Call on newborn shows no milk of human kindness

Michael Egan 

Published: November 18, 2013 - 3:00AM

Like former Liberal leader John Hewson, I am staggered that Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is defending the callous decision of his officials to restrict an asylum seeker's access to her sick newborn baby.

I'd like to suggest that Morrison and his officials do two things.

First, I'd like them to get the opinion of women, especially mothers, in their own families and circles of friends and ask them what they think of this decision. I'll bet all of them would be horrified. And I'm sure most men would be, too.

Second, for some great advice on how public servants and ministers should deal with the separation of mothers from their babies, I'd like them to read Andrew Tink's recent biography of Tommy Townshend, otherwise known as Lord Sydney, after whom the city of Sydney gets its noble name.

When the First Fleet was being assembled for its voyage for Botany Bay, Susannah Holmes, a prisoner who had recently given birth to a baby boy in Norwich jail, was assigned to it.

Holmes and her baby were taken by their jailer, a Mr Simpson, some hundreds of miles from Norwich jail to Plymouth. Here they were rowed out to their ship, where, one by one, the prisoners' names were being ticked off.

At this point, I'll hand the story over to Tink. He writes: ''When the captain got to Susannah Holmes, he ordered her aboard but demanded that she leave her infant behind. 'That baby's not on my warrant list,' he barked.

''Distraught, Susannah threatened suicide but the captain would not be moved. However, her jailer, Simpson, was. So he took off for London, with the babe in his arms, determined to convince Lord Sydney's Home Office bureaucrats to allow this infant to rejoin his mother.

''In those days, the public service was very small. Whereas today there are tens of thousands of people employed by the Home Office, then there were just 18 … They were located in just four rooms, of the first floor of the Montagu Lodgings in Whitehall, reached by a flight of stairs. Expecting to remonstrate with a Home Office clerk, Simpson started up the stairs with the baby. But, as luck would have it, no less than Lord Sydney himself was coming down the stairs.

''Buttonholed by Simpson and the screaming infant, Sydney was, at first, hostile. But, on being told of Susannah Holmes' distress, the Home Secretary ordered mother and child be reunited for the voyage to Botany Bay. And then he inquired whether the baby's father wanted to go, too. Unsure, Simpson said he'd ask, whereupon Sydney signed the necessary papers should the father, Henry Kable, say yes.

''In fact, Kable was a prisoner at Norwich. So Simpson, still cradling the baby, had to travel all the way back there for an answer. And when Kable agreed to go, the three of them made for Plymouth. As Simpson later said, he'd covered a total of 700 miles with the baby to get this little family back together.''

How many ministers of the Crown today would act like Lord Sydney? And how many public servants would put themselves out in the way that the jailer, John Simpson, did? Judging by the treatment of this asylum seeker and her new baby, I'm not encouraged the answers to these questions are what we should expect.

I know from experience that government is a lot busier and more complex than it was in Lord Sydney's day but there is little merit in senior officials and ministers being wise and caring in the abstract if they are not also willing to act compassionately when individual cases of injustice or harshness are brought to their attention.

Very often, probably most often, things happen without ministers or senior officials being aware of them. But when things that need rectifying do come to their attention, they should act quickly and decisively.

A minister's performance should not just be judged only on the big things they do. Very often, it's the little things that matter most and especially how ministers deal with individual cases. It is this that largely sets the tone for how their departments and their officials carry out their work.

I hope it is not too late for Morrison to take inspiration from the example of Townshend.

Michael Egan is chancellor of Macquarie University, a former NSW treasurer and a descendant of Susannah Holmes and Henry Kable.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/call-on-newborn-shows-no-milk-of-human-kindness-20131117-2xp24.html

The Sydney Morning Herald showed the B-boats for a few minutes then the picture seems to have disapeared unless I was mistaken with the origin of the article which I had not scanned yet... 

But the ABC gives us a different image for the B-boats... 

Meanwhile:

The federal government will work with Sri Lanka to establish how its gift of two Australian patrol boats will be used. The vessels are being given to Sri Lanka to support its efforts to stop asylum seekers heading to Australia.

The Bay-class patrol boats, recently retired from Australian service, will be used to intercept asylum-seeker boats before they leave Sri Lankan waters. But the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, cannot say whether Sri Lanka will use the boats for purposes other than to "stop people coming to Australia illegally by boat".

"We'll work through those arrangements with the Sri Lanka government," he told ABC Radio on Monday.

The $2m gift has been condemned as "abhorrent" by the Australian Greens leader, Christine Milne, who says it represents collaboration in Sri Lankan human rights abuses.

The opposition is concerned about the lack of detail surrounding the gift.

"That's not surprising for this government," Labor immigration spokesman, Richard Marles, said. Labor wants assurances the boats' use will be limited to asylum-seeker operations and Marles says a lack of protocols is "deeply concerning".

Morrison rejected suggestions Australia was helping the Sri Lankan government stop people fleeing human rights abuses. Many asylum seekers from Sri Lanka are doing so for economic reasons, including the latest group of 79 screened out by immigration authorities.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/sri-lanka-gift-boats-scott-morrison

All conservative governments need secrecy to survive and this one’s cover is getting blown wide open on a daily basis. Bob Ellis says Tony Abbott should read the tea leaves and do the sensible thing.

ALL TORY GOVERNMENTS work on secrecy and it is hard to see how this one can long survive when its cover, daily, is being blown.

They no longer buy Javan provincials’ boats but may not say so. They bug, even now, Javan politicians’ emails and phones but may not say so. They are trying to abolish science as a career in Australia but may not say so. They believe global warming will occur on Earth only after Christ’s return but may not say so. They are derided and mocked by most other countries’ rulers and writers but may not admit this. They are already in a Cold War with Indonesia but are pretending we are the best of friends.

It is unusual for a government to be so derisible so soon.

Thatcher’s was, and Howard’s was, yet both persisted for over a decade. MacMahon’s was, and was gone in eighteen months.

This morning, though, a new low was reached by this dread bunch of chittering Neanderthals. By refusing an apology (like Obama’s) for the bugging of an opposite number, Abbott made sure that no boat that comes here will be accepted back by Indonesia. He made sure, too, that many more boats will set out and many more children drown.

It is time the Senate appointed Bob Carr as their negotiating representative in this region and asked him to sort something out, on their behalf. It is time the Opposition dealt with Indonesia separately. Abbott and Bishop’s new Cold War is disastrous and must be mitigated by separate action lest a hot one, after border incidents, begins.

It is time too ‒ time already ‒ that Abbott considered his position and, after taking thought, gave way to someone with tact — like Turnbull, or Palmer, or Truss. Or apologise, abashedly, for his hairy, chest-beating global incompetence.

And he should get the hell out of national politics, as he is no good at it, and take up something useful, like surf lifesaving.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/time-for-tony-to-take-up-something-useful,5908

Bob... Unfortunately, it seems they don't have lifesavers anymore on Aussie beaches... At Bondi, they call themselves LIFEGUARDS...

In the past, they used a calico tent and had a high chair with an umbrella above... Now they have a watch tower like the Germans had in Hogan's Heroes and other nasty places... That's where Tony has gone... up in the watchtower and we are prisoners of his crappy crap alla Colonel Klink...

And please don't get Palmer involved in this... He is a self-claimed "carbon tax" cheat and despite his debonair attitude he kicks decent people's arses out of their golfing space to replace them with dinosaurs... See a 7:30 report on ABC... Turnbull is a turncoat one never knows which side he butters his bread and Truss is part of the idiocy of the Abbott embarrassing Government....

Rupert Murdoch should be ashamed of having supported Abbott...

Tony Abbott is an idiot... He actually should have been placed in a straight-jacket a long time ago...

When Tony Abbott says that he accepts the horrendous war crimes committed in Sri Lanka, Peter Wicks says he doesn’t speak for him or the Australia he knows.

The last 50 years have seen some fantastic events and some huge steps forward for mankind, however it has also seen some of the worst that mankind can produce.

There have been atrocities over the last half century that defy belief and some of those responsible for these acts are even still alive today.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/tony-abbotts-torturous-patrol-boat-diplomacy,5912

Tony Abbott is the pits of Prime Ministers this country ever had. He is a nasty, dangerous, idiotic embarrassment...