The information black hole that is Christmas Island

The details of the Australian immigration system are often kept secret, not least the activities of British multinational Serco running the detention facilities. The Australian’s Paige Taylor is that rare mainstream journalist who has been pursuing the story for years. Her feature in yesterday’s paper documented the absurd restrictions on finding out accurate information on…

Don’t trust Serco and friends to manage asylum seekers in Australia

Under-trained. Under-staffed. Traumatised. And that’s just the employees of disaster capitalist companies, loved by governments, to add “efficiency” to a straining refugee system. Paige Taylor reports in today’s Australian: An English backpacker on a tourist visa, Australians straight from high school and overseas students are among hundreds of casual workers earning up to $450 a…

Two, vastly different ways to report on asylum seekers

Today’s Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph in Sydney leads with this “exclusive”, deliberately designed to make readers angry towards these supposedly greedy refugees: Buying cigarettes and tobacco for immigration detainees is costing taxpayers more than $1.4 million a year. While the federal government spends millions on anti-smoking campaigns, the cost of keeping up detainees’ habits costs about…

Those anti-Semitic Greens may well launch a pogrom next

Can you feel it, fellow Jews? The new Green Nazis are in town, talking all about Palestinian rights, as if those Arabs are under Israeli occupation. The shame of it all. Yesterday’s Murdoch Australian continued its brave expose of a party that challenges individuals who accuse them of extremism and anti-Semitism: Labor in NSW has…

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