Tag Archive for 'Australia'

Clearly the MSM don’t think that massive military exercises between US and Australia is news

Published on 12 July 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Apart from a few small stories (here and here), we have to rely on a Chinese government service to tell us what’s happening in our own country. Have media companies been asked not to report details about the exercise and agreed? Does the general public have a right to know what the US is planning to expand here? Is depleted uranium being used? How much money is being spent on private contractors to assist this glorious display of manhood?

Australia’s largest joint military training exercise with U.S. begins on Monday, with about 14,000 U.S. and 8500 Australian troops participating in the training in real world scenarios on land, air and sea until July 29.

These personnel will take part in simulated battles at Shoalwater Bay near Rockhampton, and other sites in Queensland and the Northern Territory. There will also be 30 warships in the Coral Sea. Joint Task Force Commander, Vice Admiral Scott Van Buskirk, Commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet, said the exercise was important for Australia and the U.S. to maintain close military ties.

“By exercising together we will increase interoperability, flexibility and readiness which will help us maintain peace and stability in the Pacific,” Vice Admiral Van Buskirk said in a statement released on Monday.

“We’re continuing to work together to protect our interests, provide humanitarian assistance and share information.”

The U.S. Ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich, said there is a possibility of a greater U.S. military involvement in Australia.

Bleich, who is visiting central Queensland for the start of the exercise, said military issues were discussed in recent talks between U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and the Australian federal government.

“One possibility would be to have more equipment stored here, the chance to do more exercises like Talisman Sabre,” he told ABC News on Monday.

“We’re looking at all of those as serious options and certainly the Northern Territory and other parts of Australia are in the mix. “

Australian Defense Force also said the Talisman Sabre exercise is Australia ‘s largest joint military training exercise, and it is important to the security of the region.

This year’s Talisman Sabre exercise involves a number of non-military organizations, so that they can try to make the exercises as realistic as they possibly can.

Serco damages worker’s lives but government wants more privatised staff

Published on 11 July 2011 in General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Two stories today that highlight the pernicious effect of British multinational Serco in Australia.

One from today’s Australian (to its credit, the only serious newspaper tackling this question regularly):

The company running Australia’s immigration detention centres has acknowledged the work is traumatic for staff following the death of a young guard troubled by the hanging of a teenage asylum-seeker.

Kieran Webb died while holidaying with his family last Wednesday after working for six months as a security officer at the Curtin immigration detention centre in Western Australia’s far north, according to a memo to all staff from government contractor Serco last Friday.

There were no suspicious circumstances, Serco Immigration Services managing director Chris Manning wrote in the memo.

“If you feel the need for emotional support arising from the work you do, please consider speaking to someone,” he said.

“It is important we acknowledge that our line of work can at times place us in difficult and traumatic situations as we manage vulnerable people in our care.”
Five detainees have killed themselves in immigration detention centres since last September. Self-harm and threats of self-harm occur daily, and a psychologist is employed full-time by Serco to help guards deal with the fallout of acts such as lip-sewing, slashing and attempted hangings.

The Australian has been told detainees are taking increasingly dramatic steps to draw attention to their grievances. On Christmas Island last Thursday, a detainee sewed his lips together and had a friend tie him to the compound fence in a crucifix position.

On March 28, Mr Webb was among guards who cut down a 19-year-old Afghan detainee who hanged himself in his room.

Mr Webb was deeply affected by the death and by the unrest that followed, according to guards who worked alongside him at the time.

Two from United Voice, a union that represents workers:

A month after Villawood Detention Centre was burned to the ground, Serco was pushing to reduce staffing on key shifts.

The company wants to cut numbers on some shifts by as much as 50 percent.

United Voice members say the move would wreck their family lives, and reduce their ability to build relationships with detainees that could head off future trouble.

More than 120 Villawood members responded to a Union survey, panning proposed changes as family unfriendly, impractical and a health and safety risk.

Officers, predominantly working 12-hour shifts, currently get seven days off every 21 days. Under the revamp, they would have to wait 35 or 42 days for their long breaks.

United Voice assistant secretary, Peter Campise, says extending the qualifying period would be a blow to morale.

“Anything that hurts morale at the centre is a problem for our members and the whole immigration detention regime,” he said.

“United Voice rejects any changes that expose our members to increased risk.”

Meanwhile, Villawood officers are buoyed by Serco’s retreat from attempts to slash overtime rates for people required to work more than 14 hours.

Serco reduced double time payments to time and a half early in the New Year but agreed to “revert to the previous interpretation of the clause” after it became apparent member would pursue the issue..

Peter says securing back pay is now the issue.

Investigate the Murdoch empire in Australia

Published on 9 July 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

An eminently reasonable call. This should be extended to the influence and power of all corporate media interests. How are benefits achieved? Who is meeting whom? When and how? A real democracy doesn’t allow one family to own so many media titles:

The leader of Australia’s Green party has called on the government to investigate Rupert Murdoch’s extensive media holdings in Australia.

Party leader Bob Brown, a senator, urged the inquiry following fresh revelations in the UK over the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

The Murdoch-owned paper is accused of hacking into the phones of crime victims, celebrities and politicians.

Mr Brown said the potential for similar activity in Australia should be probed.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard relies on the Greens to keep her minority Labor government in power.

Speaking in the Senate on Thursday, Bob Brown called on Communications Minister Stephen Conroy ”to investigate the direct or indirect ramifications to Australia of the criminal matters affecting the United Kingdom operations of News International”.

News International runs Mr Murdoch’s UK newspapers, including the News of the World, The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times.

On Thursday, News International shut down the News of the World following a spate of fresh revelations.

Speaking later to Reuters news agency, Mr Brown said: “We have the most Murdoch media ownership of any country in the world with eight of the 12 metropolitan dailies owned by the Murdoch empire.

“I think that it’s just prudent to take a raincheck at this stage, because the events unfolding in London are so serious, and it would be irresponsible for us not to look at the potential for similar operations to have occurred in Australia,” he said.

My Al Jazeera English interview on Murdoch’s excessive global power

Published on 9 July 2011 in General, Interviews and Video. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

As Rupert Murdoch’s empire faces unprecedented pressure in Britain over phone-hacking, criminality, ethical breaches and romancing of the political and media elites, it’s time to assess how one man and one family has amassed so much power in countless Western democracies. It should be challenged.

Here’s my interview on Al Jazeera English yesterday:

When “liberals” see their role as defending occupying Israel

Published on 9 July 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Australian academic Nick Dyrenfurth clearly has much time on his hands, writing essay after essay defending the glories of Israel but essentially ignoring the reasons so many people are increasingly against a state that willingly discriminates against Arabs based on race. He’s s a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies at Sydney University, clearly an area with vast understanding of what colonisation means for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

In yet another piece yesterday, he attacks the notion of anybody challenging Israeli politics:

Whilst I support Israel’s continuing existence I do not subscribe to key Zionist principles, namely that Jewish life in Israel is inherently superior to that of the Diaspora, and nor as a non-religious Jewish-identifying agnostic do I base that support upon religious grounds. Crucially I also reject the Zionist proposition that Jews inevitably cannot live amongst non-Jews. These are complex distinctions, much like the Palestinian/Israel conflict itself, which do not conform to a binary Zionist/Anti-Zionist worldview propounded by the likes of Brull, his anarchist idol Noam Chomsky and blogger-journalist Antony Loewenstein.

Once again, Dyrenfurth has the opportunity to get past name-calling and actually acknowledge what Israel is doing in Palestine but he refuses, either out of ignorance or dishonesty. It’s far easier simply damning Chomsky and me. Does he have any idea what Israel does to Palestinians under occupation? Does he care? And what is he doing to address these points, if helping Israel survive is a priority in his life?

Fellow Jewish dissident Michael Brull demolishes Dyrenfurth in a far more comprehensive way.

Murdoch only powerful because our elites allowed themselves to be seduced

Published on 9 July 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Handy reminder from the New York Times on the kind of political and media culture that exists in Britain (and Australia, too) that allows a war mongering media mogul to exercise so much power:

When David Cameron became prime minister in May 2010, one of his first visitors at 10 Downing Street — within 24 hours, and entering by a back door, according to accounts in British newspapers — was Rupert Murdoch.

Fourteen months later, with Mr. Murdoch’s media empire in Britain reeling, Mr. Cameron may feel that his close relationship with Mr. Murdoch, which included a range of social contacts with members of the Murdoch family and the tycoon’s senior executives, has been a costly overreach.

Those concerns were intensified by the arrest on Friday of Andy Coulson, the former editor of The News of the World and, until he resigned in January this year, Mr. Cameron’s media chief at Downing Street.

…

For now, though, Mr. Murdoch and the executives of News International, the Murdoch subsidiary that controls his newspaper and television holdings in Britain, may be less concerned about the impact that the scandal may have on their political influence than on the more immediate legal challenges they face.

The company’s decision to close The News of the World will not end the scrutiny of the newspaper’s practices by the police, courts and Parliament and by a public panel of inquiry that Mr. Cameron has promised to appoint. Together, these investigations seem likely to make for an inquisition that could run for years, causing further erosion in the credibility of the Murdoch brand and costing News International millions of dollars in potential legal settlements.

…

But for all the questions about how Mr. Cameron will weather the scandal, Mr. Murdoch has been much the larger target. Simon Hoggart, a columnist for The Guardian, described the relief among British politicians at seeing the Murdoch empire brought low.

For years, members of Parliament “have been terrified of the Murdoch press — terrified they might lose support, terrified, in some cases, that their private lives might be exposed,” he wrote. “But that has gone. News International has crossed a line and M.P.’s feel, like political prisoners after a tyrant has been condemned to death by a people’s tribunal, that they are at last free.”

Name me a leading corporate politician who doesn’t bow to Murdoch?

Published on 8 July 2011 in General. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

The New Statesman says it well:

Finally, our leaders are outraged. The claim that the mobile phone of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler was hacked by the News of the World has been described as “truly dreadful” (David Cameron), “totally shocking” (Ed Miliband) and “grotesque” (Nick Clegg). Could this be the moment that Britain’s spineless politicians begin to break free from the pernicious grip of the Murdoch media empire?

In recent years, there has been no more sickening – and, I should add, undemocratic – spectacle in British public life than that of elected politicians kneeling before the throne of King Rupert. Paying homage in person to the billionaire boss of News Corporation became almost a rite of passage for new party leaders. Tony Blair, famously, flew out to address News Corp’s annual conference on an island off Australia in 1995. “We were thrilled when Tony was invited to be the keynote speaker,” writes Blair’s ex-chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, in his memoir.

The day after his speech in front of the media mogul, an editorial in the Murdoch-owned Sun declared: “Mr Blair has vision, he has purpose and he speaks our language on morality and family life.” By 1997, the Sun – which had heaped such abuse and ridicule on the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock – had officially come out for Blair and, in the wake of his landslide election victory, the new prime minister thanked the Sun for its “magnificent support” that “really did make the difference”.

But it didn’t. “I think the Sun came out for us because they knew we were going to win,” says Blair’s former communications chief, Alastair Campbell, now. In a study for the Centre for Research into Elections and Social Trends in 1999, Professor John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde concluded that it “was not the Sun wot won it in 1997″, adding: “[T]he pattern of vote switching during the campaign amongst readers of the Sun or any other ex-Tory newspaper proved to be much like that of those who did not read a newspaper at all.”

Yet Blair – and, lest we forget, Gordon Brown – continued to hug Murdoch close. “He seemed like the 24th member of the cabinet,” the former Downing Street spin doctor Lance Price has observed. On issues like crime, immigration and Europe, “his voice was rarely heard . . . but his presence was always felt”. Little has changed under Cameron. He appointed Andy Coulson as his director of communications in July 2007 – just six months after the latter had resigned as News of the World editor over the original phone-hacking scandal.

The Tory leader then made his own pilgrimage to the see the Sun King in August 2008, joining Murdoch on his yacht off the coast of Greece. It is said that he removed the liberal Dominic Grieve as shadow home secretary in 2009, on the insistence of News International’s chief executive – and close personal friend – Rebekah Brooks, who is now under pressure to quit over her alleged role in the hacking affair. The Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, waved through proposals to allow Murdoch to buy all of BSkyB – in the midst of the hacking row.

Australia and Abu Ghraib; a cosy relationship

Published on 5 July 2011 in General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

Years after this scandal exploded, we’re still receiving details on US allies being far too willing to excuse and defend abuses:

Secret Defence documents obtained under freedom of information laws show an Australian officer, Major George O’Kane, was far more deeply involved in the operations of Abu Ghraib prison when terrible abuses of prisoners occurred than previously revealed.

The documents, which include extensive interviews with Major O’Kane when he returned from Iraq in 2004, reveal that as a military lawyer embedded with the United States he was a primary author of the manual for processing prisoners in Iraq.

He also advised on the legality of interrogation techniques being used on at least one detainee. Major O’Kane was instructed to deny access to the Red Cross to nine ”High Value Detainees” during their January 2004 visit because the prisoners were undergoing active interrogation and, according to the US view, fell under the exemption of ”imperative military necessity”. This view was contentious.

After his return he told superiors he was aware of rumours that the US had ordered an internal investigation of Abu Ghraib and it had something to do with photos, though his knowledge does not appear to have extended beyond a conversation with a US officer who assured him it was being investigated.

Although Major O’Kane’s role was discussed at a Senate inquiry in May 2004, he was not permitted to give evidence because he was said to be too junior.

He also did not attend US congressional hearings into the abuse, despite the documents revealing that the Democrat leader, Nancy Pelosi, personally asked the then prime minister, John Howard, to allow him to attend.

…

As point man for the Red Cross during visits to Abu Ghraib, Major O’Kane saw highly critical Red Cross working papers alleging abuses at Abu Ghraib and drafted responses for the prison chief, Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski.

Major O’Kane was also aware that the US was hiding a high-level detainee – dubbed ”Triple XXX” in the US media – from the Red Cross. This had been done at the direction of the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

Even more sensitive was Major O’Kane’s involvement in a highly secret mission referred to in the documents as ”Operation Eel”.

This involved the transfer of a high-value detainee from the US warship USS Higgins, anchored in the Persian Gulf, back to Abu Ghraib on December 16, 2003. The timing is significant because it was near the time of the capture of Saddam Hussein. This week Defence denied Major O’Kane was involved in the transfer of Saddam. But the documents and other sources suggest the detainee might have been someone who helped pinpoint Saddam’s last hideout.

”Major O’Kane did not observe any abuse of the suspect who was manacled and hooded during the transport operation,” the Australian Eyes Only report says.

In December 2003 and January 2004, Major O’Kane was involved in negotiations with the Red Cross for access to Saddam.

Australian Zionist lobby wants no aid money for Palestinians

Published on 4 July 2011 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA does wonderful work in many corners of the globe. But its focus in Palestine has caused the local Israel lobby to pressure the Australian government to sever ties to the group. This isn’t likely but once again highlights the toxic nature of the Zionist mainstream on decency and morality.

During a recent parliamentary committee in Canberra, Liberal Senator Eric Abetz – who sees to love Israel more than his own children – asked AusAID what exactly it is backing in the Middle East. There’s no problem with such questions in theory but the aim is to a) do the Zionist lobby’s bidding and attempt to demonise any kind of support for Palestinians and b) frame Israel as a benevolent power in Palestine. Here’s the lobby’s AIJAC report:

At the October 2010 Estimates hearings, Senator Eric Abetz (Tas. Lib) questioned AusAID on elements of its funding dispensed to APHEDA. Senator Abetz asked AusAID whether it funded organisations associated with BDS or the APHEDA ‘study tours’ to the Middle East. AusAID responded that “no AusAID or other Australian Development Assistance funds are provided to any groups for the BDS campaign” and that “AusAID does not provide any funding for the [APHEDA] study trips.” However, regarding Ma’an Development Centre AusAID conceded that while “AusAID does not directly fund Ma’an Development Centre… under the Australian Middle East NGO Cooperation Agreement (AMENCA) AusAID provides funding to Union Aid Abroad APHEDA.”

Senator Abetz returned to these issues at the 2 June 2011 Estimates hearings, eliciting yet more revelations. Abetz asked AusAID: “What are the safeguards in place that prevent AusAID funding being used by APHEDA or any of the other in a manner that contravenes Australian government policy on Israel? Let us just pluck an example out of the air like BDS?” AusAID replied simply: “We have no information that any of the NGOs we are supporting…are involved with that program.”

But Senator Abetz then pointed out to AusAID that “According to APHEDA’s annual reports all of APHEDA’s funds for Middle East projects originate from AusAID,” which would seem to imply that it must be AusAID’s tax dollars being given to the Ma’an Development Centre by APHEDA. In response, AusAID did not contest this claim, merely re-stating its position that no AusAID funds are contributed towards organisations that support BDS. The AusAID representative offered no concrete assurances that the Australian taxpayer money apparently being given to the Ma’an Development Centre via APHEDA is not being used for BDS activities.

As a result of Senator Abetz’s efforts, it now seems established as fact that AusAID is indirectly supporting the Ma’an Development Centre via APHEDA. Further, AusAID is apparently unable, to date, to provide concrete assurances that these monies are not going to fund the Ma’an Development Centre’s efforts to promote BDS.

When Senator Abetz asked: “if it established that APHEDA’s official position is to support the BDS campaign, would AusAID reconsider its funding of APHEDA?” AusAID replied “it would be the decision of the Minister to make if there were information that caused us to question the way in which Australian aid funds are being used.”

Given the information revealed in these hearings, there now seems ample reason to raise such questions about the AusAID funding to APHEDA. Given AusAID’s inability to provide adequate answers to Senator Abetz’s questions, the ball must now move to the court of Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, as AusAID implied. There is now a good basis for expecting a review of his department’s funding of APHEDA in light of these revelations and the fact that on 1 April 2011, Mr. Rudd assured Australians that his government “did not condone nor support any boycotts or sanctions against the Jewish state.”

Where to begin? It is interesting how the other three Australian NGOs (CARE, World Vision and Actionaid) did not get questioned and odd also how their Palestinian partner NGOs – like just about every Palestinian NGO – have equally signed up to the 2005 BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] call, yet it is the APHEDA partner that gets singled out.

I’ve been told for years by APHEDA staff that the Australian Workers Union’s Paul Howes and his Zionist lieutenants are upset that any major union would seriously challenge Israel and they work continuously to bully both APHEDA and its Labor Party-aligned backers to stop campaigning so strongly for Palestine. In this they have failed. But it won’t stop them trying. It is ironic in the extreme that a union that claims to care for workers and human rights spends time defending Israel, a nation that actively oppresses Palestinian workers under occupation. Principle has nothing to do with this position.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is always quoting the fact that Australia has “greatly” increased aid to the Palestinians to $56m in 2011-12 and the important activities the aid is doing. However, he uses this “fact” to erroneously answer questions about Australia’s support of Palestinian aspirations (statehood, refugee right of return, end the occupation, human rights etc) for peace. In a political conflict such as this, providing aid is only half the answer; it must also be coupled with the insistence that Israel comply with relevant international, humanitarian law. The Australian government is silent on law enforcement against its great friend and ally.

Following the ripple effect of the Marrickville BDS campaign and the success of APHEDA study tours (which take unionists and others across the West Bank and Gaza and not just hear Zionist talking points), there is growing scrutiny in Parliament on AusAID’s Palestine program. It’s tragic that Palestine, with the least resources available to it and under siege, has to answer for the world’s ills and people’s petty prejudices.

APHEDA’s Middle East project officer Lisa Arnold tells me: “Gaza is a man-made disaster of more than five times the scale of the Indian Ocean tsunami; it’s just that the deaths and destruction occur over the course of decades, not minutes.”

The reality remains that APHEDA operates vitally important programs across Palestine – a few years ago I visited one of its programs at Gaza’s only rehabilitation hospital – and the Zionist lobby with its corporate and media mates should not be allowed to threaten this life-line to a people under occupation.

How legally unprepared was Australia for invading Afghanistan?

Published on 4 July 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

According to new evidence, clearly deeply. Of course, we’ve seen countless examples in the US of senior government officials escaping any kind of punishment; it’s all about targeting individuals low down the food chain. When a so-called democracy refuses to take responsibility for illegal actions in war, little stops future leaders doing exactly the same thing. Besides, there are masses of evidence of occupation forces serially abusing prisoners in the “war on terror”:

Australia went to war in Afghanistan without a clear policy on how to deal with enemy detainees, secret papers reveal.

When a policy was adopted, the then chief of the Defence Force, Admiral Chris Barrie, expressed reservations about the legality of the agreed approach.

The documents also show another former Defence Force chief, General Peter Cosgrove, informed the Howard government of the death of an Iranian man captured by Australian troops in 2003, but the Australian public was never told.

The papers, obtained under freedom of information laws by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and made available to the ABC, reveal utter confusion at the highest levels of the Howard government and the Department of Defence over how to deal with enemy detainees.

On February 25, 2002, as Australian troops fought in Afghanistan, Admiral Barrie wrote to then defence minister Robert Hill complaining his commanders were being put at risk.

“There is currently no clear government policy on the handling of personnel who may be captured by the ADF … Defence and in particular ADF commanders are currently accepting the risk flowing from the lack of government policy,” he wrote.

Admiral Barrie proposed a set of interim arrangements, such as asking for American help to move captives from where the Australians were in Kandahar to a US detention facility, where an ADF team could supervise any prisoners captured by Australians.

Robert Hill gave permission for Admiral Barrie to negotiate with the United States and added a series of handwritten comments at the end of Admiral Barrie’s missive.

“I don’t understand why I didn’t get this brief before the Afghanistan operation,” he wrote. “We clearly should have sorted out this issue with the US as leader of the coalition months ago.”

What emerged from the negotiations became Australia’s detention policy in Afghanistan and Iraq: that if even a single American soldier was present when Australian forces captured enemy fighters, the US and not Australia would be recognised as the “detaining power”.

In a paragraph with words redacted, Admiral Barrie expressed reservations about the legality of this approach.

“Such an arrangement may not fully satisfy Australia’s legal obligations and in any event will not be viewed as promoting a respect for the rule of law,” he concluded.

Serco begins PR push to win even more privatised business

Published on 4 July 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Not that most governments seemingly need more convincing to make services more “efficient” (which is code for a lack of accountability):

Serco, the multinational company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year running outsourced government services, will today launch an advertising campaign aimed at boosting its public image in WA as it prepares to take on lucrative new local contracts.

The company has received negative publicity from its role managing Australia’s immigration detention centres and has been targeted by the WA branch of United Voice, formerly the Miscellaneous Workers Union, which is campaigning against privatisation of backroom services at Fiona Stanley Hospital, due to open in 2014.

Serco is the Barnett Government’s preferred tenderer for the huge Fiona Stanley contract and last month it won the $210 million prisoner transport and custodial services security job from rival contracting group G4S.

The company is understood to be setting up a Perth office and the advertising campaign is being rolled out in part to lay the groundwork for a big recruiting drive to fill hundreds of jobs at Fiona Stanley.

The campaign tries to humanise Serco by focusing on employees who deliver frontline services with the tagline: “Living, thinking and acting locally.”

It features a YouTube video with a Serco employee, Catherine, who tells how she helped a female Transperth customer who telephoned the Serco-run call centre after she missed a late-night bus.

Serco Australia chief executive David Campbell said the campaign was “an opportunity for the WA community to get to know the real Serco”.

“We have a proud 16-year history of successfully delivering essential services to West Australians,” he said. “We are already providing services in transport, justice, defence and immigration in WA and soon hope to sign a contract with the Government for the provision of non-clinical services at Fiona Stanley Hospital.”

Serco was last month praised by the inspector of custodial services for its management of WA’s only private prison Acacia. The firm also runs the Indian Pacific train.

However, it has attracted a lot of criticism over its management of detention centres after riots at Christmas Island and Villawood.

It also ran a British detention juvenile centre that was the scene of the suicide death of a 14-year-old inmate and was recently cited for breaches of cleanliness at a Scottish hospital.

Australians talk from Europe about Gaza Flotilla 2

Published on 3 July 2011 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Of course Australia was invaded

Published on 2 July 2011 in General. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

John Pilger on acknowledging an historical reality:

The City of Sydney has voted to replace the words “European arrival” in the official record with “invasion”. The deputy lord mayor, Marcelle Hoff, says it is intellectually dishonest to use any other word in describing how Aboriginal Australia was dispossessed by the British. “We were invaded,” said Paul Morris, an Aboriginal adviser to the council. “It is the truth and it shouldn’t be watered down. We wouldn’t expect Jewish people to accept a watered-down version of the Holocaust, so why should we?”

In 2008, the then prime minister Kevin Rudd formally apologised to Aborigines wrenched from their families as children under a policy inspired by the crypto-fascist theories of eugenics. White Australia was said to be coming to terms with its rapacious past, and present. Was it? The Rudd government, noted a Sydney Morning Herald editorial, “has moved quickly to clear away this piece of political wreckage in a way that responds to some of its supporters’ emotional needs, yet it changes nothing. It is a shrewd manoeuvre.”

The City of Sydney ruling is a very different gesture, and admirable; for it reflects not a liberal and limited “sorry campaign”, seeking feel-good “reconciliation” rather than justice, but counters a cowardly movement of historical revision in which a collection of far-right politicians, journalists and minor academics claimed there was no invasion, no genocide, no Stolen Generation, no racism.

The platform for these holocaust deniers is the Murdoch press, which has long run its own insidious campaign against the indigenous population, presenting them as victims of each other or as noble savages requiring firm direction: the eugenicists’ view. Favoured black “leaders” who tell the white elite what it wants to hear while blaming their own people for their poverty, provide a PC cover for a racism that often shocks foreign visitors. Today, the first Australians have one of the shortest life expectancies in the world and are incarcerated at five times the rate of blacks in apartheid South Africa. Go to the outback and see the children blinded by trachoma, a biblical disease, entirely preventable, eradicated in third world countries but not in rich Australia. The Aboriginal people are both Australia’s secret and this otherwise derivative society’s most amazing distinction: the world’s oldest society.

Line up to see yet another “liberal” academic back key victim state Israel

Published on 2 July 2011 in Israel. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

The first rule of liberal Zionism is never talk about what liberal Zionism means. The second rule of liberal Zionism is never acknowledge the inherent blindspots within liberal Zionism.

Hence an essay in this month’s Monthly magazine by Australian academic Nick Dyrenfurth – yes, the man does spend an amazing amount of time policing the “left” and telling us what views are acceptable towards Israel, terrorism, bananas and coconuts – attacks the awarding of the Sydney Peace Prize to Noam Chomsky this year. Chomsky is too extreme. He doesn’t love Israel enough. He blames many Jews for backing apartheid-policies in Palestine.

This is clearly too much for Dyrenfurth who informs us that everybody knows what must happen in the Middle East:

Leaving aside his myopic, conspiratorial views on American foreign policy (the United States is “a leading terrorist state”), it is difficult to reconcile Chomsky’s peacemaking efforts with this laudatory description, in particular those pertaining to Israel–Palestine.

Most fair-minded observers agree that a negotiated peace settlement based upon a two-state solution will only be attained by bringing together moderates on both sides of the equation and sidelining extremists, whether Greater Israel Zionists or Arab–Palestinian militants committed to a ‘one-state’ solution. Aside from practical steps such as ending the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Palestinian leadership recognising Israel’s right to exist, in simple terms what is required is a rhetorical sea change. Ending the demonisation of the Palestinians by sections of the Jewish and Israeli community must be accompanied by ending the demonisation of Israel by much of the Arab world and, notably, sections of the western Left.

Few individuals have contributed more to the Left’s vilification of Israel than Chomsky, who adopts the central tropes of what left-leaning Jewish intellectual Philip Mendes terms “anti-Zionist fundamentalism”.

Nowhere in this piece is there any discussion about what Israel has become rather than some fantasy world imagined by liberal Zionists the world over. Religious fundamentalism is accepted and normalised. Occupation deepens every day. Mainstream Israel largely only knows violence and threats.

But not to worry, Dyrenfurth argues, Israel is a glorious nation that must be backed against critics of all sorts. It’s comical to read the academic arguing against the decision of Chomsky because he’s critical of the entire political and media elites. Dyrenfurth is part of that establishment and he knows the boundaries. He knows his role. Court academics like to enforce public debate and damn anybody who steps out of line (on Bin Laden’s death, Zionism, terrorism, war, Afghanistan, Iraq, monkeys etc).

Then this:

Why has the SPF [Sydney Peace Foundation] lent unwarranted credibility to Chomsky’s extremist politics? The SPF, and its academic arm, the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS), shares Chomsky’s kneejerk anti-Americanism and anti-Israel worldview. Jake Lynch, the CPACS director and a former BBC journalist, is a leading Australian BDS campaigner and perpetuates a Chomskyite binary view of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The SPF – itself headed by Professor Stuart Rees, and whose executive officer is the current general secretary of the Communist Party of Australia, Hannah Middleton – clearly seeks to legitimate anti-Zionist fundamentalism as well as resuscitating a discredited brand of far-left politics by juxtaposing extremists such as Chomsky (and John Pilger, Israel critic and 2009 prizewinner) with respectable previous recipients such as Indigenous leader Patrick Dodson and former Governor-General Sir William Deane. The decision to decorate Chomsky also hallmarks another strategy deployed by anti-Israel activists, whereby the views of a tiny minority of far-left Jewish anti-Zionists – the journalist Antony Loewenstein being the most notorious local example – are promoted so as to avoid charges of anti-Semitism.

I’m notorious? I better tell my minders immediately. Liberal Zionism is in moral turmoil. Israel is a racist state that is not blindly backed by anybody these days except religious fundamentalists and hardline Zionists. People like Dyrenfurth have too much invested in an imaginary Israel, a nation that must remain Jewish no matter what. Human rights of Palestinians are violated on a daily basis? Would he like to write anything about that in depth? Of course not, it’s far easier (and intellectually lazy) to simply attack the messenger.

Finally, it should be noted that the Jewish publisher behind the Monthly, Morry Schwartz, never publishes anything on Israel/Palestine because he’s a big supporter of the Zionist state. Over many years across his various publications, Israel is barely discussed, a blindness that reveals a great deal about many Jewish progressives the world over; they can care about the human rights of East Timorese or Iraqis or Afghans, but when it comes to the Palestinians…

Australia ready to take those pesky blacks from Israel?

Published on 1 July 2011 in Israel. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , .

This story seems unbelievable. Leading Australian Zionist politician and occupation defender Michael Danby wanting to highlight Israel’s blatant racism? Mmm:

MK Danny Danon (Likud) requested from Australian MP Michael Danby on Wednesday to propose sending African migrants from Israel to Australia in parliament.

Danon and Danby discussed the issue during the Australian politician’s recent visit to Israel, as a part of the World Jewish Congress’s International Conference of Jewish Parliamentarians.

“The arrival of thousands of Muslim infiltrators to Israeli territory is a clear threat to the state’s Jewish identity,” Danon told The Jerusalem Post. “The refugees’ place is not among us, and the initiative to transfer them to Australia is the right and just solution.

“On the one hand, it treats the refugees and migrants in a humane way. On the other hand, it does not threaten Israel’s future and our goal to maintain a clear and solid Jewish majority,” he explained.

Danon said Danby agreed to present the idea to the Australian parliament. Danby was not available for comment.

According to the Knesset’s Research and Information Center, there are 35,638 migrants in Israel, as of May 2011. Less than one percent of these migrants are recognized by the UN as refugees.

However, 61% of the migrants – 21,748 people – are Eritrean, and categorized as “temporary humanitarian protection group” by the UN, because they cannot be returned safely to their home country due to internal strife.
“Since Australia has a policy of accepting refugees and groups under protection, I would appreciate it if you could promote a solution in which Australia would accept those who seek refuge,” Danon wrote in a letter following his meeting with Danby.

“This solution will make it easier for Israel to ensure its future as a Jewish state, because without a Jewish majority the State of Israel cannot survive,” the Likud MK wrote.

Fighting for rights, from indigenous Australians to Palestinians

Published on 29 June 2011 in Israel. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

As the Gaza Flotilla 2 is soon to sail – despite attempts to sabotage the boats and other delays – what makes the attempt so moving are the personal stories of people who speak up for Palestine, despite the (almost) comical moves to smear them. Amira Hass profiles two Australians, both of whom I know and admire:

This is not the first time that Sylvia Hale, 69, has been asked why she is so active for the Palestinian cause. What about the discrimination against the Aborigines in her own country, Australia, for example?

Hale, a former Green Party parliamentarian who is still active in the party, immediately responded: “Undoubtedly, Australia has a very racist history. Aborigines were give the right to vote only in 1967. But whoever asks us ‘what about the Aborigines,’ are not the ones who are interested in their rights, and not the ones fighting for those rights. They are using this as a diversionary tactic for evading the debate over Israel’s policy, or to delegitimize criticism of Israel.”

And yes, for anyone who is interested: She was and remains involved in other struggles. She has rallied against the initiative to limit the rights of the Aborigines, fought the discriminatory attitude toward refugees in Australia and opposed the policy of stopping boat refugees.

Prior to entering parliament, she hid two refugees in her home so that they would not be arrested.

This week Hale and three of her compatriots will climb on board the Tahrir, the Canadian ship that is participating in the flotilla to the Gaza Strip. She and her Australian colleagues traveled the greatest distance of all the participants. Their flight lasted 48 hours, including the stops in various airports.

Hale and her friend, Vivienne Porzsolt, also 69, give the impression of being typical Western tourists, middle class, middle aged, staying at the hotel where the passengers of the Tahrir have gathered.

…

But Porzsolt’s involvement also stems directly from being Jewish, she says. “My activism against the Israeli occupation is linked to my Jewish-secular background, the values of equality and morality in the home of my parents [who were] natives of Prague who managed to escape from it immediately following the Nazi occupation in March, 1939. During the 1990s the Jewish element in my life became stronger and I became more interested in the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Because Israel considers itself the country that represents all the Jews of the world, my participation in this voyage is my way of declaring that Israel is not acting on my behalf.”

The deep reach of Zionist lobby in the Australian Parliament and society

Published on 28 June 2011 in Israel. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

One of the new Australian leaders of the Israel-first brigade is millionaire Albert Dadon, who founded the Australia-Israel Leadership Forum. What’s that? Taking journalists and politicians to Zionist Israel and making them realise that uncritical praise for its glorious democracy is the way it must be, now and always. Being wined and dined clearly helps the participants love apartheid Israel. Occupation? Racial discrimination against Arabs? Moves to silence dissent inside Israel? All totally ignored, of course.

We now have, thanks to Greens leader Bob Brown, the list of politicians and journalists who took the junket last year. The fact that so many were willing to be taken on a propaganda tour (and how many even thought of visiting the West Bank for longer than five minutes, let alone Gaza?) shows the level of obedience to the Zionist agenda in Australian elite circles. Thankfully, studies prove that the general public are increasingly supportive of the occupied Palestinians:

Annex 1: The Australian Delegation-Australia Israel Leadership Forum 2010

# Title First Name Surname
1 The Hon. Kevin Andrews MP
2 Sen. Guy Barnett MP
3 Sen. Mark Bishop
4 Dr John Byron
5 Sen. Kim Carr
6 Mr Steven Ciobo MP
7 Mr Ron Cross
8 Mrs Debbie Dadon»
9 Mr Albert «Dadon AM
10 Mr Michael Danby MP
11 Mr David Dinte
12 Mr Eitan Drori
13 Mrs Mary Easson
14 Ms Amanda Easson
15 HE Andrea Faulkner
16 Sen. Mitch Fifield
17 Mr Con Gallin
18 Mr Rohan Ganeson
19 The Hon. Dr Mike Kelly AM MP
20 Mr Peter Khalil
21 Mrs Lydia Khalil
22 Master Yong-Sup Kimm
23 Prof Douglas Kirsner
24 Mr Maha Krishnapillai
25 Ms Naomi Levin
26 Mr Steve Lewis
27 Dr Marion Lustig
28 Mr Richard Marles MP
29 Sen. Brett Mason
30 Mr Yair Miller
31 Ms Kelly O’Dwyer MP
32 Mr Mark Paterson
33 The Hon. Christopher Pyne MP
34 Mr Bernie Ripoll MP
35 The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP
36 Senator Scott Ryan
37 Mr Emmanuel Santos
38 Mr Tom Scotnicki
39 Mr Greg Sheridan
40 Ms Kristy Somers
41 Mr Niv Tadmore
42 Ms Lenore Taylor
43 Mr Evan Thornley
44 Mr Chris Uhlmann
45 Mr Tony Walker
46 Mr John Weiss
47 Mr Antonio Zeccola
48 Ms Margaret Andrews
49 Ms Shelley Kelly
50 Ms Amanda Mendes Da Costa
51 Ms Jessie Sheridan
52 Ms Nicola Wright
53 Dr Carl Ungerer
54 Mr Thom Woodroofe

Is there any space where Serco won’t go?

Published on 28 June 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Clearly not (and the Australian government is so desperate to “manage” asylum seekers, any multinational will do):

Australia’s newest immigration detention centre could open near Brisbane within months as the Federal Government negotiates to take over the Borallon jail.

The Courier-Mail understands the Federal Government plans to convert the high-security jail, 50km west of Brisbane, into immigration accommodation by the year’s end.

The state-owned, 492-bed facility on the outskirts of Ipswich has been managed and operated since January 2008 by Serco Australia, which also runs the Scherger Immigration Detention Centre near Weipa.

Serco’s five-year contract to operate Borallon is set to be transferred to the new 300-bed women’s prison at Gatton, due to be completed this year.

Borallon’s 476 inmates are expected to be moved to Woodford Correctional Centre, which has about the same number of spare beds.

ABCTV News24 on climate change and Gaza flotilla 2

Published on 28 June 2011 in General, Interviews, Israel and Video. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Last night I was on ABCTV News24′s The Drum (video here) talking climate change policy and the Gaza flotilla.

I argued that dwindling public support for real action on climate change was because too many of its backers refused to seriously engage with the general public and denigrated opponents. Labeling “deniers” akin to Holocaust deniers is not the way to win the argument. Besides, as somebody who recognises the damage caused by climate change, it’s heart-breaking to see the Australian government so utterly incapable of prosecuting an argument, speaking of “reform agendas” without being able to convince the public that lack of action is too dangerous for our future. Inner city folk spend too much time speaking to each other (and yes, I live in the inner city).

There’s a false discussion in Australia about which major political party is a better economic manager when in fact they both subscribe to the same neo-liberal policies that have only entrenched the divide between rich and poor. Little dissent from this line is ever heard, and the media perpetuates the lie.

The Gaza flotilla was discussed and I supported the right of global citizens to highlight Israel’s illegal blockade and occupation of Gaza. Thanks to Sydney reporter Kate Ausburn for transcribing some of my comments:

…there are profound restrictions on equipment getting in [to Gaza]. … the idea somehow that the Flotilla is designed to support Hamas, which is exactly what the Israeli government say, is nonsense. It is about highlighting to the world, in a way where governments have failed, that Israel occupies Gaza, and more importantly continues to persecute people collectively, which is illegal under international law for that very reason.

Speaking on Israel’s threat to journalists taking part in the Flotilla to cover the story that they could have their equipment seized and receive a ten year ban on entering Israel:

I think the issue of the journalists being threatened is very clear. It is because they are petrified of a different narrative emerging. Last year when there were countless activists who were filming what happened, all the equipment was taken and destroyed, or at least not given back, and the idea this time is they only want to have one narrative which is that Israel has the right to board the ships. You shouldn’t forget one final thing, Israel boarded the ships last year in international waters, so which is essentially an act of piracy.

Israel has reversed the ham-fisted policy of banning reporters but it’s the sign of a Zionist state that only knows how to threaten (here’s yet another recent example of an Israeli hoax, this time a gay man supposedly opposing the flotilla, that has turned into a complete Israeli PR debacle).

The threat of internal critics over war and conflict

Published on 24 June 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Now we know the Bush administration wanted personal information on leading Iraq war critic Juan Cole (who knew that writing a popular blog was such a threat to the US government?)

The former CIA agent who revealed this information, Glenn Carle, tells Democracy Now! why he was deeply concerned by the White House request and the obvious question remains; how many other dissidents of the “war on terror” have been followed, harassed or violated (in the US and also here in Australia)?

AMY GOODMAN: Why Professor Juan Cole? There were so many and are so many critics of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why were they singling out him? Or, should I say, were they singling out him? Were you requested to do this on a regular basis?

GLENN CARLE: Yeah, well, that’s—it’s a question that comes to mind, of course, and people have asked me before. I only know what I know. And I don’t mean to quote Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, or paraphrase him. I know the facts concerning Professor Cole, and the instances that have been reported, they are accurate. That’s what I experienced. I don’t know of any other specific person.

I do know the context of tension and hostility between the Bush administration and the intelligence community, and more broadly, any critic of their policies. And the context at the time was intensely—well, it was extremely tense and quite partisan. The politics, we try to stay out of; in the intelligence community, of course, we cannot. And this was happening at a time when there was the whole Valerie Plame incident, Joe Wilson. One of my colleagues on the National Intelligence Council totally, without any intention or desire on his part, became embroiled in the presidential reelection campaign, when an offhand—not offhand, an off-the-record innocuous remark he made was seized by the administration as proof that the intelligence community was trying to undermine its policies. Nothing was further from the truth. He had been asked simply, “Didn’t the intelligence community know that there would be or assess there would be ethnic sectarian strife in Iraq in the event of an invasion?” And essentially, his answer was, “Well, yes.” But that was viewed as treasonous. So that was the larger context.