Kim Beazley and the Georgiou Bills

Boy oh boy, what a week it was. DIMIA shaking on its foundations, the Kooyong rebels launching - after years of unhappiness with Howard's asylum policies - their trump card in the two Private Members' Bills, and Vanstone in the vice between Bill Farmer, incisive questioning by the Senate Estimates Committee and Petro Georgiou and friends.

After years of unhappiness? Come off it, you may say, but let me tell you, for the first time with a glimmer of personal political pride, that my own MP in Federal government, Judy Moylan, for Pearce, was the only parliamentarian to declare herself absent from Parliament when the Tampa Bills were rushed through in 2001 - because she refused to support them - and she told me that herself last year. And the Private Members Bills were predictable, because we had written to Petro Georgiou and others in February this year, and The Bulletin and The Australian (articles also on our website) one month later that Howard had been put on notice about the looming development.

This morning I emailed the Project SafeCom call to action to an estimates 15,000 folks throughout our database and to about 55 'refugee lists' around Australia, asking people to contact their local MP's, the Georgiou five, and those in the coalition most likely to consider supporting the two Bills.

But what about Big Kim and Labor? Will they support the two Bills when they make it into parliament?

I made myself rather angry this week, when beazley kept uttering political smartnesses directed at John Howard and yesterday I wrote a press release:

Beazley should stop playing politics with democracy and human suffering:

"Federal ALP leader Kim Beazley should stop playing politics in relation to the Liberal backbenchers' Private Members Bill or he will risk a similar revolt within his own backbench," WA refugee group Project SafeCom's spokesman Jack H Smit said this morning.

"Yesterday, Mr Beazley announced in The House as soon as he could and in reply to the Prime Minister's fury over the liberal backbenchers' Bill that the ALP would not allow a conscience vote, and with it, he played entirely on the Prime Minister's turf again."

"Beazley has clearly given evidence that he's more happy for a "me too" position on mandatory detention because of his fears that this atrocious policy, a creation by the ALP, comes unstuck, than that he cares to undo a very deep, very serious, and and ongoing human rights crisis in Australia. Beazley doesn't have the ticker when it matters."

"This week sees an opportunity for Beazley to join with the few in liberal ranks that use a desperate democratic process to address this serious crisis. While Beazley screams for a Royal Commission, he uses parliamentary quipping and playing ping-pong with John Howard instead of talking about the real issues."

"Beazley needs to state categorically that the ALP will support the Private Member's Bills brought by Petro Georgiou and his team, because the entire plan is in line with stated ALP policy, and in addition the facts have clearly shown that thousands of people, both those on TPVs and those in detention, are at mental and psychological risk because of John Howard's human rights abuses."

"If Beazley does not do this, he also risks a situation where dissent in his own ranks of backbenchers will grow to such an extent that Labor will just duplicate the coalition with own crisis of dissent. Beazley needs to ask himself whether people such as Carmen Lawrence, John Faulkner and others are also living as ticking time-bombs in relation to what we do to refugees."

In today's Sydney Morning Herald, readers voiced the same indignation in So now it's mandatory detention of political morals:

As an indication of how little the ALP has learnt over the years, Kim Beazley won't allow Labor MPs a conscience vote on mandatory detention ("Beazley rules out conscience vote on detention bill", Herald, May 26).

The ALP still hasn't figured out that what many people want is an alternative to the Howard Government, not just a poor imitation of it. Until the ALP finds the ticker to openly discuss and challenge the Government's positions on difficult issues facing us, it'll just stay in the detention of impotent opposition.

Paul Gittings
Russell Lea

I note that Kim Beazley and John Howard are not going to allow a conscience vote on asylum seeker amendments. Does that mean politicians from these parties vote against their conscience on these matters, or perhaps it's just coincidental when they don't? Why is it in Australia it's seen as being so treacherous for a politician to "cross the floor"? No such problem in Britain or the US, our other willing partners.

Peter Fraser
Lindfield

Does the refusal of both major parties to allow a conscience vote on our immigration policy confirm that both believe their policies to be unconscionable?

Tracey Carpenter
Bathurst

And Tim Dunlop in 'The Road to Surfdom' Blog (26 May 2005) says:

Again, though, Beazley played it badly. He was more keen to shore up what he imagines is his tough-on-illegals image than to consider the proposed changes on their merits. The fact is, we know pretty much what the bills contain. So while Beazley could've held off giving final endorsement until he'd seen the detail, there was plenty of room for him to signal a different approach and what's more, take a lead on the issue.

[.....]

I truly wish it was Labor pushing through changes of this nature. It perhaps doesn't go as far as I would like, but it is a brilliantly crafted compromise. The Georgiou bill actually handed Beazley an opportunity, but he has fluffed it, making baseless taunts about conscience votes and faux-macho statements about mandatory detention. It was a disgraceful performance. As commenter tim g says:

"But what about the possibility that leadership - actual leadership, not just political strategy based on exhaustive polling - might be able to lead public opinion, even create it? We've all forgotten this fact because we've seen so little of it in recent times."

Exactly. There was no better time to take a lead on this issue and Beazley didn't. To not be willing to move on this issue is to presume the sort of low opinion of Australians that John Howard has, where he believes his continued electoral success depends on this abhorent policy, something I have argued against a few times.

So - will Beazley and the Federal ALP take this opportunity to throw Howard in detention over his inhumane policies, or will Beazley again be missing in action?

Read more ...

Lynton Crosby: globetrotting, spreading dirty dog whistles

Narrogin WA, April 18 2005 - If you read what everyone should have read around the 2001 Tampa election, you would know Lynton Crosby reasonably well. After all, thanks to Crosby John Howard successfully scooped up his unlikely win at that election through applying a considerable degree of wedge politics, designed by his former advisor Lynton Crosby in his role as the Liberal Party's election campaign director.

Crosby employs a particular nasty brand of politics, and it seems his consultant strategy works: since January this year he's been pottering around in the UK, helping the Tories under Michael Howard (no relation to little Johnny down here in Australia) to improve his chances to steal government from Tony Blair's Labour, and soon he's off to New Zealand.

This morning we heard that after the UK election, to be held on May 5th, Crosby's off to New Zealand - that is, if we can't stop him. We wrote a letter to Helen Clarke, the Prime Minister of Kiwiland.

On this page, a line-up of the British and Australian press about Lynton Crosby's travels and meddling in UK politics. The media is not sparing him, but he does his grubby work in a climate that seems to be befitting his approach. In March this year I wrote in the script of the forum Don't Mention the Refugees:

"Meanwhile, Howard's senior advisor Lynton Crosby is in the UK selling Australian-made refugee wedge-politics as an election platform to the threatened Tories, the Dutch announce a deportation of up to 26,000 refugees who have lived in the community for up to a decade with undecided outcomes, and in Italy's government the echo of 'shooting them out of the water' still reverberates through parliament while the European Union hopes to circumvent international law and tries to replicate Philip Ruddock's 'refugee warehousing' policy. Fortress Europe's success is built on the model introduced to the world community by Australia."

Globalisation? Well, sort-of - that is, globalisation of the politics of storing, locking up, warehousing, and banning of refugees and asylum seekers, and excluding them from the massive wealth of western countries.

Below our press release is the report we received this week from New Zealand. It's followed by media reports from January through to April. And there's more to come.

Block Lynton Crosby's visa for New Zealand, says refugee group

Project SafeCom Inc.
Media Release
Monday April 19 2005 9:00am WST
For immediate Release
No Embargoes

"John Howard's former advisor Lynton Crosby, who currently acts as the campaign director for the British Tories, and who was the campaign director during the 2001 Tampa election and beyond, should be barred from entering New Zealand on character grounds," WA Refugee group Project SafeCom stated today.

News is breaking in New Zealand (item below) that Mr Crosby will be employed by the NZ conservative party 'National' as a campaign consultant in that country's election after he finishes his role for Michael Howard's party after the May 5 UK election.

Lynton Crosby has refined 'refugee wedge politics' and 'dog whistle politics' to such an extent that he hires himself out as a campaign director to conservative parties 'around the world' in order to improve their chances to win elections. Crosby is currently the campaign director for the British Tories under Michael Howard, while New Zealanders are said to have their next election around September this year.

"Mr Crosby election tactics are deliberately designed to create a considerable degree of xenophobia and fear for 'refugee invasions', and his strategy consists of creating the most shameful and grubby tactics - spreading mis-information and uninformed but sensational opinion and debate - we have seen and experienced in Australia since the Tampa election in 2001, and we're now seeing the same phenomena developing from the conservatives in the UK," Project SafeCom spokesman Mr Smit said.

"It is vitally important that the New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and her Immigration Minister Paul Swain discern his approach as an attempt to embed low gutter politics in New Zealand society. We would not wish the amount of division and animosity - divisions which are still tearing Australia apart in many ways - upon anyone, especially not on New Zealand, a country that may these days well carry, rather than Australia, the label of 'The Lucky Country' for asylum seekers."

"New Zealand has an admirable record in terms of their refugee treatment, so much so, that they've been willing to take up the 'slack' for Australia, for example in accepting many Tampa refugees, while not exposing John Howard's scandalous post-Tampa politics in a generous employ of diplomacy."

"Mr Crosby is not an honourable man, and his entry into New Zealand should be stopped on character grounds. Project SafeCom is currently developing communications with Prime Minister Helen Clark, Immigration Minister Paul Swain and his Associate Immigration Minister Damien O'Connor."

New Zealand: National to import Australian guru

Molesworth and Featherstone's report
New Zealand
5 April 2005

(Molesworth and Featherstone's is a weekly email with politics gossip with a very good reputation. In an earlier edition there was a rumour the strategists would be arriving after the Brit election)

Negotiations are believed to be well advanced to bring a top Australian strategist to work with the National Party for two days a week.

Conservative strategists across the Tasman have produced remarkable success for John Howard's Liberal Party. British Conservative leader Michael Howard recently imported former Australian Liberal director Lynton Crosby to help organize for the UK election likely to be called in May. Mr Crosby's influence has been noticed in a reinvigorated Tory campaign and a heavy emphasis on race, immigration and asylum.

For National, the appointment of an Australian advisor will help to relieve mounting pressure on Don Brash to make changes to his strategy team. While he is resisting, particular criticism is being directed at Chief of Staff Richard Long.

Ban Tory tactician from NZ, refugee advocates say

UK Guardian
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Friday April 22, 2005

Refugee groups have called for the Conservative party's controversial election strategist, Lynton Crosby, to be banned from New Zealand, after it was reported that the country's centre-right National party want to hire him to fight their next election.

Mr Crosby, an Australian, is credited with targeting the Tories' message on immigration - a tactic he honed in four election successes for John Howard and the right-wing Liberal Party in Australia.

This week the Australian newspaper reported that he may leave the Tories after the May 5 election to help the New Zealand National party fight the September election to defeat Labour prime minister, Helen Clark.

Project SafeCom, an Australian group which campaigns on behalf of refugees, has called on the New Zealand government to refuse him a visa on 'character grounds'.

Spokesman Jack Smit said: "Mr Crosby's election tactics are deliberately designed to create a degree of xenophobia and fear for 'refugee invasions'. His strategy consists of creating the most shameful and grubby tactics - spreading misinformation and uninformed but sensational opinion and debate - we have seen and experienced in Australia since the Tampa election in 2001. We're now seeing the same phenomena developing from the Conservatives in the UK."

The newspaper also reported that the National party - in opposition in the Wellington parliament - is "in negotiations" with Mr Crosby.

Mr Crosby refuses to speak to the press, and no one was available at the National party headquarters to confirm the reports, but if true it would cement Mr Crosby's reputation as one of the world's foremost, if controversial, globe-trotting political fixers.

He is credited with a so-called 'dog whistle' strategy in Britain, appealing to Conservative voters on sensitive issues such as immigration and asylum under the radar of the other parties and the media.

The Tories have reduced their core messages to just five simple slogans: controlled immigration, more police, cleaner hospitals, school discipline and lower taxes. But the repeated emphasis, and the pledge to pull out of the Geneva convention on refugees to set an annual quota for the number of accepted asylum seekers, has outraged race relation campaigners and angered the other political parties.

Tony Blair today made his first keynote speech on immigration of the election, accusing the Tories of trying to stoke up public fears during the campaign.

He said leader Michael Howard had made the Tory campaign "a single issue" effort on immigration policy, and added: "Their campaign is based on the statement that it isn't racist to talk about immigration. I know of no senior politician who has ever said it was. So why do they put it like that?"

He said: "It is an attempt deliberately to exploit people's fears, to suggest that for reasons of political correctness, those in power don't dare deal with the issue.

"So that the public is left with the impression that they are being silenced in their concerns, that we are blindly ignoring them or telling them that to raise the issue is racist, when actually the opposite is true."

The National party in New Zealand has already raised immigration as an issue for the election there in five months' time. Last month their immigration spokesman, Tony Ryall, accused New Zealand's Labour government of presiding over "chaos in immigration policy".

He said: "With refugees, Labour is so keen to do the humanitarian thing that they take far too many that we can't support, and five years down the track 80% are still reliant on welfare.

"Labour's immigration policy is in disarray and it has become clear that it will not meet its targets, particularly those relating to skilled migration."

A spokeswoman at Conservative campaign headquarters said merely: "Mr Crosby does not speak to the press."

There was no immediate response from the National Party headquarters in Wellington, or its leader Don Brash.

Mr Crosby was hired at the end of last year by Michael Howard, after the Tory leader was impressed by his masterminding of John Howard's surprise re-election, coming from behind to defeat a strong challenge from the Labour opposition under Mark Latham - who then resigned.

John Howard declared after his win: "There's no better political strategist in Australia than Lynton Crosby."

However, during the 2001 election, Mr Howard and Mr Crosby used controversial tactics in a row over a refugee ship called the Tampa. False reports that asylum seekers were throwing their children overboard in an attempt to blackmail their way into Australia, prompted Mr Howard's notorious campaign slogan: "We decide who will come into this country."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,12070,1466785,00.html

Detention deficit

Progress - Labour's Progressive Magazine
London, UK
January 05/February 05

Are the Tories thinking of copying Australia's hardline policy on asylum seekers, asks Sam Hardy.

There seems to be an antipodean air wafting around Conservative Central Office at present. November saw the second Australian arrival at the Tories' Victoria Street base, with Mark Textor joining Lynton Crosby in making the change from John Howard's office in Canberra to Michael Howard's in London. This mini-influx of Australians at CCO, however, may have a more sinister outcome than the sharing of electoral know-how.

Earlier this year, the Australian Liberal party won re-election on the back of a buoyant economy and an unashamedly xenophobic approach to asylum. Its hardline policy was born in 2001 after Howard and Textor realised that targeting the fears of a handful of swing voters over asylum could reap electoral benefits. The worry for Britain is that Michael Howard and his team may see this election strategy, twice successful in Australia, as the best way forward for their beleaguered electoral machine. Indeed, in 1995, before the triumvirate of Howard, Textor and Crosby reinvigorated it, the Australian Liberal party was a sinking ship, going through three leaders in a year and falling well behind Paul Keating's Labor government. Fast-forward ten years and you don't have to be a political genius to work out the parallels with today's Tories.

The approach favoured by John Howard on immigration dwarfs even the most reactionary of European measures. Unlike in the UK and the majority of Europe, refugees attempting to claim asylum in Australia are immediately detained. Under what is called the 'Pacific Solution', refugees are held on remote Pacific islands surrounding Australia such as Nauru, where they are kept in high security camps. This is not a policy directed only towards men suspected of links to terrorism: the offshore camps accommodate all asylum seekers, whether men, women or children. Conditions in the camps are difficult: a recent report by the UN Human Rights and Equal Opportunities commission recommended the immediate release of all child detainees.

The Australian approach to refugees is even more indefensible when compared to Sweden, which every year receives a similar number of refugees to Australia. Yet Sweden is only about a fifteenth of the size and detention is only used when a person's identity needs to be verified and criminal checks carried out. Detention times in Sweden are negligible in comparison to Australia: child refugees can only be detained for six days. In contrast, Australian Department of Immigration figures put the number of child detainees at 174 in February of this year alone.

Australia argues that it is forced to be more rigorous in its handling of asylum seekers because of the sheer number arriving on its shores. But this is also undermined by the facts: currently Australia hosts approximately one refugee to every 1,500 Australian citizens, compared to one to every 500 in the UK and one to 80 in tiny Tanzania. In fact, in 2000, while 300,000 refugees arrived in Europe and over a million arrived in Iran and Pakistan alone (largely from Afghanistan), the number in Australia was far smaller, with some estimates putting it as low as 4,500, or one refugee to every 1,666 square kilometres ­ an area larger than the Bahamas.

Indeed, when asylum seekers' appeals do finally come to be heard, over 90 per cent of cases are accepted as legitimate. But even if they become part of the lucky 90 per cent, an asylum seeker's path to freedom in Australia is far from smooth. Immigrants are given a Temporary Protection Visa, limiting their right to education, social services, foreign travel and family reunion. On top of this, the TPV usually runs out after three years, once again requiring refugees to justify their status.

Overall, the path John Howard has created for those seeking asylum in Australia may make good politics but it makes bad policy. However, this is unlikely to make any difference to Michael Howard.

The other Howard's way won't work here

Dividing refugees into 'good' and 'bad' won an election for John Howard. Now Michael Howard hopes to emulate him

Patrick Barkham
Tuesday January 25, 2005
The Guardian

Separated by half the world though they are, Michael Howard and John Howard have a lot in common. Both are lawyers by training and lead rightwing parties in English-speaking nations. But unlike his political cousin Michael, for whom electoral success seems elusive, John is enjoying a record-breaking regime in Australia, where his Liberal party has won four elections on the trot.

So Michael covets what John has. First he hired his campaigns guru, Lynton Crosby. Now he has popped the immigration pill, the magic ingredient that won John the election in 2001.

Our Mr Howard has taken more from Australia's Mr Howard than just the headline-grabbing ideas of immigration quotas and a points system for economic migrants - allowing the government to correct labour- market shortages and attract particularly desirable foreign workers. The immigration system pioneered by John Howard advances a more subtle argument against asylum. It also steadily undermines the ability of the persecuted to seek the protection of another nation, a right first enshrined in the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees.

At first glance the Australian immigration system appears a rational way to regulate the free movement of human capital and crack down on the vexing problem of people smugglers. In practice John Howard has created a regime that divides asylum seekers into good and bad.

Economic migrants and their families must apply to enter Australia through its migration programme. In 2002-03, 108,070 people entered the country this way, with 66,050 skilled workers and 40,790 family members. Compared with skilled migrants, the Howard government has set a much smaller quota for refugees: 12,525 en tered in 2002-03 under its "humanitarian programme".

However, many believe that the subtext of these economic and humanitarian categories is to divide migrants into useful human capital and charity cases. Points-scoring migrants are young, educated and fluent in English. Refugees pass no test apart from oppression, helping spread an assumption that they are an unskilled drain on society rather than the engineers or teachers they often turn out to be.

But the key division is between good and bad refugees. Formally, John Howard's government still pays lip service to the refugee convention. Australia's humanitarian programme comprises "offshore resettlement for people in humanitarian need overseas; and onshore protection for those people already in Australia who arrived on temporary visas or in an unauthorised manner". In practice, the government's policy may be seen to stigmatise those who reach Australia independently.

Good refugees patiently wait in a "queue" in UN camps, according to the Howard government. They have the authentic stamp of the refugee: they are assessed by the UNHCR and can be seen, suffering, in their temporary tents. Bad refugees "jump the queue" by paying people smugglers to help them reach another country where they can claim asylum. At best they are wealthy middle-class refugees who can afford to pay thousands to be taken to the destination of their choice: Australia, rich in benefits and sunshine. At worst they are terrorist conmen who fake their identities and hold beliefs that are dangerous to western democracies.

When setting a cap on the number of refugees admitted each year, John Howard explicitly said that every "queue-jumper" given refugee status is denying those waiting in camps for the Australian government to pluck them to safety. And so it was with electoral backing that John Howard virtually halted the trickle of the "bad" refugees who arrived on Australia's shores independently: 5,577 arrived in 2000-01 compared with 869 in 2002-03 and a projected 750 for 2003-04.

As Michael Howard has spotted, John Howard's immigration policy is virtually bulletproof to criticisms that it is racist. How can it be argued that the government does not embrace a vision of Australia as a skilled and multicultural immigrant nation when it increased its admissions of skilled migrants and their family members from 70,200 in 1999-2000 to 108,070 in 2002-03? How can it be suggested the government does not allow the right to claim asylum when it admits 12,000 people a year under its humanitarian programme?

In reality it is not the asylum seekers who are choosing their safe haven but the country that is cherry-picking its refugees. The Australian government notes it has the "discretion" to choose its own refugees. Last week it welcomed 376 from Sierra Leone and Liberia, pointing out that 60% were Christian and many were young women taken under a "Woman at Risk" visa programme helping those who lack the protection of a male relative. To fearful voters these are a far more reassuring kind of refugee than the Muslim men who arrive under their own steam.

Any popular anxiety about male, Muslim refugees remains unchallenged, despite a recent government report finding that the biggest influx of "illegals" last year came not from Asia or the Middle East but from Britain and the US.

John Howard's way is now Michael Howard's way too. With Tony Blair desperate not to be seen as soft on immigration during this election, a Dutch auction could see it become the British government's way as well.

The only - big - proviso for desperate politicians is that John Howard's policy of division is unlikely to work so well in Britain. When the Australian prime minister declared his unofficial war on unauthorised asylum seekers, he was aiming to repel 5,000 each year, far fewer than reach British air and sea ports. It could be much harder for a UK government to shut the door quite so firmly on persecuted people arriving to claim their right to asylum.

• Patrick Barkham is the Guardian's former Australia correspondent

Lynton Crosby's shameful British wedge

Crikey
By Martin Suiteach
Crikey Westminster Correspondent
(and nervous expat)

Britain's Howard plays the cheap and easy card Aussie John style - with more than a little help from Lynton Crosby. And read on for Christian Kerr's analysis as well.

25 January 2005

Well, it's official. Britain is being overrun by foreigners. So much so that Tory leader Michael Howard felt obliged to run a full page ad in The Sunday Telegraph (natural readership - retired military types who love huntin', shootin' and fishin' and hate immigrants) saying the UK can't cope with the influx.

I one had a conversation with someone who said they were depressed about "all these immigrants". This person lived in a nice house, in a nice area, had a secure job and I reckon the only immigrant that had crossed her path in the previous six months was me.

This is exactly the constituency Michael Howard is aiming at. By playing the cheap and easy race card he knows he can push a few buttons in the electorate because his economic plans won't stand up to scrutiny and other policies are either have no meat on the bones or disappear without trace. The issue of immigration figures large in opinion polls surveying people's concerns about their daily life. Yet like the person I mentioned before, most of them can come up with nothing better than: "Well there's too many of 'em, isn't there?" Even the United Kingdom Independence Party -- which wants controls on immigration -- called the Tories' plan as "irresponsible".

You don't have to be Einstein to detect the hand of Lynton Crosby behind this latest piece of garbage from a political "leader" who wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for Britain's historical willingness to take in refugees. The parallels with Australia are being used widely by the media here. An Associated Press reporter told me AAP picked up his story on Howard's stunt within minutes of it hitting the AP wire.

Of course Howard denies he is being racist, adding that his system will make the asylum system fairer for genuine claimants, but under his plans, refugees would have to apply outside the UK. So the oppressed will have no option but to find their way to a British Embassy (if there is one) and pray they A). Aren't picked up by the people oppressing them or B). That Howard's proposed quota hasn't been filled and they are turned away.

He also wants to use the points system employed by Australia on issuing work permits.

It's hard to work out what's more depressing. The fact that John Howard got away with this kind of crap in 2001 (and we should all be ashamed at that). The fact that the Conservatives are so lacking in ideas they have to rip one off from the Liberals or the fact that the Tony Blair has not condemned the Tories on the grounds of bigotry, but that the plans don't stack up in terms of cost.

There is a skills shortage in this country. Last year Blair made no apology for luring South African nurses away from their homeland because Britain could not recruit enough locally to work in the UK's filthy hospitals. His own spokesman said there are currently 600,000 jobs going begging across the country.

Immigration works in cycles. People arrive with skills and do a job, or they arrive with no skills and do the jobs the locals don't want to do. That's how dishes get washed in restaurants and floors cleaned in factories. Australia was built in this way and is culturally richer for it - despite the undercurrent of bigotry that lurks not too far beneath the surface. Britain is no different and there is no evidence the economy or population is suffering major difficulty. As the Labour peer Lord Desai (also known as Meghnad Jagdishchandra Desai) reportedly once said, if there were no immigrants, who would clean the toilets?

Michael Howard claims 160,000 immigrants come to the UK each year. What he doesn't say is that most of them come from the EU, Australia, New Zealand, the US and South Africa.

As for that last lot, you can ship them out straight away. They're taking London bar jobs off Australians.

The Tories' troubles with the hired help

Political correspondent Christian Kerr writes:

Perhaps the Conservative Party is only used to Australian nannies - or Aussie bar staff at the Palace of Westminster and the nearby watering holes.

The latest Lynton Crosby stories have that Barry McKenzie touch once again. They tell of an innocent Austral lad stumbling into trouble amongst the great and good of Pommyland, months out from an election.

Look at what The Times had to say yesterday abut the former Liberal Party federal director:

"Michael Howard's election guru has told him that the Conservatives have no hope of winning the next general election.

"The crushing blow from Lynton Crosby, the Australian campaign expert hired by Mr Howard at great expense to bring about a surprise Tory victory, came as Mr Howard attempted yesterday to put immigration and asylum at the heart of the party's election campaign?"

Poor Lynton was stung into action. "The Conservatives' campaign director has denied a report claiming he warned Michael Howard the party could not win the next general election," the Beeb reported.

"The Times on Monday said Australian Lynton Crosby told the party leader to focus on trying to increase the Tories' Commons presence by 25 to 30 seats.

"But Mr Crosby said in a statement: 'I have never had any such conversation... and I do not hold that view.'

"Mr Howard later added there was not 'one iota' of truth in the report."

You can read a wrap of the whole feeding frenzy in The Guardian, but this is the second time Crosby has got into trouble for this sort of thing.

He is fast becoming a household name in Britain, largely for all the wrong reasons. That isn't really the British way.

Michael Howard has made much of his refugee past, of his family's suffering at the hands of the Nazis.

The Tories have been squeezed off the middle ground by New Labour - a tarnished brand, but one with an irrepressible salesman in Tony Blair - and are under threat from the right from the anti-European Union and soi distant racists of the UK Independence Party.

Crosby is clearly trying to win back these latter voters by programming his boss up with sub-Tampa lines.

Does he realise that he's making the British Howard look like an utter hypocrite, or can't he look beyond his wedge obsessions?

Lynton Crosby's big weekend

Christian Kerr
Crikey's political correspondent

British media laps up Lynton

31 January 2005

His tactics mightn't be pretty - but they're pretty effective. Former Liberal party federal director Lynton Crosby has had a big run in the British meeja for his work for the Conservative Party as an election draws ever closer.

The Labor leaning Daily Mirror tabloid managed to turn a few pars from The Guardian profile on Thursday into an "EXCLUSIVE" on Saturday.

"TORY GURU 'EXPLOITED' TEEN KILLING," it screamed.

"A sinister new election guru hired by Tory leader Michael Howard exploited the murder of a teenage girl to win votes in his native Australia.

"Lynton Crosby sparked a huge outcry after using the horrific stabbing of Cheree Richardson in the 1992 TV advertising blitz.

"The Liberal Party campaign said Australia's Labour Party had 'the blood of the victim on their hands'.

"It had to be abandoned after complaints from her family.

"Mr Crosby, 48, has been blasted for his hard-hitting campaigns on race and crime..."

There were High Tory sneers at Crosby's positioning of Conservative leader Michael Howard - the son of Jewish refugees from the Nazis - on race and immigration over at The Sunday Telegraph, the party's paper of choice.

"Howard is no racist. But this was an error," Matthew d'Ancona wrote.

"Does Lynton Crosby exist? There are certainly those at Conservative Party headquarters, jealous of his influence, who wish that he did not, and were hoping that Michael Howard's General Election Campaign Director would not return from his Christmas visit to his native Australia. The name Lynton Crosby always makes me think of a minor and infrequently serviced village station in Yorkshire, as in: 'This service will not stop at Lynton Crosby. All passengers for Lynton Crosby should alight at Scarborough, and take the special bus provided...

"The Australian strategist insists fiercely that he believes that the Tories can win. But his prescription suggests a conviction that damage limitation is the best Mr Howard can hope for now."

D'Ancona was writing after a Telegraph/ICM poll put support for Labour on 37 per cent, five per cent ahead of the Conservatives on 32 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats on 21 per cent. The survey put the Tories up one point and Labour down one since the last ICM poll, taken before Howard's promise to limit immigration last week.

The left-leaning quality Independent on Sunday, however, suggested Crosby's tactic had left Tony Blair rattled.

"Labour plays its own race card to trump Tory migration plan," Andy McSmith and Francis Elliott wrote on its front page.

"Tony Blair will steal Michael Howard's key policy when he launches Labour's own crackdown on illegal immigration next week, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.

"The Prime Minister has insisted that an Australian-style points system to grade would-be migrants seeking a new life in Britain is included in a raft of measures. The deportation of thousands of failed asylum-seekers will also be made a top priority. Labour fears that Mr Howard scored a direct hit with the electorate when he launched the Conservatives' policies on asylum and immigration last week.

"Mr Blair's nervousness over the issue will increase today as a poll conducted for this newspaper shows two-fifths of voters could switch allegiance over the issue..."

The Independent's poll had Labour up one on 40 per cent, the Conservatives down two on 32 per cent and the Liberal Democrats up one to 20 per cent, with support for other parties - including the "I'm not racist, but..." UK Independence Party and the overtly anti-immigrant British National Party - unchanged on eight per cent.

Still, it warned of volatility in the electorate - 37 per cent of those surveyed agreed with the statement: "I would vote for the Liberal Democrats if they had a realistic chance of winning in my constituency". Under Britain's first past the post electoral system, that would give the LibDems a shot to form their first government since World War I.

A third poll, in The Observer, claims Howard is "the most unpopular opposition leader approaching a general election since Michael Foot," the Worzel Gummidge look-alike who lead Labour to disaster in 1983.

As we have observed before, New Labour is a tarnished brand - but Blair remains a master salesman and an expert in claiming the middle ground.

Lynton Crosby, however, is a down and dirty fighter.

Throw in UKIP, throw in the LibDems and we are looking at the most interesting British elections since John Major confounded the pundits back in 1992.

Our PM's key role in the UK election

The Daily Telegraph
Sydney, Australia
by David Penberthy
February 9, 2005

"WE will decide who comes here and the circumstances under which they come." - John Howard, 2001

And so will the English, who are in the middle of a political brawl over the asylum question which is every bit as heated as the debate in Australia in 2001.

Oddly, we're starring in it. It is impossible to pick up a newspaper or turn on the television in London without hearing a reference to the Australian immigration and detention laws, and how they should (or shouldn't) be replicated in the UK.

The impetus for the debate comes from the British Conservatives who according to every poll are worse than unelectable in the lead-up to a general election expected on May 5. They hold 165 seats and need double that to form government. It is almost impossible.

In a move which at best looks politically desperate, the Tories, who have retained John Howard's tactical mastermind Lynton Crosby as campaign director, have opted for a very obvious lift of our immigration laws amid concerns here over Britain's open borders.

Now, Labour has hit back, with Tony Blair's Government announcing its own crackdown, which goes further than the Australian model by making asylum-seekers sit English language tests.

No one is disputing the level of anxiety in Britain over unchecked immigration. In many of the pre-election opinion polls, as many as 70 per cent of voters readily identify immigration as an issue of concern.

The argument, as it was in Australia, is whether the Tories are trying to pander to race prejudice by going after working-class Labor voters with a nudge-nudge campaign against an imagined foreign peril or whether, to use the above famous line from John Howard's 2001 launch, it's simply about countries reserving the right to control the integrity of their borders, especially in a post-September 11 environment.

If John Howard proved that being vilified as a dangerous racist is a path to electoral glory, his namesake, British Tory Leader Michael Howard, is off to a flying start. Indeed, Howard even went out of his way to invite debate as to whether he was racist.

Pointing to his Jewish heritage and the fact that Britain gave his Romanian parents a safe haven after World War II, Howard employed the classic straw man argument by railing against race accusations even before he'd been called a racist.

He did so before he had delivered the speech outlining the new Australian-style immigration policy, which imposes annual caps on the refugee intake, limits family reunions, and targets migrants on the basis of skill shortages in the workforce.

Tactically, it has worked. The Pavlovian response from sections of the media and Labour has been that Howard, despite his background, is a political grub, and all of a sudden he's attracting a sympathy vote.

One of the most striking things about this debate, and our starring role in it, is that it jars with the widely-held assertion on the Australian Left that our standing has been destroyed in the eyes of the world.

Rather ­ and especially in the wake of our widely-reported $1 billion commitment to Indonesia following the tsunami ­ Australia is held up as an example of how to maintain a policy which is firm but humanitarian.

The Sun, which despite its support for British Labour has given the Tories an extensive and favourable run over the asylum policy, declared in one of its editorials that no one is accusing the big-hearted Aussies of being racist, suggesting a degree of detachment from the self-loathing on the letters pages of The Sydney Morning Herald.

But while the mainstream debate is favourable towards our policies, the British Left is so addled in its fury that it has distorted our track record to suit its arguments.

On the morning radio news program on Channel 4, playwright and author Johann Hari made the extraordinary claim that John Howard had used our immigration laws to win the 2001 election by deploying the navy to blow up and murder 350-odd Iraqis off the Australian mainland.

It made for an interesting John Clancy-style reworking of Children Overboard.

But the absent feature of the debate ­ as is so often the case in Australia ­ is the infernally slow processing of asylum-seekers in mandatory detention.

In Britain, as in Australia, the slowness of the system attracts much less criticism than the overblown claims about the harshness of detention centres themselves.

Here, the likes of Johann Hari have swallowed the concentration camp rhetoric misrepresenting our detention centres, which to my knowledge still remain free of gas chambers.

But in a week when it emerged that a mentally ill Australian woman has been held at Baxter for four months, neither the Brits nor Australians should be blase about the time our system takes to assess peoples' bona fides.

It's perfectly fair to detain people who arrive without any documentation but there's no reason why it should take two, three, four, more than five years to do so.

Lynton Crosby: Maestro of the dark arts

The Independent, UK
By Andrew Grice
26 March 2005

Two weeks ago, the grandees of the Conservative Party gathered for a late-night champagne reception in suite 120 of The Grand hotel in Brighton, where the party was holding its spring conference. The man most in demand among the fundraisers and wealthy donors present was Lynton Crosby, the shadowy Australian credited with transforming the Tories' morale and prospects since being appointed their general election campaign director last October.

In his dark pin-striped suit, a smiling and relaxed-looking Crosby could, at first glance, have been mistaken for a senior Tory MP. But when he spoke, Crosby's unmistakable drawl - and his tendency to call people "mate" - marked him out as an outsider. As he sipped vintage Pol Roget, Crosby confessed that he couldn't understand why anyone would go to Brighton for a holiday because there were no sandy beaches - and, typically, cracked a joke about the consequences of sunbathing nude on its shingle beach.

Yet there is much more to 48-year-old Crosby than his one-dimensional public image as a crude, red-necked Aussie who has taken the Conservative Party by the scruff of the neck and enabled it to claw its way back into an apparently lost game by raising issues such as asylum, immigration, illegal Gypsy camps, abortion, burglary and individual cases such as Margaret Dixon, the 69-year-old woman whose shoulder operation had been cancelled several times.

Labour claims that Crosby has imported "dog-whistle politics" into Britain. Used by the Australian Liberals, the Tories' sister party, it means sending a message which - the way a dog whistle is inaudible to humans - is heard only by the people at which it is aimed. Labour also accuses him of running a "wedge" campaign - dividing the support base of the rival party by targeting specific groups with messages on emotional issues such as abortion or immigration.

However the tactics are labelled, there is no doubt that Crosby has got under Labour's skin. Since the pre-election campaign began in January, he has helped the Tories to set the political agenda for a sustained period for the first time since Black Wednesday in 1992. He is credited with turning a rusty party machine into the Rolls-Royce it was in Margaret Thatcher's heyday.

Indeed, Labour has paid Crosby the ultimate back-handed compliment by calling for him to be sent back to Australia. It is also attacking Mark Textor, Crosby's partner in a market research and strategic consultancy, who arrived in Britain this week to lend a hand at Tory HQ, where he is known as "Text". Textor is said to be an advocate of "push polling" - telephoning voters on the pretext of conducting an opinion poll and then implanting damaging rumours about a rival candidate. Textor and two others had to pay £33,000 damages to Susan Robinson, Australian Labor Party candidate in a 1995 by-election, after a survey suggested she favoured abortion up to the ninth month of pregnancy. The Tories say Textor is not being paid and insist that all their polling is carried out within the rules.

A 1992 advert bearing Crosby's name, later withdrawn, said the Australian Labor government had "the blood of victims" such as murdered Cheree Richardson on its hands because of its early release scheme for prisoners. Then there was the damaging controversy over the Tampa, a Norwegian ship carrying 430 refugees, which John Howard turned away during the 2001 election amid claims that the passengers were throwing children overboard in a desperate attempt to gain entry to Australia. The claims were later shown to be wrong - but not until the saga had destabilised Labor and helped Howard to retain power.

The youngest of three children, Crosby was intent on escaping the cereal farming community of Kadina in South Australia in which he grew up. Following a degree at Adelaide University, he had planned a career in the Treasury but, after several jobs, stood for the Liberals in Queensland in 1982. He lost, decided to become a backroom boy, and rose to become the party's state secretary.

Married with two grown-up children, in 1996 he became the Liberals' deputy campaign director, helping John Howard to a surprise victory over Paul Keating, the Labor prime minister. John Howard has said: "There's no better political strategist in Australia." A commentator added: "If the word apparatchik did not exist, it would have to have been invented to describe Lynton Crosby." It is easy to see why Michael Howard wanted to recruit the man who helped his namesake to four successive victories. The Tory leader was deeply impressed by Crosby when he visited Australia as shadow foreign secretary after the 1997 election. They kept in touch and met up when Crosby made occasional visits to Britain. He gave informal advice to the Tories on an ad hoc basis. Last autumn, Mr Howard persuaded Crosby to come on board full time for the election.

His arrival put some noses out of joint - notably those of Lord (Maurice) Saatchi and Liam Fox, the party's co-chairmen, who thought they were running the election show. The early rivalries now seem to have cooled. The stuffy rabbit warren at Conservative Central Office in Smith Square, Westminster, well suited to cabals and plots, has symbolically been replaced by an open-plan office in nearby Victoria Street which Crosby has renamed "Conservative Campaign Headquarters".

Although initially viewed with caution by some new colleagues, Crosby soon won their confidence, giving the staffer who writes the best press release of the day a public herogram. His first priority was to inject some much-needed discipline. He was appalled that Tory frontbenchers ploughed their own furrow and floated policy ideas without thinking them through. With the party apparently heading for a third crushing defeat, Howard suspected that some shadow cabinet members were thinking more about the next Tory leadership election than the general election.

Crosby ordered such indiscipline to stop, and for all announcements to be properly road-tested, approved centrally and to be part of a coherent strategy. He will be appalled by the lack of discipline shown by Howard Flight, the Tory deputy chairman sacked on Thursday for suggesting that the party would opt for deeper spending cuts than it admits.

"Crosby is the perfect man for the job," says one close ally of Howard. "He has no agenda of his own. He is only interested in one thing - winning. He's not thinking about what happens after the election. He'll head back to Australia as soon as it's over."

Crosby is good at raising morale. With no sign of a breakthrough, staff members were gloomy as Christmas approached. He gave an impressive pep talk, telling them to ignore newspaper reports that the Tories could not win, have a good break and to "kick and kick hard" when they returned.

They kicked, and it seems to have worked. The Tories have a spring in their step. Confidence creates a virtuous circle and many Tories now believe they have a fighting chance of achieving a hung Parliament. True, the party has not yet made a breakthrough in the opinion polls. But its private polling in the 160-odd marginal seats where it is concentrating its fire is much more optimistic. "We can win," Crosby told Tory MPs during a Powerpoint presentation on Tuesday. "We have a strategy. This is it. We are sticking to it." Some commentators believe that Crosby knows the Tories cannot win in one go and is putting their energy into winning a smaller number of target seats on 5 May. This could explain the recent emphasis on issues more likely to appeal to natural Tories, in the hope that they turn out in greater numbers than Labour supporters.

When The Times claimed that Crosby had advised Howard the election could not be won, he started legal proceedings. Crosby told the paper that "second place" was not a phrase that entered his vocabulary. It eventually published a correction.

"What makes Lynton tick is winning," says a member of Howard's inner circle. "He has a very good feel for what is happening out there in the country. His instincts are very similar to Michael's. This is not Lynton Crosby's strategy. It is Michael Howard's strategy being executed by Lynton Crosby."

Crosby has won over all sections of the party, not just the right-wingers who are more inclined to preach to the Tory core vote. Alan Duncan, a moderniser and the shadow International Development Secretary, says: "I would be happy to go into the jungle with him. He's entirely a positive influence, a force for good. He has drawn all the elements together into a formidable team. People have found it invigorating."

Some moderates fear the "guerrilla tactics" adopted by Crosby may reinforce the Tories' image as the "nasty party", saying the Tories have left it very late to spell out a positive vision of what they are for. One former minister says: "There are things some of us would do differently. It's not perfect. But it's infinitely better than what we had before - which was no strategy at all. Lynton has been terrific in bringing a proper focus to what we are doing. For the first time for 15 years, we have a serious strategy."

To Westminster journalists used to trading gossip with political apparatchiks, Crosby is an elusive, even reclusive figure. He stands in the shadows at the back of the room during Tory press conferences, and does not do interviews. Friends say he is determined not to "become the story" like Alastair Campbell, his opposite number, recalled to Labour's colours for the election.

Crosby took a risk in signing up for the Tories when their prospects were at a low ebb. But he should now emerge from the election with his reputation intact: even if the Tories don't deprive Labour of its majority, they may yet "win" the campaign - and enough seats to give them hope of returning to power in 2009. Crosby, of course, has not given up hope for 2005. After all, in 1996 he helped an unfancied, apparently dull leader of the opposition unseat a clever, smiling Labor prime minister who was apparently on course for a comfortable victory. Sound familiar?

A LIFE IN BRIEF

Born: 1957, Kadina, South Australia.

Family: Married to Dawn Crosby. Two daughters.

Education: Economics degree, University of Adelaide.

Career: 1982: Official with the Liberal Party in Queensland, after unsuccessful attempt to stand for a seat in the state parliament; 1996; deputy campaign director for Liberals; 1998: campaign director for Liberals and credited with John Howard's second victory; 2001: campaign director for Liberals; 2002: co-founded Crosby-Textor political consultancy; 2004: consultant to John Howard's election campaign.

He says...: "If that's your attitude I suggest you piss off right now." - to a young Tory who suggested Michael Howard's hopes of victory were doomed

They say...: "I would be happy to go into the jungle with him. He's entirely a positive influence, a force for good." - Alan Duncan, shadow International Development Secretary

Playing the fear card

In The Observer on April 3, Nick Cohen writes in Playing the fear card:

[Michael] Howard has acknowledged the power of the global movement by bringing Lynton Crosby from Australia to run his campaign. In the language of the Daily Mail, Crosby is an economic migrant who has sneaked into Britain and taken bread from the mouths of our own snake-oil salesmen. Yet Howard and, indeed, the Mail make an exception in Crosby's case because there isn't a huckster in the land who can match his special skills.

He's won election after election ever since he organised the victory of the Australian conservatives - who call themselves Liberals, but aren't - over an apparently invincible Labour Prime Minister a decade ago. Last time around, he played up a report that boat-people refugees from Saddam's Iraq were throwing their babies into the ocean and forcing the Australian navy to fish them out and give them asylum. It was only after the election was won on a wave of public revulsion against the barbaric aliens that the story was revealed to be - how to put this gently? - a lie.

As an Australian Labour leader warned The Guardian's Sydney correspondent, Crosby and his team 'will play to the basest of opinions in the coming weeks. There's a dark underside to any human being and they pander to people's fears'. His prediction was spot on and the pandering will continue until 5 May.

The standard response to the well-bred contempt that Crosby and his kind arouse is that democrats can't complain if they give the public what it wants. The excuse doesn't wash because, like the media, the world's Crosbys are caught in the paradox of populism. On the one hand, they know that fear sells better than sex and that if you are a newspaper, political party or television channel, the best thing you can do is present yourself as the friend of the common man, ready to take on the 'elitists' who are threatening his way of life. On the other, falling turn-outs, readerships and viewing figures across the developed democracies prove that the more populist politics and the media become, the less popular they are with the common people.

There's no way out of the paradox for the media which are everywhere caught in spirals of decline. What's chilling about Howard is that for politicians of his type falling turn-outs can be a bonus.

The Liberal Democrats, being shot by both sides in this campaign, pointed me to a gigantic study of American elections in the 1990s to explain how. Going Negative by Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar showed how Crosby-style negative campaigning can help you to victory exactly because it depresses turn-out. The trick works like this. You attack your opponent with a ruthless disregard for the truth - Tony Blair is organising the rape of the voters' daughters or whatever. Potential Labour supporters may not vote Tory as a result. But the Labour vote will be depressed if they believe there's a grain of truth in the charge and decide to sit the election out.

Alternatively, voters may not believe a word of the attack propaganda but decide it confirms what they had always suspected: all politicians are vicious creeps and there's no reason to vote for any party. Again, Howard is happy because parties of the right are supported by the wealthy who are most likely to vote. The lower the turnout, the better they do.

At about the same time as Ansolabehere and Iyengar were conducting their study, Christopher Hitchens was interviewing Pat Caddell for an essay on the dismal effects of professional manipulators on democratic life. Caddell, one of the best pollsters in the business, had been hired to run the re-election campaign of a clapped-out Californian senator who was faced with a challenge by a smart, young rival. It seemed an impossible task, but Caddell realised that his man had the advantages of a stronger party machine and core vote. He also noticed that much of the electorate was mildly alienated and hated negative campaigning.

'So I told them, "Run the most negative campaign you can. Drive the voters away. Piss them off with politics."' It worked and the senator won against the odds. 'The day after, I realised what I had done and got out of the business.'

Many - far too many - stay in and they're getting more cunning by the day. New Labour, of course, had planned to run a negative campaign against Howard which might have driven away Tory supporters. But Crosby showed his genius by stopping it when he successfully branded New Labour as anti-semitic. We're now in the situation where Howard plays the race card two or three times a week against gypsies, asylum seekers and immigrants from every country except Australia. Yet when you attack him for it, the race card is played back at you and you are accused of being an anti-semite. This is the racial politics of the politically correct age. As I said, nothing like it has been seen before.

The chief constables complained that Howard was misleading the public about the true level of crime. They were right but won't get anywhere because the media have as much of an interest in exaggerating crime as the Tories.

The Archbishop of Canterbury told all parties: 'Despite the best of intentions, election campaigns can quickly turn into a competition about who can most effectively frighten voters.'

As a well-meaning man, he assumed that operators such as Crosby had good intentions which were momentarily lost in the heat of battle when the truth is that they have spent years calmly and cold-bloodedly refining their techniques. Don't forgive them, your grace, for they know precisely what they do.

Lynton's legacy reaches London

By Christian Kerr
Crikey's political correspondent
April 4, 2005

[....]

Lynton Crosby should do well out of the Tory campaign. They'll most likely get a swing which will, as happens with campaign managers, be interpreted as evidence of Lynton's genius...

But will the Tories find this John Howard dog-whistle stuff returning to haunt them? It's one thing to do it and succeed: winners are grinners... But if the Tories lose, the court of public opinion will be seen to have repudiated 'grubby politics' and there might be some harsh judgment. Crosby can always bugger off back to Australia, where a fawning media still treats him as a hero... but poor [Conservative leader] Michael Howard will remain in England.

[....]

Westminster watchers point out that the huge difference between John Howard in 2001 and Michael Howard in 2005 is that John Howard was in government. As prime minister, he was able to define the national interest in a way that opposition leader Michael Howard will never be able to do in 18 months.

John Howard was able to prevent the public service, especially Defence, offering alternative sources of opinion over the Tampa episode and the entire illegals imbroglio in 2001. Michael Howard can't come up with his own 'Pacific solution' to deal with the sensitive issue of asylum in Britain because the Blair Government will be able to wheel out plenty of 'independent' civil service experts to say "you can't do that".

Read more ...

Finding Anna: when Immigration gets it really, really wrong

Narrogin WA, 7 February 2005 - Astounding is the word, but I guess the story is familiar by now. 'Anna', or as we know now, Cornelia, an Australian citizen, went missing, and based on the fact that she was disoriented, spoke some German, and could not be identified, she ends up in Baxter's punishment block, after 'having been assigned' to DIMIA, the Department of Immigration, for being an alleged 'illegal immigrant'.

PHOTO: Shower cell in Baxter's Isolation compound

Pamela Curr, the campaign coordinator at Melbourne's Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, did not let up on the story after it first came to light - thank you, Pamela! - she alerted me in the first week of January. I made some phone calls, but the story was dismissed by some others, and I was told "it was an old story", and that Anna had already been deported.

In the third week of January I posted Anna's story to the Project SafeCom website. A few days later I added information as it came to hand. Here it is. The several messages are followed first by Andra Jackson's report we managed to get into the press, in The Age (January 31) in Melbourne. Nobody else in the media was interested or got the point. Immediately upon reading Andra Jackson's report, Chris Rau, Anna's sister - who herself is a journalist - got in touch and we discovered how we had locked up an Australian citizen in isolation in Baxter.

No doubt the inevitable inquiry will become a whitewash, but it was an opportunity for all of the media to focus on what goes on inside the Baxter detention centre, and a few million Australians were able to glimpse into the stupidity of Australia's immigration strategies, and just for a second, we could shiver by the thought that this could happen to anyone.

Incommunicado, in isolation, in Baxter, and at the Minister's pleasure

Mentally ill and locked up in a RED ONE isolation cell in Baxter

Anna No. BX8311 - The mystery girl
January 19, 2005

Anna is not an asylum-seeking girl, but the story of how we treat children and human beings is deplorably illustrated through this report. It was posted here on January 19, 2004 when it had been received.

The treatment of this psychotic girl reveals the dark side of Australia's gulags. Unless a person detained signs a form giving permission for a lawyer to act on their behalf, NO-ONE can help. There is no mechanism to assist someone in detention who is not mentally capable of acting in their own best interests.

Anna, a German-speaking girl, has been locked up in Baxter since the 29th November. Baxter is a detention camp in the desert, surrounded by electric fences, razor wire and sensors. Anna is held in Red One compound where she is locked in an isolation cell for 18 hours per day. She is allowed out into the open air for 6 hours per day. Such is her terror of being put back into this cell that it takes 6 guards in full riot gear to manhandle her back into the room and close the heavy door. We have reports from witnesses that the guards are enjoying this aspect of Anna's behaviour.

Other detainees have repeatedly expressed concern about this young girl. They believe that she is mentally ill. Her unpredictable and bizarre behaviour, lack of communication and distress continue to worry fellow detainees. She exhibits psychotic symptoms, screaming and talking to herself at times and screams in terror often for long periods especially when locked in the cell.

Anna has refused to sign a form requesting legal help so no-one is allowed to assist or assess her. We are worried that she may not be mentally competent to act in her best interests. However under the Migration Act no one is allowed to act on her behalf unless she requests this in writing.

The German Consulate have been advised of her situation and condition at least 8 times. Initially they acknowledged that they were aware of her but that she had refused assistance. When it was explained that her mental state might lessen her ability to seek help, they promised to act.

When asked if they have been to see her after a month, they said, no - it is too far and that they have not enough staff! Instead they are waiting for confirmation of her nationality from Germany! This could easily be confirmed by Australian Immigration who will have either her passport or the computer record of her entry into the country with nationality recorded. A five-minute phone call could elicit this information if Australia would provide it.

Now the German consulate say that they do not believe that she is a German citizen. They do not know who she is and have been unable to get information on her from police sources in Germany but say that she is not German!

Who is prepared act on behalf of Anna? She is in danger, alone in Baxter. She is clearly mentally ill and needs care, not incarceration and brute physical force.

All attempts to get a medical or psychiatric opinion or asking the ministers office to intervene have failed.

Please email/fax the Ministers Office demanding that Anna be given the help she needs.

Jan 24, 2005 17:43 PST

We now have a situation where there is one female detainee in Red One. She seems to be very, very sick. She takes her clothes off and wanders around in this all-male compound. Screams obscenities, throws food at other detainees and smashes things. If I didn't know better, I would have thought she was put in Red 1 as a sexual provocation...

She was in the family compound previously.

The male detainees are treating her with respect but it is making their already difficult lives that much harder.

She speaks English.

More on Anna

Mon, 24 Jan 2005 11:01

Despite calls and letters to every agency, Anna is still locked up in Red One without psychiatric care. DIMIA dont know who she is so are keeping her there until they have "established her identity". Now another indignity .... a report from inside.

Some of the guys told me that the guards all gather round to watch a video monitor of Anna taking a shower - there are no curtains. (I don't know how they know this - maybe the guards tell them?) I suppose this is the least of her problems, but another insult to injury.

Anna is the only girl in Red One - the isolation compound. This would be highly inappropriate if she were sane and able to advocate for herself, it is wicked to put a psychotic, mentally unstable girl in the care of bozo guards whose morality and ethics sees nothing wrong with treating Anna as a voyeurs delight- what else are they doing to her to keep themselves amused? We know that excessive force is used to push her back into her cell after the allowed fresh air time is up.

We do not know what circumstances have driven this girl into mental illness. We do not know if she has been trafficked into the country. All we know is that she has now been locked up in Baxter for two months AND NO ONE CARES!!!

Please ring your local member and Peter Mc Gauran's office expressing your concern and outrage at this treatment of a young girl.

Speaking to Anna

Note from a Red One detainee

I write this letter with shocking mind. I just return from Church service. There I met Anna. Initially I scared to talk to her hoping that she would ignore and misbehave due to her condition.

In the Church service, she behaves very strangely very similar to downed mentally. I was worried that no one wanted to consult her or need to company her. Lately, I went and introduce myself and talk to her. She very gently asked to sit down in a bench and talk to me. Actually, she very nicely welcomed me. Then I understood that she need friends to talk and pass time. This treatment makes her situation worse. It is not hard me to understand how much pressure GSL put on her. There she talk lot about India and told that she happy to watch Indian movie. Further, about Indian culture.

One of my friend told me that they have signed a letter her to get lawyer assistance. I suppose what you wanted to do have already happened. Her memory also not bad but it seems this detention treatment made her worse. When we return from Church service, Van has come to bring her back to compound. She restricted to get in saying that she too need to walk like others and with them. I felt it is very fair and genuine request as human. We do the same when GSL restricted our moments. That was the point I understood she need company. I don?t know what to do but felt very bad as human. We also not in good mentality but when we see worsen than us hard to bear. Still feel sympathy on them, which has remained with us yet.

Mystery woman held at Baxter could be ill

The Age
By Andra Jackson
January 31, 2005

International efforts are being made to establish the identity of a young German woman held at Baxter detention centre in circumstances that have angered refugee advocates.

Other Baxter detainees drew attention to the woman after becoming concerned about her welfare. They believe she may be mentally ill.

"Anna" has been at Baxter, in South Australia, for nearly three months after north Queensland police handed her over to immigration officials in November.

It is believed she would not communicate and had no passport or identifying documents. Police were left with several possible names for the woman, believed to be aged about 18.

She has been locked in a Baxter isolation cell for 18 hours a day, according to refugee advocates. "They (detainees) believe that she is mentally ill. Her unpredictable and bizarre behaviour, lack of communication and distress continue to worry them," said Pamela Curr of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne.

"She exhibits psychotic symptoms, screaming and talking to herself at times, and screams in terror often for long periods especially when locked in the cell."

The woman is allowed out for six hours a day. "Such is her terror of being put back into this cell that it takes six guards in full riot gear to manhandle her back into the room and close the heavy door," Ms Curr said.

Visitors have been unable to get a response from her.

Refugee advocates say the woman clearly needs psychiatric care rather than incarceration.

But under the Migration Act no one is allowed to act on her behalf unless she requests it in writing. She has now been persuaded to do this.

Refugee advocates have asked Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone to arrange an independent assessment of the woman.

The German consul-general in Melbourne, Thomas Kessler, said a representative of the honorary German consul in Queensland visited her when she was in police custody but was unable to verify that she was German. The consulate was given an alias and an address to check in Germany, but these proved dead ends.

"We have been trying for three months now to verify that she is German," Mr Kessler said.

The consulate is in a bind: on one hand, while it may feel "a humanitarian impetus" to try and help the woman, "according to international law, we can only intervene if it is established that she is German . . . but proof of that is not available".

Ms Curr said this left her fate in the hands of the Immigration Department and Baxter's management, GSL.

A spokeswoman for acting Immigration Minister Peter McGauran said the minister could not comment on individual cases.

Jack Smit, a spokesman for refugee advocacy group Project SafeCom, condemned her treatment. "This is about someone being held incommunicado and it is a breach of medical standards because she should be in a psychiatric hospital rather than in Baxter."

He has put the case on his website and has already had one query from Germany.

A newspaper appeal is to be made in Germany to anyone who has a missing relative or friend matching the woman's description.

Link to the article in The Age

Project SafeCom News & Updates

For more news see also our newsletters:
• News & Updates 6 February 2005 | • News & Updates 7 February 2005

• News & Updates 7 February 2005 (2) | • News & Updates 8 February 2005

• News & Updates 8 February 2005 (2) | • News & Updates 9 February 2005

• News & Updates 10 February 2005 (1) | • News & Updates 10 February 2005 (2)

• News & Updates 11 February 2005 | • News & Updates 12 February 2005 (1)

• News & Updates 12 February 2005 (2)

My sister lost her mind, and Australia lost its heart

Sydney Morning Herald
February 7, 2005

Cornelia Rau, a mentally ill Australian woman, spent months locked in an immigration detention centre. Her sister, Chris Rau, and brother-in-law, John MacDonald, describe her living hell.

For the past 10 months Cornelia has been locked up - for six in a Brisbane prison and four in South Australia's Baxter detention centre for illegal immigrants. Her crimes: having a mental illness, giving authorities false identities and speaking a foreign language.

She had discharged herself from Manly Hospital's psychiatric unit last March and disappeared. The NSW police had been looking for her since August. We feared her dead, and the worst part was not knowing how, where or why. On Thursday night we learnt she was in Baxter. Parts of the mystery were solved, only to raise more questions.

John Howard promised an inquiry yesterday but refused to apologise, citing legal reasons. But one question we can answer for the Government is the litigation one: our parents definitely do not intend to sue and will write privately to the Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone. Now it is the Government's turn to provide some answers.

Before Cornelia became mentally ill she was a vibrant, gregarious, empathetic person who loved her work as a Qantas flight attendant because it fulfilled her restless nature. People who met her commented on her talents: multilingual, artistic, tertiary-educated, beautiful. She seemed to have it all.

In 1998 she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but could still function well enough to work for several years before she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Eleven months ago we had already lost much of the old Cornelia, but no matter how dire the circumstances, she always knew who she was and contacted us when she was in trouble.

But that has changed. Where once she would seek hugs and reassurance from us, now she is telling nurses at Glenside, the Royal Adelaide Hospital's psychiatric wing, that she would rather go back to Baxter than be hospitalised. She is very determined her name is Anna Schmidt and that her passport is in Baxter, a senior nurse told us at the weekend.

The nurse said she could understand how Cornelia could be mistaken for a German because she spoke English with an accent (not usually the case) and insisted she wanted to return to Germany.

We are guided by Glenside staff's advice, which is to wait and see how her condition changes before we can go and see her. She has obviously lost all touch with reality, and what might have started out as subterfuge in Queensland last April has morphed into a dissociative state. Over the past seven years we and our parents, Eddie and Veronika, have helplessly watched Cornelia deteriorate into a secretive, suspicious, frightened and unpredictable person whose behaviour was at times bizarre. She has been in and out of hospitals to manage her condition, which she exacerbated because, perversely, she is health-conscious and refuses medication due to its side effects.

Our greatest fear is that these months of incarceration - any restrictions on freedom are anathema to her - have irretrievably tipped her over the edge and we'll never find her again.

But John Howard can rest easy: we are not litigious and are not yet so Americanised that we would jump at the chance to sue anyone for squillions. We don't blame him, Amanda Vanstone, assorted officials or anyone individually for the damage done to Cornelia, incalculable damage beyond price. (It would be nice, though, if there were an apology, financial assistance with accommodation in Adelaide and follow-up treatment for Cornelia.)

Our parents want to emphasise how helpful, beyond the call of duty, they found the Manly detectives investigating her missing-persons case and the administrators in South Australia's mental health system who organised her transfer to Glenside.

No one is immune from mistakes. With hindsight, our greatest mistake was not registering her with the police until August. There were several reasons for this, one of which was that my parents had already reported her as missing several months before her stay in the Manly psychiatric unit, after which she was found within two days. We did not want to be alarmist this time. The police are overburdened with mental health cases, which they are often untrained to handle, and we thought Cornelia would contact us as she had in the past.

Also, Veronika's mother in Germany died during that time.

Again, with hindsight, the improbable idea that she could have been in an immigration detention centre slipped under everyone's radar, ours included.

But now we move on to the real questions: How could the system allow Cornelia to suffer such horror? Are there others who have similarly suffered? And what must be done to ensure it never happens again?

Mr Howard has promised the inquiry but the portents aren't promising. Not when the Immigration Department's responses have been evasive and misleading. The media were told on Friday that the department was assisting us in being reunited with Cornelia. No one from the department has contacted us.

Then there are the Government's claims that Cornelia had been receiving medical treatment. An assessment of her (by whom?) is said to have been made (when?) in Brisbane in a psychiatric facility (which one?) where she was deemed as not meeting the criteria for mental illness (what criteria?). One can only assume that when Immigration assesses detention centre inmates its criteria for mental illness are tougher than those at Glenside, where doctors promptly put her in the intensive care, high-dependency ward under heavy sedation.

Which brings us to the shameful double standard Cornelia's case illustrates. While she was an unnamed illegal immigrant, the only treatment she received for mental illness was longer periods in lock-up as punishment for bad behaviour. From the information coming out of Baxter, the lock-ups led to a worsening of her condition and worse behaviour.

Yet, magic! As soon as she became an Australian resident she was whisked away to a teaching hospital, seen by consultant psychiatrists and medicated. During which leg of her flight from Baxter to Adelaide did she suddenly gain the basic human right to medical treatment?

Over the years we have heard of immigration detainees being denied access to psychiatric care, some with horrific mental illnesses and suicidal tendencies. How many cases like Cornelia's will it take until they receive the care they deserve, or more importantly, are taken out of conditions which in themselves lead to mental illnesses?

Another point. It has been the kindness of strangers that has allowed Cornelia to survive and ultimately be identified. First, the Cape York Aboriginal community took her in. In the past few months it has been asylum seekers in Baxter, who agitated on her behalf until the story appeared in the Herald last week, which led to her identification.

Amanda Vanstone is right. Authorities are in a difficult position when someone refuses to identify themselves and even gives false aliases. Luckily, we still live in a country where we are not held down while information is beaten or drugged out of us.

There are no simple answers, just as there is no simplistic question of blame or a scapegoat.

But one logical area to address - as the South Australian Premier, Mike Rann, pointed out - is the lack of co-ordination in our federal system. When Cornelia was registered as a missing person we had no idea this information was limited to NSW. We assumed there was a federal register linked to every police database in the country.

We also assumed she would be automatically picked up if she entered the prison system, as she did apparently for six months in Brisbane without being charged with a crime. Also, how did her age, 39, come to be estimated at only 18?

Our nightmare, which is only just beginning, is that we might get Cornelia back physically but, through the events of the past 10 months, the person we love may be lost to us forever.

Chris Rau is a former journalist with The Age. John MacDonald, her husband, is a reporter with Fairfax Community Newspapers.

Link to the article in The Sydney Morning Herald

The flawed system that failed 'Anna'

The Age
Federal politics
Michelle Grattan
February 6, 2005

Australia's detention regime is endless in its ability to shock. And the same goes for federal immigration ministers.

Amanda Vanstone's response to the revelation that a seriously mentally ill woman, Cornelia Rau, had been incarcerated in Baxter and elsewhere for months, on suspicion that she was an illegal immigrant, is extraordinary. Vanstone knows the Government is on the back foot. But she is defiant.

Let us consider what the minister says about the case of "Anna" as she called herself, before her identity was established (no thanks to the Government).

Anticipating attacks, Vanstone condemns in advance as "opportunistic" criticism of those who "have worked to care for the woman and determine her identity".

Presumably she means that critics will use the case to back up earlier reflections on the detention system or to make a political point. That's irrelevant - strong criticism of the handling of this case is called for. The failure to identify the woman quickly, or to properly diagnose her condition, is an appalling indictment of the system.

Refugee advocate Pamela Curr, alerted by Baxter detainees that the woman was behaving in a highly disturbed way, contacted Vanstone's office in December. She was given the answer she has become used to - "we don't discuss individual cases". In January she made another call, talking to Paul Giles, one of Vanstone's advisers, to get the same response.

It was only after the story was reported by The Age's Andra Jackson last week that the identity of the woman was established - by her own family realising that this was probably the relative for whom they had been searching for months.

Jackson's story reported the woman appeared to be mentally ill and quoted Curr saying "she exhibits psychotic symptoms, screaming and talking to herself at times, and screams in terror often for long periods especially when locked in the cell". A spokeswoman for acting immigration minister Peter McGauran said - you've guessed it - that he could not comment on individual cases.

Vanstone has a duty of care over everyone who is in detention. Her office had also been alerted, in a way that should have led to immediate intensive investigation and identification of the woman. It has been a monumental failure.

Vanstone urges us "to consider the difficulties facing authorities in establishing the identity of someone who provides false information, provides no documentation and is either unwilling or unable to assist in confirming identity".

Really? What, one might ask, are police facing all the time, when confronted by criminals who won't tell them what they've done or, sometimes, who they are? Police and Immigration Department officials are supposed to have investigative skills.

The Queensland police interviewed this woman soon after she escaped from hospital last March. Local Aborigines who found her in North Queensland were concerned by her strange behaviour, and took her to the police. The police referred her to Immigration in early April after, Vanstone says, she told them she was a German citizen here on a temporary visa. Her story was that she had arrived in Melbourne around mid-March. She gave false names and history.

Vanstone says Immigration talked with Commonwealth and state agencies, had consular representatives visit her, and made "contact with the governments of several countries". Australian representatives overseas made "checks".

Why then, did Immigration miss picking her up from the missing persons list? Rau was reported missing around August and the NSW police appealed for help late last year.

We read all sorts of great stories about how missing people are traced. Here is someone who was on a list (obviously under a different name but there were photos and a mental health history filed with the police), and detained by the Commonwealth. Yet in all the checking that Vanstone claims was done, the listing and the detainee were never connected, until the family contacted police last week and police contacted Immigration at Baxter.

Then we have the issue of the medical assessment of Rau and her treatment while in the care of the Immigration Department.

Vanstone declares: "From the moment she came into Immigration detention she was provided with medical care, including psychiatric care which ultimately led to her admission to a psychiatric facility in Brisbane for assessment. This found that, while having some behavioural problems, she did not meet the criteria for a mental illness."

A group of Aborigines who had limited contact with the woman recognised she had problems that were serious enough to hand her over to the police. The detainees in Baxter knew she was in a bad way.

Yet the doctor or doctors who saw her under the aegis of the Immigration Department diagnosed her as just having "some behavioural problems". Maybe Immigration needs new doctors. It is alarming that serious mental illness can't be distinguished from "behavioural problems" - perhaps those looking at these things are too conditioned to people in detention being driven to strange behaviour.

Vanstone says Cornelia Rau's "is a tragic case, but one that has been resolved, giving comfort to the woman's family".

It doesn't give much comfort to her family however, to know that Cornelia has suffered months of anguish that should have been avoided. Nor can it give comfort to the community to know that someone can be "lost", Kafka-like, in the system, or that when a minister's office is alerted to a problem, nothing much seems to happen.

In her statement Vanstone notably makes no reference to the contacts made with her office, and this is the first of many questions that she should answer, before or when parliament resumes this week.

Just for starters: Was the minister personally alerted after Curr rang in December and January? Did she get regular updates on the case - if so, when and from whom? Why wasn't Cornelia identified from the missing persons list? How many doctors examined her in Brisbane and Baxter and what is their explanation for apparently misdiagnosing her mental state? Has the minister called for a report on alleged mistreatment of Cornelia while she was held in the Brisbane women's prison, which Immigration uses because it has no facility in that city? The claims, made by a group which advocates for women in prison, are that she was restrained in body belts and handcuffs, and put in a rubber room.

One of the most frightening aspects of this affair is that, according to Curr, everything the Immigration Department did was lawful. The system has failed totally, but lawfully. The law requires a person to prove that he or she is a citizen or resident: Cornelia did not do so, presumably because of fear of being taken back to the psychiatric hospital from which she had escaped or because she was not in fit mind.

One of the difficulties for refugee advocates in this case was that a lawyer could not become involved until Cornelia signed a form allowing that, which she did only recently. Things are loaded against someone who is helpless, for one reason or another.

The Rau case brings back under scrutiny a detention system in which many injustices have been done.

A most obvious current one is the treatment of failed asylum-seeker Peter Qasim, a Kashmiri from Indian-occupied territory who has been detained for more than six years. He has suffered depression and has spent some time in psychiatric care. He has said he is willing to be repatriated but he doesn't have papers and the Indian Government will not accept him. Vanstone's spokesman says there are "still identity issues" with Qasim and efforts continue to be made to secure his "genuine" co-operation on these. The Government is within its legal rights in keeping him incarcerated. But on any grounds of morality or decency this man should be let out and allowed to stay in Australia. He has no security or character issues that can be raised against this. The case is a scandal. As Adele Horin, writing recently in The Sydney Morning Herald says, "Qasim should be a household name in Australia".

There has been a lot of talk recently about how, now that the Government has control of the Senate, it will be the back bench that puts pressure on Howard over a variety of issues. There is already a ginger group on tax. It is time that some of those who have been deeply troubled over the years by the Government's policy on asylum seekers, children in detention, temporary protection visas and the like took up the Qasim case. In the past, the pressure of MPs such as Petro Georgiou, John Forrest and others has led to some limited wins. They should familiarise themselves with the Qasim case, raise the issue in the party room, and press for his release. If the dreadful experience of Cornelia Rau refocuses attention on what else is happening at Baxter, it will have achieved something positive.

Link to the article in The Age

Nobody cared

The Advertiser
By Laura Anderson and Paul Starick
07feb05

The state's mental health chief threatened to personally assess Cornelia Rau's medical state after the Immigration Department resisted his calls for appropriate evaluation.

Mental Health Services director Jonathan Phillips pushed unsuccessfully for two weeks for a psychiatric assessment of Ms Rau - an Australian woman who was improperly kept in detention for 10 months.

As condemnation of Ms Rau's treatment grew yesterday, Dr Phillips said he first demanded federal authorities assess Ms Rau's mental state two weeks ago - almost a fortnight before she was released from Port Augusta's Baxter Detention Centre.

Department officials resisted his calls for an additional psychiatric assessment, forcing an angry Dr Phillips to threaten last Thursday to personally conduct the medical check if it was not done immediately.

But immigration officials transferred Ms Rau, 39, to Port Augusta Hospital later that day. She was taken to Glenside Hospital the next day for treatment for schizophrenia.

"I was so concerned on Thursday last week that I made it clear to the Rural and Remote Mental Health Service that I would do it myself if necessary," Dr Phillips said.

"I made the point that the assessment had to be done in keeping with protocol. That is very unusual for me.

"And obviously the person was assessed that afternoon."

Dr Phillips said that based on Ms Rau's behaviour, he was extremely concerned she was not diagnosed as having a mental illness. The Immigration Department has said that medical assessments of Ms Rau had been conducted at Baxter by doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists.

"I am a psychiatrist and that degree of disturbance ... would have alerted me as a psychiatrist that she would have been likely to have a psychotic mental illness," Dr Phillips said. "My concern was apparently the woman had been assessed by people within the Baxter centre and had been thought to have a personality problem, rather than a definable psychotic disorder.

"I was not not happy to accept that."

Prime Minister John Howard has ordered an inquiry into the situation, branding it "unsatisfactory" and "regrettable".

Ms Rau was listed as missing for 10 months after leaving the psychiatric unit at Sydney's Manly Hospital.

She was released from Baxter on Friday after being held there and at a Brisbane women's correctional centre since suffering a psychotic episode in Queensland in April.

She is being treated at Glenside Hospital, where her family says she remains "completely out of touch with reality" and is continuing to insist she is a German woman called Anna Schmidt.

Premier Mike Rann yesterday said Ms Rau deserved an apology, while refugee advocates demanded the resignation of Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone. In a written statement, Senator Vanstone said the inquiry would involve "all aspects of the case" Ms Rau's sister, Christine Rau, said her family was still concerned for her, despite her treatment at Glenside.

"She is completely out of touch with reality," she said.

"She is still insisting her name is Anna Schmidt and that her passport is in Baxter and that she wants to return to Germany.

"We are concerned about her. She is refusing to see us."

Dr Phillips said he wanted assurances that the situation would not be repeated.

"No matter where a person is, if they are a citizen or non-citizen, an assessment needs to be timely, thorough and carried out by a person with the necessary skills," he said.

Refugee advocate Pamela Curr, from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said Ms Rau's situation illustrated that "once people are in Baxter, they stand outside all human rights, laws and protections".

The Advertiser understands there have been concerns about Ms Rau within the SA Health Department since early December. A Central Northern Adelaide Health Service spokesman last night confirmed that her case file would be reviewed today.

British resident Eric Upton, detained in Baxter after overstaying his visa, was in a cell next to Ms Rau for three weeks and said he was appalled at her treatment. Staff, he said, would "laugh at her".

"They thought it was quite funny," he said.

Link to the article in The Australian

Cornelia Rau case shows need for independent psychiatrists' Baxter access

Project SafeCom Inc.
Media Release
Monday February 7 2005 6:30am WST
For Immediate Release
No Embargoes

"This week, the Minister responsible for asylum seekers and detainees as well as for Australian Indigenous people, should bow her head in shame if not in disgrace: it was exactly those two population groups she is supposed to serve on behalf of Australians, who brought Cornelia Rau's case out of the secrecy of the government-run dungeons into the public arena."

First, it was Aboriginal people in Queensland who could spot 'a mile away' that Cornelia had a mental condition, while detainees in the Baxter detention centre carried oversize t-shirts that covered up a Cornelia who took her clothes off when she was let out of her maximum isolation cell for a few hours each day".

"The statement issued this weekend by Senator Amanda Vanstone for the Immigration Department, declaring that Cornelia Rau underwent psychiatric assessment while held in the Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre and was not suffering a mental illness is an indictment on the Minister: Cornelia was in the care of DIMIA while this assessment was conducted."

"It seems that Indigenous people as well as the long-term detainees, many of whom are on the verge of a mental breakdown themselves, have more sense of what constitutes a mental illness than Vanstone's so-called 'experts'."

"The events surrounding Cornelia Rau confirm that the repeated calls for independent medical access and psychiatric assessments by for example Dr Louise Newman, spokesperson for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, assessments made by professionals who are unencumbered by government interests or the agenda of covering up the shocking conditions in detention centres such as Baxter that lead to mental breakdowns in the first place, are sorely needed."

"This government stops the United Nations from having a look-in at its detention centres. It forbids Amnesty International from 'uncontrolled' visits. It forbids journalists, who serve "the public's right to know", from freely entering its hell-holes, unless it can 'sanitize' those visits. Now, the public had another opportunity of piecing a story together about what shonky affairs go on inside its detention centres".

"There have been nine deaths as a result of Australia's detention centre policies in the last couple of years. Dozens of detainees, many of them Iranians, hover on the verge of mental illness. In December, during the Iranians' hunger strikes, Dr Louise Newman called Baxter a de facto psychiatric hospital."

"Time has come for the Minister and the government to hand over the key of the hell holes to doctors and psychiatrists who are qualified, and to those who are not interested in cover-ups."

"We may then also find other people we don't know anything about, such as overseas and Asian students with limited English language skills, who innocently breached their visa conditions, and who have been thrown into these dungeons by the Minister, and we would like to know how many there are, and how long they are there, and in what conditions they are held."

Mentally ill Aussie in detention centre

The Australian
Andrew McGarry
February 05, 2005

A MENTALLY ill Australian woman spent 10 months in immigration detention, including extended periods in an isolation cell, after authorities failed to identify her as a missing person.

Cornelia Rau, a 39-year-old former Qantas flight attendant, was placed in detention last April after she was found by Queensland police in a psychotic state, apparently speaking German.

Ms Rau was released yesterday from Baxter detention centre, near Port Augusta in South Australia, and taken to Glenside psychiatric hospital in Adelaide after being identified by her family from photos of her in detention.

Refugee advocates claimed Ms Rau had been held in Baxter's Red One isolation compound, where her psychotic behaviour had distressed other detainees.

Her sister Chris said yesterday Cornelia had been a patient at the psychiatric unit at Manly Hospital in Sydney when she disappeared last March. "The thing she hated was being in hospital," Ms Rau said.

"I can only suppose she didn't identify herself because she didn't want to be put in a mental health facility, but she ended up being locked up in a far worse place."

Ms Rau, who came to Australia from Germany when she was 18 months old, was found by a group of Aborigines at Coen in north Queensland on March 31 last year.

They were concerned about her disturbed, psychotic state and took her to the police for her own safety.

She did not identify herself to police and spoke only in German. The police assumed she was an illegal immigrant and handed her over to immigration officials on April 5.

She was held at the Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre for several months. She was transferred to Baxter four months ago.

The Immigration Department said it had gone to great lengths to establish the identity of Ms Rau.

"All the information provided by the woman led the department to