why should Australia take these people? Okay, not all of them are guilty of property damade, but those that were should get vetoed for residence, right?
And in general.
We aren’t exactly the first stop on the road out of iraq or Afghanistan or Sri Lanka.
Tamils are akin to India’s south coast. -they belong with their own.
Iraqi Christians i can see a case for, but Arabs in general can stop in rich Arab countries- the ones that come here don’t seem to like Western ways, so why come?
Afghans- able-bodied men should be in their army, fighting Taliban. Our soldeirs spent time, effort and blood making Afghanistan a better place, or trying to. So we needn’t import Afghans to here.
Not that I’m in Australia right now, but when I go back, I don’t want to see it changed into some kind of non-Western place.
And Gerry, the issue is about the country’s future. The entire nation deserves a say. Or are you like Ross said against democracy in principle?
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Gerry Georgatos 23:04 on August 4, 2011 Permalink |
The issue is about a common humanity, and from whatever approach be it utilitarian or other, it is about doing everything that we can for one another – this is the premise of civilisation if we remove ourselves from economic premises related to innovation and the wonder of discovery. Jazpen you have an innate fear of ‘returning to some place’ that is no longer ‘western’. That should never be a concern – humanity and our settings unfold, they are not delivered by impost (excepting overt authoritarian regimes) – Australia is not actually predominately Anglo-Celtic anymore and it should not concern itself with origins of thinking that shamefully produced for instance the Stolen Generation, the eugenics and horrific racisms that led to the Apartheid endured by Aboriginal peoples, or the Yellow Peril Policy or the White Australia Policy. Australia has one of the world’s most horrific racist histories however you wil with hostile denial refute this, and this is Australia’s greatest dilemma. Though Australia is no longer predominately Anglo Celtic/Saxon its parliaments are predominately Anglo Celtic/Saxon, 90% and 80% of them with over 100 years of familial history in Australia and therefore the origins of thinking that led to the eugenics of the Stolen Generation, to the Apartheid endured by Aboriginal folk, to the White Australia Policy, to the Yellow Peril policy, these origin of thinkings have inter generational premises and legacies and are passed down in various manner as is inter generational povery and cultural identities as liabilities – our parliamentarians, many of them, carry as legacy many inter generational prejudices and hence their inability to ensure social inclusion, to understand humanity in terms of a common good rather than in self regarding elitist interests. I think it was Ross that referred to ‘elitism’ however he was misguided in directing it towards me, where indeed it should be referred to our parliamentarians and to the misguided national identity they try to divisively proliferate. My friends life is brief and you all argue in ways as if we are here for long periods, almost dynastically, and you search vainly in pursuit of various folly while walking all over people whom are victims of hard and soft determinism. You are in the world’s lucky 1%, a roll of the dice, that ensured you were born into various rights and opportunities, and therefore you are the elite – the majority of the world has been dismissed into abject poverty and other demarcations. You do need to deny the truth in order to accept with minimal guilt the rapacious greed that the 1% of this world tears for itself from the remainder. The times ahead for humanity are of great concern, challenges indeed, and I hope that they will be settled in the common good and not in the ways that colonialists sought to, where for instance the British became history’s greater builders of slums, inducing poverty for peoples throughout the world, look at Africa, the sub continent, the Raj, Australian Aboriginal peoples, and the Spanish and Portuguese were disgraceful, however no one worse than the Belgians (for instance their criminality in the Congo)… Let me move from harking historically to the present, and the reality I have digressed to is a social reality where we have a responsibility to one another and I have moved to this in leaps and bounds rather than discuss economic equations, the real facts about the fact there are no queues for Asylum Seekers – I can discuss economic and legal equations better than most however to save time I am suggesting you think about what’s in your heart, what’s in your mind, what you think and feel and what really matters and get a grip on your humanity and drop the divisiveness and shallow arguments that unfortunately much of humanity is caught up and destroyed by.
In terms of Jazpen’s comment about ‘democracy’ I have studied ‘democracy’ and please tell me where ‘democracy’ exists! Other than in for instance the aspiration of the UDHR, the various human rights conventions and articles and in the flowery language of political aspirants where does democracy exist – yes, everyone is entilted to their view of the world however that view in terms of the aspiration of democracxy only has currency if we can have unfettered discourse – however our ability to the discover the truth is often outstripped by our ability to manifest deceit – and thefore as a result of deceit what you misconceive as democracy, which does not exist, leads to racism, discriminations, injustices, and for instances crimes against humanity in the name of ill conceived economic equations for elites, and we then have desperate scrambles to justify the Military Intervention in the Northern Territory, the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, the advent of 24 unlawful Mandatory Detention Centres by our Commonwealth Government… Australia justifies its prisons, which at this time incarcerate up to 100 of the world’s most impoverished children, we have impoverished Indonesian children in Australian adult prisons – I spoke to Prime Minister Julia Gillard about this and she froze into the most disgraceful silence as he held a handshake… and Australia has one of the world’s worst in police and prison custodial deaths in custody records – if you want to look into the heart and mind of a nation’s identity then look into its prisons.
We can do much more with our mortal coil than be obsessed with ourselves and with ridiculous economic observations and xenophobic and parochial concerns. Kindly, Gerry Georgatos.
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ross1948 15:38 on August 5, 2011 Permalink |
Heck, Gerry, at least nobody can say I don’t give you guys plenty of space to state your case!
I looked over your comment earlier today when I was at work, and even tonight, just got home and I’m still digesting it.
It’s way too long and abstruse to sway anyone, but I reckon you know that. And it suits me if you like to express yourself in such a way.
True, we in the West do not have full democracy, except in a few places like Switzerland.
But even the limited version most European and North American nations enjoy has to be better than military dictatorship, autocratic monarchy or anything the ghastly marxist ideologies have ever produced.
If you dislike the version Aussie has, you have a duty to say with what you’d replace it.
Our respective ‘weltanschauung’ are so different it is hard to know where to start in ‘debate’- whch I suspect won’t change your thinking or mine- but the very basic issues of self-determination and national identity evidently mean little to you, except retrospectively, where you clearly object to old-fashioned colonialism. The Third World countries deserved the right to decide for themselves how they were to be governed (which is where democracy comes in) and it was wrong for whites to colonise and settle in other peoples’ lands? That your view?
Well, Australia, and Canada, to name but two, surely have the same rights to self-determination, to decide who may or may not settle in their territories, and those decisions by any fair reckoning must be made by the citizens of each country.
Thus a referendum on every aspect if immigration is reasonable.
Also on multiculturllism, which ,again in both countries, has never had a mandate from the people. The parliamentary elite foisted it on the citizenry and the latter must be given their right to reject such pernicious policies.
Anyway, since we conservatives (and I exclude phoney ‘conservatives’ who only think in terms of money-grubbing – real conservatives, you may be surprised to hear, actually DO think beyond our mortal coil, and are proud of our heritage and determined to build on it for the next generations) ‘misconceive’ what purports to be our democracy, pray tell- what would your preferred replacement system of government be?
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Gerry Georgatos 11:51 on August 10, 2011 Permalink
Ross, you actually have my respect in the fact that you do publish everything written, and when you know someone like me I hold that about you in very high regard. Yes, we have some different and various world views, so be it, however I respect the fact that you and I each have the right to our views, to our dissent and that these rights are to be protected. I was appalled when Pauline Hanson was ludicrously jailed, and I was appalled that everytime she spoke there were hecklers and the so-called left trying to shut her down – I like when voice is given to everyone and our language unfolds unfettered, as it does – the frontiers are often ugly and not just scary, so be it, this is the only way forward. I agreed with very little what Pauline had to say however she had the right to speak her truth and represent the views of the hundreds of thousands who were voting for her. I don’t agree with most of what you write or where it comes from however I like that you engage and say what you have to say. Gerry.
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ross1948 14:27 on August 10, 2011 Permalink
Thanks, Gerry.
As I’ve said before, I think you probably over-do it with these long bursts of comment, but again as said, you probably don’t expect to win many converts from my readership.
However, I’m sure some of them will take delight in sparring with you. Unlike some of my critics locally, not Indonesians but money-grubbing loutish expats, you have manners,
I’m glad you disapprove of the way Pauline Hanson was treated by the rent-a-mobs, and by the establishment. The bids to suppress her suggested a deep fear of an aroused public, a fear shared between both her liberal capitalist and her marxist opponents.
Keep posting – it makes my conservative blog quite distinct from other rightwing platforms!
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Gerry Georgatos 11:55 on August 10, 2011 Permalink
I don’t have a problem with many things ‘Aussie’ and I respect much of what has been sought and achieved in Australia, I do not respect the disenfranchisement of Aboriginal peoples, and the persecutory treatment and maltreatment of Asylum Seekers. Some decades back we accepted prior to ‘mandatory detention’ 160,000 Vietnamese and Kampuchean Asylum Seekers, most arriving by boats – we accepted them with a welcome and a relative understanding – that worked, therefore why should it change? The world belongs to everyone and we have drop this whole us verse them thing – Ross, Jazpen, Craig, come a century or two, and we won’t be here, though our descendants may walk alongside each other, if we were to be here in some way WE WOULD NOT RECOGNISE the Australian social landscape, the culture, nor its unfolding – it is nonsense to trap humanity into a constant. Doesn’t happen, never has, never will. Gerry.
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Jazpen 09:48 on August 5, 2011 Permalink |
Gerry, you take a lot of words to say what you could say in a sentence.
You know better than the voters, than the MPs and almost everybody else.
We don’t agree. So in any normal place, we put it to a vote.
So…referendum!
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Gerry Georgatos 11:47 on August 10, 2011 Permalink |
Referendum? Jazpen you take far too few words in your baseless and unfounded suppositions. Yes, Jazpen there comes times when some people do know better than the majority of voters, more than the majority of the Members of Parliament and yes more than others. If it wasn’t for the few who stand to up to the many you would not have many of the select freedoms and privileges you enjoy – women would be without the vote and their full suite of rights if it wasn’t for the Pankhursts and the Suffragettes, similarly the USA would still be in the heat of racism in its worst forms if it was not for the likes of those who had to lose their very life, such as 39 year old Martin Luther King Jnr, who left behind four young children, to keep the impetus for ‘African-Americans’ to be released from the oppressions of American Apartheid. Mandela knew more than the majority of the 3 millions South Africans who sat too quiet for far too long as 23 million people suffered in shanty towns and in Apartheid. No Jazpen the truth cannot be delivered in a sentence, only biases and prejudices, weak maxims and premises are disguised by the briefest of discourses – and this is often a disgusting tactic of the excessive self interest groups and the ignorance. Gerry.
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Craig 05:50 on August 10, 2011 Permalink |
In my opinion people who can afford to buy a back door ticket are economic migrants, not refugees. Most of these people are either sick of waiting in the queue or have been denied refugee status by UNHCR.
Labor is now really regretting appointing all those refugee advocates to the refugee review panel and the leftist judges to the high courts.
At least now we know where the Activist groups get there propaganda talking points from.
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Gerry Georgatos 11:41 on August 10, 2011 Permalink |
You are not an economic migrant because you can scrape together monies to pay for assistance with your passage in the seeking of Asylum. These people are fleeing the dangers or prospect of persecution, or war, or civil strife, or threat to life. Your suppositions are irrational – are you saying that they are financially well off? Well if they are then it is not poverty that is driving their flight for Asylum obviously. Why am I degenerating to arguing the obvious with you? Unbelievable! They are Asylum Seekers, Refugees, end of story. The rest is xenophobia and racism, underwritten by various ignorances and prejudices. Gerry.
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Craig 08:31 on August 11, 2011 Permalink |
You know the real deterrent is sending back the boats when possible, in combination with TPV’s, and the detention center process. So I don’t support the Malaysian deal as it won’t achieve what it’s meant to. I doubt you will find many Australians who support open borders as you do,it’s an unrealistic hope in a world falling apart.
Are the Illegal aliens better off, most definitely better off then the other 10 million genuine refugees out there. I can’t Scrap $55000 dollars together to take my family on a holiday over seas, little alone to save up for a deposit for a house.
The main problem with your socialistic ideals is eventually you will run out of money to even support your open border policies. Look at England today, to many people and not enough jobs and welfare to go around to keep them all happy.
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Gerry Georgatos 11:57 on August 10, 2011 Permalink |
The ability to discover the truth is outstripped by the ability to manifest deceit. Generally, I try to rely on the context of statistics and facts to hang on to the truth.
In Malaysia, 29,759 foreigners were caned between 2005 to end of 2010. This refutes Minister Bowen’s claims that human rights, as we know them, will be protected.
It is often argued by the Australian Government that they do not want to see children, or anyone drown at sea. Is it better that they die in their place of origin in greater numbers? Or in Malaysia where in the camps since 2002 1,400 Asylum Seekers have died?
During the last ten years 156 children have drowned on their way to Australia, or because of boats being turned back. In those same ten years 1,250 children have died of starvation and preventable diseases every hour, 90 million children, and yet we have barely increased foreign aid and have failed to live up to the minimum 0.7% of our GDP as foreign aid, which would have prevented millions of deaths.
The Government, and many Australians, claim their argument against Asylum Seekers arriving by boat is either a humanitarian one on their behalf or in that we should put for example our sub-Sahelian brothers and sisters, starving to death, foremost. 925 million thereabouts starve today and we do next to nothing, billions live in abject poverty and yet xenophobia and closed economies demand ‘border controls’.
Historically, Australia brutalised 500,000 children in various institutions, and where thousands of ‘child slaves’ were sent from Britain, where thousands of Aboriginal peoples’ children were taken and lives destroyed, and where still Aboriginal children and their families live in unconscionable abject poverty. Nevertheless, our Government uses the weakest sophisms to thinly veil its racism and discriminatory identity.
Ten children have drowned on their way to Australia since the SIEV X. 6.7 million children under 5 years died of starvation in the same time. In the same period there have been 314 drownings in Australia, 47 of them children however we look for safety measures and education and not a blind eye.
How many have considered the vulgarity of trading human beings – on this occasion five for one? The whole concept of human cargo is beyond ugly, it is evil. We look back on the various slave trades with judgment and shame, millions of Africans, and before them hundreds of thousand of Irish, were transported as human cargo to be slaves in the Americas. Today, an Australian government screams for their ‘right’ to transport as human cargo, and for their ‘right’ to do human trade ‘deals’ – to trade in human beings. Unbelievable.
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Craig 08:39 on August 11, 2011 Permalink |
Most people realize the western worlds refugee intake is nothing but a drop in the ocean, and nothing but a token effort, of looking to be doing something about it. I think you are going to be very surprised what is going to happen in the couple of decades, and it’s not going to be pretty.
Reality hurts unfortunately.
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Gerry Georgatos 11:58 on August 10, 2011 Permalink |
For your interest:
THE FORGOTTEN CHILDREN – up to 100 of the world’s most impoverished children in Australian adult prisons – WHERE IS HADI?
There may be up to 100 impoverished Indonesian children in Australian adult prisons – we know for a fact the brunt of these numbers are in Western Australian prisons.
At this time some of these children’s cases are being heard in Australian Courts.
We are working to compile a register of the age disputes so as to work towards their freedom as the Australian Government will not – nor will any political party nor any Government department or ministry – what dark times we live in…
Hadi Kurniawan, 16 years old, continues to languish in an Australian adult prison – HAKEA in Western Australia – yet we have provided an Indonesian Police Clearance stating his date of birth as in 1995, a letter from his brother in Indonesia to the Prime Minister of Australia, I have personally spoken to the Prime Minister, and Hadi’s family has been in the news media in Indonesia pleading for his release.
Why is the Commonwealth doing this? Why has no Australian Senator raised a question about the minors in Australian adult prisons in the Australian Senate?
Who will assist us to free Hadi and the others?
If one of these children dies in our jails it shall be a death of a child in adult prison custody, a new tragic phenomena and all time low in a country that already has one of the world’s most horrific deaths in custody records. If one of these children is sexually molested or raped in an adult prison who will be held responsible in terms of duty of care?
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Craig 08:41 on August 11, 2011 Permalink |
Perhaps Indonesia will offer a swap for Australians on death row? You never know perhaps Saudi Arabia will then send back the Indonesian maids due to be beheaded.
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Gerry Georgatos 00:06 on August 11, 2011 Permalink |
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3198518.htm
And please consider viewing:
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-143-2010/
THESE 3 men were deported from Australia in October 2009 on the grounds
that they were found not to have believable claims that they would
suffer persecution on return.
Clearly someone got it wrong. These men have been comprehensively
tortured AND TWO YEARS LATER ARE STILL IN PRISON WITHOUT BEING CHARGED.
Not that the Australian government cares – these are just 3 less asylum
seekers to detain.
From the ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION report:
SI Sanjeewa kept a wooden board on the head of Lasantha and started to insert nails to the board using a hammer making enormous pain to the head of Lasantha several times but still he (Lasantha) denied any knowledge on the two allegations of having involvement with LTTE and its ship. Several other CID were present and also joined in the assault but while Lasantha could recognised them if he were to see them again he does not know their names. Lasantha notice there were several other detainees with him in the CID cells while he was being tortured. Then on 17 August at around 4.30pm Lasantha was brought out from the cell by Inspector of Police (IP) Paranavithana and other officers of the CID and together with some other detainees brought to the office of the Judicial Medical Officer’s (JMO). While they were on their way IP Paranavithana threatened Lasantha and the other detainees that if they revealed any details of the torture they would be further detained with Detention Order (DO) and tortured with the Darma Chakkra (‗Wheel of Law‘) method (a method in which the hands and ankles are tied together, a pole is then inserted between them under the knees and the victim is suspended by the pole. The officers then continue to beat the victim whilst he is suspended in this manner. This is common method of torture used by the Sri Lankan police). As a JMO was not present at the office for examination the officers took them back to the CID. While they were coming back the officers stopped the vehicle at the Elphinston Cinema Hall at Maradana. The officers then told the detainees, including Lasantha, to get out of the vehicle and run fast. It was evident to Lasantha that the officers wanted to make it look as if they were escaping so they could shoot them. However all were handcuffed at that time. Then suddenly IP Paranavithana realised that there was a huge crowd watching and stopped the officers. After that Lasantha and the others were brought back to the CID offices and question again on similar matters. They also suffered further tortured. Later Lasantha was produced before the Magistrate of Negombo on the suspicion of committing a crime under the provisions of Immigrants and Emigrants Act No. 20 of 1948 and remanded at Remand Prison Negombo. After being subjecting to continuous torture by the police officers Lasantha suffered several injuries. However, despite the fact that his injuries were severe the officers made no attempt to provide medical attention. At the very first occasion on 27 August, Lasantha’s relatives were able to get an Attorney-at-Law to appear on his behalf. The Attorney informed the Magistrate that Lasantha was in severe pain due to extensive torture and needed to have proper medical treatment. The Magistrate instructed the prison authorities to provide the necessary medical treatment at the Negombo Base Hospital but he was not given medical treatment till 30 August. He was admitted to ward No. 6, bed 14 on 31 August. The JMO finally examined Lasantha on 1 September.
Despite Lasantha’s relatives informing the court of the torture perpetrated on Lasantha by the offices of the CID the relevant authorities of the state have not yet initiated any steps to investigate the crimes committed against him. The relatives and Lasantha seek an effective, prompt, impartial and independent investigation unto the crimes committed against him and the prosecution of those who committed them.
299. Balapuwaduge Suresh Sumith Kumar Mendis: Criminal Investigation Department officers illegally arrested, detained and tortured a man and denied him the right to medical treatment.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that the Sri Lankan Navy arrested a civilian and later handed him over to officers of the Maravila Police station. They in turn handed over the victim to officers of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Later the CID officers tortured the victim and detained him for 6 days without providing the necessary urgently needed medical treatment for the injuries suffered due to the torture. He was later produced before the Magistrate of Negombo and remanded. The Magistrate ordered a Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) to examine the victim. However, the JMO did not conduct an impartial examination.
According to Balapuwaduge Suresh Sumith Kumar Mendis, a resident of Ambakandawila, Iranawila, Chilaw, he is an experienced fisherman. Due to the political situation in Sri Lanka Sumith attempted to enter Australia by sea as he believed that if he tried to leave Sri Lanka by air he would be arrested at Katunayaka International Airport (KIA). However, despite of his application to remain in Australia on political grounds and on the basis that he would be subject to torture if he was returned to Sri Lanka, his application for asylum was refused. He was deported to Sri Lanka in October 2009.
Sumith’s brother, Indika, also who made a similar refugee claim to Australian authorities was also deported. The officers attached to the CID at KIA arrested Indika who was tortured, produced before the courts and remanded. In early August, 2010 Sumith was contacted by unknown caller who told him he was calling from the Australian High commission (AHC) in Sri Lanka. The caller requested Sumith to come to the AHC to collect his and his brother‘s belongings that they left in Christmas Island. As this request happened around one year after they were deported, Sumith suspected the caller.
Later, he contacted his Attorney-at-Law and sought legal assistance. Following this Sumith contacted the unknown caller and informed him that his lawyer could pick up his belongings with his written consent. A few days later Sumith received another similar message from another unknown caller who revealed himself as an officer of the Criminal Investigation Division. This caller asked Sumith to come to the CID. Sumith gave that particular number to his lawyer who contacted the caller and verified that he was, in fact, from the CID. The lawyer informed them that he was ready to come to the CID with Sumith for any legal inquiry or interrogation at any time and requested an appointment which was duly arranged.
379
However, irrespective of the above mentioned situation Sumith was arrested by officers of the Sri Lankan Navy on 14 August 2010 at Negombo. These officers subsequently handed over him to the Maravila Police station who then passed him on to officers of the CID on 15 August 2010. Sumith was detained at the CID headquarters along with some others who had lived in Negombo and been deported from Christmas Island, Australia.
On 18 August 2010, Sumith was taken to his hometown and severely tortured by the CID officers in front of other villagers. The torture was witnessed by his mother, wife and many other relatives. Sumith’s wife was verbally abused and threatened by the officers. The police officers used defamatory words even against the lawyer who represent the Sumith on many occasions in front of them.
Later, on the instructions of the relatives Sumith‘s lawyer contacted the relevant police officers at the CID and informed them that Sumith had a fundamental right not to be tortured. After witnessing his condition Sumith’s relatives asked the police officers to allow Sumith to get medical treatment. Sumith was detained in the CID office for 6 days from 15 to 22 of August. Throughout the whole period he was not provided the necessary emergency medical treatment by the officers.
He was produced before the Magistrate of Negombo and charged with committing a crime under the provisions of Immigrants and Emigrants Act No. 20 of 1948. He was accused of aiding and abetting illegally emigration. Then he was remanded by the Magistrate and sent to the Remand Prison, Negombo. There he again requested medical treatment from the prison officers but was refused because he did not reveal his condition at the time he was admitted to the prison. Then on 27 August, the lawyer who appeared on his behalf in the Magistrate’s Court submitted the facts pertaining to Sumith’s medical condition and proceeded for an order for medical treatment. Then the Magistrate ordered the prison authorities to produce Sumith before the Judicial Medical Officers (JMO).
When Sumith was later produced before the JMO he accused Sumith by saying the CID officers did not torture him. But Sumith repeatedly stated that he was tortured by officers attached to the CID. While Sumith was in CID custody he was asked to give details of Indika’s whereabouts or request him to surrender. Sumith’s lawyer was able to surrender Indika to the CID on 22 August. It was only 10 days before Indika was released on bail from the remand prison after he was arrested in relation with the Australian deportation case.
Sumith’s family fear for his life as they are aware of many reported incidents in which persons have been killed in police custody. The lawyer and the relatives of Sumith have made an official complaint to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRC) as well. When the lawyer tried to meet his client for necessary consultations the officers did not allow him to do so informing him that he required special permission from the Director CID. The lawyer then lodged a complaint with the Director CID on the violation of his professional rights as an Attorney-at-Law. 380
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Gerry Georgatos 01:47 on August 11, 2011 Permalink |
http://www.indymedia.org.au/2011/07/09/hadi-kurniawan-one-of-100-children-in-australian-adult-prisons
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Craig 08:44 on August 11, 2011 Permalink |
I apologize if I seem compassion less, spend some time in 3rd world countries, in armed conflicts and sending boats back, your opinion of the world would dramatically change, if you had experienced what I have.
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Gerry Georgatos 13:52 on August 22, 2011 Permalink |
I don’t think so Craig, maybe similarly your experience of the world would change if you have walked with me alongside the homeless in our darkest nights, who sleep through the sharpest winds and the chill of pelting rains, or if you visit the prisons and detention centres that I have for so long, and in so doing by seeing the make up of our prisons and how we treat our people we see the hearts and minds of our nation. If you want to know a nation’s identity you should look into its prisons, and into its streets during the chill of the coldest night.
Craig, I do not underscore what you have witnessed however you describe to me every reason for us to remove ourselves as much as possible from the vacuum of inhumanity or various justifications and towards the pursuance of the common good. Craig I have been been many places and seen many things, I may not have engaged in various armed conflicts nor do I ever want to, however I seen enough for my form and content to know the drum it beats to. Various inhumanities are not adequate reason for me to remove myself from what we should hope that those to come long after us may well, we pray, enjoy as the lived experience. 5/6ths of the world is the cause for so very little ill in our world and a majority of that majority owns in languish its afflictions and for many within this causal to other matter, some of which you may be alluding to. The world’s ills are generated by the excesses and failings of the significant minority which is less than one sixth of our world’s human population, and of which excessive self interests within further damage. However as various crises loom there shall hopefully be considerations as to how to prosper humanity through various equity rather continue to damage it by divide and conquer mentalities or by various separations.
I accept any criticism that suggests or states I have not been clear in this quick note. Kindly, Gerry.
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Gerry Georgatos 13:57 on August 22, 2011 Permalink |
Impacts of Mandatory Detention – rise in deaths, unnatural illnesses, self harms, and the impacts continue post-release in greater numbers and many irreparable. More deaths will arise.
The Australian Medical Assocation, following others, such as the UNHCR and the AHRC has supported our calls and our personal witness that Mandatory Detention has grievous traumatic and deleterious impacts and effects upon those whom come before it.
We have long warned of Detention Centre Deaths and these are a contemporary phenomena on the Australian landscape, with six Detention Centre Deaths in the last eleven months, with five of them suicides. More deaths will occur. However the impacts of Mandatory Detention must be understood not only in terms of pre-release however post-release where it is quite evident that there shall be more post-release deaths in the equivalent periods following release.
Australian Mandatory Detention has a grotesqute prison like design principle and the modality of this prison design principle is not contemporary however harks to Australian prison designs of more than six decades old. I have visited prisons and Detention Centres, and I have met with Asylum Seekers who spent up to a year in Detention Centres and who have spent a year in Australian prisons and sadly they describe the Australian Prison experience ‘a hundred times better’ than the Detention Centres and especially when compared to Christmas Island, Darwin and Curtin Detention Centres. They say, “at least in prison we have something to do and courses to do and the staff are kinder and more caring…” And yet Australia has one of the world’s worst prison deaths in custody records and yet they describe Mandatory Detention a hundred times worse!
Mandatory Detention leads to the manifest of various clinical disorders, various depressions, acute, abject and chronic, various physical and mental breakdowns, unflagged medical attention which advances various conditions to the irreparable. Mandatory Detention is undermined by its prison like principles, by the fact that it incarcerates peoples rather than assists their Seeking of Asylum, that reflects upon them the libellous image of criminality. Mandatory Detention languishes a systemic divisiveness between peoples, dissociates peoples, manifests various paranoia, psychoses, various social phobias which do not cease one people are released.
The negative impacts of Mandatory Detention are evidenced post-release by the high number of disability claims, the high number of people seeking psychosocial counselling and psychiatric help, by the high number of people who are not immediately employable, by the high number of various social phobias.
Mandatory Detention has a claustrophic effect, and can lead to the onset of acute clinic disorders where people exhibit paranoia, catatonia, hebephrenia and hence the onset in some of various schizoid and schizophrenic conditions. People are going out of Mandatory Detention worse than what they came in – and this ensures a legacy of burdens to the individuals, their families, and to the Australian health communities.
In the least Mandatory Detention can induce agoraphobia, evident in many of those post-release.
Mandatory Detention is inferior even to the prison system as it employs personnel who are inadequately trained, who lack various knowledges and who hence can have a harrassing and intimidatory effect upon those incarcerated in detention. Many personnel who work in Detention Centres were employed thereabouts from ‘Centrelink queues’ without various what should have been requisite training.
Many stressors affect Asylum Seekers, and these include the whole concept of imprisonment, of being cut off from various communities and their suite of rights, of the clandestine natures of Australian Mandatory detention that inhibits unfettered access to advocates, professionals and the media, of unflagged medical attention, of distrust, that their cultural identity is perceived as a liability, and other stressors include various racisms and various perceived oppressions while in the detention centre experience. Stressors that must not be mitigated in any way include the fear of the unknown – whether they will be returned to their homelands and where they fear they will be persecuted or killed (they are all aware of people deported who have been murdered), how long they will be in detention, whether they will be accepted on their first or second interviews or on appeal. The process is critically unhealthy and is causal to mental dissociations or the manifest of hysteria and the onset of various meltdowns including panic disorders, neuroses and much worse.
It appears that most Asylum Seekers try very hard to keep themselves together however at the one year mark there appears to be a threshold that is reached where they do breakdown mentally and physically, where the fear of the unknown overruns them.
It is dramatic that a Mental Health Nurse was sacked from Darwin’s Northern Immigration Detention Centre for commenting that Mandatory Detention has an adverse effect. This Nurse is correct. It is an indictment of the clandestine nature of the system that she has been sacked.
I keep in contact with hundreds of Asylum Seekers in Christmas Island, Curtin, Darwin, Scherger Detention Centres however also in Leonora, Perth, Banksia, Marybedong, Inverbrackie and Villawood and I can attest to the endemic negative impacts, and that they will continue post-release.
Scherger Detention Centre will resume hunger protests if promises are not kept, people are emotionally emaciated.
Curtin Detention Centre is a nightmare in waiting, with people breaking down daily, and its remote, clandestine location plays on the minds of all those incarcerated for far too long which include more than two years.
There shall be more Detention Centre Deaths, there shall be continuing rises in self harms, traumas and multiple traumas, suicide and multiple suicide attempts and sucides and deaths from unnatural causes. There shall be even worse post release and this shall be legacy, a scandal-in-waiting, similar to the brunt of the burden borne of the Stolen Generation.
Let us understand that at Christmas Island Detention Centre people were burying themselves in shallow graves, this is the manifest of meltdown and mental abberations, Mandatory Detention is doing this to them.
Gerry.
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JazPen 09:49 on August 23, 2011 Permalink |
Gerry, it’s got a ‘prison-like design principle’ because otherwise the inmates would get out and start destroying other people’s property like they have been destroying our tax-paid property.
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jaibari 09:18 on January 23, 2013 Permalink |
Communication breakdown becomes inevitable when one human is committed to love while the other is committed to hatred.
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ross1948 09:28 on January 23, 2013 Permalink |
Actually, Gerry and I communicate quite well. His views are an abomination to me, and mine to his, but we can exchange them in civil manner.
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mike 10:34 on June 14, 2015 Permalink |
Gerry’s diatribe says it all I’m afraid. So here’s mine.
The elite academic class trying to impose its own morals and marxist system on society with arguments such as ‘many Australians are uneducated in these issues and would make the wrong decision in a referendum, hence I will provide my elitist guidance’ or ‘the world belongs to all of us and we are lucky to be in the top 1% of wealthy people, hence we must open our doors and provide guilt-free entrance to anyone who wants to enter and take over our so-called lucky country to mould it into their own vision.’
These types of attitudes are compelling with political academia, who really have nothing practical to contribute to everyday Australians, but are acting selfishly to relieve their own guilt of past history and unfortunate circumstances. The reason we are the lucky 1% of the world and that we have peace, a kinda democracy and freedom, is literally because we came from a Judeo-Christian heritage which was mostly on the right side of the many wars in history.
If, Gerry, you want to turn Australia into some kind of France or Germany, then you are barking up the wrong tree with Aussies who can remember the horrors committed by those countries.
You appeal to the young and ignorant and you use emotion rather than logical or persuasive arguments to get their support. I’m sorry to say that your Greek socialist background has probably made you sympathetic to those political systems that have proven over and over again to bring in totalitarianism and cultural marxism to the detrement of those nations.
Keep Australia Australian – and that is from an immigrant who has experienced what you want to usher in.
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mike 08:56 on June 15, 2015 Permalink |
Reading over more of Gerry’s comments above I can’t believe that people like him honestly believe that the western world can somehow heal and cure the ills of the mainly tribal non-Christian third world with a magic wand. He says “The world’s ills are generated by the excesses and failings of the significant minority which is less than one sixth of our world’s human population, and of which excessive self interests within further damage.”. This is rubbish and unless he is void of any knowledge of history, dating back even further than the past 50 years, he would be very clear why some parts of the world are still languishing in filth, poverty and corruption, it is not because of us here in Australia or the US.
Your collective guilt and sense of responsibility for those nations and political/social systems is astounding. Perhaps you should just move there are try to change the systems from within and see how far you go. The truth of the matter is there for every scholar to see if they look hard enough.
Here is an example. Over the past 20 years the nations of South Korea and Egypt started with the same base of national product and poverty, now look at South Korea, it is a model of economic and social reform. It was a concerted effort on behalf of the Koreans to join the international community and reform their political, governmental and legal institutions from corruption to provide a solid base for joining the first world economy and globalisation. They removed most corruption, brought in regulatory institutions, announced fair and equitable policies for business owners and provided a safety net for those unfortunate enough to be left out. Egypt basically kept its corrupt politicians, structures, institutions and economy and ignored the move to globalisation. Now they’re paying the price for it. They are still a tribal system of inter-connected clans and regions that do not share a national strategy of values system.
The same has happened to parts of Africa, some nations there are doing well others are not. The first and foremost responsibility is to the politicians and people of those nations to reform themsevles by wanting to join the rest of us in trade, it is not our responsibility to take the people out of those struggling economies and offer them asylum here in the west. If that is what you’re suggesting, then when do we stop, how many do we take and how much welfare do we provide to these people before they see us as an easy haven? These are questions you have not answered and are important public policy issues, rather than humanity issues which have no limits. We can not solve the worlds policy issues for them and can not accept an unlimited number of people from those broken tribal economies. If Gerry has found a solution to this problem without destroying the fabric of western democratic society then I challenge him to put forward such a policy so we can all see the plan.
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