Pardon Us – We Missed the Logic

Jul 17, 2007 | Australian Values, Border Security, Corruption, Democracy, Immigration, Legal, OzPol Values, Values

Pardon Us – We Missed the Logic

We’re just a bit confused 

 

Dr Haneef has been charged with recklessly providing resources to a terrorist organisation (to wit, a sim card). The alleged recklessness occurred in the UK. It did not take place in Australia.

There is no suggestion, as far as we can know, that Haneef has broken any law in Australia.

No-one in Britain has yet been found guilty of being a terrorist or part of a “terrorist organisation”.

The British allegations are still ‘allegations’.

The charge against Haneef therefore presumes the British suspects are guilty and that they are, or are part of, a terrorist organisation. 

They may well be, but that is not how the law in both our countries is supposed to work. Australia, in any case, simply cannot, has no authority to, determine the guilt or innocence of a person in a foreign jurisdiction. That is done by courts and juries in the jurisdiction where they are charged. Or can they? It does seem, logically, that they have indeed predetermined that guilt given the charge against Haneef.

This presumption of guilt then would/will prejudice the trial of Haneef’s cousin to whom he gave the sim card. Could Haneef’s cousin conceivably claim the impossibility of a fair trial on the basis of the charges against Haneef?

And what then, or what if the British suspects are simply found not guilty? Haneef could not then be found to have provided resources to a terrorist organisation. (And before you say “that’s not going to happen, of course they are guilty”, remember that you are not entitled to presume that, nor to act on the presumption of guilt.)

The correct course of action after Haneef’s interrogation, which involved a British police officer, was surely to allow the British to use any information that was discovered to request the extradition of Haneef to Britain. As far as we know they have made no such request. If they had thought that there was sufficient evidence to justify such a request, they would have made it, wouldn’t they, the alleged offence having been committed in the British jurisdiction?

Why does all this matter? Is it to protect terrorists? Absolutely not.

It is that, as we have already noted, if we wish to protect our own liberty and freedom we must also protect the rights of our enemies. If we do not we establish a precedent that will come back to bite us. If we do not honour and cherish our own legal values – like justice, due process, habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence – then we practise and invite the practice of oppression in all our lives and we become as oppressive as the regimes and ideologies from which we seek to protect ourselves, using the threat of those odious regimes as an excuse.

If, of course, you were Mick [“Let’s show those drug-running kids some real Indonesian-style ‘Life or Death’ justice”] Keelty and his mates, you might just think that it was a bugger that the law gets in the way of justice. And that’s our system.

And we’ll tell you what. We don’t want Mick Keelty to protect us, or John Howard, or Kevin Andrews.

We want our system, our values and our way of life to protect us.

Haneef, Whores, ‘Howard with Hair’

Jul 16, 2007 | Australian Values, Citizenship, Democracy, Immigration, Legal, OzPol Values, Terrorism, Values

Haneef, Whores, ‘Howard with Hair’

 

“This glorious fat trout of an election godsend…”

 

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”,
~  Thomas Paine, great American patriot 

In March 2007, Deputy Secretary, Bob Correll, of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIC) wrote to Values Australia, charging that Values Australia was offensive and could “seriously damage” Australia’s international reputation.

Values Australia responded that DIC’s “callous disregard for humanity, basic morality and decency…have resulted all by themselves in immeasurably more damage to Australia’s reputation than the Values Australia website could possibly do…”, enumerating some of the more egregious examples.

We now say that DIC is at it again, with Haneef.

Former New South Wales Liberal Party leader John Dowd QC says Australia’s reputation is at stake after the Federal Government’s action.

Mr Dowd says the international community will now be questioning Australia’s credibility after the government’s move.

“This is a high-profile international series of cases,” he said.

“People in other television stations – the Al Jazeeras and so on – that go to millions of people throughout the world, are going to know that in Australia, the executive comes in and takes people into custody, even after the courts have allowed them out.”

  

Here is what we think:

The government is blatantly using Mohammed Haneef to push its – now desperate – re-election agenda.

Many MSM commentators claim AFP Commissioner, Mick Keelty, is dead straight, “meticulous” and so on. We, on the other hand, can understand how people might think that the AFP has been irreparably politicised and is doing John Howard’s bidding.

Keelty is reported to have stressed that Haneef must be considered to be innocent unless proved guilty.

Of course.

Some time ago Haneef gave his mobile phone sim card to a second cousin who is somehow implicated in the alleged, failed London-Glascow bombing attempts. Even Keelty says “the specific allegation involves recklessness rather than intention”.

This raises the question of how vulnerable ordinary Australians may be if they, for example, inadvertently do something, meet or assist someone in some way who later turns out to be a criminal. That homeless person, for example, you gave a dollar to for “a cup of coffee”. What if it turns out he is a terrorist in disguise? Does the law now allow for a prison term of 15 years for that “reckless”, inadvertent act of charity? It seems to.

Nevertheless, as Keelty claims, Haneef should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

And apparently that is exactly how the AFP and the government felt until some maverick magistrate who didn’t understand the main game applied the law instead of the politics to the matter.

She granted bail!

This did not fit the game plan. This was an embarrassment, surely. 

After so long grilling the man – this glorious fat trout of an election godsend, this putative terrorist from whom John Howard wants us all to think he is so bravely protecting us – it turns out he was merely ‘reckless’ and not at all intending to terrorise anyone.

The AFP had no more admissible information, had no further charges to lay, it appears, and so the man was released on bail.

How could John Howard look brave and grave and fatherly and win back the love of his (newly) frightened people when the boogeyman was apparently just…reckless.

It had to be made bigger. This, after all, might be the government’s last throw of the dice.

The AFP had been made to look bad, the government too.

So did the AFP whisper, like Grima Wormtongue, in the ear of the Minister for DIC about information that was inadmissible in court and which was insufficient for any charge to be laid about this reckless Indian – information which the Minister for DIC never has to reveal and which therefore can never be tested?

It was enough for the Minister for DIC (and Re-Electing the PM) to revoke his visa and bravely consign him to one of DIC’s finest helliday camps.

If people of questionable character ought to be in detention, surely most of the Government front bench would be checking themselves into the nearest DIC concentration camp.

It won’t work, of course.

The coalition will lose the election.

Howard will lose his seat.

And all they will be left with is a shattered life, sacrificed to their pride.

But what of Labor?

They’ll come storming in like the cavalry to save the day.

Won’t they?

No.

It is now clear that Labor policy is “me too, only moreso”. They are gutless and as shallow and self-serving as the other mob – unless we insist that they take up the real challenge, the real reason we want a change, which is to restore decency and to honour true Australian values.

If Labor is indistinguishable from the coalition, if Rudd is merely Howard-with-hair, why vote for them? 

They are turning into the worst disappointment since Latham.

The SIEV X-Factor

Jul 7, 2007 | Australian Values, Border Security, Corruption, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Immigration, Legal, Media Values, OzPol Values, Values

The SIEV X-Factor

“A Certain Maritime Incident”

 

Richard Fidler interviewed  Tony Kevin on ABC’s Conversation Hour  last week.
Tony Kevin is an activist who was one of the driving forces behind the campaign to uncover, and especially to tell, the truth about the sinking of the SIEV X in which approximately 353 children, women and men drowned.

He was a highly commended and respected Ambassador, including to Russia, and to Cambodia in the 90s. He has written a book, Walking the Camino, about the experience of travelling the pilgrim route from Andalusia to the north of Spain.

However, his reputation as a diplomat was no defence against the vitriol which was spat at him when he dared question the government’s morality and border protection policies.

“   I guess I identified very closely with the human rights of refugees and Australia’s obligations… I was denounced in the parliament as a person of no credibility; I was abused by three senators in a senate committee…”

But Tony Kevin said some things that really struck a chord with us.

“  In a democracy every citizen is responsible for the conduct of their government and if their government behaves in unethical or even criminal ways every citizen has a responsibility within their capacity to challenge that and that’s why I was one of the forty-three former diplomats and former senior military personnel who signed the statement condemning the Australian involvement in the war in Iraq, which I believe was a criminal activity. And I guess you’ve just got to basically, sometimes, stand up and be counted. That’s the entry ticket we pay for continuing to enjoy a democracy.

And he says something about the illusion in which we all, journalists and pundits included, live and take for granted – that while most of us are decent and reasonably honest and fair-minded we assume politics and politicians are also.

Many of us have assumed that what has been going on in Australian politics has been business as usual with a right-wing twist. We have been in denial, in our complacency, that what has been going on in the past eleven and a half years has in fact been a shift to the extremist right and the debauching of basic Australian political and civil service standards. Surely there could not have been such a shift, not in our country.

Tony Kevin saw it clearly.

“  What I’ve tried to do myself is to challenge the idea that the last eleven years have been years of normality. I don’t believe they have. I believe they’ve been years of moral dysfunction in Australia and to the extent that I can continue to convey that, without blaming people, without pointing fingers at people, I plan to continue to do that.

In fact, in a speech at the Manning Clark House Weekend of Ideas in April, Kevin spoke about the fragility and transparency of our illusion about our system and our way of life.

“  Confronting the SIEV X cover-up forced me to look down into the abyss that lies beneath our “presumption of regularity” – the phrase is Jack Waterford’s – a presumption that we rely on in our daily lives in society.

I understand now that my exposure to this abyss was a full grief trauma…Walking through Manuka, seeing people enjoying themselves in restaurants, I wanted to scream — “Wake up to the horrors of what our government is doing to defenceless people in our names! How can you still pretend that we live in a normal decent country”? It is hard to look into that abyss for a long time without damage, without succumbing to depression or self-destructive rage.

In this speech he also described what happened to him as a result of his outspoken dissent and activism.

“  These are the refugee dissent suppression strategies I encountered:

 

1. Put out claimed facts that are actually untrue, relying on the public’s presumption that governments normally do not lie to the public, except in grave national security emergencies.

2. Force truth-seekers into the roles of advocates or activists. Blur debates about the facts in specific cases of abuse of human rights, by trying to move the debate into unresolvable discussions about values.

3. Drive wedges to weaken the solidarity of dissent. Use frightener words to marginalize and discredit passionate or influential dissenters, words like “extremist”, “fanatic”, “conspiracy theorist”, “Howard-hater”, “disloyal”, “un-Australian”.

4. Workplace or NGO-funding sanctions. Implied threats against those in government or government-funded employment, or threats to cut off funding to NGOs that support refugee activism.

5. Guilt trips. Accuse dissenters of prolonging victims’ distress through holding out false hopes, or of undermining national security. Play games with dissenters’ minds, aimed at undermining their belief in the justice of their causes. Seek to make them feel more isolated.

6. Never give credit to dissenters when they succeed. Always pretend that any decisions to soften the system were not taken under pressure.

 

On point 1, the SIEV X public history is full of examples of false and shifting stories put out by government:

 

On where the boat sank: First, that it sank in Indonesian waters. Later, that “we don’t know where it sank”. Then, an admission that it sank in international waters. But then, a later reversion to “we don’t know where it sank”.

 

On what we knew about the voyage. First, that we knew nothing till we saw the TV news of the sinking. Then, that we knew the boat was coming, but we did not know when or from where. We cannot tell you what we knew, because it’s intelligence; or, because it is the subject of an ongoing investigation. Or a variant from Mick Keelty: that you will just have to take our word for it that we did not know about the boat until it was too late to save the passengers. Because it’s “operational”, we cannot offer proof of this claim.

 

Were we expecting the boat? Yes, we were expecting the boat at Christmas Island on 21 October and that is why we sent a distress message to Indonesian Search and Rescue when it failed to arrive on time. But later – no, we did not put out a distress call to the ADF or to all shipping, because we then assumed that the boat had never left or it had turned back.

 

Did we ever look for the boat? No, we didn’t. Yes, we did – and here to prove are the RAAF surveillance maps and records of boat sightings, plastered all over the front page of the Weekend Australian on 29 June 2002, when media concern about SIEV X was at its peak But later – Yes, we did fly over the area, but only as part of routine RAAF surveillance patrols, because our aircrews were never tasked to look for a missing boat. And the flight charts and sightings data we tabled in the Senate and that the Senate accepted as fact were really just approximate flight paths. No, you cannot see our aircrew flight reports or know the names of the crews, because that’s all classified information. And according to the Defence Minister in 2005, the evidence the ADF gave in 2002 — despite all the conclusively forensic analysis by Marg Hutton of its many inconsistencies — was the whole truth.

 

Do we know the names of the dead? Initially, as reported — the UNHCR is preparing and collating lists of the dead and survivors. Later from the AFP — there are no such lists. Later — there are some lists but it is unlikely they will ever be made public.

And so on and on. One phoney smokescreen was put up after another until a frustrated and jaded media abandoned the story, having found no way to distinguish between truth and lies.

You can read Kevin’s testimony to the Senate Inquiry into “A Certain Maritime Incident” at the SIEV X site.

Fidler asked Kevin whether his SIEV X research and advocacy since 2002 had been worth it.

“  Yes. I think my work achieved useful results going beyond SIEV X. It helped more people to see the truth behind the now discredited myth that John Howard is just another Australian politician trying to do his job more or less decently. Australians know the real Howard now. I think my SIEV X research and advocacy helped to expose the ugly truth about this man.

Quite so.

 

 

Dear DIC

Mar 28, 2007 | Australian Values, Border Security, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Immigration, Legal, Media Values, OzPol Values, USPol, Values, War

Dear DIC

The Ultimate Dreamcometrue

 

I n the heat of the 2006 Spring Offensive over Australian values Values Australia was born in response to the cynical and ignorant way real Australian values were being abused by politicians and the sycophantic, right-wing media echo chamber.

It was a hard slog but slowly and surely the numbers began to rise and Values Australia was eventually recognised as a Top Five Google site.

And then…the ultimate success! The Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship — freshly cleansed of responsibility for Aborigines and migrants — complained in the most bureaucratically courteous and yet wounded tone about the Values Australia site.

The letter was variously described by others as “bizarre”, a “hoax” and (gloriously) “frog-shit”.

Values Australia had to respond to take advantage of this un-dreamt-of opportunity. (Or, as an Aussie medal-winner might say, “Issa dreamcometrue”.)

Here is an excerpt from the Department’s letter:

“I acknowledge that your website expressly states that it is a satire. However, I am very concerned that it gives the appearance of being an officially approved Australian Government website. I am concerned that some of the content may seriously damage Australia’s reputation overseas. It may also create confusion regarding the important business managed by the Department, including the processing of visa applications and the granting of Australian Citizenship. You have a right to express your views about the government but I consider that the website is potentially misleading and offensive. I request that you remove it immediately….

[…]

I would appreciate your notification within seven days of the date of receipt of this letter that you have taken that action. Otherwise the Department will consider whether to take any further action.”

The claims are addressed comprehensively in the following Values Australia response. We trust you will understand the deletion of the name and address:

Croydon NSW 2132
25 March 2007

Bob Correll
Deputy Secretary
Department of Immigration and Citizenship

Dear Mr Correll,

I have received a letter purporting to have come from your department. There are reasons for believing it may be a hoax and it is therefore attached for your information.

This letter threatens Values Australia with a number of laws and acts including Sections 53 (c) (d) and (eb) of the Trade Practices Act 1974, Section 68 of the Crimes Act 1914 and Section 39(2) of the Trade Marks Act 1995

One of the reasons it was thought this letter must be a hoax is that Section 68 of the Crimes Act 1914 was repealed in 2000 whereas the Values Australia website has only been online since September 2006. There may be other laws which are now more pertinent but it is unlikely that a competent government lawyer or the Deputy Secretary of a major government department would make such an embarrassing mistake if they were seriously trying to threaten a citizen.

However, on reflection, and taking into account the numerous far more embarrassing legal gaffes that have been made in recent history by your own department under its variety of names, and the government’s willingness in general to make threats on equally dubious legal grounds against Australian citizens, its willingness to push the legal envelope on refugees, not to mention acts which, according to everyone except government lawyers, contravene international law, and its eager acquiescence in illegal acts by other nations, it has been thought possible that this threat may in fact be genuine.

Section 39(2) of the Trade Marks Act 1995, which you mention (assuming for the moment that it was you and not a hoaxer) refers as far as we can tell to signs which so nearly resemble a sign as to be likely to be taken for it, this in particular reference to the Australian Coat of Arms].

You and your lawyers would have noted as they investigated the Values Australia website that there are a number of images to which you could be referring. There is no one image of which it might be said that “that is the one which is pretending to be the trademark”. Each of these images is merely an image. None of them is a modification in any way of the Australian Coat of Arms and each of them was generated as an original image from materials not remotely connected with the Australian Government.

None of the images is, or has ever been, intended as a trade mark, purports to be a trade mark, or has anywhere been claimed to be a trade mark.

Looking at the images it is clear to anyone remotely acquainted with the Australian Coat of Arms, and anyone who could pass any proposed Australian Citizenship Test, that none of them can be confused with it or could be “taken for it”. According to the official description of the Coat of Arms:

1) A shield is supported by a kangaroo and emu

2) A seven-pointed star sits above the shield

3) A wreath of gold and blue sits under the star

4) Golden wattle frames the shield and supporters

5) A scroll contains the word ‘Australia’.

This is not a description which fits any of the images on the Values Australia website.

a) The bird in every case is on the “wrong” side of the image and is usually a shape resembling an ostrich.

b) Where the bird, in one case only, is an emu it is looking directly at the viewer.

c) The kangaroo’s stance, when it is a stance, is different from that on the “real” Coat of Arms. The difference is variously the disposition of its arms and the direction the head is pointing.

d) In other iterations the kangaroo is reclining.

e) On most images on the site there is no kangaroo. A shape perhaps suggesting a koala is on the right hand side of the image.

f) There is no star, whether seven-pointed or not, on the values Australia image.

g) There is a representation of a crown. There is no crown anywhere on the “real” Coat of Arms.

h) On coloured images there is a rectangle below the crown which is red, blue and yellow.

i) There is no representation of wattle on any image.

j) On coloured images the foliage is clearly eucalyptus.

k) None of the images to which you may be referring have a scroll with the word “Australia”.

l) On images where there is a scroll it says either “Ministry of Mateship” or “Department of Values”.

m) Where there is a shield-shaped element discernible, it does not include any symbol of any of Australia’s six states.

n) Where a shield-shaped element can be discerned on the monotone versions there is no detail.

o) A coloured image bears a shield shape enclosing hands grasping prison bars, or perhaps the bars of a detention centre.

p) There is a distinctly non-Australian sash across the shape.

The third threat made in the letter is with Sections 53 (c) (d) and (eb) of the Trade Practices Act 1974, claiming that a case may be made of “passing off”.

In a landmark passing off case, Reckitt & Colman Ltd v Borden Inc [1990], Lord Oliver stated that a plaintiff must establish all of the following:

a goodwill or reputation attached to the goods or services…

Secondly, he must demonstrate a misrepresentation by the defendant to the public (whether intentional) leading or likely to lead the public to believe that the goods or services offered by him are goods or services of the plaintiff…

Thirdly, he must demonstrate that he suffers [loss or damage as a consequence of the erroneous belief that the goods or services of the defendant are the goods or services of the plaintiff].

a) Values Australia obviously cannot and does not offer or claim to offer the goods and services actually offered by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

b) Not even a stupid person, let alone a “reasonable person”, could conclude that the so-called “services” offered on the Values Australia website would be confused with the real services offered by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship or that there is any intent to represent a limited range of satirical mugs, t-shirts, or “Fair Dinkum Aussie Mate ‘certificates’” – or, indeed, laughter -as being goods or services of, or sanctioned by, the Department.

c) Because the website does not offer, or pretend to offer, or represent that it offers, the actual goods and services offered by the Department, it is as impossible to demonstrate as it is silly to suggest that the Department has suffered or could suffer loss or damage of those services as a result of any confusion caused by the website. No person has ever contacted Values Australia with any question concerning citizenship or visa applications. In case anyone were to try, Values Australia has on the contrary been responsible and careful to avoid confusing really stupid people. The “Contact” page of the website has a link to the Department’s website with the words,

“If you are seeking information about real Australian visas or citizenship, we recommend you go to the official site: http://www.immi.gov.au.”

The header of the website has the statement, “Not an Australian Government site”, which links to the official DIC website.

Returning to the “forgery” threat made in the letter:

The test is intent to deceive, in the case of the repealed act, or of an intention to obtain a gain or cause a loss by inducing a public official to accept a document as genuine. I am confident that there is no public official who would accept the Values Australia website or any of its ‘materials’ as genuine, particularly to the extent of acting upon them. For example, no public official could conceivably accept the Fair Dinkum Aussie Mate Cetrificate as anything but a parody. Values Australia has not and has never had any intention to have any of its materials taken as, or presented by others as, genuine Commonwealth documents, which they quite transparently are not. To suggest otherwise is ludicrous.

The wording on the Fair Dinkum Aussie Mate Certificate includes:

I, the Minister of Fair Dinkum Aussie Values and Detention Centres hereby grant this Certificate of Fair Dinkum Aussie Mateship to the abovenamed applicant who shall be an Aussie Mate, no worries.

The parodied “Visor” stamp contains the following text:

Holder has promised not to blow anything up or molest daughters and has correctly recited “I, Lover”

True blue mate who has promised to sling me a slab

Approved for entry to pick fruit for a period of three months and must then visit Opera House

The following text appears on the home page:

Enriching Australia through the well-managed detention of innocent children

Australian values are to always give people a fair go. This ethic does not apply if your name is David Hicks.

Australia offers a wide range of lifestyle choices – both RSLs and Leagues Clubs.

In principle, we decide who comes here and how they come, but only if that is all right with Indonesia.

Australia values democracy. We love it so much we give it away, at the point of a gun if necessary. Dead Iraqis are a small price to pay for world peace.

Values Australia looks forward to hearing the Department argue that these statements could be misinterpreted or misconstrued as official, credible, or even potential Government policy, or that these statements could possibly be officially approved and that these statements would not immediately indicate to even the most unwary and unsophisticated visitor that the site was a parody, a satire and definitely not a government or government-sanctioned site.

The claims concerning the “title of an official government agency” are the main reason it is thought this letter may be a hoax.

a) The letter was correct in stating that the Values Australia website used the phrase “Department of Citizenship” in the text of one iteration of the header image. However the full text on that image was “Department of Citizenship and Fair Dinkum Values”. The first use of this phrase on the website was on or after 22 September 2006 when your Department’s name was the “Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs”. Your Department was subsequently renamed on or about 23 January 2007 to become the “Department of Immigration and Citizenship”.

b) The letter claims that the use of the phrase “Department of Citizenship” could be misleading and deceptive, but it is clearly not. No reasonable, or even really stupid, person could possibly believe that a department called the “Department of Citizenship and Fair Dinkum Values” would exist in reality.

c) Your Department is not and never was called the “Department of Citizenship”. It is now called the “Department of Immigration and Citizenship”.

d) Astonishingly, the letter claims that the use of the phrase “Department of Citizenship”

“could be seen as a misrepresentation made in the course of trade to perspective customers, which is calculated to injure the business or goodwill of another trader and which causes actual damage, or will probably do so.”

Values Australia fails to see how the use of the phrase “Department of Citizenship and Fair Dinkum Values” three months before the Department’s change of name could be construed either as an intentional “misrepresentation”, or as “calculated to injure”. There was no Department of Citizenship in existence, or planned, which Values Australia could possibly have intended to misrepresent or to injure by using those words. The writer gives Values Australia far too much credit for political clairvoyance to suggest that it could have known three months in advance that the head of the Minister would roll and the Department’s name be changed.

If Values Australia had such predictive abilities it would be in another, far more lucrative, business.

e) On the other hand, perhaps it would not have been such a stretch to foresee that, from DIMIA to DIMA to DIC, first Aborigines and then ethnic Australians would be cleansed from your Department by the Prime Minister.

f) The letter mentions the possibility of “misrepresentation made in the course of trade to perspective customers”.

Values Australia is not clear what a “perspective” customer might be. Perhaps it is one who views the site from a safe distance.

  

 

The letter purporting to be from you effects concern that

“some of the content may seriously damage Australia’s reputation overseas.”

The Department does not need Values Australia to damage Australia’s reputation overseas. Your department, in particular, in hand with the Attorney General’s Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs have been “seriously damaging” Australia’s reputation overseas for some years.

Your department’s ministerially admitted and well-documented dysfunctional corporate culture, characterised by callous disregard for humanity, basic morality and decency (all until fairly recently basic Australian values), and the astonishing ineptitude and resultant shameless blameshifting and denial which are so regularly publicly exposed – most recently in your new Minister’s embarrassment over Nauru, IOM and the UNHCR – have resulted all by themselves in immeasurably more damage to Australia’s reputation than the Values Australia website could possibly do if it wanted to, which it most definitely does not.

Australia used to have a reputation overseas as a decent, fair and tolerant country.

Now in just the last few years we have had the Cornelia Rau affair, Vivian Solon, Robert Jovicic, the ongoing humanitarian disgrace of the detention centres and the appalling and un-Australian treatment of refugees.

Values Australia understands that Villawood detainees are released into the Australian community, after four years in detention, not knowing a word of English. Not to help these people to learn English, when there has been so much opportunity over four years, is a disgrace and to require them to enter the community without the basic tools they need in order to survive is simply abuse.

Then there is David Hicks and Guantánamo, Australia’s capitulation to Indonesia over refugees from Irian Jaya and of course AWB. Naturally, Values Australia understands that the fury at Australia expressed by the United Nations, The US Congress and Canada over the AWB Affair pales into insignificance beside the light humour attempted on the Values Australia website.

The letter you may have written says,

“You have a right to express your views about the government but I consider that the website is potentially misleading and offensive.”

Values Australia is not sure it understands. Does this mean that Australian citizens may express their views so long as they are not offensive? It does not say offensive to whom. The Department’s website asserts that Australians are free to express their opinions about any topic. That Australia does not censor the media. That a person may criticise the government without fear of arrest. Is this only as long as they are not offensive? Is it offensive by definition to criticise the government? Values Australia is not aware of which law would cover that.

Values Australia, although it makes fun of elements of Australian culture and politics, is fiercely and proudly Australian, defending the real Australian values of decency and humanity and a fair go, from the constant, corrosive attacks by cynical, self-serving politicians and bureaucrats.

Values Australia sees what it does as positively enhancing Australia’s international reputation, as it knows for a fact that it does, by demonstrating that despite our politicians and their compliant servants, most real Australians are humane; that Australians do care about people elsewhere in the world; that Australians do disagree with the callousness of this government and its servants, and that Australians do have a sense of humour.

Bob, a person reported to Values Australia a conversation with his children when they had read some pages of the Values Australia website. “Are they allowed to say that?” they asked. “Won’t they get into trouble?”

This person was furious and said so. “How dare you!” he exploded. “Don’t you understand? You have free speech in this country. You are allowed to say what you think! People fought wars and died for that freedom! How dare you assume that you don’t have freedom of speech!”

Of course their belief that they couldn’t necessarily say what they thought if it was critical of the government was natural. In their short lives they had already seen so many of the liberties, rights and freedoms that had been fought for and cherished in Australia for so long being eroded and corroded under this government, and apparently and unfortunately with the acquiescence of people like you.

So Bob (assuming you wrote the letter), what is another little freedom quietly whittled away, another voice strangled, another turn of the screw of fear on an increasingly, and synthetically, anxious population? It’s not really you, after all. It’s the job, it’s the kids’ education, it’s the career, it’s the boss, it’s the Minister, it’s the PM. It’s not you, not really. At the end of the week you can still hop in the Volvo and tootle down to the weekender at Moruya to bask in the knowledge of a week well worked. It’s just people, after all.

Values Australia will of course be assuming for the time being that the letter is real and taking legal advice on all of the points, but it declines to refrain from giving offence – if that is what is taken – for the sake merely of “not being offensive”. That would be a violation of a basic Australian value.

Graham (family name withheld)

for Values Australia

 

 

Values Australia is not a lawyer and would be grateful for any serious pro bono advice on the matter.

 

 

Some Responses to “Dear ‘DIC’ ”

 
Club Troppo » Missing Link:
29 March, 2007 at 7:19 am

[…] The usual superbly diverse collection of blogospherical delights are summarised below under the usual headings. But I thought I would highlight here in the intro a post which is my early favourite for Blog Post of the Year 2007. It’s quite possibly the best piece of passionate, angry polemic I’ve ever read, certainly on a blog. “Roger Migently” is roused to extraordinary heights of eloquence by the bastardry of the recently renamed federal Department of Immigration and Citizenship (”DIC”) and produces a devastating response to a threatening letter from the Department’s lawyers. Do yourself a favour and read it in full. For what it’s worth, my briefly considered generalist lawyer’s evaluation of the threats is that they have no legal substance whatever. This appalling example of government bullying and attempted suppression of political free speech should by rights become a significant story in the mainstream media if the Department continues pursuing “Roger”. […]

Barista » Blog Archive »:
30 March, 2007 at 7:46 am

[…] The site has a wonderful time taking the piss out of this letter, demonstrating just how ludicrous the claim is. I just wanted to compare the coats of arms which the Department considers to be so similar: […]

Lang Mack:
30 March, 2007 at 8:06 am

Thank you so much for the effort you put in,I have been dealing with these “people” on behalf of another four five years and have had to play it straight to get a result, that made me so happy, I wish you well.. Thanks again..

al loomis:

31 March, 2007 at 11:38 pm

was it really ‘dic’? are they that stupid? your fortune is made! unless it’s a scam in which case the the scammers get the coup feather, and you are caught taking yourself so very seriously. amusing, whichever.

 
roger migently:
1 April, 2007 at 12:22 am

Please say more about how to make one’s fortune out of this!!

 

Kieran:
7 April, 2007 at 11:09 am

Awesome. Absolutely awesome.

Ordinary Australians Lose Automatic Citizenship

Dec 26, 2006 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, Immigration, OzPol Values, Racism, Values

Ordinary Australians Lose Automatic Citizenship

 Shocking News Just “Friendly Encouragement” – PM

Ordinary Australians are terrified by a new test the Australian Government is planning to introduce.

The National Continuing Citizenship Assessment will strip even Australian-born Australians of their Citizenship if they fail to demonstrate a reasonably comprehensive understanding of Australian political and cultural history.

It includes such questions as:

47.  What were Ned Kelly’s famous last words?

48.  Who wrote a book with those words as its title?

50.  What was the Petrov Affair?

65. What was the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act? What happened to it?

85.  What was Kylie’s first movie role?

100.  What were:  a) The Statute of Westminster?   b) The Australia Act?

Many of those who have heard of the new Citizenship Test are expressing some concerns. They say that to know some of these answers they would have had to listen at school and that would be un-Australian, so we want to reassure all loyal and fair dinkum Australians that they have nothing to fear.

It is true that the proposed legislation means that current Australian citizens may lose their citizenship if they fail to pass random citizenship tests.

Citizens born in Australia who fail the test could have their status reduced to Permanent Resident. Those not born in Australia would have their status reduced to Resident Alien and, if they failed a second test, would be exported to their country of origin; or, if their country of origin no longer exists (by virtue, for example, of its having been bombed back into the stone age) then to a country less freedom-loving and tolerant of cultural differences than Australia.

The reason for the test is that already several people who are expected to know important Australian history, values, legal and constitutional facts have shown shortcomings in these areas. Indeed, most state and federal politicians are frighteningly ignorant and under a cloud for not knowing, for example, what Australia Day actually celebrates. 


Anonymous Source 

“You see,” claimed anonymous source Philippe leCrud (above):

“it’s clearly unfair of us to demand that New Australians do all this study and pass a test on all these facts when people who are Citizens merely because they had the good fortune to be born here mostly know bugger-all about Australian history, values and especially the Constitution (and what’s more couldn’t give a flying fuck*) get to enjoy all the privileges of being an Australian. It’s clearly unfair and the only alternatives are to make the test easier – but that wouldn’t keep out the terrorists – or to test everyone. So that’s the way we’ve gone.”

In any case, the Government wants to reassure anyone who is anxious that they should understand that the purpose of the test is simply to provide some friendly encouragement to everyone to achieve the required level of knowledge.

And anyone who is a good Australian Citizen already has nothing to fear.

We have obtained an early draft of the Test to get a sense of the areas of knowledge and the depth of understanding that is expected of all Australians. There are 100 questions.

The questions are not really too hard. Here is a sample:

What sort of creatures populate the island off Perth, WA?

What is the name of the island?

What is the constitutional status of the Northern Territory?

Who was the first female Justice of the High Court Australia?

When did Papua New Guinea become independent from Australia?

Who was its first Prime Minister?

Who called Australia ‘The Lucky Country’?

What did he mean? (no, that’s not correct)

Whom did Elton John marry in Australia?

On what date?

What was she doing in Australia?

Which Australian singer was present at the wedding?

Whom did Graham Kennedy marry in Australia? 
Why on earth?

What American TV comedy show did she star in?

How many Twelve Apostles are there?

 

* There is no indication of concern that “not giving a flying fuck” breaches any “core” Aussie values but rather that not giving a fuck may automatically entitle anyone to Australian Citizenship.

We have a sneaking suspicion that the Continuing Citizenship Assessment is a trap and that the only way to pass the test is to fail it.

Anyone who cares enough to study and do well is obviously un-Australian and a terrorist.

Australian Refujesus Exhibition

Oct 15, 2006 | Australian Values, Border Security, Immigration, OzPol Values

Australian Refujesus Exhibition

Minister von Rock Opens Australian Refujesus Exhibition

15 October, 2006

The Australian Minister for Pacific Island Guano Getaways and Internment (PIGGI), Mistress von Rock, has opened a very tasteful photographic exhibition of pathetically grateful boat people to mark the start of Refujesus Week.

The exhibition includes many happy snaps of grateful refugees who have been the guests of Mistress von Rock’s department. Most of the smiling refugees are still at large.

“The photos feature refugees who have sailed their leaky boats either off the edge and into Nauru, or right into the centre of Australia. People who can do that and can survive five or more years in one of our concentration camps are not only extremely resourceful but also extraordinarily resilient and that’s the sort of immigrant we like, picking our fruit and cleaning our toilets” says von Rock.

Speaking about the proposed Aussie Mateship test, von Rock said she did not believe it would disadvantage refugees.

“I’m a huge fan of people learning English,” she said, “and our Values Australia website is an excellent place to start.” 

“There are tremendous freedoms in Australia but if you don’t speak English, you’re limited in your access to them and I want these people to have access to every opportunity that Australia offers.

“At present we still have opportunities in Port Hedland, Woomera, Villawood, Maribyrnong, Christmas Island and Baxter,” she said, adding with an exhilarating crack of her whip, “On your knees! Have you been a naughty boy? You have, haven’t you, and you deserve to be punished, don’t you!”