Submission to Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

Tonight I took some time to send a submission in to the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in support of the Uluru Statement from the Heart from the 2017 First Nations National Constitutional Convention held at Uluru. Submissions close June 11th so I wanted to get this in as I feel very strongly about this issue.

Here’s what I wrote:

To the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples,

The first peoples of Australia have lived as part of this continent for many times longer than the ancestors of James Cook lived in the UK(*), let alone this brief period of European colonisation called Australia.

They have farmed, shaped and cared for this land over the millennia, they have seen the climate change, the shorelines move and species evolve.

Yet after all this deep time as custodians of this land they were dispossessed via the convenient lie of Terra Nullius and through killing, forced relocation and introduced sickness had their links to this land severely beaten, though not fatally broken.

Yet we still have the chance to try and make a bridge and a new relationship with these first peoples; they have offered us the opportunity for a Makarrata and I ask you to grasp this opportunity with both hands, for the sake of all Australians.

Several of the component states and territories of this recent nation of Australia are starting to investigate treaties with their first peoples, but this must also happen at the federal level as well.

Please take the Uluru Statement from the Heart to your own hearts, accept the offering of Makarrata & a commission and let us all move forward together.

Thank you for your attention.

Your sincerely,
Christopher Samuel

(*) Australia has been continuously occupied for at least 50,000 years, almost certainly for at least 60,000 years and likely longer. The UK has only been continuously occupied for around the last 10,000 years after the last Ice Age drove its previous population out into warmer parts of what is now Europe.

Chris Samuel : http://www.csamuel.org/ : Melbourne, VIC

Mount Burnett Observatory Open Day and Third Birthday – Saturday 24th January 2015

As some of you know I’m involved with the Mount Burnett Observatory, a community run astronomical observatory in the Dandenong Ranges of Victoria near Emerald to the south-east of Melbourne. Originally built by Monash University in the early 1970’s it’s 3 years since a small group of people formed a community association, took over the site and starting resurrecting it as an observatory by and for the people. It’s now three years on and by the end of last year we were the second largest astronomical association in Victoria!

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This Saturday (24th January) is our third birthday celebration so we’re having an open day running from 1pm through to 6pm with tours, activities, a solar telescope and components from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), one of the precursor telescopes to the massive Square Kilometer Array telescope project!

At 6pm we have a barbecue and then at 7pm there will be a talk by Perry Vlahos on what there will be to see in the sky over the coming month. After that we’ll be socialising and, if the weather behaves itself, viewing the stars through the many observatory telescopes.

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Getting Political

I’ve not been blogging recently, though I’ve been tweeting a fair bit, and I’ve been getting more and more disconcerted by what the Australian government has been up to, especially with respect to refugees. We are seeing the emergence of a militaristic approach where the facts about rights to seek asylum are conveniently ignored and refugees are labelled as “illegal” (they’re not) and a threat to our borders (they’re not). Questions are met with silence (unless they happen to coincide with their agenda) to frankly absurd levels.

We keep them in concentration camps on foreign soil and deprive them of necessities even though they’ve committed no crime and we leave them to go mad from boredom, fear and neglect. We’ve had one person murdered in our care with the prime suspect being a Salvation Army worker, but somehow after 6 months nobody has been charged. Others were seriously injured, but their assailants haven’t been charged either.

Now we have the situation of refugees from Sri Lanka who have boarded boats in India being intercepted at sea and returned, not to Indias care, but to the Sri Lankan navy where on their return to Sri Lanka they are then handed over to the police for prosection (as it’s apparently illegal to leave Sri Lanka without permission, the sentence is “two years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine”).

This seems like a prima-facie case of refoulement and a clear breach of international law. I’m not the only person to think like that, 57 legal scholars from 17 Australian universities have written an open letter expressing the same feelings.

Such summary procedures do not comply with minimum standards on refugee status determination under international law. Holding asylum seekers on boats in this manner also amounts to incommunicado detention without judicial scrutiny.

I cannot stand by and be seen to acquiesce in this abuse of fundamental human rights and so I’ve decided that I must join The Greens as none of the major parties appear to understand international law and obligations.

This is not an easy decision for me, I spent 7 years working in the UK Civil Service and so that ethos of being independent of a political party is deeply ingrained, but the revulsion I have for the policies of this government and my fear of the dark places it is leading us has finally overcome it.

This is not in my name.

Lunar Eclipse 15th April 2014

Tonight Melbourne got to experience the tail end of a lunar eclipse as the moon rose in eclipse at 17:48. We took a friend on a trip up to the (apparently now closed) Olinda Golf Course to view the moon rise. It was nice and clear and after roaming around a bit to find a place where we should have been able to see the eclipsed moon we found a suitable spot but couldn’t see the moon itself. Mars was visible in the right area but of course the salient point of a lunar eclipse is that the moon is in the earths shadow and so wasn’t findable until it started to exit at third contact. Got a few photos, of which this was the best.

Lunar Eclipse 15th April 2014 taken from Olinda Golf Course

We had to head back down the hill as Donna had an appointment at 7pm but later on our friend called up and said excitedly “Have you seen the moon? Go and look!”. I went out to see but the hills were still in the way then, so later on I headed out with the camera once the moon was visible and got some more photos as the moon headed towards fourth contact (when it exits the shadow of the Earth).

Lunar Eclipse 15th April 2014 taken from Upper Ferntree Gully
Lunar Eclipse framed in gum leaves, 15th April 2014 taken from Upper Ferntree Gully
Lunar Eclipse through trees, poles and wires - 15th April 2014 taken from Upper Ferntree Gully
Lunar Eclipse shortly before fourth contact, 15th April 2014 taken from Upper Ferntree Gully

National Court of PNG Opens Inquiry Into Treatment of Refugees

This could get interesting, the National Court of PNG has invoked a section of the PNG Constitution that permits it to investigate possible breaches of basic rights on its own initiative.

The National Court, having taken judicial notice of the alleged detention at the regional processing centre at Lombrum Naval Base, Manus Province, of a considerable number of persons seeking refugee status or asylum in Australia, who have been transferred to Manus pursuant to memoranda of agreement between the Governments of Papua New Guinea and Australia, known generally as “asylum seekers” or “transferees”, and reports of alleged human rights violations and complaints about the conditions of detention and disturbances resulting in injuries to such persons, decided on its own initiative to inquire into such matters by invoking Section 57(1) of the Constitution.

The full opening statement by Justice Cannings is currently on Scribd, but Justice Cannings makes it clear that the intention is to visit the detention centre and talk to refugees:

The third stage of the hearing I anticipate will be in Lorengau, in the week commencing Monday 10 March. Evidence will be received at this hearing. The Court will inspect the regional processing centre. Transferees will be invited to give evidence. It is anticipated that this process will take at least three days.

The questions that he has set are:

  1. What human rights do the transferees have under the Constitution, if any?
  2. Have those rights, if any, been or are they now being, administered to them?
  3. If not, what orders and declarations should the Court make to protect and enforce those rights?

I suspect that the first one is the real substantial question, my guess is that if the court finds that they do have human rights then the rest will flow pretty simply from that. You can read the PNG Constitution online as a PDF.

Hat tip to Humanitarian Research Partners for mentioning this on Twitter (see below).

Australian War On Refugees latest: refugee intake capped at 2,773 for this financial year

Thanks to Asher Wolf on Twitter for digging up this piece of latest awfulness in Australia’s War On Refugees:

I, SCOTT MORRISON, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, acting under section 85 of the Migration Act 1958 (‘the Act’) DETERMINE that the maximum number of Protection (Class XA) visas that may be granted in the financial year 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014 is 2773.

Worse still it’s not the first time the Minister for Operation Sovereign Murders has tried this, on 4th December 2013 he set a limit of 1,650 visas, the number granted up to that date. That instrument was revoked on the 20th December after a legal challenge was mounted to it (see the RACS PDF for more information). So this seems to be another cynical attempt to prevent genuine refugees coming to Australia, by any means at all.

I can only imagine what will happen on Manus Island when the news gets out that nobody will have any chance at all of getting a visa until July at the very earliest.

Australian Government says Australian law doesn’t include a right to seek asylum

In a supplemental answer to a question taken on notice (PDF) in the Senate Estimates Committee regarding the forced repatriation of 12 and 14 year old Sri Lankan refugees the Australian “Department of Immigration and Border Protection” (formerly DIMIA, etc) said (my emphasis):

In relation to question 2, no, the unaccompanied Sri Lankan minors were not advised of their rights to seek asylum. Australian law does not contain a right to seek asylum, and therefore, departmental practice does not involve advising unauthorised arrivals that they have such a right.

In other words, Australia’s own “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, except this time in defiance of international agreements Australia itself helped forge.

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

You’d have thought the Australian government would have heard of that because their own Human Rights Commission website points out:

Australia was a founding member of the UN and played a prominent role in the negotiation of the UN Charter in 1945. Australia was also one of eight nations involved in drafting the Universal Declaration.

This was largely due to the influential leadership of Dr Herbert Vere Evatt, the head of Australia’s delegation to the UN. In 1948, Dr HV Evatt became President of the UN General Assembly. That same year he oversaw the adoption of the Universal Declaration.

Of course that declaration was not legally binding but Australia was involved in drafting, and we are signatories to, the 1951 Refugee Convention, which in the preamble says it:

recommends Governments to take the necessary measures for the protection of the refugee’s family especially with a view to:
(1) Ensuring that the unity of the refugee’s family is maintained particularly in cases where the head of the family has fulfilled the necessary conditions for admission to a particular country,
(2) The protection of refugees who are minors, in particular unaccompanied children and girls, with special reference to guardianship and adoption.

The Australian Governments own website says that the 1958 Migration Act enshrines into law the Refugee Convention definition of a refugee as one:

owing to well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

The Australian Government site then goes on to say:

The Migration Act incorporates art 1A(2) into Australian domestic law, and gives effect to Australia’s obligation of non-refoulement—not to return a person in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where the person’s life or freedom would be threatened on account of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Section 36(2) provides for the grant of a protection visa to a ‘non-citizen in Australia to whom the Minister is satisfied Australia has protection obligations under the Refugees Convention as amended by the Refugees Protocol’.

Now the Migration Act itself doesn’t include a right to ask for “asylum”, but it does include the right to ask for a “protection visa” on grounds of being a refugee. To me that’s exactly what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights means when it talks about asylum, not to mention the fact that the Refugee Convention talks about asylum all the time. For instance when talking about not penalising refugees for their method of arrival it says:

The Convention further stipulates that, subject to specific exceptions, refugees should not be penalized for their illegal entry or stay. This recognizes that the seeking of asylum can require refugees to breach immigration rules.

To me this seems to show that the Australian Government itself is either ignorant of its own legislation or just being deliberately misleading. Or both. None of which would surprise me at the moment.

A hat tip to RISE for pointing this out on Twitter:

Refugees: They’re not “transferees”, they’ve become political prisoners of Australia

The Australian Government seems to like calling refugees seeking asylum and protection “transferees” as a euphemism to avoid facing the fact that they are effectively being kept in indefinite detention for committing no crime – article 14 of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights says:

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

Now detaining someone indefinitely for exercising a recognised human right is not a behaviour you would normally associate with a democratic nation, especially not one that likes to think of itself as being the land of the fair go, of battlers and a nation founded by convicts from Britain (there had been people here for longer than the current continuous occupation of the UK, but that gets forgotten).

If the Australian Government was really interested in reducing deaths at sea of refugees whilst abiding by the international conventions they had voluntarily signed up to they would be investing in ways to let people apply for asylum far closer to their native land so they didn’t need to travel, whilst keeping them safe, and ensuring that applications were processed rapidly, fairly and accurately.

To me the fact that we don’t do that but rather imprison (let’s call it what it really is) the tiny trickle of refugees who do decide to come here means that the Australian Government isn’t interested in their welfare or dealing fairly with people looking from protection from persecution, it’s just interested in stopping people coming here full stop.

They are, therefore, keeping these people in prisons for political purposes, to win votes at home and to stay in power.

So I submit that the Australian Government is now in the de-facto state of keeping political prisoners, even to the extent of defying direct requests from the UNHCR to release some.

HPC sysadmin job in Melbourne, Australia

No, not where I work for once, but a friend of mine is looking for an HPC sysadmin in his group in the Victoria State Government:

This role requires advanced skills in system and network administration and scripting, clustered computer systems, security, virtualisation and Petabyte-scale storage. It is highly desirable that you have acquired these skills in a Life sciences environment. The heterogeneous environment requires both Linux and Windows skills. You should have the ability to design and implement solutions for automated transfer of data within and between systems and to ensure the security of both internal and Internet-facing systems. In this complex environment, working closely in teams of multi-disciplinary scientists to deliver computing solutions, including advanced troubleshooting and diagnostic skills, will be required. Supervision of other members of the team will also be necessary.

They’ve got a 1500+ core Linux cluster.. 😉