Rats in a cage

Sandy Logan, spokesperson for Immigration and recruited from the AFP, said on ABC radio that rubber bullets had not been used on Christmas Island, two days later we find this is not true, that rubber bean bags had in fact been fired. Maybe Logan did not know in which case the AFP are once again out of control.

All accounts point to the initial demonstrations being peaceful, it was only after the use of force, grossly excessive use of force, by the AFP, that the internees turned nasty – and who wouldn't. A disturbing feature of this is that it would seem the AFP are now armed and authorised (by whom?) to use rubber bullets against elements deemed hostile to the state, which in a demonstration against say unauthorised detention could be you and me or our children. These weapons are apparently now part of the instruments of state coercion, first unveiled against the most needy and traumatised in our society. Remember Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Next it will be aboriginals, then the unemployed.

Bowen needs to get control of himself and his portfolio. ASIO needs to be pulled into line. The intemperance of its decision making needs to be reformed. It is not good enough that an organisation with so many resources should take so long to obtain security clearances. In many cases illegal, as they are 'obtained' from the very authorities that the asylum seekers are fleeing. In any case, a person granted asylum does not need a security clearance; that is done as part of the refugee determination. ASIO is double dipping with what appears to be the intention of slowing down the intake of refugees. The aim being to deter arrivals by it becoming known that long periods will be spent in detention with an outcome that is not assured; hence the desire to return asylum seekers to home countries on spurious information and analysis.

Place too many living things within an enclosed space and inevitably they will turn on each other and if they have the capacity against those that hold the keys. The fact that Bowen, Scott, et al, cannot see this speaks volumes about the type of person now attracted to a political career.

The treatment handed out to the protesting refugees on Christmas Island was cruel and calculated revenge. Why do Immigration, the AFP and ASIO, shock jocks and the political ruling class hate refugees? What have they to fear? Why do they respond to and feed the hysteria?

Over the past seven months five refugees have died in detention. No words of care or compassion. No change in policy.

It is pathetic, truly pathetic.