Forced to do good

It is hard to comprehend how outrageous it is that a shameful political standoff on the offshore processing of asylum seekers has forced the Australian Government into a position where it has no choice other than to dump a harsh and punitive policy in favour of its own more just and humane policy.

Despite their best efforts, the Government and the Opposition have both failed to prosecute their preferred agendas. The Government painted itself into a political corner and the Opposition gave it no room to move, even at the expense of its own commitments.

To say that those of us who had long been advocating for justice, compassion and the human rights of asylum seekers were relieved and excited by the Rudd Government’s announcement in July 2008 of its ‘New Directions in Detention’ policy would be a gross understatement. The Immigration Minister at the time, Chris Evans, launched this policy in a self-congratulatory mood. The Government had ended the ‘Pacific Solution’ by closing the detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru, launched a review of the case of long-term detainees and abolished temporary protection visas, among other things. In his speech Evans said,

Labor rejects the notion that dehumanising and punishing unauthorised arrivals with long-term detention is an effective or civilised response. Desperate people are not deterred by the threat of harsh detention – they are often fleeing much worse circumstances. The Howard government’s punitive policies did much damage to those individuals detained and brought great shame on Australia.

Highlighting the devastating effects of long-term detention on vulnerable people and the “dehumanising” and unnecessarily punitive policy of indefinite mandatory detention, the Minister signalled a new era – that of “risk-based detention policies”.

A risk-based system sees people held for brief periods of time while health, security and identity checks are carried out. These can be done in most cases quite easily within thirty days. If an asylum seeker is assessed as not posing a risk, they are released into the community while their claims are processed. This is consistent with what happens in other developed countries. Indefinite mandatory detention is a system all our own. But the new Labor Government was committed, Evans said, to “reforms (that) will fundamentally change the premise underlying detention policy” – a policy that saw people detained “even though the department assessment is that they pose no risk to the community”. Detention, he said, was “too often the first option, not the last.”

An entire bookshelf could be filled with the multitude of published opinion pieces and commentaries having a stab at explaining how on earth the Gillard Government found itself in such an appalling situation with an area of public policy that they had been very clear about. They most obviously panicked – the reasons why they did have been more than adequately canvassed. My concern is to see them do the right thing.

I am so relieved that the Government is now forced to uphold its own policy. I am angry that it has come as a result of the Opposition’s appalling politicisation of asylum seekers and the Government’s inability to stand their ground in the face of it. The public debate has been shameful and ugly. It is entirely appropriate that the base politicking and the fear-mongering rhetoric have found their ultimate conclusion in a dead-end for those who have lead the charge.

How well a decent and humane policy can be implemented by those who have been forced to do it remains to be seen.

Border worship has produced an inhumane people trade

‘Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.’

All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’

(Deuteronomy 27:19)

Australian Christians across denominational boundaries (and many others) are grieving the loss of a moral heart in our country. I have heard expressions of disillusionment, sadness, and shame. Many are angry and may well be inclined to join the ancient chorus shouting “Amen” to the curse on those who would deny justice to vulnerable people.

Under the cover of one of the most aggressive ‘on message’ slogans Australian politics has seen—“smashing the people smugglers’ business model” (a shockingly crass economically utilitarian alternative to “stop the boats”)—the Gillard Government has brought us to a new and shameful low, for on Monday 25 July 2011 it became official – Australia now trades in people.

We have used ‘an ends justifies the means’ ethic to justifying a people ‘swap’. There are, unfortunately, numerous examples in Australia’s history of our governments mistreating people, ignoring or abusing people’s human rights and stripping already vulnerable people of their dignity. But the deal with Malaysia commodifies people in a way many of us could not have previously imagined.

The Government responds harshly and defensively to this criticism that they are trading people or treating people like commodities. The Prime Minister and the Immigration Minister are desperate for us to believe that taking 1000 refugees a year for four years from Malaysia, more than balances out those 800 we will send (and more in the future – already we are hearing the language ‘pilot program’). They talk up all the safeguards that have been built into the arrangement for our asylum seekers. Many times already we have heard that this deal could be the start of a conversation that may see Malaysia increasingly more committed to the international human rights regime.

The Government is most desperate however, for us to believe that the motivation for this ‘people swap’ is to keep people safe from the smugglers. Of course Julia Gillard and Chris Bowen were horrified and appalled by the loss of life on Christmas Island last year. It is hard, however, to ignore what lies just beneath the surface of their public comments – that this action will serve to redirect the response of the more compassionate Australians in their favour, and thus serve as cover for the base political motivation of one of Australia’s darkest moments.

Here is some of what we know:

• People put their lives in the hand of people smugglers out of a desperation that most of us who live so comfortably in Australia can barely imagine, let alone understand.
• People smugglers do take advantage of vulnerable people and people end up dying in tragic circumstances.
• Australians do not want people to die at sea.
• The Government has taken a political beating over asylum seekers who arrive by boat and they believe they have to neutralise it by beating the Opposition at its own game.
• The Gillard Government has made a deal with a country which has an appalling human rights record in order to steralise a weeping political sore.
• Too many Australians would much rather believe that there is an orderly queue of well-behaved refugees out there somewhere, than have to imagine the brutality, poverty and chaos that millions of others have experience every day.

Whatever special treatment it has managed to secure for our 800 asylum seekers and despite all the Malaysian Government’s guarantees, at the end of the day, the Australian Government (supported by what I can only imagine is a beyond desperate UNHCR in Malaysia) has decided to engage in people trading for base political gain.

Well, the end does not justify the means. Not for nothing have many people been comparing this deal with the issue of our ‘Australian’ cattle being sent to brutal deaths in Indonesia. Treating 800 people like they are ‘ours’ to ship to a better behaving Malaysia, is not a decent or humane act and is not justification for the potential of better behaviour in future.

In the online magazine, Eureka Street, in July, Frank Brennan wrote, “Why would a church group publicly endorse something it knew to be either unworkable or immoral?”. He also recommended that once the deal was done, “church groups or agencies as ever should work hard and pragmatically to make it work as best it can, minimising the adverse impacts on the most vulnerable including unaccompanied minors”. Of course those of us who can, will. But the churches must not keep silent about a policy and a deal between two nations that required the abandonment of our leaders’ moral compasses.

In the face of a few thousand desperate people turning up on our doorstep uninvited, we are the ones lost in a sea of political expediencies, failed responsibilities and moral impoverishment.

I believe that Julia Gillard, Chris Bowen and every member of Cabinet who gave their assent to proceed with this ‘solution’, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and every member of federal parliamentary Liberal Party who indulged in the xenophobic dog-whistling of “stop the boats”, have now stripped themselves of any right they thought they previously had to refer to the importance of ‘basic Christian values’ in their upbringing or in their current world view.

Christianity must always own its history and continuing involvement in the slave trade, in apartheid, colonialism, oppressive imperialism and too many other acts of brutality on populations and individuals. These are expressions of a faith that has lost its way many times and whose followers must always remain vigilant to the evil that lies within us. But at the heart of Christianity lies God’s love for the creation and God’s call on the faithful to demonstrate that love with acts of compassion, generosity and hospitality. This call demands that we bestow on others the dignity which is inherent in everyone’s being as beloved children of the Creator. God’s will for the world is for justice, peace and reconciliation for all and for everything, and we have been invited to be God’s partners in this mission.

Those of us who claim to motivated by such values, by the Judeo-Christian tradition which places such central value on the practice of hospitality to the stranger in need, and by the Christian story of the man who ate with the outcasts, even if we do not claim the faith itself, cannot engage in acts that strip away people’s dignity, deny their agency and dehumanise their very being, and continue to make those claims with any integrity.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the prophets speak many times of God’s self-identification as the one who cares for the exiled and the stranger and the one who calls the Hebrews to a continual remembering of their own slavery and exile.

Christian faith teaches that each of us, created in the image of God (however we understand it) is precious and valued by God. Our responsibility as human beings is to recognise this in each other. Christian faith also teaches that those who have much in this life have a special responsibility towards those who suffer poverty, violence, illness, oppression and dispossession and who hunger and thirst (for justice and for sustenance).

These responsibilities are antithetical to punishing one group of vulnerable people to send a message to another group. They are antithetical to turning people in need away from our door because it is not convenient for us. They are antithetical to judging those who would take desperate risks to find safety and security. They are antithetical to shifting our burden on to others. They are antithetical to making deals to trade people, whether they are citizens or not.

Christians believe that we are made to be in healthy, vibrant, robust, grace-filled, forgiving, hope-full relationships with each other. When these relationships break down we have a responsibility to work for justice and peace that they may be restored. A broken world is not made better by further breaking.

As many others have written over the last few weeks, we are certainly failing to meet our international obligations under the spirit and the terms of the Refugees Convention and we are failing to meet our obligations as one of the wealthiest, most secure, democratic countries in the world. We have a tiny, tiny problem by world standards and we keep coming up with new and increasingly morally regressive deals with our less secure, less democratic and more impoverished neighbours to take that small burden from us.

Asylum seekers didn’t create a problem for us, we manufactured our own problem. The people with the problem are in fact the very asylum seekers who have had to flee their homelands in fear for their lives.

Daniel L. Smith Christopher is a Quaker theologian in the United States. His latest book is titled Jonah, Jesus and Other Good Coyotes. He is writing from Southern California and the ‘coyote’ in the title refers to those who smuggle people across the US-Mexican border. He has come to the conclusion that we have turned borders, especially national borders, but all the borders that separate us from each other, into idols – objects of false worship.

While Australia’s situation is quite different to that of the US-Mexican border, there can be no doubt that our ‘border’ has become an idol. We spend billions protecting it from the threat of invasion (although we’re not sure who would be interested in invading us right now) and from those who are not invited (even though we know they pose no threat and are only asking for help). We watch reality television shows about the protection of our border – for excitement and assurance; we watch television dramas set on the boats that patrol our island’s coastlines to keep us all safe. Our border is a sacred place that must be protected from incursion.

Smith-Christopher writes that because Christians are called to be peacemakers and agents of reconciliation, they are therefore called to violate those borders we have constructed which serve to keep us at odds with each other. He challenges us to follow in the footsteps of the Bible’s good coyotes – Jonah, Ruth, Jesus and others – who challenged and crossed the borders that had become excuses for prejudice and violence and which kept people from the exchange of the gift of God’s love.

Many Christians and non-Christians alike have written about the loss of compassion in the heat of the debate about asylum seekers. They are often derided in the scary stream of comments on blogs and opinion pieces as do-gooders, bleeding-heart lefties who have the luxury of not having to make hard decisions, who over-simplifying and exaggerate. These would be the polite responses.

I can only hope that I deserve to be called a ‘do-gooder’ because as a Christian, it is exactly who I am called to be. I dream that every Sunday churches all over Australia are sending forth thousands upon thousands of ‘do-gooders’ in our society. As for the charge of being a ‘lefty’, it is a reflection of the sad and impoverished state of public political debate in this country that ‘doing good’, believing in compassion, seeking public policy that causes no harm and holding a commitment to human rights or the environment are commitments which have become so readily politicised. It is true I don’t have to make hard decisions on behalf of the country, but God help me if I was ever to believe that the dehumanising trading of people was ever an acceptable option.

An edited version of this article was first published in ABC Religion & Ethics Online, 27 July 2011.

Mandatory detention has had its day

Today the Uniting Church in Australia has again called for an end to the policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers who come by boat. Here is what we said:

The Uniting Church in Australia has called on the Australian Government to urgently review the policy of the mandatory detention of asylum seekers.

The Director of UnitingJustice Australia, the Uniting Church’s national justice agency, Rev. Elenie Poulos said, “The tragic events at Villawood Detention Centre this week are a stark reminder of what the Government knows to be true: the prolonged mandatory detention of asylum seekers compounds the suffering of people who have already endured considerable mental and physical trauma.

“Deteriorating conditions for asylum seekers on Christmas Island, in Darwin and Curtin and in alternative places of detention, are an indication that quick action needs to be taken. Radical change is necessary if we are to avoid a re-run of the post-Tampa horrors of Port Hedland, Curtin at its worst, Baxter, Nauru and Manus Island,” said Rev. Poulos.

The Uniting Church in Australia has for many years been calling on successive governments to end the policy of mandatory detention for those who arrive by boat and commit fully to onshore processing.

Rev. Poulos said, “Instead of expanding the failed paradigm of detention facilities and offshore processing, just a small proportion of that money could fund alternative programs which allow asylum seekers – after health, security and identity checks have been done – to reside peacefully in the community while their claims for refugee protection are assessed. This is the current practice for those who arrive by air and then claim asylum.

“We have been pleased to hear the new Minister for Immigration, Chris Bowen, speak plainly about the complex, global situation of asylum seekers and the very small numbers who come to Australia compared with other countries”, said Rev. Poulos.

“We urge the Government to continue this move away from using asylum seekers to score cheap political points and call on the Opposition to do the same – the sloganeering must stop. As has always been the case, people’s lives are at stake.”

“In particular we encourage the Government and the Department of Immigration to bring this openness to the complexity of conflict and post-conflict situations to the situation facing Tamils in Sri Lanka and asylum seekers from Afghanistan. One sign of a civilised country is that we do all we can to ensure that people are not being deported to life-threatening situations. Surely if these were our own families we’d want a government erring on the side of caution.”

Rev. Poulos said, “The Uniting Church calls on the Government to take a stand for justice and decency. It is time to show the world that Australia is ready to stop demonising asylum seekers and prepared to do our bit to care for our neighbours in need.”

Mandatory detention is what happens when we fail to recognise, deliberately or out of willful ignorance, the right of people to come to Australia seeking asylum.

Mandatory detention is what happens when we discriminate against asylum seekers based on their mode of arrival.

Mandatory detention is what happens when we think there is some kind of orderly queue that only selfish people ‘jump’.

Mandatory detention is what happens when we fail to engage our capacity to empathise with people. What would you do after years languishing in a horrid camp in Malaysia and Indonesia? What would you do if the nearest UNHCR office was two countries away with your persecutors standing between it and you?

Mandatory detention is the result of politicians playing political point-scoring games with vulnerable human beings.

Mandatory detention is unnecessary and costs an enormous amount of money to implement and administer. Successive Australian Governments have spent billions of dollars on a system that is known by everyone to cause harm and which does not deter people from risking their lives to come here by boat. A fraction of that money could have easily covered the cost of a safe, secure and decent community processing program.

It is to our great shame as a country that we continue to implement policies that cause harm to people.

And for the record, children who are detained in ‘alternative places of detention’ are, for all intents and purposes, in detention. It is a clear breach of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.

We are a secure and wealthy country. The numbers of asylum seekers who arrive by boat are so small.

How pitifully small and sad are we, when we try to offload so few people onto poverty stricken countries in our region because politicians regard it as a ‘vote-loser’ to process them here on the mainland?

The Government is right to try to engage with countries in our region in a positive and productive way to develop a regional protection framework. The chances of it being a success will rest on whether we are seen to be taking our own moral and legal responsibilities seriously; on whether we are seen to be offering genuine leadership or merely playing to internal domestic politics.

Policies that have been proven to cause harm have no place in the kind of Australia that most of us would hope for. It is time to put an end to them.

a new parliament… a new chance to act on climate change

Today, the Uniting Church in Australia, together with 19 other major civil society organisations released a statement calling on the next Government of Australia to take serious, urgent and credible action to put a price on carbon.

I spoke at a press conference this morning. This was my statement.

The Uniting Church in Australia has long argued that to ensure the future of our planet, we need to take fast and serious action to reduce pollution.

We have witnessed first-hand, the devastation that climate change is already having on our neighbours in the Pacific and throughout the low-lying regions of South-east Asia. Our partner churches and the peoples of the Pacific are calling on Australia, as a wealthy neighbour and as the major polluter in the region, to take responsibility and act to reduce the effects of climate change.

While we all need to do everything we can as individuals, families and groups in community to reduce our own carbon footprint, this action alone is not enough.  The key to making a difference lies with the development of credible government policies designed to shift us to a cleaner, more energy efficient, more sustainable economy.

A price on carbon is not all we need to do, but it is one of the most critical tools.

First and foremost, the Uniting Church believes a price on carbon is necessary because within the context of a market economy, a price will act as a signal of the value we put on the environment for its own sake. The environment is not merely a resource for us to plunder. It is a sacred gift from God and if we don’t treat it as such, we risk the planet and our very own future.

Without a carbon price, there is no signal to industry to clean-up its act and no impetus for shifting to a low-carbon economy. Without a price on carbon our renewable energy industry will fail to grow and thrive, and energy efficiency measures will fail to deliver the big outcomes necessary. Without a price on carbon, we will find ourselves stuck in the dark ages of a carbon-based economy while the rest of the world has moved on.

It is time for us to take control of the market and make it work for us for a change. If we do it properly, the we can use the market as a tool to help us to ensure a healthy and stable planet for our children and our grandchildren.

A price on carbon will generate the funds necessary to drive us away from our reliance on fossil fuels and support the growth of clean and renewable energies.

We also believe that a credible plan would incorporate measures that support low income and other vulnerable households in Australia to ensure affordable access to the energy people need and to cope with other cost of living pressures related to the transition to cleaner energies.  It would incorporate additional development aid to help developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change and ensure their future prosperity in a low-carbon world.

This is not a matter of party politics. It has been extremely disappointing to see the issues of climate change, one of the greatest moral, social, environmental and economic challenges of our time reduced to such small-target, lowest common denominator politics.

It is also extremely disappointing to see our political leaders retreat to a position of waiting to see what others will do.

Climate change is a moral issue for all of us and as such our response should be driven by what we know is the right thing to do. The right thing to do is to act to protect the planet.

Addressing the challenge of climate change is the greatest challenge our politicians have faced.

We have come together today to call them to rise to the challenge.

It is time for Australian governments at all levels to commit to working with business, industry, environment, community and faith groups for the sake of our planet and all its people. Our future depends on it.

Protecting ‘The Australian Way of Life’

A number of times I have heard Julia Gillard refer to the Labor Party’s commitment to protecting ‘The Australian Way of Life’. Every time she mentions it, it comes capitalised and in quotation marks.

The most recent occurrence was over the weekend when she was out on the hustings with Peter Garrett, announcing that should the Federal Government be re-elected they would hand back Malabar Headland to the NSW State Government for public use. This was, apparently, an excellent example of the Labor Party commitment to ‘protecting’ The Australian Way of Life (TAWOL).

It appears that TAWOL is best epitomised by families picnicking on parklands near the sea at the weekend. Hmmm.

The Centre for Work + Life at the University of South Australia,  also over the weekend, released the 2010 Australian Work Life Index. As it was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald (‘A hard-working nation that’s losing its balance’, 1 August 2010), more and more Australians are experiencing a working life that increasingly impinges on the rest of their life. The work-life balance of many Australians is not healthy. Australians have accrued over $33 billion dollars worth of leave. I think that, at least for many people I know, a relaxed weekend picnic at a park overlooking the sea is more of a luxury than a way of life.

When I look around at TAWOL here are some of the things I see:

• the continued abuse by governments of the human rights of Indigenous Australians and Indigenous communities with no access to healthcare, running water and electricity
• overflowing prisons because it’s apparently better to be ‘tough on crime’ than it is to be focussed on rehabilitation and social inclusion
• $18 billion a year lost by Australians on gambling
• ANZAC Day as an occasion when young people around the country pay their respects to Australians who have lost their lives in wars by getting blind drunk (I know this as fact because I live in a suburb that has 2 pubs on every block)
• an ugly, soul-destroying, unplanned, ill-considered suburban sprawl that locks people into their cars for hours everyday
• a defence budget that is greater than any other department budget – we seem to be able to find billions for new fighter planes but finding a few million for health and education programs is much tougher.
• a political discourse of the disengaged and disenchanted that feeds off fear and plays on the small and insignificant while it refuses to engage with what will matter in the long-term (better to spend time playing on a weird fear of a few thousand asylum seekers coming by boat than tackle the legitimate fear of the climate collapsing)
• people who work too often on weekends
• already vulnerable and traumatised asylum seekers held in detention centres indefinitely because as a nation we seem to be incapable of imagining what it must be like to live in conflict ridden countries and suffer persecution. (Apparently The Queue is an essential aspect of TAWOL. Who knew?)
• welfare for those who work but not for those who struggle to work – let’s increase family tax benefits but ‘get tough’ on people who struggle to make ends meet on a pitiful level of unemployment benefits
• elderly parents who care for their children with multiple disabilities with little support from the community, desperate about what will happen to their children when they die
• small independent local businesses being swallowed up by large multinationals
• the rise of gated communities where we can be sure we only have to mix with ‘people like us’.

Are these the markers of TAWOL that our politicians are swearing to protect?

Or maybe they are thinking about our fabulously diverse multicultural and increasingly multi-faith society? Maybe they are promising to do all they can to foster a mature, vibrant society that upholds the dignity of all people, promotes justice and equity, celebrates and values its own diversity, values art and culture, science and scholarship across all disciplines, and promotes the development of green and sustainable cities and inclusive, life-affirming communities. This is the TAWOL that I value. Maybe they value it too and I’ve just missed it.

The campaign of the small

It seems like the debate (it really wasn’t) between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott last night has induced a severe epidemic of despondency around the country – political commentators and theorists, historians, church and community leaders, me and my friends and I am assuming probably you and your friends too. Pretty much everyone I am connecting with who is not involved in garnering the vote for one party or another is expressing some level of despondency about the state of Australia’s political life and the dearth of real leadership. The best that many can say about the election campaign is that it is boring.

For myself, I couldn’t wait until I could switch to watch the Masterchef finale. It was so much more fun. It was far more edifying.

‘Edifying’ may seem like an excessive descriptor for a reality television show but the behaviour of the contestants was a rare sight in public life. They were facing off against each other for a big prize, but they supported and encouraged each other and were genuinely pleased with each other’s success, even though they both wanted to win. This is not what we are used to seeing – in political life, on the sporting fields, in business board rooms. Grace and goodwill have become rare commodities.

How much better would the so-called debate have been had our political leaders determined to be creative, encouraging and  bold rather than small. There was nothing edifying about that political debate – not one half-decent vision offered for the future of this country, not one acknowledgement that the other party had ever done anything good in government that deserved to built on, not any hint that voters might actually be thoughtful people.

It was and continues to be the campaign of the small – small-mindedness, small little policy announcements, visions so small they are non-existent and very small opinions about us, the voters.

Come back Masterchef, I say.

The ‘make a difference’ vacuum

A few days into the Federal Election campaign and all the Australian citizenry has been offered are poorly developed slogans and a series of disconnected policy announcements designed solely to unbalance the opponent. It’s been nothing more than scrappy fighting over a very small patch of turf. How dismal! How utterly depressing!

We are being asked to choose political leaders but I’m not seeing any leadership on offer, at least not from the two major parties. I feel like I’m being given a choice between two politicians who are doing nothing more than playing politics with each other. I am a political junkie but this is not the politics I enjoy.

I have spoken to enough politicians, of all persuasions, that I can confidently say that nearly all of them go into politics to make a difference. And sometimes, even in past election campaigns, we get to hear about those visions or at least catch glimpses of them. But right now, it is a ‘make a difference’ vacuum.

So far in this campaign we haven’t heard anything approaching a long-term vision for our country. We haven’t heard any policy announcements that reflect any kind of moral commitment! The Government has dumped their moral commitment to urgently addressing climate change and the Opposition has dumped their moral commitment to a deregulated labour market (possibly, but who would know).

If Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard have a vision for the future of our country (and I find it hard to believe that they don’t) they are not telling anyone. Their visions have been abandoned in the quest for votes. Maybe they will pick up some votes with this approach but for what? What will they work towards in government? What will inspire and motivate them? In opposition, what alternative will they have to offer? How will they distinguish themselves?

And what about us? Well we are left with vacuous, lowest common denominator, short-term political point-scoring that means nothing, counts for nothing and contributes nothing meaningful to our lives as individuals or as a society.

How on earth did we get here? Oh… wait… yes… large scale, long-term political apathy and disengagement on the part of citizens coupled with a deeply ingrained individualistic, materialistic culture breeding gross self-interest.

When living with a paradox can destroy lives

I’m usually always up for a good paradox. They challenge the mind and serve to remind us that the world is not always easily understood. But we are living with a paradox that is causing serious harm and damaging many lives.

Today we heard that another soldier has been killed in Afghanistan.

On 18 June, according to Department of Immigration figures, there were 1951 asylum seekers from Afghanistan in immigration detention in Australia. Of these, 315 are children under 18. The figures don’t tell us how many of these are subject to the Government’s processing suspension on the refugee protection claims of people from Afghanistan. The suspension remains in place because the Government believes that at least some places in Afghanistan will be safe very, very soon and so they will be able to send more people back there than they grant protection visas to.

Soldiers and civilians are being killed every day in Afghanistan. The Taliban maintains strong control in many communities. It is NOT safe. I don’t see any of our politicians visiting Afghanistan without top level security, bullet-proof vests and helmets. When they start visiting Afghan political leaders to talk about trade, tourism and other more mundane matters of foreign policy, having left the helmets at home, then we’ll know it’s safe.

And furthermore, if we want our citizens to stop being killed in wars, we should stop sending them.

How about we stop spending billions of dollars on ‘defence’ (the single largest area of government spending) and spend those billions on international aid and development, especially peace-making programs?

But in the meantime, can we please put an end to this excruciating and destructive paradox? It is past time to start processing Afghan refugee claims and pull our troops out.

It’s time to get tough!

Well, here it is – my first ever blog. And I have decided to write about something that has been bothering me for a very long time.

I’m not sure when it happened but somewhere along the line we seem to have decided that public policy in Australia would be good if we could call it ‘tough’ and bad if it could be described as ‘soft’.

I have always believed that the aim of public policy in a democratic nation state was to create, build, enable and enliven; to contribute to the development of a society that was safe, inclusive, healthy and prosperous; a society where everyone would be able to contribute according to their capacity and their dreams; a society that valued and encouraged learning, respect, the exercise of mutual care and concern, the growth of creativity and the flourishing of individual and communal imagination; a sustainable, compassionate and generous society. Obviously I was wrong.

The shameful debacle of the public policy debate around asylum seekers in Australia continues because the Labor Government – which started its term so positively in shifting (a little) to more humane and decent (as opposed to punitive, xenophobic and harmful) policies – has caved in to the pressure to re-present its policies as ‘tough’. Julia Gillard’s supposedly, but not really, ‘new’ policies will ‘wreck’ people smugglers. Wreck them, she said, wreck them! Them’s are fighting words. Those are words deliberately chosen to ease our anxious souls – we have no need to fear, the Gillard Government can be as tough as any!

But that’s not all. Paradoxically as our anxieties are meant to be eased, we are told that it is quite OK to feel anxious. How does that work?

I had always believed that a good leader was supposed to ease our anxieties, especially those based on ignorance and fear. Again, I’ve obviously had it wrong for quite some time.

Oh well, I will get back to trying to come to terms with those fabulously ‘tough’ policies designed to wreck things and people. I’ll try to work on my own ‘softness. I am far too much of a bleeding heart and we all know how bad that is: that is so bad that it deactivates any inherent capacity to be tough. It’s time to get tough on the bleeding hearts!

Here ends the first blog.