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2009

26 June 2009: The 2009 Detention Debt Bill Atonement speeches - Four Liberal backbenchers dissent with their Opposition party and speak out about the Government's Migration Amendment Bill 2009. Liberal Petro Georgiou was close to tears as he argued for the "dehumanising" charges to be dropped, and Russell Broadbent stated in his speech: 'God forgive me that I was part of the parliament that did that, which caused so much distress to so many families over such a long period of time.'

18 June 2009: Christine Milne: The climate nightmare is upon us - Greens Environment spokesperson Christine Milne's June 2009 address at the Press Club: "It is not a lack of climate science that holds back action. It is how we respond to the challenge that the science poses, and that is deeply cultural. It is the values that we bring to bear, what we think is good for us, our religious underpinnings, our view of power and opportunity, of what is possible in the world and Australia's place in it. All these value judgements stop us from embracing change."

16 June 2009: Elder Mr Ward: Coroner delivers damning findings - West Australian Coroner Alastair Hope delivers his damning report on the death of Indigenous Elder Mr Ward. This page brings together some resources, links, documentation and media items around the release by the WA Coroner of his Inquiry Report into Mr Ward's death on 12 June 2009.

2 June 2009: Mohammed and Juliet: A Modern Tragedy - Finally, here's the full 2003 text transcript of SBS reporter Sophie McNeill's Award-winning documentary, as screened on SBS Insight Television on 8 May, 2003. The transcript was posted to this website because its original version has been deleted from the SBS website.

18 May 2009: Kevin Rudd's vile band of people smugglers - Kevin Rudd, with his media remarks, had escalated the issue of people smuggling, and remarkably, a crack appeared in their vileness. For the first time in Australian history, media opinion started to turn against his line, and reporters and opinion writers started to open the issue and, almost unaware of it, started to 'humanise' people smugglers. Thank you, Prime Minister!

10 April 2009: Privatising human rights abuses with Serco Australia? - Given its history where its 'jailed clients' abused or died in custody, UK jail contractor Serco is not an organisation that should have been chosen to jail Australia's refugees. But that's what seems to happen: the Immigration Minister announced in April 2009 that this company's Australian subsidiary Serco Australia is his preferred tenderer to run Australia's Immigration centres...

5 April 2009: Addicted to Growth: the Economy's Road to Perdition - "The wheels have fallen off the wagon, but the world's politicians are fiercely divided between those who feed the monster billions of dollars at a scoopful in hope that it recovers, and those who think that it's just the wheel bearings that have run hot. Both of the groups are prisoners of the paradigm or their own making that has kept them elected: promising growth, better welfare, more jobs and better services."

28 March 2009: Earth Hour: Shhhh, we're in the dark in Australia ... - Can a website participate in Earth Hour? Well, at Project SafeCom we say 'Yes We Can'. If you see this page when you visit safecom.org.au, Earth Hour has arrived, and none of the more than 1,000 pages can be accessed: all of them point to this page.

21 March 2009: Cleansing out the Internet you would never see - "[Communications Minister Stephen] Conroy's filter proposal represents the greatest assault on free speech and an open society in the country's history. By its very nature, it is categorical and self-concealing, far beyond the sleazy and capricious 'sedition' laws of the Howard government."

20 March 2009: The Inquest into Mr Ward's death - The damning indictments against Global Solutions Ltd, the company Australia uses to lock up refugees and detainees in immigration detention, the same company that has a contract for prisoner transportation in Western Australia, grew rapidly as the Inquest into Mr Ward's death progressed. This page brings together the media reportage about the inquest.

17 March 2009: Thanks for everything, Jean Oates and Nancy Cooper! - A page that remembers two fiercely devoted advocates who left us: As dedicated as Jean was, was Nancy Cooper, who acted as the secretary of the Whyalla RAR group, and who together with Jean and many others, carried a deep commitment to visiting all "their friends" in the Woomera and Baxter detention centres, and who wrote and wrote and wrote to their politicians in an effort to change the policies and politics in Canberra during the Howard years.

14 March 2009: What if no one had spoken out against this policy? - 'The Rise of Asylum Seeker and Refugee Advocacy in Australia'. By Diane Gosden, "...this paper examines the rise of an asylum seeker and refugee advocacy movement in Australia in recent years. A harsh onshore refugee policy with mandatory detention has existed for more than a decade, and had been contested by small numbers of concerned individuals and core refugee, human rights, professional and church groups."

9 March 2009: Kevin Rudd's The Monthly Essay: The Global Financial Crisis - Kevin Rudd established himself in 2006 as a philosopher and thinker on social issues with an article about John Howard's views on the economy with the essay "Howard's Brutopia". For a second time, also in the respected magazine The Monthly, Rudd wrote about Politics and Religion, and about his respect for Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology - just a month later. This is his third contribution, of February 2009.

3 March 2009: The jailing of Daniel Snedden: an Australian gets jailed for years, without charges - "Any Australian can lose his liberty, be put in custody along with other criminals, can be removed from this country for however long it takes in another country that the government has accepted as an extradition country and it is said that that is not punishment and he never has an opportunity for a judicial officer of this nation to have a look, even on the papers, as to whether or not..."

 ::: E-ACTION ALERT ::: March 2009: Time for Climate change action: Tell Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong! - Kevin Rudd's 5% reduction targets are not enough, Australia's worst polluters should stop getting obscene subsidies from Australian taxpayers, and it's high time to tell the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Climate change Minister Penny Wong, and Peter Garrett MP, that we need some "real" climate change policies!

26 February 2009: Australia's Climate Action Summit: Time for Climate change action - Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong avoid the issues, while thousands of people respond by 'Encircling The Parliament' ... The Rudd government's climate change policies, strategies and carbon reduction targets may well have been announced with much fanfare, but most of the announcements have amounted to a big sell-out to the polluters and they seem to pander to ....

  22 February 2009: The Hazaras of Afghanistan - Some say they descended from the Moguls and from Ghengis Khan. Others argue that they were the ruling group in Afghanistan before the British came, who ordered the undermining of these rulers, starting the continuous period of oppression. Here's a documentary by the BBC about the Hazaras, now the most trampled group in the country - and amongst those who still need protection under the UN Refugee Convention.

20 February 2009: Australia takes its sun for granted - How Australia ignores its abundant sun and its energy contribution to a post-carbon society. An investigation into the Australian government's avoidance to use its main asset, the sun, and how it could power much, if not all of Australia's energy needs. Australia is not just avoiding its role in building a post-carbon economy, but more disturbingly, that it keeps itself beholden to the lobbying powers of the polluting industries that use coal as its core energy source.

19 February 2009: Black Saturday 2009: Reflections after the Victorian Fires - "It's possible some people may feel upset by the link being made in the media here and overseas between bushfires and climate change. I understand that people are shocked with grief. But there are many things we can and must learn from this tragedy, and one of them is this: The climate has changed. Our 5 per cent by 2020 carbon pollution reduction target is no longer politically viable. We are facing a climate emergency and [are] running out of time."

19 February 2009: A Possie in Aussie: Nayano Taylor-Neumann's response to Tampa - Since Tampa 2001, thousands of ordinary Australians stood up and baulked at the treatment of 'unannounced and boat-faring' arrivals on our shore. This page is the story of one of those advocates and activists: Nayano Taylor-Neumann from South Australia. She became a worker at a settlement program, a Blogger and a PhD student. And she became one of Project SafeCom's supporters and members.

7 February 2009: Linda Briskman at Project SafeCom's 2008 AGM - "Organisations like Project SafeCom are not out to win the popularity stakes with government; like other organisations the emphasis is on bringing about an inclusive society where human rights are not violated and where human rights tenets are to the forefront of our thinking."

• Project SafeCom Annual Report 2008 - The End of Howard and the start of Kevin07 may have been inspiring to millions, but on boat-faring asylum seekers, indigenous issues and climate change there's been more spin than substance, and more caution than legislative and political courage, because of unrelenting pressure by 'the wrong' lobby groups . (PDF File 802 Kb)

25 January 2009: President Barack Obama's Inauguration Speech - Barack Obama, America's 44th president, was inaugurated on January 20, 2009 as the first Afro-American president in US history. Here's his historic inauguration speech, both as a video and in the full transcript, followed by an excerpt of Guy Rundle's latest book 'Down to the Crossroads'.

 ::: E-ACTION ALERT ::: January 2009: Gaza Petition: Letter to Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith - 18 Israelis were killed as a result of Hamas rockets in the last eight years, yet in the last few weeks the Israeli army has killed almost 900 people in the Gaza area, amongst them at least a hundred women and more than 230 children. Australia should have a firm and unwaivering commitment upholding democracy, international law and human rights. This commitment includes the capacity to be 'frank and fearless', also to those countries that show destructive and aggressive behaviour.

11 January 2009: Israel, your local and lethal bully: the 2009 onslaught on Gaza - 18 Israelis have been killed by Hamas rockets in the last 8 years, yet in 15 days in early 2009 854 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza - 236 children and 100 women - and 3680 have been injured. Israel is indiscriminately slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza and acts like a heinous Holocaust perpetrator.

11 January 2009: Rudd government opens John Howard's Gulag - The horrendous centre suddenly had to be opened. In early December 2008, just before the Immigration Minister Chris Evans was due to retire on his Christmas holidays, there was talk in the immigration department, duly 'leaked' to the media, that "another seventy" arrivals should be expected soon, and a week after this information became public, just before Christmas, it was announced that the 800-bed Gulag was open for business.

9 January 2009: Broadcasting our news alerts - In August 2002 we sent our first and eleborate News alert, followed by another one in November that year. We repeated the initiative when country-wide outrage erupted as a result of the Anti-terrorism Bill 2005. From 2009, after the creation of our new database platform by David Coulter, we've started to use the pure HTML News alerts again to broadcast our news and progress periodically.

8 January 2009: Climate Troubles: the condemnation of Australia's Climate targets - The Rudd government's 'softly-softly' 5% targets have been roundly condemned by NGO's, climate scientists - and also by Ross Garnaut, Australia's climate change consultant, who was commissioned to write the papers, and now the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Professor James Hansen, has written an open letter to Barack Obama about Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong's targets.

2008

16 November 2008: Petro Georgiou: The limits of tolerance - diversity, identity and cohesion - "We regressed over the last decade but not because the vision was flawed or outdated. Our society has changed greatly in the decades succeeding the initial implementation of multicultural policies and non-discriminatory immigration policies, but the principles mapped then endure."

5 November 2008: The global economic crisis as an opportunity for transformation - In Beijing during the Asia-Europe People's Forum, the Transnational Institute and Focus on the Global South took stock of the meaning of the unfolding global economic crisis and the opportunity it presents to put into the public domain some of the inspiring and feasible alternatives many have been working on for decades. This statement represents the collective outcome of our Beijing nights.

 ::: E-ACTION ALERT ::: November 2008: Petition letter: Re-opening the Nauru Deportation files - an e-alert to Chris Evans following the screening on SBS-TV of the Edmund Rice Centre's documentary 'A Well Founded Fear'. "All deportation cases need to be re-opened, because we are obliged to undertake a 'rescue mission' to retrieve those who we deported, cajoled or pressured to return."

 :::NEW PUBLICATION::: 3 November 2008: Margot O'Neill, Blind Conscience: Heartbreaking picture, extraordinary cast - This profoundly moving book reveals the untold story of the people who struggled to get asylum seekers out of detention and change government policy. O'Neill paints a compelling and heartbreaking picture through an extraordinary cast of characters ... from the well-known such as Julian Burnside to Petro Georgiou, to those who are not famous but simply felt compelled to follow their consciences and act to help desperate people in desperate situations, often to the detriment of their personal well-being.

 :::NEW PUBLICATION::: 2 November 2008: Mamdouh Habib, My Story: The tale of a terrorist who wasn't - For the first time, Mamdouh Habib reveals the full story of his journey to hell and back. He exposes the complicity of the Australian government in his abduction and maltreatment, as well as its subsequent neglect of him while in Guantanamo. He also describes his encounters with other well-known alleged terrorists, including his meetings with David Hicks both in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo. "Everyone had terrible stories to tell ... catching foreigners was big business. It didn't matter if they were terrorists or not, the Pakistanis told the Americans that they were anyway."

 :::NEW PUBLICATION::: 31 October 2008: Jacquie Everitt's The Bitter Shore: The story of Shayan Badraye - An Iranian family's escape to Australia and the hell they found at the border of paradise. The Bitter Shore is Jacquie Everitt's account of Zahra, Saeed and Shayan's flight from home and the shocking events that lay in store for them on the other side of the world. It's also the story of the effects of the government's policy of mandatory detention on children, and the court case that took on the Howard government. "...he had been taken to hospital nine times for rehydration after witnessing incidents and violence in the camps no child in Australia should ever have seen."

1 November 2008: A Well Founded Fear: a disturbing documentary - An Edmund Rice Centre documentary, the result of five years work of Mr Phil Glendenning and others, reveals what we did to those fleeing their persecutors, locked op on Nauru, when we told them to go back... "Mr Glendenning says he has documented the deaths of nine of the rejected Afghans at the hands of the Taliban, but he believes the figure is actually 20."

31 October 2008: Human Rights Overboard: the Perth launch with Carmen Lawrence and Fred Chaney - with many photos. "The Australian Council of Heads of Schools of Social Work called the People's Inquiry to conduct an independent, open and transparent investigation in order to give voice to those previously silenced, to influence policy and to place the stories of detention on the public record."

11 October 2008: Immigration Detention Inquiry: Politicians and the Whistleblower - Project SafeCom's presentation at the 9 October 2008 Perth hearings of the Joint Standing Commitee on Migration's 2008 Immigration Detention Inquiry, which includes statements from an Immigration Department whistleblower. "It was you, who created public vilification of asylum seekers, and it is you who need to create instruments that undo this damage..."

29 September 2008: Shayan Badraie's Bitter Shore - The Sydney launch of Jacquie Everitt's 'The Bitter Shore'. The intrigue around the hand-written word Bucklies in a Ministerial will no doubt go down as one of the media's central trophies of the month in reporting on the book, equivalent in news value to the former Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock's use of the word "it" to describe young Shayan.

10 September 2008: Human Rights Overboard: Media reviews and opinion reactions - "Using the first-hand accounts of former child detainees and their parents, Human Rights Overboard details the impact of mandatory detention on boatpeople and other unlawful entrants before the policy was watered down." Here is the news about this foundation document of Australian refugee detention and human rights issues.

29 August 2008: This moment, Now is the Time: Barack Obama's acceptance speech - Barack Obama's speech at the Denver Democrats Convention: "America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend."

 :::NEW PUBLICATION::: 19 August 2008: Human Rights Overboard: Seeking Asylum in Australia - Human Rights Overboard draws together, for the first time, the oral testimony and written submissions from the inquiry in a powerful and vital book that stands as an indelible record of one of Australia's bleakest legacies. "This is a profoundly important book. It is an unflinching look at disgraceful events. Too many Australians allowed these things to happen. Our generation will forever be marked with the shame of it. It is not only an epitaph for the Howard government: it is also a caution to future generations."

16 August 2008: Welcome to our Christmas Island Gulag, says Immigration - In an unprecedented move, The "new mugs" immigration department invited more than 50 community representatives, working with NGO's who work with asylum seekers and refugees, to 'inspect' Australia's Island Gulag on Christmas Island. While the general flyer sent to the invited guests stated 'no photographs in detention centres', they were told on arrival that taking pictures was fine and we received more than 50 images from one of the many invited guests. Here they are, together with the reaction of those delegates who were invited to the trip: condemnation was handed out liberally, all around.

1 August 2008: Militant gunman kills asylum seeker: Vale Akram Al Masri - Shot in Gaza yesterday, Akram Al Masri came to Australia to find protection under the UN Convention - he didn't get what he came for. But his 2003 Full Federal Court case became a landmark ruling around the question whether or not Australia could lock an asylum seeker forever (yes, we could, and still can), and if we can do that if that person has asked to be removed from Australia...

1 August 2008: Petro Georgiou endorses Labor's detention softening - Project SafeCom's first reaction to Labor's announcement of major detention changes mentioned the notion of "smoke and mirrors", and now that the dust of initial reaction has settled, more in-depth reflections on the changes are what's needed. This page brings together some of these opinions, starting with Petro Georgiou, and then pieces by The Australian's Mike Steketee and Denis Shanahan.

29 July 2008: Immigration Minister Chris Evans announces mandatory detention changes - Suddenly, a major shift in our treatment of asylum seekers has been announced ... The Immigration Minister's speech was comprehensive and announced a shift from a blanket mandatory detention policy to a selective mandatory detention platform, welcome news indeed. Regrettably, while these changes in approach to detention are substantial, and on some level represent even a retreat from Labor's intent with its mandatory detention as introduced in 1992, Labor maintains its "underclass" of unannounced boat arrivals...

 :::NOW ON DVD!::: 22 July 2008: Holiday Camp: How is your liberation bound up with mine? - Holiday Camp is a 45 minutes documentary, which investigates the current Australian immigration policies in the context of 200 years of colonization. This extraordinary documentary connects the issues of indigenous dispossession, genocide, and the incarceration of refugees. It explores the implications of the mandatory detention system and the construction of national borders. Holiday Camp reclaims the voices of the marginalized and connects the issues of Indigenous dispossession, genocide, national constructions and incarceration of refugees, which are often portrayed as unrelated or divisive.

21 July 2008: Supporting GetUp!'s End Mandatory Detention campaign - Online campaign group GetUp! are partnering with a range of refugee advocacy organisations, including Project SafeCom, to send a petition to the federal government's Immigration Detention Inquiry. Chances like this don't come very often - to end a regrettable chapter of Australian history that caused unimaginable suffering to some of the world's most desperate and downtrodden.

12 July 2008: The Australia Institute: Clean coal and other greenhouse myths - This paper by George Wilkenfeld, Clive Hamilton and Hugh Saddler exposes sixteen greenhouse myths, and reiterates the basic principles of an effective greenhouse policy: no new coal-fired generation until it meets the criteria for at least half-clean use; encouragement of renewable and gas-fired generation; an increasingly stringent cap on emissions supported by a tradeable permit system; and stringent minimum energy efficiency standards for vehicles, buildings and appliances.

11 July 2008: Working with Wasim: A convergence of community - The changes that did occur and the defeat of a Bill designed to ensure all asylum seeker claims were processed offshore were in no small part due to government representatives breaking ranks after consistent lobbying by members of the refugee advocate community. A paper by Anne Pedersen, Mary Anne Kenny, Linda Briskman and Sue Hoffman.

7 July 2008: Climate Code Red - Reviews and Comments - "Having been involved with global warming climate change as a researcher in environmental health for 25 years, I can say that this is without question by far the best book to date on this issue -- the first book to have the integrity to say how the situation really is."

5 July 2008: Climate Code Red: The case for Emergency Action - Australian climate scientists David Spratt & Philip Sutton reveal extensive scientific evidence that the global warming crisis is far worse than official reports and national governments have indicated - and that we're almost at the point of no return. According to Green's Christine Milne, they "provide a valuable and sobering contribution to the policy challenge of climate change at a pivotal moment, with their key insight that the expectation of failure has become the norm in climate policy. Climate Code Red is a significant contribution which should be read by anyone seriously contemplating how to set greenhouse emission-reduction targets."

5 July 2008: Will Ross Garnaut's verdict become Kevin's Slow Boat to China? - Professor Ross Garnaut has delivered his long awaited Climate Change Draft Report, and now it's up to the Rudd government to prepare the action and implement the policies. Will Professor Ross Garnaut force Kevin Rudd's climate change leadership, or will it be silently 'averaged out' in Canberra? This page summarizes the early impressions.

1 July 2008: Climate Change: Catastrophic Impacts and Human Rights - by HREOC President John von Doussa QC: "Australia's response to climate change must be human rights compliant. What is also clear is that the international standards and norms that these rights establish themselves provide guidance to decision makers on the substantive elements of legislative and policy responses to climate change."

UPDATE February 2009: The 2008 pages have now been copied to The 2007 archives page, and they will as per usual be removed from other pages. Links to all older archived pages are in the tables above!