Senator Fielding has hit the nail on the head regarding the proposed law which Ken and Alan in their comments have ignored or don’t properly understand.

The new law has nothing to do with overseas refugee camps in Africa or the middle east, its about refugees who come from our very near neighbours where Australia is the first port of call for protection.

We would have been outraged if in 1994 Kenya had closed its border to Rwandan refugees forcing them to go to neighbouring Burundi but that’s effectively what Australia is doing. Granted Australia is paying Nauru, but we should retain the accountability because we have the responsibility.

BTW - I was told by a refugee lawyer that some of the tampa refugees (the vast majority of which were granted Aussie visas… ie what a waste of money!) are suffering from phosphorus poisoning after being housed in an ex-phosphorus mine on nauru. So there is a massive compensation payment waiting to happen!! In other words, the way we handle refugee processing is actually creating a social time-bomb which the Aussie tax payer will have to pick up down the track. It’s short-term political gain for long-term social pain.

The Synod of the Diocese of Sydney previously stated its opposition to the detention of asylum seeker’s kids:

The Sydney Diocese’s Social Issues Executive has published a briefing on the new law here:

This article has some food for thought regarding the Bible’s teaching:

Archbishop Peter Jensen applies the Bible’s teaching to the tampa back in 2001

Give thanks!

Howard has dropped the law, knowing it was doomed:

Yay! The law was evil and inhumane. Good riddance.

Refugees

I’m glad the bill would probably not have passed in the Senate but it is not a good thing when a Prime Minister moves to repeal the legislation in the House just because he thinks the Senate might reject it.  There is much concerning our democracy that is at stake here and the nonense that is sometimes called politics continually threatens that democracy.  The idea that a rejection by the Senate is a humiliating defeat for the Prime Minister is just plain nonsense.  A really strong Prime Minister would take such things in his (or her) stride.  A sad fact is that the Labor Party is even worse when it comes to tolerating the occasional floor-crossing.  If Senator Wright (a Liberal) could cross the floor 150 times in his career to 9ote against his government- mostly in the Menzies era- I don’t see what all the fuss is about.

In short, I’m glad the bill did not become law, but parliamentary democracy has had a blow struck against it.

There- I feel a bit better now.

I encourage contributors to these forums who agreed with Senators Fielding, Troeth, etc to send an email or letter of thanks.

Politics can be such a thankless profession, which attracts lots of criticism and little gratitude (well, sometimes).

I think as Christian we should be holding our govt to account as well as thanking them when their decisions reflect the gospel.

I’m glad the bill would probably not have passed in the Senate but it is not a good thing when a Prime Minister moves to repeal the legislation in the House just because he thinks the Senate might reject it.

Why do you think this, David? I thought refugee-advocates wanted the bill withdrawn.  Or was the refugee issue only an excuse to see the PM defeated in a vote in Parliament?  Perish the thought!  It was obvious the bill would not pass, so it was withdrawn.  Negotiation, compromise, withdrawal in the face of likely defeat - this is the sort of thing sensible mature people do, isn’t it?

There is much concerning our democracy that is at stake here and the nonsense that is sometimes called politics continually threatens that democracy.  The idea that a rejection by the Senate is a humiliating defeat for the Prime Minister is just plain nonsense. A really strong Prime Minister would take such things in his (or her) stride.

Agreed - I think Howard has rather taken it in his stride.  However, the media’s agenda is always to exaggerate everything everywhere.  Hence all backdowns are humiliating; all problems are crises; it goes with the territory of journalism.

A sad fact is that the Labor Party is even worse when it comes to tolerating the occasional floor-crossing. If Senator Wright (a Liberal) could cross the floor 150 times in his career to vote against his government- mostly in the Menzies era- I don’t see what all the fuss is about.

There are historical reasons for the different attitudes of the two parties.  The Labor Party was founded as the parliamentary arm of the trade union movement, which has never supported any individual right to dissent, and its endorsed candidates still sign a pledge always to vote the caucus line.  Coalition MPs represent a more individualist, laisser-faire tradition. 

In short, I’m glad the bill did not become law, but parliamentary democracy has had a blow struck against it.

Really?  Why?  I would have thought this whole episode proves the worth of parliamentary democracy - particularly from the point of view of an opponent of this bill.

Although with some reservations I’d have preferred the bill to pass, the whole affair makes me rather grateful to be an Australian.  A healthy example of politics at work.

Refugees

Just to add to what I wrote earlier, it seems to me that if legislation has passed the House of Representatives our Constitution assumes that Senators will have a chance to debate it.  The bill was not withdrawn-it was passed.  It presumably has to be presented again and (the Prime Minister hopes) defeated. What we have seen is a typical example of executive government trying to be more important than Parliament rather the other way round.

Whereas I always thought that debates in Parliament were a means to an end, not the end itself.

I don’t claim to be an expert in parliamentary procedure, but my understanding is that unless a government Senator moves in the Senate that the bil be read a second time, then it will simply fall away.  There is no need for it to be presented to either house of parliament.

Hey Al,

Obviously I’m glad the law isn’t going through. I doubt that Australia can take as many refugees as the USA without negative impact on our lifestyles - not because of space so much as population. Nonetheless, I think we should do it anyway. Or at least start with all doing our part to consciously reach out to share our lives with them.

I’m just tired of politicians feeding into, rather than challenging, our national self-absorption. Even left wing politicians don’t do this. They still sell stuff in terms of ‘what’s in it for us and our future’. No-one says: ‘let’s be radically generous at enormous cost to ourselves’.

But I agree with you on this: I think to turn it against Howard that he has dropped it is a bit much. It suggests that some of the opposition may have been more concerned with trashing the Prime-Minister than actually supporting refugees.

In fact, I would have thought the average taxpayer should be pleased that we aren’t spending thousands of dollars of parliament time on faffing about with a bill that will be defeated in the Senate - isn’t that kind of efficient?

How come every time left wing values have some small victory in national policy we end up with spokespeople who, more committed to their prime objective of trashing the prime-minister than the policies they promote, make us all sound like morons? Where can I find a political party I don’t feel embarrased to support?

Grrr.

Over and out.

M

Matt,

You do have a choice of political party:  you can choose the party of Greed, or the party of Envy.

I think it was HL Mencken who said that in a democracy, one party always devotes its energy to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.

While it is understandable to long for a government which appeals to our better rather than baser natures, I am suspicious whenever politicians attempt to do this.  The truly murderous despotisms of the last century all appealed to some kind of collective sacrifice and altruism.

Politics is not the art of the ideal; it is the art of the possible.  If that sounds cynical, it’s not meant to be.  I’m grateful that our political system is not caught up in a conflict of “grand visions”, but with practical problem solving of one kind or another.

And yet, occasionally we need to rise to better things, and we do!  Whenever I fear for the capacity of our society to regenerate itself, I am encouraged by listening to Lyndon Johnson’s 50 minute speech introducing the Civil Rights Bill to the US Congress.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the Congress:
I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.

He was one of the most cynical politicians who ever held office; yet he applied all his dark arts of arm-twisting and deception, to pushing through desegregation.

In our time we have come to live with moments of great crisis. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues; issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved Nation.

The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation.

For with a country as with a person, “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

And yet, this same visionary ambition endulfed America in the quagmire of the Viet-Nam War, and brought forth chants of “Hey hey LBJ, How many babies have you killed today?”

A smaller minded politician would not have taken such great risks, nor made such great mistakes.

[quote author="Alan"]While it is understandable to long for a government which appeals to our better rather than baser natures, I am suspicious whenever politicians attempt to do this. The truly murderous despotisms of the last century all appealed to some kind of collective sacrifice and altruism.

Hey Al,

That’s a bit of a slippery association… they were all suggesting collective sacrifice for the consolidated good of the state itself (which usually meant, in the end, consoldiated power of the politicians themselves). Not one was promoting selfless generosity to those outside with no expectation or hope of benefit in return.

I know its unsaleable politically. But I’d vote for them, at least!

M

No there are not many examples of such generosity - would the Marshall Plan qualify?  Or Australia’s post war immigration programme?  It has been suggested that neither was every very popular, and it took a cross-party consensus in order to bring them about.

Sydney Anglican story on the Migration Bill being withdrawn… and looking ahead.

I agree. Selfless acts by states are very few and far between. Here is a link to an article (that links to a book review in the TLS) that argues that the abolition of slavery in the anglosphere was one singular example.

Which brings me to my subject, English academic Howard Temperley’s review of David Brion Davis’s Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. Davis is a veteran scholar who won a Pulitzer prize for one of his books published 40 years ago; Temperley delivers a fascinating appreciation of a distinguished body of work (I prefer book reviews that appreciate good work to those that slam bad work, though the TLS runs some Englishly pungent examples of the latter)….

In his History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne (1869), W. E. H. Lecky describes England’s crusade against slavery as “among the three or four perfectly virtuous acts recorded in the history of nations.” Great powers do not as a rule behave selflessly. Not surprisingly, Lecky’s comment has generally been regarded with scepticism. Now, knowing vastly more than he did about slavery and its abolition, Davis believes Lecky was basically right. Although the American abolition movement came later and assumed a somewhat different character, the same might equally well be said of it. Slaves had never liked being slaves, but the rise of a climate of opinion that objected to slavery on moral grounds was something new. There had been nothing like it in ancient or medieval times or in any other society of which we have record. The upsurge of popular support for abolition both in Britain and the northern USA was unprecedented. Perhaps, David Brion Davis hypothesizes, moral progress is possible.

http://titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/?p=14572

For new readers: “titusonenine.classicalanglican.net” is a very good blog that links to a heap of valuable stuff. If you want one site to keep you in touch with the fast moving devolpments in the Anglican world this is the best site.