Mark writes about immigration and politics.

Author:  Mark Seymour.

Date: 14 June 2021.

Original URL: N/A.

Article Text

‘This is who we are.’

Photograph: Change.org

I could give you chapter and verse about how this little girl ended up being medevaced off Christmas Island to the Perth Childrens Hospital, suffering from septicaemia and pneumonia..

Or the reasons her family have been held there for three years.

These people are not criminals.

They haven’t broken the law. So how the hell did the Murugappans from Biloela end up there?

hold that thought..

It’s a long story.

I could give you a blow by blow of Australia’s refugee policy.. the long sad toxic saga, the lives lost, tortured, abused, and otherwise traumatised..

and in the face of the tragedy how we, as a nation, retreated from moral discomfort.

And voted accordingly..

Because in the end, cruelty was always the point. It’s what Australia does.

It’s who we are…

because lurking within our midst are those who applaud it..

We are gifted by geography, safe inside a moat but then we protect our sense of self-worth by accepting that lives were saved, as though the appalling spectacle of indefinite internment and I mean.. indefinite, could ever be justified

Imprisonment with no end.

Think about that.. if you can.

But of course the story is much older than that. Asylum seekers could’ve been humanely processed at any time. It never had to escalate. There were many offerings..

each one systematically smashed for the simple reason that there was no political dividend.

And public outrage never swung the other way. Ever.

Until now.. maybe..

You see, numbers always spoke loudest. It was never about protection and always about deterrence and the spectacle of cruelty.

The fate of Murugappans from Biloela are that if nothing else..

Even now as one liberal member has suggested, in the face of this new rising wave of compassion, refugees might get the idea that deliberately having babies could be a way in..

I mean really, how the hell do they dream this toxic shit up?

Can you believe the wretchedness of these LNP thugs?

See the truth is, they wrote the book and it was an enormous success. Which must be hard to let go..

Burt really, it was never more or less than simple victim blaming. Every asylum seeker has been made an example of in one way or another and the spectacle is still as barbaric and toxic as ever.

Australia! You’re standing in it..

Here’s the rub my friend. You want to make drowning the argument? You want to talk about boats? Still? And they are..

Well, see, there’s this problem with the pandemic right? Which sort of blows that old chesnut right out of the water..

So to speak..

I’m a people smuggler but I got a supply problem.. for obvious reasons..

And yet.. they’re still using it

So what will the Pentecostal do now?

In the face of all this conspicuous compassion?

Every major statement he’s made recently has been accompanied by an attempt to wedge labor.

Early election you say…

Still, I do a like a punt.

And the spin will be a long and delicate thing..

He’s got two options:

Show compassion or stick to the script?

and you’ve still got to win in Queensland.

It’ll be tricky..

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