SAVE OUR SOULS - SOS

Dear Bill Shorten, 

Here we are at Ipswich Trades Hall - launching Shayne Neumann for Blair. I voted for you being a Labor member since 2007, branch secretary and Labor Women's Policy Committee in Queensland. It's the kind of participation I joined for. 
Mingling with the Labor loyalists,  I had to inform you I was becoming disillusioned with our out of sight out of mind refugee policies. I said you shouldn't damn the Greens as they are the one voice on the national stage which speak for me. 

                                         When I read and hear the ALP being endorsed as a 'Values Party'(Qld Labor Times Spring issue 2014), you must mean except asylum seekers. Why are you not saying it is wrong to call people by number than name akin to the very regimes these people are fleeing from?

Please explain how we value our VALUES in the National Party platform of the ALP on human rights and our obligations under International Law of which we once were a proud signatory to.

As our former dearly departed former Labor Leader said: "Punters know the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag Self-Interest always runs a good race." Gough Whitlam

Please read this, thanks to the Saturday Paper, worthy of subscription just for being there to receive this link to:  Open letter: Living in the hell called Nauru | The Saturday Paper

Is this humane? Is this worth billions, when they could come and stay at my place? There is more moral outrage and action by Parliament when Cattle are treated cruelly than our supposed Party of Compassion - so silently sweeping the corridors claiming there is less harm keeping kids in concentration camps with men made to be torturers.

Seven years of membership - reminding those who should know it is not a crime to seek asylum in a boat, or in a plane, or on a train! According to our signed alliances we all have Human Rights. It's enshrined in our National Party Platform.

Why did our join? Was it because the ALP was the lesser of two evils? I am cursed with believing the best of all possible worlds will be fulfilled, but everybody speak with forked tongue...

ALP National Platform:

Labor is a party of human rights. Labor believes in a just and tolerant society that fully protects the 

rights and freedoms of all people in Australia. Labor supports the Universal Declaration of Human 

Rights and the international treaties to which we are a signatory.

Human rights

26 Labor believes a Human Rights Framework that reflects our international obligations is necessary in 

reflecting our commitment to fundamental rights across social and economic policies. We are committed 

to promoting the awareness and understanding of human rights, supporting the international human 

rights instruments to which Australia is a signatory, and properly funding the Australian Human Rights 

Commission. Labor will adhere to Australia’s international human rights obligations and will seek to have 

them incorporated into the domestic law of Australia, and have them taken into account in administrative 

decision-making and whenever new laws and policies are developed.

27 Labor has introduced a new Human Rights Framework that:

● is investing in a comprehensive suite of education initiatives to promote a greater understanding 

of human rights across the community

● through the National Action Plan on Human Rights requires each new Bill introduced into Parliament 

is accompanied by a statement of compatibility with our international human rights obligations

● establishing a new Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights to provide greater scrutiny of 

legislation for compliance with our international human rights obligations

● develops federal anti-discrimination laws into a single Act to remove unnecessary regulatory 

overlap and make the system more user-friendly

● provides for a review of legislation, policies and practices for compliance with the seven core UN 

Human Rights treaties to which Australia is a party (which are listed in the framework).

28 Labor will review its Human Rights Framework legislation in 2014 and that review will consider 

whether the Human Rights Framework could be enhanced through a statutory charter of human rights or other similar instrument

I am informed by the Australian Guardian about the actions of  the Minister for Immigration Scott Morrisson:

The high court case in December concerns a Pakistani boat arrival 

who has been in immigration detention on Christmas Island since 

May 2012.

He is an ethnic Hazara and a Shia Muslim. Australia has found he is a refugee, with a well-founded fear of persecution by Sunni extremists in his home country.

He has passed all security and character checks.

It is illegal for Australia to send the man back to Pakistan. Immigration authorities are obliged to grant him a visa, the high court said.

The man was initially allowed to apply for a visa, but legislative changes and Morrison’s imposed cap on visa numbers have stalled the process.

After the high court ruled the government was “bound to … grant him a protection visa”, Morrison issued a “conclusive certificate” – which cannot be appealed – ruling it was not in the “national interest” for him to have a visa.

The man remains in immigration detention.

“The issue at the heart of this proceeding is whether the minister may achieve by administrative fiat the outcome presently denied to the minister through the parliament,” Stephen Lloyd, acting for the Pakistani man, told the high court.

“The minister seeks to use mechanisms under the Migration Act to attain an unlawful end.”

Stephen Donaghue, for the government, told the high court Morrison did have the power to limit the number of visas to be granted, and that the government must keep “unlawful non-citizens” in detention while a visa determination was made.

Donaghue told the court there was “no duty” on Morrison to grant a visa to a person found to be a refugee and requiring Australia’s protection. Morrison was able to insist upon additional criteria to be met before granting a visa, he said.

(And most of these MP's stand up and say Jesus is their Saviour!)
Laugh till we cry - Watch Shaun Macallef Mad as Hell - on National Security

NEWS FLASH FROM NEW MATILDA: teen-asylum-seekers-fear-their-lives-after-weekend-violence-nauru#comment-78977