Oh well, off to Nauru perhaps?

Dili says take your colonial crap and shove it.

Abbott says the Labor Government should try Nauru.

Abbott's probably right, from her point of view. After all, the fact that Nauru is not a signatory doesn't prevent a centre on Nauru from processing in accordance with the Convention principles.

It isn't, after all, as if Timor Leste has the capacity to meet the obligations in full and provide asylum on its tiny land mass in the way we do. The plan was, I assume to do the processing then find people a home.

What a place to get to.

Reffophobia and apologia on the left- or why it's ok to be angry

There's a lot of work going into examining the motives of those attacking Ms Gillard, particularly in respect of whether some may be motivated by misogyny, or ignorance, or some other explanation.

Sure, examine away. That's legitimate. So too is questioning what is behind people who claim to care about refugees leaping stridently to her defence.

There probably are some gender bigots among those hammering her. I hammered Rudd on the same issue.

There are probably also some racists, and a far larger contingent of awkward hand wringers and ill-read ignorant-types (who really do find some elements of truth in all those references to people smugglers, queues, overcrowding et al), among those springing to her defence. The stats suggest there must be a bit of crossover, as much as we're a marginal dictatorship the asylum message has clearly touched otherwise generous and not-at-all xenophobic people across the country.

In these discussions it's been said that anger is a clue to some unreasonable or irrational motive. Sounds as gendered as 'blood under her nails' to me. Women get angry, men get use their fingernails in combat, but we know which gender each image is more usually paired with.

I'm angry, what of it? You see desperate people rotting in boats and camps while the politics of race flairs out and you don't get angry, well, don't start on some other progressive issue then. Go be calm under the wonderful status quo. And don't get angry about some other issue that for you is important, if it doesn't involve people as vulnerable as the ones I'm upset over. I often vent about thinks that upset me here, sometimes it's in the realm of anger. But I don't go around feeling anger every other day. This issue, those words said, these policies, make me angry.

There's an argument Gillard's getting special treatment. There may be some merit in this. I tend to think it's more related to a mix of timing and policy- she came in now, and was compelled to address ugly policy issues, and some of us are particularly upset at how she did that. But timing aside, looking at the Lawrences, the Kirners, the Kernots, the nasty little comments that have been directed at Gillard over her familial status, there's no doubt there are some big double-standards out there. So bring on the analysis. Bring on, for the likes of myself, the self-reflection. Perhaps we've vented too quickly at Gillard, as opposed to Labor in general. She's been appalling; but equally so has the party machine, and so was Rudd c2010, so let's keep some perspective and work on our even-handedness.

I liked her until recently. I promise to try to like her again. If her policies improve.

So, there's something there to work with.

And there's some pretty gross human rights abuses going on, now, on Gillard's watch. Some stupid policy fumbling, some making the ignorant, the bigoted and yes, the at-times outright racist, feel loved and understood. There's one of the most repellant speeches given since the middle of the Howard term.

And there are people who call all forms of bigotry. And those who seem more angry, sorry -earnestly upset, about the fact that Gillard is not being given an appropriate honeymoon.

Is it legit to be annoyed, or even angry, if it appears she's getting unfair treatment due to her gender. Damn straight.

Does it say something about people if they can't comprehend or empathise with the very strong emotions some of us feel about refugees, race, that whole awkward Cronulla *thing*? Maybe, in some cases, it does.

Maybe just as 'blood under her fingernails' is gendered, so too 'I hear you bogans and I heart your right to be ignorant' is dripping with this country's deep, nasty narrative of fear and race.

Am I suggesting perhaps at least 1 in 3 of those who are not getting it might not hold the same level of concern (to put it nicely, ever so nicely) about refugees, race, that whole awkward Cronulla *thing* that those of us who are more angry, hold?

Yes.

But - and read this before you take the slightest bit of umbrage or in any way misunderstand me- as a wise and decent person once said to me:

If it's not about you, then it's not about you.

People Smugglers as Slave Traders?

Plopped in a thread at LP...

It’s unedifying to read of otherwise progressive types picking up on the whole ‘people smuggler as slave trader’ narrative, without at least unpacking the differences between perhaps the odd overlord making handsome profits out of it all on the one hand and poor boat crews putting nasi in the mouths of their families on the other.

Wheel it right back to the ‘danger’ thing. Ever been on a boat, indeed any sort of basic transport used by the masses, in a developing country? I’ve caught rides on Indonesian fishing boats while backpacking, you sleep on the deck, in all weather, no safety rails, large families with chickens and bags of rice sleep there too, cramped on. You hope it doesn’t sink, as they sometimes do. If backpackers do this sort of thing by choice (and I’m not the only one, if you spend some time working through the eastern islands of Indonesia), is it really hard to imagine desperate refugees making the choice? Does it really prove the boat captains are exploitative? Are you sure they don’t put themselves at similar risk, going to work each day?

When I spent time in Papela, a ‘sea gypsy’ settlement on the island of Roti, I was shown the fresh graves. Tropical storm here, diving for sea cucumbers while breathing through an air compressor there. Dead children. Dead fishermen.

The truly evil smuggling cases I’ve read about- people packed into shipping containers, or having their documents removed so they can be held as bonded labourers, don’t seem to feature among those we demonise. Mostly, we just seem to be suddenly (and in a most faux act of unconvincing generosity) extending wonderful, first world expectations of reasonable care, as if the OH&S Act can be extended more easily that the right to claim refugee status or have that assessed through Australian tribunals.

The construction of the dreaded demonic, evil, people smugglers is one of the great acts of declaratory securitisation in a nation with a less than robust history of peering behind the rhetoric on matters foreign.

Here and there I’m sure they exist- nasty, exploitative figures making handsome profits while turning their back on the risks and consequences. But I never see any effort to distil these from the mass of general boat captains and crews, most of whom I suspect do not deserve this characterisation at all.

It doesn’t do anyone any credit to just simply adopt the dominant talking points on this.

The Timor Solution

The best I can say is that my worst fears were, slightly, worse than this.

The renewed due process for Sri Lankan applicants is welcome.

The ongoing freeze for Afghanis is baffling, even more so to anyone who saw 4 Corners last night, recalling both the extent of the ongoing violence and the specific discussions of what happens to people who annoy the Taliban or help the outside forces.

The no-longer-Pacific solution? The devil, or something redeeming, may be in the detail. However it smells like an old fish served up under a fresh dollop of sauce.

And Abbott has slyly offered a small biscuit to the asylum lobby, by breaking ranks and offering to actually increase the intake from the mythical queues.

What a petty, grubby, unedifying little 'debate'. What a stupifying waste of public funds.

... Greens-pushing bloggers may not yet have convinced me that I'd want to join that party, but they've probably, at least, earned my primaries. I'm not the only one either.

Sometimes I love the Black Letter Law - Saeed v the Immigration Minister

Let's be realistic, you wouldn't get the same result in this recent High Court case if you went overboard on the purposive approach.

Go on, try to follow the Court's reasoning. Who needs Sudoku anyway?

Gillard: please don't execute your Ricky Ray Rector

It'll be all too tempting for Gillard to extend the farcical suspension of due process for refugees. It's all too easy to viciously kick the least empowered, when the window-licking hordes want to see them viciously kicked.

To any right thinking person, Bill Clinton's integrity was laid bare when he saw through the execution of a cognitively non-functional man on the eve of his presidential election.

Gillard will tell us all we need to know about her worth as a purported leader of the centre left when, any day now, she has to make a call on extending the suspension of processing. Given she's just extended our involvement in the Afghan war, and in the background the UN is trying to gain access to Sri Lanka to investigate possible crimes against humanity, I hold out some hope that she will see that these people, from those clearly dangerous regions, at least deserve to have their claims heard, and heard fairly.

Suspending due process is like suspending the Racial Discrimination Act for the NT intervention; it speaks for itself on all the wrong levels.

This is the great moral challenge of her time. If she fails it, we can stop with all the hoo-har about her gender, her eloquent advocacy, her toughness... all mere warbling in the background if she shows that she has no basic ethical or moral fibre.

Please Ms Gillard, I know you can't deliver me utopia on this unpopular issue, but please don't sell out any further. You will, seriously, end up sitting to the right of the liberal party. And if you do that, people really will start putting Abbott above you in the preferences.

In defence of the jury system

My jury's still out on its value, but if prosecutors aren't going to exercise some sane discretion in cases like this, thank the traditions of the common law for 12 decent human beings.

Defence exhibit A.

Defence exhibit B.

Brumby's welcome backflip

Victoria's getting an anti-corruption commission. It's about time, and we need to be cautious about getting too excited until the detail is parsed over.

But in the predictable holler of 'backflip' going around, and having earlier had a dig at the Premier's attitude and silly comments about lawyers myself, I think a modicum of credit should be given.

He commissioned a report, it recommended he change policy, and he did. With many years of frustration in the public service behind me, can I say the shame is that this does not happen more often.

Politicians should not be condemned for 'backflipping' in the face of evidence. It is nothing less than proper conduct.

Bring it on.

Australia- are we just international hypocrites?

As you'll gather from my previous post, I am in a bit of stroppy contrarian mood when it comes to selective invocation of international law. I don't like whaling, ditto Israel boarding those Gaza-bound vessels. Still, do we have an issue with consistency when we suck down on a few VBs and venture to tell the world what to do, worse, lecture them on international law?

Because we would never act like pirates and send blooded, armed commandos onto a humanitarian vessel that was acting in accord with international law, would we?

If a couple of refugees had freaked out and tried to grab the SAS soldiers' weapons, they would have had no alternative but to fire. This may in fact be true of some of the Israeli commandos. It's like the old self-defence adage about not pulling out a knife unless you are prepared to use it. If it's not absolutely necessary, don't pull it out. Don't attack civilian ships with commandos. It's a gutless abuse of the licence society has given you to train those commandos and have them at your fingertips.

(OK, without changing the heading as published because I know that throws feed readers, I concede on immediate reflection that it's a bit tabloidy! We're more than 'just' such, we aren't the worst global players. Obviously I still have an ongoing dose of the Mr Sh!ts...)

Suing Japan- Australia turns gamekeeper on international law

I don't resile from my eariler thoughts on this action.

I'm pleased we're back to supporting the notion of international law, it's been a bit hit and miss in recent times. I trust the plenary rule against use of force, resolution of future boundary disputes by international tribunals, and proper adherence to the refugee convention are all back in vogue. And that, instead of brandishing some 'privileged' advice from some hack in Canberra that allegedly says it might be legal, we'll willingly hand any of these highly disputed positions to an independent tribunal of international legal experts for appropriate resolution.

Tuvalu should start working up their climate claim....

Still, when it comes to managing our delicate relationships in the construct known as Northeast Asia, at a time when China is using secret 'trials' to pressure companies into doing favourable resource deals and the Koreas are taking us back to the most fragile moments in the Cold War, getting litigious with one of the only democracies in the region over whaling is entirely about putting populism above moderately intelligent policy making.

Refugees can wait for their due process, but the whales will have their day in court.

In other news, Australia has switched sides in the bluefin tuna debate and is to ban eating meat from all animals smarter than a pippie...

And of course any suggestion the decision to litigate now has been taken with a firm eye to the inward-looking nationalism and mistrust of other cultures that's become, yet again, the centrepiece of an election, is entirely misplaced.

A well founded fear...

Jake Lynch, Crikey:

The government’s ill-fated bid to defuse “controversy”, by suspending asylum claims for people arriving from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, looks sicker still this week after a report from the International Crisis Group reminded us of the violations visited on the Tamils in the final months of the civil war, this time last year. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed, it says, citing witness testimony, satellite images, documents and other evidence: most from systematic army bombardments of areas that had been officially declared “safe”.

No wonder the Sri Lankan government is cracking down on journalists and NGOs: it has plenty to hide. More than 100,000 people are still interned, with reports trickling out of maltreatment, r-pes and the mysterious “disappearances” that have been the signature MO of the security forces there for decades.

And what I think is on-the-money comment on political pragmatism gone wrong:

You can’t triangulate on race. It’s a lesson the Rudd government is learning all over again. There is no limit to how far a declared party of the Right will go, in search of a wedge: so the supposed “centre ground” simply moves further and further away from the comfort zone of a government still aspiring to hold together a “progressive” base of support.

Ay, some of it has cracked the sh!ts with being 'held together'.

Civil Fraud? Ellis & the deliberate misuse of childcare stats

The assertion seemed incredibly smelly to anyone remotely connected to the real world of kids and child care (i.e., not Kate Ellis, nor absent parent Kevin Rudd). A surplus of places? Is my suburb, group of friends, favourite parenting discussion board populated by people living in unusual or exceptional pockets of the country?

Or is the Minister telling something a bit slippery & porky?

Well, no doubt on some level she's technically correct, but Susie O'Brien at the Hun has torn any sense of substantive truth out of her assertions, and I felt it useful to share highlights on the remote chance someone who passes here doesn't otherwise come across it.

So anyway...

Rudd Government informed us last week it had dumped a core election promise of building 260 new childcare centres.

...what I still remain to be convinced about...

shameless, dishonest misrepresentation of statistics it employs to justify its decision

....is the idea that...

The figure averages out all long daycare centre vacancies (as opposed to occasional daycare vacancies) and doesn't present any breakdown according to the age of the child and the specific location of the centre. In effect, therefore, it's a total con

...we can never expect...

It's like saying the average Australian household income is $66,000, so there mustn't be any poor people in Australia

...politicians, because of some vague notion that it's needed for politics to work...

What good are places for three-year-olds in Frankston if you are a pregnant first-time mum in Richmond staring down a two-year waiting list

...the kind of vague notion that propped up 'caveat emptor' for so long...

most centres tend to have a larger number of vacancies for older kids, because many children go to kinder instead. But in many Melbourne suburbs you can't get a place for a one-year-old

...an absurd notion, finally on the way out in commerce...

the Government is being deliberately misleading when it says new centres are no longer needed

...anyway that we can never, ever expect them...

Back then, Labor knew the con was on. Labor's Jenny Macklin insisted at least 260 new centres were needed because: "There's no point having a childcare place available for a four-year-old if you have a two-year-old."

...or more particularly hold them viscerally to account (except by the usual love us or leave us, choice of 2, ballot box option)...

In just under three years, Rudd and his ministers have, in effect, become everything they criticised about the Howard government.

...Precisely! Thanks Susie! Sorry, I was saying... to hold them to account for lying or deliberately misleading the people they are trying to sell their political product to.

I do not accept that we have to accept, for evermore, that it is acceptable for a politician to flagrantly set out to mislead us, and that our only recourse comes once every few years at the ballot box.

I don't know the simple way forward, how to calibrate the test, how to adjudicate and enforce, but if we at least seriously questioned the premise, the accepted state of affairs, then maybe one day we can do better than this rot.

And before I have any further digs at Kate Ellis, I must say I have the same inside reservation about this that I have about the insulation fiasco- that it is not the Minister copping the flack who has really made the key decisions....

In just under three years, Rudd and his ministers have, in effect, become everything they criticised about the Howard government.

Ay, it's not just a bacteria that's putting my insides into turmoil at this eleventh hour.

We need to talk about Kevin... Kate Ellis... Labor...

An explosion of ethical and bad policy misfires may not of itself damage voting prospects, but it is giving me palpitations in membership renewal month.

Kate Ellis has proved (who would ever have thought?) that being young and the 'sexiest politician' or somecrap doesn't actually make you good at the helm of national policy. The astonishing broken child care promise is yet more evidence of why not everything should be run from Canberra. Oh, you have stats that show vacancies do you, somewhere out in the nation? How about coming down into the suburbs and finding them so that people like Priscilla Davies can go to work:

The Clifton Hill woman is on the waiting list for five centres, but has been told to expect an 18-month wait, which has forced her to abandon her plans to return to work in June.

18 MONTHS NO WAY YOU LIE, Kate Ellis must be saying. Except, funnily enough, that's the same wait time in most of the surrounding suburbs as well. Including ours.

Good Labor outcome, Kate.

What else is news? Well down in Victoria we don't need a Royal Commission. In case the fact that a gangland boss can be killed while in almost-complete isolation under video surveillance in maximum security when he was a known hit target etcetera, etcetera, got you a bit concerned. Now you know, it is ALL RIGHT.

He denied he wanted to hide anything, and suggested ''greedy leftie lawyers'' were pushing the issue.

Greedy leftie lawyers.

Well, one can understand Brumby's point. After all if you were a very powerful person you might not want your supporters, funders or associates exposed to a greedy leftie lawyer. Just think what Saturday dinner gatherings they might have omitted to mention.

Covered the asylum backflip/kowtow already. Here's hoping this appeal manages to tap some of the judicial clawback embodied in the recent High Court decision of Kirk. Better yet, how about a declaration from that Court to the effect that there can be no ouster of jurisdiction on any land (sea or air) over which Australia claims sovereignty? A little bit of rule of law can only scare people who like breaking it.

Speaking of which, elsewhere human rights have been dumped. Someone, somewhere, felt threatened. And teachers need to shut up now they've been given laptops. And Kev is still proud that he's officially the worst employer in the nation.

No irony, that's the thing I'm getting from all this. Never mind the ethics, or the lustful adoption of policy-based evidence making, there's no sense of irony. No shame.

Damn. So disappointing.

Rudd's Reffo Bashing Redux

This isn't a post about policy. Not directly, not in the sense of asking the same questions about why this tiny number of desperate people are such favoured scapegoats for poor government, insecurity, and the self-evident failings of our education system. That's just too frustrating, coming as it does at the end of a minor-thesis-writing process that involved, in part, exploring the irrationality of so many Australians, the left as well as the right, towards the region, people in boats, the usual themes that have been used to de-secure life on an apparently vast and remote continent for well over 100 years. Prodeo's onto it, anyway.

No, this is a post about the meaning of 'never again', a mantra so many in the ALP, such as myself, hoped would prove true following the humiliating nonsense of Tampa. Some left back then, joining the Greens or retiring from political involvement altogether, while others such as myself sucked up the bad realpolitik and thought 'well, this has been a particularly nasty period in Australian history, but perhaps once the poor-bugger-me set have had their little vent, and the aftermath of 11/9 has settled, we can reach saner ground on this issue.' Quietly we waited, watching things improve a little, trusting in people's decency and empathy to slowly eat away at the policies. And for a while it appeared things had changed. Not remarkably, but perhaps enough to remove reffo-baiting (nonsensically known as 'border security', as if there were any threat whatsoever to the integrity of the border, as such) from the prime issue tray.

We were wrong. Abbott, the great prodigy of St Ignatius Riverview, my alma mater, with its Ignatian slogan Men For Others...

...The term has come to mean that if one person graduates from a Jesuit school lacking a sense of social justice, the school has not achieved its primary mission...

...has ramped up the hatred for the Samaritans, and in response Kevin Rudd- not desperately trying to get elected like Beasley, in fact from a position of notable political strength, has screamed 'ME TOO!'

Pathetic. And palpably dishonest. Any idiot who follows international affairs knows neither Afghanistan nor Sri Lanka has demonstrated any improvement in respect of the treatment of its vilified minorities. In Sri Lanka's case it's a bit like claiming that the Tutsis were safe once the Hutus had successfully taken power (or indeed, as the worm turned back, the other way around). But in any event that is a moot point, because if people cannot show the requisite risk of persecution then the process, stacked against them to begin with, should weed that out. The fact that Rudd has suspended the process demonstrates complete lack of confidence in the very argument he is asserting.

So where does this leave the 'never again' contingent? Did I in fact vow to leave the party if it ever stooped that low again? Perhaps assuming it couldn't possibly do so twice, that last time was the result of a particularly bad confluence of events and the sheer surprise factor of Tampa...?

Bizarrely, I'm to the right of many in Labor, at least theoretically. But I found myself arguing with a comrade at the last branch meeting I went to, she was from the left, and she was running the old 'better off than the other side' line I've run so often, and I found myself really struggling with it. Labor has been better, pound-for-pound, than the Howard Liberals, but is that the test we should be applying? There is another test, the opportunity-cost test, one I've often held the Greens up to. It goes a little like:

If there wasn't an ALP, in its present form, dominated by unions and factions, controlling the space it does, obtaining consent from the likes of us, what else could there be?

Or- is the only choice we have a choice between two social conservatives, with a hard left party sniping away from one side and some illiterate nutballs hurling bibles from the other?

If everyone who doesn't like the status quo just rolls with it, and accepts the apologia articulated by my comrade, will it ever improve?

Do I roll out my credit card again before May, keep up the membership, hope for something better if we win again? Wasn't that the hope the first time around?

Would I do more good dumping this policy shebang and going back to law, finding a way to a spot where I'm fighting tooth and nail to at least achieve some small wins for people who are getting screwed over?

Will we ever, ever, get over the fact that we're Girt by Sea?

Isn't the problem with Australia taking Japan to the ICJ over whaling...

...the potential for this to open up for scrutiny our generally unrecognised claim on Antarctica, as well as the way we assert our maritime boundaries?

We didn't want that explored when East Timor was the potential plaintiff, in fact we didn't think much of the ICJ full-stop back then.

This is a thought that's occurred to me, rather than a well-researched hypothesis. But it does seem likely that the government will not take its rhetoric any further due to the risk that international litigation might prove to be a double-edged sword that swings back and maims us.

That and the possibility that it will hold that the whaling is sufficiently scientific, thereby robbing opponents of their legal objection...

UPDATE: well, well, it appears I might have been wrong. In my defence I didn't count on race and nationalism being such a hot spot in this Australian election. Again.

Getting ridiculous - Racism's left-right swap and the national interest

It is ridiculous when you find yourself agreeing with Greg Sheridan and Ted Baillieu on the one topic.

And offended by the sharp conduct of people you thought you respected, on the same topic.

It's politics, I get that. And nobody in electorland wants to offend the bogans, I get that too. So what's needed here, in the national interest, is for the Foreign Minister to use the external affairs power in the Constitution to take conduct of the issue, as far as possible, off the Victorian Government. It's not so much a case of legislating or litigating, but rather of Rudd and Smith strongly reprimanding their stateside brethren for damaging Australia's regional relations, economy, and potentially even national security.

The denialism is, in itself, grossly offensive to our neighbours, and is damaging a strategically-crucial relationship in the name of placating people in marginal seats. Imagine how we as a nation would be taking it if Aussies were being so consistently targeted in another country, and we were being fed some tosh along the lines of 'well they're asking for it, the way they hold their mobile phones'...

That's right, we'd crack it. The bogans would be baying for war. And our trash papers would be treating the truth as selectively as theirs are. There's been some hype and exaggeration in India, but nothing that can't be easily understood with just a smattering of knowledge about the effect the long tail of colonialism has on these issues through most of the non-white world.

Rudd, Smith, step up and take control.

I'm not a die hard centralist, to say the least. In fact what I'd conclude with is that THIS is the sort of issue Rudd should be wading into, before water rights or hospitals. It's national business and it's about time it was taken into hand and dealt with firmly.

Nobel Nothings- Could Obama become the next Kissinger?

While he made a bad situation worse by defending war during the Nobel ceremony, a nasty possibility is emerging from his decision to increase troop numbers in Afghanistan.

Among the allegations Christopher Hitchens levelled in his book 'The Trial of Henry Kissinger', which I admit I read several years ago, was a fairly convincing argument along the lines of 'Kissinger and Nixon took unilateral steps to flummox peace discussions late in the '60s and drew the war out, largely for political purposes'. Resulting in tens of thousands more people dying.

While it may not be clear for many years, what if Obama is essentially making his decision to continue in Afghanistan against a preponderance of the advice he has received, at least in relation to the likelihood of success there? What if, instead, this Nobel Prize winning Democratic President has made a decision to continue the war, increasing its intensity (and therefore the casualties that will inevitably follow on all sides), because he believes this is essential to his own domestic political survival?

Hugh White's recent article in The Monthly suggests, by implication, that this might be the case.

We might yawn at the idea of becoming upset at politicians acting cynically to get votes, but when it comes to waging war, this could open him up to allegations (as Hitchens tried to do to Kissinger) that he has committed a breach of the laws of war, maybe even a war crime.

Ironically, Bush and Blair may have had better justification for going in at the beginning (to shut down Taliban terrorist training camps, which we know existed and which were used to attack the US) than Obama has for 'surging' the troops at this point.

I hope this hypothesis is wrong, I still have reams of respect for the man, and I hope (against the odds it would seem) that he actually succeeds and brings peace there.

Non-refoulement- just like Climate Change, only crunchy!

Barnaby Joyce is right, of course. The solution is we should send them home. They include terrorists, there are millions of hundreds of them, we can't fit them all, there's a queue after all, just inside the gate of the biggest Tamil internment camp, self determination is a lefty plot to overthrow the world and replace it with latte, imagine if we'd said yes to all those Jews back in the late '30s, after all?

Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, took place on this date in 1938. Jews weren't particularly popular with the moral majority back then...

Codified within the 1951 Geneva Convention and 1967 Protocol, the principle of non-refoulement arises out of an international collective memory of the failure of nations during World War II to provide safe haven to refugees fleeing certain genocide at the hands of the Nazi regime.

Memory indeed, lest we forget.

Why should Polanski get away with rape?

This simply beggars belief- various Eurotrash, from French politicians to privileged actors, venting outrage at the arrest of Roman Polanski for unlawful sexual intercourse.

And they barely contain the fact that it's because he's such a great artist that they believe he should be treated differently. How dare anyone arrest a director, at an artistic festival?! Merde!

His victim keeps getting wheeled out, but her understandable pleas for the case to be dropped have come from the fact that she wants to get on with her life. Not because on reflection she thinks he was a nice man being cuddly. If Polanski cared less about her getting on with life, he'd have faced the music long ago.

If you accept her story- and there seems little reason to think she's exaggerating given she wants the matter dropped- the underage sex charge he pleaded guilty to is only a third of the story. A plea agreed to in order to avoid dragging the victim back through a trial. In fact she has said he drugged her, and raped her against her will:

"I said … 'No, I don't want to do this' … So I was just scared, and after giving some resistance, I figured, well, I guess I'll get to come home after this."

Rape is what that sounds like. The rape of a 13 year old girl. And all he has to do is face the music for the far lesser offence he actually pleaded guilty to. The notion that he should be granted some sort of pardon merely because he's just too good a director to face the music, or because the French think raping a young girl is just part of being a libertine, or because, I don't know, what could possibly be going through the minds of the people affecting such absurd hysteria?

His statement that he will fight this just proves he still feels no remorse. It isn't the US Police's fault that the poor victim is seeing this splayed across the media in a protracted battle, it is Roman Polanski's.

Message to people wanting to randomly express outrage, find a real cause.

Everyone needs protection from violent assault

While I can understand the angry reaction to the bashing of Sergeant Brett Ward, it seems odd that people are calling for mandatory higher sentences for assaults on police, per se. It seems the response to violent attacks in Victoria is constantly being tracked away from the main problem (people being violent, full stop) towards proposals that focus on certain exceptions: assaults on police or public officers, assaults in a group, assaults motivated by race, alcohol as a cause, late nights as a cause, and so on.

How about this: violently assaulting another person without an extremely good explanation (self defence, or a complete lack of sanity at the relevant time) should result in some of the heaviest sanctions in the legal system.

Where psychiatric problems are a cause, this should result in appropriate treatment rather than senseless punishment. However the community should be protected by some level of restriction and supervision until it can be certified that the risk of repeat offending is low.

Wrist slapping gave us this:

He had a criminal career laced with extreme violence and Justice Coghlan was asked to take into account his 60-plus prior convictions. Many included the use of weapons and a number of his assaults were against women.

So why, why, WHY was he walking around on the streets?