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Outside, a Martian-red haze kisses the windows. An ode to the future perhaps. Most of the people present are already aware of the Medevac repeal decision. The room is heavy with silence, the mood is sombre, but far from resigned. We want change, and are willing to have a crack at demanding it.
Politicians love to remind minorities to integrate. Minority kids by and large resent these calls, because they are desperate to integrate. South Asian kids like me and journalist Sarfraz Manzoor were among those wishing to be Australian or British. Our idols were Bruce Springsteen and Jim Kerr, not Abu Bakr Baghdadi or Osama bin Ladin.
I recently visited Port Moresby as part of a delegation of Catholic leaders. I have worked with refugees and migrants for more than 20 years in different countries. I have been part of many serious and confronting human rights struggles. Nonetheless, I was not expecting what I saw and heard in PNG, and it deeply touched me.
Due to this stance, immigration is arguably not being leveraged to actually benefit the country, including its flailing economy. This is despite a government report released last year stating that immigrants increase GDP and helped avoid the 2008 financial crisis.
If we wish to persuade the public that a group of people is being treated unjustly, we portray them as innocent victims. We represent them as a class and as virtuous in order to change public opinion. Stories of violent behaviour by members of the group, however, reveal the reality that no group is uniformly composed of the virtuous and innocent.
A recent report on the lack of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) representation in arts leadership recognises the limitations of the label. In an era marked by media bubbles, it is more vital than ever that we use categories such as CALD to build bridges, while not losing sight of our differences and varying levels of disadvantage.
Opting for surveillance of migrants instead of rescue operations will result in death by drowning, or torture and possible deaths in Libya. For both scenarios, the EU has cultivated its own brand of impunity. Looking away has become politically acceptable, and the bloc can focus on funding the Libyan Coast Guard to do its dirty work.
The changes India is making in Kashmir go well beyond a border dispute with Pakistan. When taken in conjunction with the Modi government's policy of removing large numbers of Muslims from their homes in India, the implementation of its philosophy of Hindu supremacy is drastically changing the character of India.
I wasn't born here. My family migrated to Australia when I was young and so I enjoyed the privilege of growing up without the war and discrimination that has marred my birth land, although there is a different type of discrimination that I have had to face being an Asian in Australia. In being here though I know I am living on stolen land.
The conservative base wants religious protection for Christians, but has a long history of vilifying Muslims, who, presumably, could also claim protection from any new law. One struggles to imagine a law that might enable a footballer's right to send homophobic tweets, while enabling courts, parliaments and schools to ban burqas.
To what extent has society reacted to the deaths of these two children? Awareness stops with the available imagery. Drowned children on western shores are processed differently in our psyche to the children killed in drone attacks, their absence of identity compounded by statistics which dissociate humanity from numbers.
The recent federal election showed us that refugees and people seeking asylum do not need to be instrumentalised for votes. Perhaps refugee policymaking could be separated from politics. Perhaps it could be evidence-based and humane. Alas, the prevailing frames and politics of border protection quickly came to the fore post-election.