Australia's lies
August 30, 2017
Ruth Halbert
...This week, the Dutton claim was that refugee policy goals are "frustrated" by the Constitution is utterly wrong, in law and in fact. Under s51(xxvii), the Commonwealth is constitutionally authorised to make laws with regard to immigration. This is not complex. There is no ambiguity. A constitutional head of power for the Commonwealth to make laws on migration exists and laws on migration it makes.
One such law is the Migration Act 1958 (Cth). The current policy is that anybody who arrives in the migration zone by boat to seek asylum will never be re-settled in Australia. This monstrosity is codified into s5AA, which defines "unlawful maritime arrival" to include babies born in Australia to asylum seekers we have forcibly sent to offshore detention.
Ponder this: Australia is predominantly ruled by people descended from boat arrivals — people who not only found asylum but have prospered from untold riches derived directly from stolen land. These people systematically murdered descendants of the actual first fleets, which arrived 60,000 years ago and produced descendants like Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, who constantly boasts that this is the most successful multicultural nation on earth. White people presume to define what is "un-Australian" in the public debate and have defined at law who is un-Australian forever, based on their mode of arrival being by boat.
...
All are equal before the law. Refugees have legal rights. Murder is always wrong and thus mass murder is too. It is logically impossible to enter somebody else’s land and then slaughter them in self-defence. No, the free speech "right" of Andrew Bolt to disseminate harmful racist nonsense can not be reconciled with summary offences used to criminalise black people who say "fuck" near a police officer.
Ingrid Matthews, Western Sydney University School of Law
Prime Minister, get out of this sewer of lies. Change the vile Immigration act which expressly demonises and punishes asylum seekers who arrive by boat. Give amnesty to all detainees on Manus Island and Nauru.