Monday, January 6, 2014

Letters to Mr Morrison

Subject:  Children in detention

Date:  22 May 2014 3:04:25 PM AEST

To:  Minister@immi.gov.au


Dear Mr Morrison, 


I am writing to enquire about the current policy to delay processing of asylum claims of a minor until they have reached the age of 18. I refer you to the Amnesty International report, "This is Still Breaking People", published in May 2014. 


"In addition to this, refugee status determination is placed on hold until children attain 18 years of age, resulting in children spending additional time in detention until they receive an assessment of their asylum claims. This policy is punitive and ensures that vulnerable young people remain in immigration detention for longer periods of time than adults. This may deter asylum seekers from self-identifying as a minor in the hopes that their claim may be processed quicker."


Could you please confirm that this is a current policy of the DIBP? If so, what is the justification for forcing minors to endure longer periods of time in detention? Also, is this cruel policy reserved for unaccompanied minors only or is it true for all children in detention? I would also like to ask about the age determination process – what checks and balances are in place to determine if an asylum seeker is a minor? Finally, what sort of education and recreational activities are offered to children in detention? It seems to me that keeping them locked up only further erodes their chances of receiving an adequate education and also their chances of becoming productive members of the society in which they are eventually allowed to settle. 


Your very concerned citizen,  


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Date: 23 April 2014 – another response from DIBP, regarding plans for asylum seekers currently in Australia.  




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Date:  8 April 2014 – response from DIBP regarding media access to detention centres. No mention of the fact that a journalist application fee for Nauru is now $8000 – that's a matter for the Government of Nauru, of course. 




__________

Date:  3 March 2014 – letter received in post. Alas, not from Scott Morrison.



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Subject: Time to go
Date: 19 February 2014 3:19:09 PM AEDT
To: Minister@immi.gov.au

Dear Mr Morrison,

I am writing today to inform you that you have failed your department, the Australian people and the asylum seekers it is your duty to protect, and it's time for you to resign. 

Fact Sheet 3 – The Department of Immigration and Border Protection

The department today

The purpose of the department is to 'build Australia's future through the well-managed entry and movement of people'.
The department is committed to ensuring it is open and accountable, deals fairly and reasonably with clients and has well developed and supported staff.
The department’s key objectives are to:
  1. Contribute to Australia's future through managed migration.
  2. Protect refugees and contribute to humanitarian policy internationally.
  3. Contribute to Australia's security through border management and traveller facilitation.
  4. Make fair and reasonable decisions for people entering or leaving Australia, ensuring compliance with Australia's immigration laws and integrity in decision-making.
  5. Promote Australian citizenship and a multicultural Australia.
Let's take it from the first line. 

The purpose of the department is to 'build Australia's future through the well-managed entry and movement of people'.
Well-managed entry and movement of people? Oh yes, with the Navy's repeated breaches of Indonesian sovereignty, not to mention the use of lifeboats to facilitate the 'movement of people' away from our shores. Well done.  

The department is committed to ensuring it is open and accountable, deals fairly and reasonably with clients and has well developed and supported staff.

The 'Morrison response' is well known by now: cannot/will not comment because "On-water matter / Operational procedure / Matter for someone else". The transcripts of press conferences with 20 questions from reporters deemed "inaudible", then the cancelling of weekly briefings altogether? Open and accountable my derrière. "Deals fairly and reasonably with clients" – excuse me while I swallow down the bile rising in my throat. "Well developed and supported staff"? Hmm, perhaps they have all gone through puberty and maybe they even get to sit in comfy chairs whilst working for the department – does that make them well developed and supported? Because they certainly don't reply to emails from concerned citizens, nor do they seem capable of taking down phone numbers (http://thehoopla.com.au/im-meshel-want-truth/). Then of course there's today's snafu, "one of the most serious privacy breaches in Australia’s history", allowing personal data of 10,000 asylum seekers to be released online. Forget development and support – the first thing you want to look for regarding your departmental staff is this thing we call competence. 

Finally, I'd like to highlight key objective #2: Protect refugees and contribute to humanitarian policy internationally.

Never mind the grave implications for having released the private, personal details of people seeking asylum, it's time to concede that offshore detention is not only cruel, it does not adequately protect refugees. A man is dead, Mr Morrison, and not by his own hand out of desperation; he was killed. He came to us seeking protection, and he was murdered. Not to mention the other 77 pour souls on Manus who were injured and maimed under your watch. It doesn't matter if it happened within the detention centre grounds or outside of it; you don't get to wash your hands of it because there was a riot, if indeed there was a riot – the mental anguish and protests that the conditions of our offshore detention centres produce are another indictment on your ability to "protect refugees" and "deal fairly and reasonably with clients". Indefinite detention is not fair or reasonable. This extremely serious incident requires a full independent inquiry, nothing less.   

Lastly, "contribute to humanitarian policy internationally"? By being the first and only industrialised nation to subvert the Refugee Convention with regards to asylum seekers who arrive by boat? By locking up unaccompanied minors? By detaining infants? This is the legacy you want to leave, the Australia you wish to promote on the international stage? 

It's time to go, Morrison. 

Yours sincerely,
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Subject: is it true?

Date: 28 January 2014 7:33:08 PM AEDT

To: Minister@immi.gov.au


Good evening Mr Morrison,

I've just been alerted via Facebook to this breaking news by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre:

"Scott Morrison to start the mass round up of asylum seekers in the community for detention & possible deportation. In an unprecedented attack on the rule of law, human rights & our legal system all asylum seekers who (1) have come by boat (2) have their legal cases at the Federal Circuit Court or Humanitarian stage are to be given 6 week visas only. If they fail to leave after 6 weeks they will be detained & face the risk of deportation. This despite the fact they are exercising their legal right to appeal & have a legitimate case on foot or their exercising their right to have the Minister consider their humanitarian claims."

I would like to know, and I believe I have the right to know as a citizen of this country, is this true, Mr Morrison? If it is true, by what justification are you doing this? Be clear on this, Mr Morrison: this is not done in my name.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

P.S. I am also sending a copy of this email to the Hon. David Feeney MP, the member for my electorate. 
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Subject: The not files

Date: 7 January 2014 2:15:46 PM AEDT

To: Minister@immi.gov.au



Dear Mr Morrison,


Don't worry, there are no women's hygiene products embedded in this email. 



I'm just wondering why I'm yet to receive a reply from you or your staff answering any of my recent emails? Well, the first one received a cursory "Your email has been received" notice. Since then? Nada, zip, zilch. Operation Stop the Replies: status complete, sir! 



Still, I guess you've been super busy not holding press conferences, not providing complete transcripts of the pressers you do hold, not answering media questions you don't like, not providing adequate antenatal and postnatal care to women in detention, not processing asylum seeker claims, not being the sort of legal guardian any child would wish for, and not allowing boats to enter Australian waters. Whew, that's an awful lot of stuff you're not doing, Mr Morrison!


How about not allowing Mr Ali Chaudhry to be deported to Pakistan? Could you not do that, do you think? The non-refoulement principle from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/refoulement/: 

"No Contracting State shall expel or return ('refouler') a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion."

Now, there's no need to come back to me (lol!) telling me that Mr Chaudhry's is not a case of refoulement – I know, I read that paragraph too: "... problems with refoulement frequently arise through the fact that its application requires a recognised refugee status." 

Strictly speaking, deporting Mr Chaudhry to Pakistan, where he faces possible imprisonment for being gay, would simply be foulement. And you would be the fouler, Mr Morrison. 


Regards,
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Subject: Why no media?
Date: 19 December 2013 3:57:50 PM AEDT
To: Minister@immi.gov.au
 

Afternoon Mr Morrison,

I read Senator Hanson-Young's heartbreaking article,http://www.smh.com.au/comment/agony-of-children-treated-worse-than-animals-20131218-2zl90.html, today and wondered if there will be a similar story on the TV news tonight? Probably not, though, as there won't be any actual footage from inside the detention centre. So my question, Mr Morrison, is why doesn't the government allow media into any of our detention centres, onshore or off?

Is there an excuse for the blackout? I mean, the asylum seekers are not "on water" once they're in a detention centre, so you can't trot out that ol' chestnut.

Please enlighten me.

Yours sincerely,
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Subject: to reiterate
Date: 5 December 2013 1:28:49 PM AEDT
To: Minister@immi.gov.au




Hi again, Mr Morrison,

I came across this article today, which puts into words how I feel about your treatment of boat

people much better than I can. 




I do hope you'll take the time to read it.

Yours sincerely,
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From: Minister's Mailbox

Subject: Automatic reply: For the record

Date: 4 December 2013 12:29:04 PM AEDT

Thank you for your correspondence. Your email to the Hon Scott Morrison MP, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection has been received


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Subject: For the record
Date: 4 December 2013 12:28:54 PM AEDT
To: Minister@immi.gov.au


To The Hon Scott Morrison, MP Minister for Immigration and Border Protection

Dear Mr Morrison,

I am writing to tell you that I abhor your treatment of and policies towards asylum seekers who have come to our country by boat, or attempted to come by boat. You can repeat ad nauseam the they arrived illegally – we all know that under the UN Convention, of which we are a signatory, they have committed no crime. Where is your compassion towards people who are desperate to escape war zones and persecution and who come to us for help? This is not about people smugglers; this is about people, Mr Morrison.

I fail to see how non-processing, secretive and open-ended offshore detention, as well as denying due process to the 30,000 asylum seekers currently awaiting determination in our country achieves anything other than inflicting more cruelty and pain on people who have already witnessed and endured who knows what horrors, and – let me say it again – have committed no crime. These policies achieve nothing good. Pandering to the racist and xenophobic in our community is not good for our nation, Mr Morrison.   

And now, saying, 'Ha ha, Labor, because you won't sign off on TPVs it's your fault they're now stuck here without work rights, you're the cruel ones, na na na na na' just doesn't cut it, Mr Morrison. And yes, I was disgusted by the previous government's policies as well. But YOU are in government now. YOU are responsible for continuing the cruel policies and for adding to them. Both major political parties raced to the bottom on this issue but it is YOU who just keeps digging – drilling! – lower and lower and deeper and deeper into the hateful muck.  

Boat people have committed no crime; it's what you are doing, Mr Morrison, that is criminal. 

Yours sincerely,
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