My country, my shame

Australia has received an unprecedented amount of negative publicity in recent weeks. Amnesty International has accused us of torturing refugees on Nauru, Their report, titled the 'Island of Despair', has provided factual stories of the sufferings that are inflicted on refugees there. The ABC Four Corners program highlighted a similar story: The Forgotten Children. That story told us of the abuse this country is inflicting on children in Australia's detention centres. The New York Times has joined in the attack with an article on Australia's Poisonous Refugee Policy,written by an Australian Muslim.

But perhaps the most damming, yet most believable. is the recent report in the international newspaper The Guardian: The Nauru files: cache of 2,000 leaked reports reveal scale of abuse of children in Australian offshore detention.The report, sets out "as never before the assaults, sexual abuse, self-harm attempts, child abuse and living conditions endured by asylum seekers held by the Australian government, painting a picture of routine dysfunction and cruelty."

Our government, through what the Sydney Morning Herald terms the Department of Immigration and Torture, provides training for our public servants in handling the difficult situations that they face.The Department of Immigration's latest figures show workers' compensation claims from its employees for mental stress had more than doubled between 2014-2015. The Sydney Morning Herald asks:

What does this appalling doublespeak imply? Accustom human beings working for the Australian government to torture and trauma? All it takes for evil to be done to others is for people of goodwill to close their eyes.

Malcolm Turnbull claims that our position is "compassionate". His assertion is questionable. A letter writer to the Sydney Morning Herald observes (Oct 19): Is it compassionate to close the air-conditioned school, send children into a violent hostile and frightening local community and give them no hope of a peaceful life in Australia?

Human Rights Watch's World Report 2016 condemned Australiafor its "abusive" approach to asylum seekers.

We have recently made the deal to exchange prisoners on Nauru and Manus for refugees from South America. But we have no idea whether the new US President will accept that deal.

The accusations that Australia lags the world in the fair treatment of refugees are correct. The accusers are major international organisations. The ABC has stated that Four Corners had "told the important story of the more than 100 refugee children who are living on Nauru in their own words and those of some of their teachers".

"As the Nauruan government routinely refuses journalists access to report on offshore processing, and charges prohibitive fees for media visas which are not refunded if the applications are refused, Four Corners relied on a range of sources for footage," the ABC added.

But Nauru, Manus Island and our treatment of refugees are not the only issues. United Nations special rapporteur, Michel Forst, recently completed a survey of Human Rights in Australia. He wrote:

I was astounded to observe what has become frequent public vilification of rights defenders by senior government officials, in a seeming attempt to discredit, intimidate and discourage them from their legitimate work," he said. He called for an inquiry into the treatment of Professor Triggs.

Gillian Triggs, the Human Rights Commissioner was severely attacked by members of the then Abbot government. It was over her Forgotten Childrenreport. Her reply, documented in the Saturday Paper, April 23, 2016, is worth reading.

Forst also condemned the secrecy requirements of the Australian Border Force Act, elements of which he said contravened human rights principles, including freedom of expression, and called for the laws to be reviewed.

He also condemned the anti-protest legislation in Tasmania, NSW and before the West Australian Parliament. Academics condemn this legislation as an "ominous sign of the times".

But these new attacks are not new indictments of Australia's neglect, even refusal, to adopt 20th century moral positions. We have many issues apart from border control. – Gay marriage, inequity in the distribution of wealth and income, treatment of aborigines, protecting, even encouraging, those who speak out against wrong-doing

Gay marriage has been put off, possibly for months, even years, despite the government knowing full well that the majority of Australians support same sex marriage.

Human induced global warming has had a rough ride in Australian politics. And is still contested by segments of our current government.

The issue of speaking out against wrongdoing is, in this writer's opinion, the most fundamental ethical failure of all. We can go back many years to outline a series of attempts to pass modern whistleblower protection laws. Such laws protect people who expose illegal or unethical actions committed by their organisations. Whistleblowers in the past have usually been crucified. Even in Australia. Modern legislation sets jail sentences and massive fines for anybody who retaliates against a whistleblower. Close to 70 countries world-wide now have introduced legislation people. The G20 has its own system.

Australia however, has never adopted a full whistleblower protection system. The first attempts at introducing a law were initiated in 1994. The Federal Parliament conducted two inquiries: one in 1994 and the Senate Select Committee on Unresolved Whistleblower Cases in 1995. Neither resulted in successful legislation. A very incomplete proposal was adopted in 2014 after much agitation. The current 2014 legislation is totally inadequate. It exempts politicians, and has seen no successful whistleblowing exposures. Australian legislation in the private sector is also virtually non-existent, which is why those whistleblowers who have exposed the wrongdoing in the banks and financial sectors have paid a heavy price. They have not had the protection available in other countries.

Other Australian moral issues stand out, apart from the treatment of refugees and questionable activities by the banks and financial sectors. Our treatment of aboriginals is appalling. Evidence of the 'torture' of children held in the Don Dale detention centre is only the most recent of the many instances of discrimination against the original Australians. The stolen generations is a concern that is still revisited.

The increasing gap between the wealthy and ordinary citizens is another issue. It gets no attention. A person in the top 20% income group receives around five times as much income as a person in the bottom 20%. A person in the top 20% wealth group has a staggering 70 times as much wealth as a person in the bottom 20%. Andrew Leigh reminds us in his readable new book, Battlers & Billionaires, the latest figures show Australia having the ninth-highest level of inequality among 34 rich countries. This inequity is a world-wide issue. Hillary Clinton raised this same issue in the United States to a national level. She has said that she will back the Warren Buffet system, which uses the tax system to limits the wealth and income that a person can earn. Unfortunately she lost. No major party, only minor parties have addressed this proposal for Australia.

Australia has no Bill of Rights It is condemned internationally on this issue. The Australian Human Rights Commission states that we are unlike most similar liberal democracies. It does add, however, that a statement of our rights may be found in the Constitution, common law and legislation, and sets out this coverage on its website. Victoria and the ACT provide State or Territory human rights legislation.

Australia under the Gillard government initially opposed voting for Palestine being given observer status in the United Nations. Gillard only partially caved in when facing opposition in her Cabinet There were 138 nations in favour to 9 against. Australia in one of its less glorious moments, abstained.

NSW Premier Mike Baird just rammed through a bill that sacked the sitting Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (who has a long track record of fighting corruption) and reduced the power of the Commission.

The overriding question on all these issues is why. Why should Australia act in a way that earns international condemnation? Australia once was a very egalitarian nation. We were among the first to introduce major progressive legislation, such as giving the vote to women, after New Zealand But is it just a facade? Or have we changed? Have we returned to the days of the NSW Rum Corps? Mary Beard, in her fascinating history of Rome tells us that "to understand the ancient Romans it is necessary to know where they believed they came from." We, in Australia came from convict ancestry. Or was The liberal Party a huge Menzies con-man trick? The term "Liberal" as a political description in the English language in other countries usually means a government that "alleviates social ills and protect civil liberties and individual and human rights". Is the Liberal Party, the party of business, ensuring that its business supporters have its direct support? Is there too much money in politics?

Several of the issues raised in this paper, however, are supported by both parties –both of the left and of the right. Are we particularly bad, compared to other countries? Perhaps we are no worse than the others. The United Kingdom has Brexit to ponder over. Brexit was a significant economic setback caused by self-centred voting by a majority of the country. A disaster some observers describe it. The United States has Donald Trump, an example on the same issue. TheUS presents additional ethical issues. Noam Chomsky, voted the world's No 1 public Intellectual, pointed out in a recent book Who Rules the World, that the US determination to dominatethe worldhad caused near continuous wars in country after country since the end of World War II. He finds, on numerous occasions, that this domination has resulted in actions by the US that are of questionable morality. Chomsky blames the American intellectuals, who have been supportive of these policies since President Eisenhower. John Pilger has a similar view, although he is considerably more critical of US actions, particularly in Russia and the Ukraine.

Many other countries have demonstrated ethical weaknesses over history. Japan and Germany for instance. It is sometimes claimed that Angela Merkel's open door policy on refugees is a compensation for Germany's Nazi past . But none of these countries are currently condemned by international organisations of the stature of the United Nations and Amnesty International.

Australia has been so condemned. We do have to ask why? Without doubt, our politicians have been the reason. Do we get the politicians we deserve? Is it our intellectuals? Or our want-to--be intellectuals? Or have we finally turned back to embrace our convict ancestry and the NSW Rum Corps?

This article proposes one theory for your consideration. That our politicians have forgotten how to govern. The have come to believe that they are on opposing football teams .They believe that their job job is to oppose each other, to win a war, not to decide policies that are in the best interests of Australia and its place in the world. Politicians, of course have long divided into the left and the right, ever since the days of the French revolution when supporters of the king sat on the right side of the national assembly and those for the revolution on the left. But Australia has taken it much further. Australia was a great sporting nation. We still believe we are but we are slipping. The politicians are continuing the battles however. Paul Keating's insults, much admired by his followers, was the likely turning point. His description of the Senate as unrepresentative swill will long be remembered. These left-right battles have now descended into farce. The Turnbull decision to reject Kevin Rudd for the position of Secretary General of the United Nations was unbelievably petty minded. Rudd would have made a competent Secretary General. At minimum he might have mitigated the United Nation's criticism of this country. Or convinced us that we should pull our socks up.

Australia's politicians have taken their political football matches even further. The parties have divided among themselves. The Gillard vs Rudd conflict has been repeated recently in the Turnbull vs Abbott battle. The newspapers tell us that "the Prime Minister's rebuke of Mr Abbott drew an audible gasp from MPs in the House of Representatives." In fact the politicians see being elected as a method of waging war, not of governing in the best interests of the people of this country. The Prime Minister has even stated it In a recent video : " The reasons for our party's existence ..is to win and hold government so that we can pursue the policies that allow us to implement our values. Shorten is much the same. He cannot open his mouth without attacking the Liberal Party. Incidentally, Malcolm Turnbull does not spell out what those policies are. We can only guess.

There are ways in which we can elect politicians who represent what the electorates' wish, not as the party factions dictate. Allowing a free vote in Parliament would be a simple way. The Parliamentarian would know that unless he/she votes the way most people in their electorate wants, they will not be elected again. Some form of direct representation for instance, where the representative in parliament votes in response to the views of those who elect him or her, is a more effective alternative. There are no parties. So the eternal battles to win leadership of a party, or to ensure that that the party adopts your position, are no longer necessary. Perhaps we can explore those options. The range of options is not that great. A US blog Student news daily tells us that US students are taught:

Liberals (our Labor party members)believe in …equal opportunity and equality for all. …to alleviate social ills and to protect civil liberties and individual and human rights.

Conservatives (our Liberal party members)believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional (i.e. conservative American) values and a strong national defense.

A number of these concerns overlap. It would not be a difficult issue to express the current issues we face (refugees, same sex marriage, economic inequality, the environment, bio-ethical concerns) in terms with which we can identify and on which our elected representatives can decide in our legislatures.