Jumping at shadows

Australia is dependent on overseas trained doctors, and this will continue to be so for the next decade. This is particularly so in rural towns. Many of those overseas trained doctors come from the Indian sub-continent. The police have raided several overseas trained doctors’ homes and seized files and other documents. They have taken several doctors in for questioning only to have subsequently had to release them as there was no evidence against them.

There is a growing fear, among thinking circles in Australia, that the current police raids are being driven by Islamophobia or a more diffuse racism.

Whether or not this is the case, the police’s action in rounding up so many people for questioning is hardly an example of intelligently using the draconian provisions of Australia’s terrorism legislation. It may lead to foreign trained doctors avoiding Australia and does nothing to ensure that Australian citizens sleep soundly in their beds at night. It is time for our police and politicians to stop jumping at shadows.

Abuse of due process

In the afternoon following the court case in which the magistrate held that the prosecution had not provided evidence of a direct link between Dr Haneef and a terrorist organisation, the Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews announced he had, on character grounds, cancelled Dr Haneef’s visa and that Dr Haneef would be taken into immigration detention.

"In particular, a person fails the character test if - and I quote - 'the person has or has had an association with someone else or with a group or organisation whom the Minister reasonably suspects has been involved or is involved in criminal conduct’” he said.

Minister Andrews claimed that he had come to this decision after information was supplied to him by the Australian Federal Police.

Such information was, presumably, identical with that placed before the magistrate who set Dr Haneef’s bail conditions. What is more concerning is that few if any Australian citizens would have any idea whether or not the people and organisations they have contact with are involved or have been involved in criminal conduct.

It may or may not concern Australian born citizens, who do not hold dual nationality, what Minister Andrews thinks of their character. But all permanent residents who weren’t born in Australia, could on the grounds that “the person has or has had an association with someone else or with a group or organisation whom the Minister reasonably suspects has been or is involved in criminal conduct”, could be stripped of their permanent or temporary visa and citizenship.

The Minister’s actions are an abuse of due process and natural justice. Eventually a Federal Court will put the Minister in his place but in the meantime Australia’s international reputation will suffer and Dr Haneef will languish in Villawood.