New Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has refused to commit to telling Australians how successful the Coalition government is in implementing its key election pledge to safely turn asylum seeker boats around at sea.

At the first of planned weekly briefings on the new Operation Sovereign Borders, Mr Morrison said on Monday he would not reveal information about tactical matters and would ‘‘stop the shipping news’’ for people smugglers.

From Mungo MacCallum

The government’s latest strategy to keep us from being surprised (or indeed, informed) is the well tried and simple one of shooting the messenger. 

Thus Tony Abbott has abolished the Climate Change Commission and expunged the commissioner, Tim Flannery, from the public payroll. This has the advantage of removing Flannery’s official standing and platform, but is most unlikely to shut the outspoken environmentalist down altogether. But at least the government won’t have to listen to him any longer. What you don’t hear can be assumed not to exist; climate change is no longer a problem. 

And a similar approach is being tried with asylum seekers. The Customs Department, and indeed all the rest of the public service, has been instructed not to divulge any new boat arrivals; this will be to the minister Scott Morrison, who has in turn duck-shoved the responsibility onto his military supremo of Operation Border Sovereignty, General Angus Campbell. 

read more: http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/mungo-maccallum/2013/09/23/1379898579/silencing-messenger

A people smuggler jailed in Indonesia has ridiculed Scott Morrison's vow of silence about new asylum boat arrivals, saying the smuggling networks do not rely on Australian government press releases for their information.

The smuggler, Dawood Amiri, told Fairfax Media that the policy "won't change anything" from the syndicates' point of view.

"When the boat is being rescued and the passengers on board see the Australian authorities, they call the Hawaladar from their satellite phone. Then the smuggler gets the money," Amiri said.

A Hawaladar is a trusted third party, often based in Afghanistan or Pakistan, who holds the money in trust for passengers on boats. The money is only released to the people smuggler when the boat arrives safely.

"This new policy can work only if the Abbott minister buys all the satellite phones in Indonesia (like they want to buy the scrap boats)," Amiri said.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/people-smuggler-ridicules-scott-morrisons-silence-on-boat-arrivals-20130924-2ub2z.html#ixzz2fmYtFy7X

Jaymes Diaz excepted, most of us know that, short of allowing asylum seekers to reach Australia by airplane, there’s really only one way to stop the boats – to turn them back to Indonesia ‘when safe to do so,’ despite Indonesia’s feelings on this particular matter – and it’s difficult to see how the timely reportage that another boat has been intercepted will in any way affect this operation. Being spoon-fed the news on a weekly basis will mean that every Monday’s headlines will be dominated by the boats that either arrived or failed to reach our shores, somewhat normalising the issue of asylum seekers and their plight.

During his inaugural speech as Prime Minister, Abbott said that, “We aim to be a calm, measured, steady and purposeful government that says what it means and does what it says,” but if the Coalition isn’t planning on being transparent about what it does, how are we to assess whether their actions are calm, measured or steady? 

http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/michaela-mcguire/2013/09/24/1379979531/its-time-stop-shipping-news

---------------------------

Crap!... NO, MICHAELA ! There is quite a few more ways to stop the boats rather than "turn them back"... One other way is for the government to organise ferries of Asylum seekers between Australia and Indonesia... The other way of course — the smartest way — was to go with Julia Gillard's Malaysian solution: about one hundred asylum seekers would have been deported to Malaysia and about 400 refugees from there would have been taken onto these shores... FROM THEN ON, no more asylum seekers would have been prepared to take the punt on leaky boats to end up at the end of the queue in Malaysia. End of boats, end of sinking — end of DEATHS on the sea. Then the Australian government in a proper cool assessment of the problem, would have taken on more refugees that had already been "processed" from other countries — even those countries who had not signed a refugee UN convention whatever... It would have been more compassionate... But this better option was shot down by bleeding hearts LAWYERS who make a business out of dealing with refugees and by especially the OPPOSITION ( the Rabid Abbott) who did not want any solution to the problem — so it was going to be a stone in Labor's shoes till the elections... All of which opposition to Julia's solution HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH COMPASSION — only political outcomes... 

Julia Gillard is far more compassionate than most of us combined...

Tony Abbott says boats issue with Indonesia a 'passing irritant'

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-says-boats-issue-with-indonesia-a-passing-irritant-20130927-2uhzs.html#ixzz2g8Zix2nS

Yep... Tony Abbott ate too many chillies... still hot at the other end...

As our populist opportunistic turd comes back "triumphally" from Indonesia, he cannot stop himself playing petty politics like the village idiot pokes a lizard on a wall for sadistic fun... Tony thus blames the cattle export ban of the previous Federal government for a catastrophic breakdown between Jakarta and Canberra...

First, there was no diplomatic breakdown between Indonesia and Australia and second, the attitude of this little nazi shows he's prepared to accept cruelty to animals, in the same manner as he's prepared to inflict cruelty on asylum seekers by turning the boats around "when it's safe to do so" (it never is)... Nothing to do with human dignity, all to do with a "hail Tony" at a Nuremberg/Canberra rally with placards blaming the bitch... It's all in the name of populist slogans...

Tony Abbott as a PM impersonator is even far more revolting than Tony Abbott in opposition...

The war in Syria and its wave of refugees is destabilizing and overwhelming Lebanon. Now there are fears the hundreds of thousands of newcomers will never want to leave, and the sectarian conflict will worsen.

General Ibrahim Bachir saw it coming. He has been warning the government for over two years now: Stop wasting time and start building refugee camps to deal with the influx of Syrian refugees, he told them.

Lebanon on the Brink

The flood of refugees is destabilizing this already weak and war-torn country, which borders Syria to the north and the east, and Israel to the south. The front between Sunnis and Shiites runs right through the heart of this tiny state, making Lebanon the focal point of a conflict that threatens to engulf the entire region. The Shiite Hezbollah militia uses Lebanon as a base for its struggle against the "Zionist enemy" -- and since this spring, the group has been launching military operations here against the predominately Sunni rebels in Syria.

The refugees now find themselves caught between the fronts in Lebanon. Aid organizations are hopelessly overwhelmed and don't even have enough money for essentials. According to a report compiled by the World Bank for the UN General Assembly over the past few days, the refugees will cost Lebanon some €6 billion ($8.1 billion) by the end of next year. The UN will have to help the country, but it's still unclear exactly how. At the General Assembly meeting in New York last week, donor countries pledged to chip in 74 million dollars.

When the number of refugees swells to 2 million, Bachir glumly predicts the Lebanese will start to flee Lebanon: "There are only 3 million of us, no more!" He also points out that the Lebanese have been living for decades with hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinians who took refuge in Lebanon after 1948 and 1967, and their generations of successors, still live jammed together in the largely lawless slums that are the country's Palestinian refugee camps. They can neither return to the Palestinian territories nor become Lebanese citizens.

This partly explains why politicians are extremely reluctant to build new camps for the Syrians. They are afraid that the new refugees will remain indefinitely, just like the Palestinians.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/lebanon-faced-with-refugee-crisis-and-hezbollah-conflict-a-925767.html

A boat carrying about 60 asylum seekers has arrived at Christmas Island.

Fairfax Media photographs show a boat carrying men, women and children who appear to be of Middle Eastern and African descent arriving at the island on Thursday.

Under a new communications regime imposed by the Coalition, the government no longer announces or confirms each boat as it arrives.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/boat-carrying-about-60-asylum-seekers-arrives-at-christmas-island-20131017-2vokx.html#ixzz2hyTwxtQn

The Federal Government is changing the way it involves the military head of its border protection operation in its weekly media conferences, saying it wants protect the integrity of the Australian Defence Force.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says Operation Sovereign Borders Commander General Angus Campbell will no longer be present for the entire weekly briefing.

From now, Mr Morrison says, General Campbell will give his weekly report on the number of boat arrivals and take a few questions before leaving.

"This morning I contacted the CDF [Chief of the Defence Force] General [David] Hurley to advise that the Government places the highest priority on protecting the integrity and independence of the Australian Defence Forces," Mr Morrison said.

"I advised that in order to avoid any suggestion or perception being promoted for whatever purposes about the role of the ADF in Operation Sovereign Borders that, at my initiative and without being requested or without any issue being raised with me, I will be drawing a clear line between the operational and more general components of this briefing.

"To this end I will be inviting General Campbell to provide his report and then he will take a few questions on that report before he departs the briefing.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-15/morrison-weekly-update/5094630

See toon and story at top...