 Political Corrections
with Margo Kingston
Saving Ruddock's Skin to Save Lives
This week The Herald ran a fascinating piece on the refugees. Have you noticed that as the Woomera crisis has deepened, the anonymous Immigration Detention Advisory Group (IDAG) suddenly has names, faces and voices?
The Herald approached IDAG to ask for a piece and its acting head, Ray Funnell, agreed after detailed consultation with Ruddock. That means Ruddock cleared this piece.
Incidentally, Funnell is a retired vice-marshall and former head of the air force.
The government is in a tricky situation. It has a contract with the Australian people to stay super-tough. Any backing away risks betraying that contract. So a way must be found for the Australian people to ask for change. The government has chosen this body. They negotiate with the asylum seekers, they recommend change, and Ruddock says yes.
The Funnell piece does an extraordinary thing. After months of government demonising of the boat people, all of a sudden Ruddock is innocent of all that and the media is to blame! Incredible but true. I don't believe for a second that Funnell believes this tripe, but it's clear he's trying to find a space for Ruddock to give more ground.
If what it takes to fix this mess is blame shifting to the media, that's fine. It's a twisted way to avoid a catastrophe, but at least it's a way.
The tortuous nature of this path is embedded in the Funnell piece. Funnell says the crisis will soon lead to unimaginable tragedy unless it's fixed fast. Ruddock himself has made no such concession and on Monday Howard was calm, even smug, as he intoned that there was no way the detention policy would be changed.
Funnell also says, after building the credentials of the group as the best informed in Australia on detention centres, that the hunger strikers are 'calm and courteous' and are victims of their circumstances.
'They feel trapped in a pervasive sense of hopelessness...to characterise them as other than humane and caring is simply not accurate...we are appalled at the way they have been portrayed in the media'.
What a crazy state of affairs this is. The government feels it can't tell the Australian people they've created a mess that has to be solved, so gets an advisory body to tell the people for it. The government somehow talks an advisory group into absolving it of all blame for demonisation. The things you have to do as a government adviser these days to get a result in the nation's interests!
And let's hope Mr Funnell gets that result. I don't care what weird lines he has to run to get there. Anything to save us from the consequences of a government trapped in the consequences of its crude populism.
As Funnell writes: 'The detainees need hope. We can give it to them. This nation cannot allow the crisis at Woomera to deteriorate any further. We Australians pride ourselves on our humanity and our compassion. Extending the hand of friendship to those in need occupies a central place in our national self-image.
'IDAG believes that with those characteristics in mind and working with and through the minister, the crisis can be resolved.'
By the way, comment pieces from Ruddock supporters in Tuesday's Australian and Telegraph support the release of mothers and children from the detention centres. I have not yet read any defence of the government's refusal to countenance Labor's suggestion to free them.
Email: mkingston@mail.fairfax.com.au
Margo's web diary - www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/webdiary/
|
