The Fixing Australia archives

"Margo Kingston is still recovering and on holidays, but she says, in words to that effect:"

"Don't go overseas, your country needs you, now more than ever!"

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The Fixing Australia archives

18 October 2006: The Project SafeCom Blog Archives - This is the page that brings together all entries from our Blog. They are manually entered, so please accept apologies if sudden and new entries are not posted to this page immediately.

16 October 2004: The Blog Feeds for Newsreaders - Our Blog Feeds are capable of being read by the Firefox' Live Bookmarks. This page displays the most recent Blog entries, and links to all Blog items just below that. It also explains some things about the techno-side of News Syndication using RSS Feeds.

31 August 2004: Dark Horses: Surprise candidates for the 2004 Federal Election - This page was created in order to list unexpected candidates for the 2004 Federal election, who may well become surprises, influencing the final outcome. Independent candidate for Gwydir, Bruce Haigh, is just one of those. Below is his press release announcing his candidature.

1 July 2004: An Activist in Parliament: Kerry Nettle of The Greens - Kerry Nettle is The Greens' Senator for New South Wales. Senator Nettle has been instrumental in developing The Greens response to the Howard government's anti-terrorism, 'security', and War-related legislation - and has been working relentlessly in her diverse portfolio, not afraid to oppose the major parties when it needed to be done. This is her politician's page on our website.

15 March 2004: Senator Jacinta Collins and A Certain Maritime Incident - With the tabling in the Senate of the Report of the Senate Select Committee on A Certain Maritime Incident (23 Oct 2002), Senator Collins contributed with two important speeches. "The pattern of behaviour record that this government refers to, was provided to the government on request by the government in a fashion designed by the government to suit the government."

15 March 2004: The Democrats and refugees, 1977-2002 - "For twenty-five years the Australian Democrats have adhered to our core principles of social justice and human rights. We have fought for human rights on many levels including working on individual asylum seeker cases, opposing cutbacks to the rights of refugees and fighting for legislation, which would ensure a fair outcome..."

15 March 2004: Concluding Statements, A Certain Maritime Incident - The reality of the inquiry into the children overboard affair is that at best there are inconsistencies and contradictions in the evidence given before the Senate Inquiry by the most senior of Defence and PMC officials. At worst there are fundamental omittances, half-truths, untruths and cover-ups.

5 January 2004: 'Boat People are Queue Jumpers' and other statements rebuffed - These are really "John Howard's Myths", keenly peddled by Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock, the front bench as well as many backbenchers from the 2001 election onwards. Here they are rebuffed by the Edmund Rice Centre.

15 December 2003: Parliament for Refugees: Those who dare to break the silence - This page contains the list of sitting parliamentary representatives in the current government term. As time slowly moves towards the 2004 election, Members will have links to statements they have made about the Howard government's treatment of asylum seekers and refugees.

15 December 2003: Senators for Refugees: Those who challenge, block and disallow - This page shows the list of all senators in the Australian Senate in 2004, and - replacement - candidates for the election. As time slowly moves towards the 2004 election, the Senators will have links to statements they have made about the Howard government's treatment of asylum seekers and refugees.

15 December 2003: Our 2004 Federal Election campaign: a template for human rights? - We formed our election campaign around trying to compose a platform of quotes, statements, speeches and articles from all Australian Federal Parliamentarians, both Senators and Members of Parliament. All statements needs to include opinion or statements by these politicians themselves about refugees and asylum seekers. So we wrote to everyone in Federal Parliament, asking for material we could use.

15 December 2003: Project SafeCom's 2004 Federal election platform - "Because ALL boatpeople who arrived at Australian shores in the last decade or so, came to ask for asylum, a claim they are rightfully allowed to make under the UN Convention, calling them 'illegal' is in our eyes equivalent to peddling lies on the part of the Howard government, and by others who parrot the current policies".

10 December 2003: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - On the occasion of the 55th Anniversary of the International Declaration of Human Rights, we created this page with pop-up windows detailing how Australia breaches the Declaration through its asylum seeker and refugee policy. "Now, Therefore the General Assembly proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations..."

15 December 2003: The Greens: A Rock of Security in the Senate - Bob Brown's 2001 National Press Club Address: "Today, Mr Howard and Mr Beazley's parties are working in the Senate to ram through 7 bills cutting not only the rights of asylum seekers but of those Australians who want to help them. The bills overrule access to the courts, bring in mandatory..."

2 December 2003: The Australian Labor Party and SIEV X - An open letter to Labor's new leader Mark Latham, by Tony Kevin, SIEVX whistleblower. "Do you support the series of passed Senate motions calling for a full powers independent judicial inquiry into the sinking of SIEV X ? If you become Prime Minister, will you undertake to implement this Senate demand?"

26 November 2003: Andrew Bartlett's October 2003 SIEV X Senate Motion - Speech in the Senate accompanying the Motion of Condolance for the victims of SIEVX. "...that the Senate ... calls on the Commonwealth Government to immediately establish a comprehensive, independent judicial inquiry into all aspects of the People Smuggling Disruption Program..."

24 November 2003: The Melville Island incident: Australia's New Low - UNHCR regional representative Michel Gaubadan called it "a new low" for Australian refugee treatment. Fourteen Kurdish asylum seekers sought refuge in Australia. In an extraordinary move the Howard government retrospectively excised thousands of islands, including Melville Island - but Senator Andrew Bartlett intervenes.

23 October 2003: JSCFADT Human Rights Sub-Committee Statement to Parliament - Human Rights Sub-Committee's recent activities concerning conditions within immigration detention centres and the treatment of detainees. Tabled by the Chair, Senator Marise Payne, Senator for New South Wales (Lib), who also stated: "I maintain that detention centres are no places for women and children..."

22 October 2003: Australia's crimes against humanity not interesting to the media - Julian Burnside QC mounts a blistering attack on Australia's media, accusing it of refusing to report the government's escalating atrocities: "If the tragedy of our present regime is told dispassionately decades from now, the silence of the press will be seen as part of our national disgrace."

1 August 2003: Carmen and the Issues that matter - WA Member of Parliament Dr Carmen Lawrence quit the Labor front bench in December 2002 'in disgust' with the ALP's asylum seeker policy. In a speech delivered to the ACT Labor Club she speaks out, voicing her concerns about the Iraq war, refugees and Labor's response to the Howard government.

23 July 2003: John Faulkner, The Aftermath of the CMI Inquiry - "John Howard indicated that he was prepared to spend whatever money it took to deter boatpeople from arriving on the Australian mainland. But have there been other costs? What has been the cost of the Howard Government's disruption programme in Indonesia - not just the financial cost? I intend to keep asking questions until I find out. I intend to keep pressing for an independent judicial inquiry into these very serious matters."

1 July 2003: The struggle for Labor, the trouble with Labor - The draft proposal reprinted on this page, written by a Labor for Refugees branch member, gives a striking snapshot about what was largely absent from the newsmedia reports at the time, and still absent from the public debate: the fierceness of the struggle within Labor.