Common decency seems to be in short supply at the highest political levels in Australia. The refusal of both major parties to tackle the issue of our offshore concentration camps in terms of anything other than political expediency has led those who do care to come to their door.
Last week two protesters scaled Parliament House in Canberra and unfurled a banner which read ‘Close the bloody camps now’.
As Zianna Fuad, spokesperson for the Whistleblowers, Activists and Citizens Alliance (waca.net.au) which undertook the action, noted, ‘I actually think we’ve tried all our other avenues of civil debate.’ I think most people with an ounce of compassion would agree with her.
Protesters also stopped Question Time and glued themselves to various bits of furniture. They also dyed the water red in the Parliament House ‘pond’ to represent turnbacks at sea, holding signs reading ‘Turnbacks are murder’ and ‘Blood on your hands’.
Our political masters, who are happy to savage each other in the house, went all precious petal over the protest, describing it as a great affront to democracy, where others might think that the fact protest is allowed is one of the great benefits of democracy.
Assistant minister to the prime minister, James McGrath, a Queensland senator who assisted in the overthrow of Abbott and spent $29,967 of his travel allowance in the first six months of 2016, described the protesters as ‘grubs’.
‘… they’re being sooks and quite frankly they should wake up to themselves and get a job,’ he told Sky News.
It’s a statement worthy of a 1950s pub pontificator but hardly shows advanced intelligence on the part of a government minister. An intelligent minister might think, ‘Hang on, maybe something is really wrong with what we’re doing.’
Our government could at least overcome its entrenched hypocrisy and withdraw its support for the United Nations refugee convention first signed in 1951. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights should also be binned, and while we’re at it let’s give a few more spying powers over our own people to our homegrown spooks.
The protesters will go to court for their actions. Some punishment and costs will be meted out, though probably not as harsh as Jimmy McGrath would like.
Such consequences for the protest are reasonable enough. However, parliament will not take a positive lesson from the protest. Instead, our politicians’ siege mentality will see that security is beefed up at Parliament House.
Impressive architectural features will be bastardised by more fences and security cameras. Perhaps some of our MPs will get some idea of what it’s like to be in a concentration camp – albeit with a good wine list.
– Michael McDonald
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
