What
is happening? How long has this been going on? And why?
More
than a year ago The Monthly writer
James Button wrote about the new mega-department run by Peter Dutton which was
set up in December 2017 and renamed the Home Affairs department – and yet Dutton
now “also remains minister for immigration and border protection [and] takes
charge of a vast portfolio that will encompass the federal police, ASIO,
Australian Border Force, immigration, counterterrorism and emergency
management.” Dutton, it seems, thought that his job was to “keep Australia safe”,
but is he? What is he doing?
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2018/february/1517403600/james-button/dutton-s-dark-victory
- February 2018
In
July 2018 The Australian had an
article on how Dutton slashed 20,000 out of the visa list – but it wants
subscription and I will not. If you are a subscriber then read on yourself. (I
have a pdf copy.)
The
Senate found him guilty of misleading the parliament on an au pair visa, yet he
still got away with that. Paddy Manning, for The Monthly, wrote that Pezzullo, Dutton’s departmental secretary, “let
one thing be known... which reveals the government’s priorities: the leak of
embarrassing departmental emails last week has been referred to the Australian
Federal Police, which is ultimately answerable to … the home affairs minister
himself, of course. Dutton appears completely unaccountable...”
https://www.themonthly.com.au/today/paddy-manning/2018/05/2018/1536127670/dutton-s-shaky-ground
- September 2018
By
February this year Michael West wrote that the list was up to 60,000 from “[a]nother
Dutton mess. This time citizenship processing of applicants arriving by air... Inefficiency
and neglect on the part of Home Affairs leadership has failed to deal with a
record number of largely non-genuine asylum seeker applications.”
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/duttons-visa-backlog-a-honeypot-for-spivs-carpetbaggers-people-smugglers/
- February 2019
Does
the Homes Affair department think seriously about that? Oh, I don’t think so.
This
was revisited by Sydney Morning Herald in March, when Abul Rizvi wrote his own
opinion that “Peter Dutton ... must qualify as our worst immigration minister,
a role he held until last August. As Home Affairs minister, he continues to
carry ultimate responsibility for the immigration portfolio.”
Does
the Homes Affair department think seriously about that? Oh, I don’t think so.
Peter
Marles, for the Inside Story, said
that Australia has “our own border wall, and that “[o]ur ‘state of exception’
combines disturbing practices, cost blowouts and chaotic administration...” That
will be bringing us to an extremely poor budget blow-out.
John
Menadue printed an Abul Rizvi article about Dutton’s ‘lesser known scandal’ –
partner visas. He said that “Home Affairs actions are both morally and legally
indefensible. This approach does nothing to improve the integrity of the visa
system and is also a wasteful way of using resources as Home Affairs staff are
distracted from processing work to answering queries and criticisms for the
delays.” I absolutely agree!
Today,
10 June, I read Abul Rizvi’s article in the Independent
Australia which mentioned Senate Keneally “exposes visa system chaos under
Dutton” – and provided a shocking table showing the decline of visas processed
between 2016/17 and the end of last year.
Do
you know anything about this – how ridiculous
it is that Dutton is in control of the country’s security; that Dutton is in
charge of the asylum settlers; that Dutton gives specific preference to some people without a real excuse; that
he has not employed enough Australians
to work in visa processing; that he doesn’t care that what he is doing is “morally
and legally indefensible”?
This
has to stop! NOW! The current government, the LNP, lied to the entire
population – and far too many believed them. Yet they have revelled in those lies
and continue with the shocking laws they have passed.
Do
you know what ‘unravelling’ means? That is what we need to do for this government’s
black comedy. “In comedy, the end comes
when the confusions are unravelled;
the day is over, equilibrium is restored with the finality of the closed
curtain.” From Cambridge English Corpus and I thank them for this thought.
I hope we make it happen!
