“A new law came into effect today which could put some Australian workers in jail simply for doing their jobs. I think that’s something we should talk about.”
Yesterday both major parties passed a new law to prevent workers contracted to offshore detention centres from reporting anything they see there.
That includes child abuse.
Many media organisations have pointed out just what a despicable move this is, including us.
Read about the changes here: As of today, it is illegal to report child abuse at Nauru.
Waleed Aly also tackled the issue on last night’s episode of The Project, and with his usual, enviable eloquence, managed to cut right to its core.
“Imagine if the teacher or healthcare professional looking after your child was restricted from going directly to law enforcement agencies to report violence or physical abuse or even sexual abuse,” he said. “You would be outraged. We all would.”
“Today that law came into effect with the support of both major parties, but there was no outrage. And that’s because it’s not your children, it’s these ones.”
The children Aly is referring to are the 138 currently being held in Australia’s immigration detention centres — 81 of which are offshore on Nauru.
While this number has dropped under the Coalition government, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection has a lot to answer for with regards to its duty of care for those children, and the amendment to the Australian Border Force Act now prohibits “entrusted persons” from speaking about “protected information” without the department’s permission.
As Aly points out: “That might be okay, if that particular department didn’t have a history of allegedly ignoring, denying and concealing reports of harm and neglect.”
“That might be okay it that department wasn’t facing serious allegations of child abuse from The Human Rights Commission.”
Greg Barnes from The Australian Lawyers Alliance chimes in to say that in his mind a law like this can only have one purpose.
“That is prevent scrutiny by the media, by the community and in fact by the world of Australia’s detention centres and the shame of those detention centres,” he says.
Watch Aly deliver his most important segment yet:
“The department has told us that brutalising asylum seekers is not a part of asylum seeker policy. So, a law that hides the abuse isn’t about ‘stopping the boats… And if it isn’t about protecting our borders it can only be about one thing and that is protecting our politicians.”
More times Waleed Aly has nailed it:
Waleed Aly takes down a former terror suspect in an interview.
Waleed Aly owns the debate over Adam Goodes’ war cry.
Waleed Aly thinks “stopping the boats” will save the Great Barrier Reef.
The one where Waleed Aly slams Australia’s action on climate change.
Top Comments
Earlier today Sir Nicholas Winton died at the age of 106. Winton had taken action in the late 1930s to save the lives of nearly 700 Jewish children from what we now euphemistically know was the Nazi's 'Final Solution'.
When asked why he helped he answered, "I didn't do it consciously because I had any Jewish blood in me. . . . When I set out to try to bring children in from Czechoslovakia, I didn't do it because
they were Jewish children. I did it because they were children."
Yet 70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, today as Australians we need to again reflect and
reject what is being done in our name by our politicians and those who overtly or meekly support them. For 14 years we have largely sat back and allowed the dehumanization of people all in the name of 'protecting us' from a supposed threat to our borders. We have sat back and allowed human beings to be placed in detention centres in god-forsaken places.
We have sat idly by whilst successive governments, regardless of their ideology or political persuasion, break international laws and even use a kind of righteousness to justify acts that we should be ashamed of.
And now i read that laws have been introduced to gag, threaten and jail those "entrusted persons" whose role it is to fulfil our humanitarian obligations. And what is their crime? They cannot dare to speak out
against those self-interested politicians trying to hide neglect and harm being done in the name of Australia and democracy.
How can this be? We saw the consequences of institutionalized abuse against children who became part of the Stolen Generation and those who were victims of forced adoption programs. We fought for an acknowledgment to what occurred as a means to try deal with the consequences. We have been
confronted by horrific acts uncovered by the Royal Commission into systematic abuse by personnel and institutions with the moral, let alone legal duty to care for the most vulnerable.
Now we are blindly following and becoming complicit in a policy that threatens the very core, not at what it means to be Australian, but what it means to be a human being. Sir Nicholas Winton reflected on his "wartime gesture" and why he had made it. He said, "Why do people do different things? Some
people revel in taking risks and some go through life taking no risks at all."
How can we not risk taking the opportunity to speak out and force our politicians to repeal heinous laws that deny us as of our humanity?
How can we not revel in taking action against policies that force us to forget human beings, including 131 children being detained and deprived of their human rights, all in the name of our so called security?
Waleed Aly had the courage and decency to prick our collective conscience in showing the danger of remaining silent. It is not enough for us to live in a democracy. It is not enough for our politicians to spout rhetoric regarding the value of the Magna Carta and what it represents for us, when we passively or even worse willingly, turn a blind eye or rationalise what is happening in Nauru.
It's time to stop the lies.
It's time to stop cowering to the nonsensical fear clouding our rational and moral judgments.
It's time to speak out and demand changes to policies carried out in our name.
I think a lot of people feel this way. But what can we realistically do? We write to newspapers, we comment on blog sites, we talk about it with our friends and families, some write to their local MPs. Yet nothing we say or do seems to make any smidgen of difference. Sigh.
https://www.getup.org.au/ca...
One only needs to read the Trigg Commission's inquiry into detention centres and the abuse of human rights, particularly the effects on children incarcerated like criminals, to reinforce that we must do more. I would encourage people to sign the Get Up! Petition, as well as go to the link above that will allow you to voice your disgust to your member of parliament. This must be a starting point to reinforce what we value, and what our politicians should be doing in our name. This is the way to break the silence that certain politicians and so called 'respected' media commentators rely to justify such policies that damage our reputations and betray our supposed values.
Many of us have already done this... With respect, this is not really 'doing anything' about it in any meaningful way.
Perhaps those commenting in outrage should read the Bill online in detail. I know it takes longer than listening to Waleed but, if you do, you will see there are provisions that allow reporting of incidents and potential crimes to a variety of agencies including State and Federal police. The purpose of the Bill is to prevent disclosing of information via social media, to friends and family and to prevent activist workers from disclosing trivial and unproven claims to the media - which has happened repeatedly over the last few years. There is a specific provision - 'disclosure to reduce threat to life or health' - which allows for disclosure of protected information if one reasonably believes there is a serious threat to health or life. Child abuse would fall under this provision. Waleed Aly is doing a very good job at whipping up sanctimonious outrage with little regard for facts.
Thanks Nick. That was my understanding as well. I will repeat what I said earlier, I would like to see a bit more facts about this topic from articles such as these because it IS important. An attention grabbing headline is doing a disservice to the issue and everyone who reads it.
Thanks Nick, that answers the question I asked earlier.
Except those "unproven allegations" were taken through the proper channels.
And the response was to fire 11 Save The Children workers from Nauru, and make guards immune to prosecution "if they feel threatened". And wahey, Aly mentioned that the department to which all concerns must go through has a history of ignoring them or sliding them under the rug. Because they have.
It is really satisfying to read a thoughtful and honest post. Headline chasing is disgusting.