Australia has become a Murdochracy, Lobbyocracy and Corporatocracy. Human rights for certain groups (notably refugees and Indigenous Australians) are violated, civil liberties are increasingly compromised by draconian anti-terrorism laws in a pre-police state with secret trials of un-named people, and there is now evidence of zero-income slavery in 21st century Australia.
Dr Gideon Polya
War is the penultimate in racism and genocide the ultimate in racism. As a UK lackey and thence a US lackey Australia has invaded 85 countries (30 of the invasions being genocidal), as compared to the UK 193, France 82, the US 72 (52 after WW2), Germany 39, Japan 30, Russia 25, Canada 25, Apartheid Israel 12 and China 2. In addition has a dirty record as a US ally in covertly attacking the sovereignty of its neighbours e.g. involvement in US-backed coups in Cambodia (1970), Chile (1973) and Fiji (1987), US-backed Islamist revolts in Indonesia (circa 1960), and spying on the governments of Indonesia and Timor Leste. Recently passed legislation makes it punishable by 10 years in prison for journalists revealing such illegal actions so goodness knows what covert crimes the mendacious , war criminal and climate criminal Australian Government is presently up to.
While Australia endlessly talks of the “rules-based order” (US rules), it has scant respect for the borders of other countries while jealously guarding Australia’s “border security” from non-Europeans. Thus consult Australian “immigration and citizenship” there is a New White Australia Policy that excludes South Asians, Middle Easterners, Africans and most Latin Americans and South East Asians from unskilled temporary work in Australia. Thus the “Working holiday visa subclass 462” (up to 12 months) excludes all Indians, South Asians, Africans, Pacific Islanders, Central Asians and Middle Easterners, and many East Europeans, East Asians, South East Asians and South Americans from applying (but applicants can come from China and the US). The very “White” “Working holiday visa subclass 417” (12 months, 18-30 years old, Canadian, French and Irish citizens 18-35 years old) also excludes Indians and is confined to Western Europeans plus Estonia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
In addition to “Working Holiday Visa” recipients, there is a short-term labour scheme for Pacific Islanders who can work on Australian farms and repatriate earnings to family in their countries of origin. Overseas students can also work part time. People who have arrived in Australia without a visa and seek asylum can stay in Australia temporarily for 3 years on a Temporary Protection Visa , work and study, and have access government services such as Centre Link (unemployment relief). Such asylum seekers who sign a declaration on the application form that they intend to work or study in regional Australia can get a Safe Haven Entrance Visa that allows them to stay for 5 years. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions, the Australian Government has made some temporary visa changes including: “Some temporary visa holders to extend their visa arrangements [and] student visa holders in some sectors to work more than 40 hours per fortnight”. People who arrive in Australia with a visa and seek asylum can be granted a Protection visa and be permitted to work (subject to recognition of refugee status and Australian security considerations).
Sponsored, skilled and business-related people (“real people” in neoliberal eyes) can on application receive visas to work in Australia However desperate refugees who arrive in Australian territory by boat (“unauthorised maritime arrivals”) – men, women and children – will be subject to highly abusive and indefinite detention without charge or trial in off-shore detention centres (on Nauru and formerly on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea). This grossly human rights-violating abuse has bipartisan political support in Australia on the basis of the PC racist assertion that by do this a “noble” Australia is “saving” future boat-borne refugees from drowning at sea. Refugees in Australia with undetermined status can be held in detention centres or subject to Community Detention that specifies where they must live; they cannot work and survive on the goodwill of chartable Australians.
The Australian Department of Home Affairs recognizes that temporary working visa holders are subject to abuse: “ There are different types of workplace exploitation. There are also other issues that visa holders may experience. These include: threats to cancel your visa; wage underpayments; unfair deductions, deposits or ‘cash-back’ schemes; failure to provide workplace entitlements, for example paid leave or superannuation; withholding your passport; pressure to work beyond the restrictions of a visa; up-front payment or ‘deposit’ for a job; employers avoiding tax by making cash payments; unpaid training; being classified as an independent contractor instead of an employee; unfair deductions from wages for accommodation, training, food or transport”. However the differential power relations and the threat of visa cancelation and deportation mean that other abuses can occur such as bullying, sexual harassment, and effective slavery. The border closure due to the COVID-19 Pandemic means that there is no escaping from Australia.
Australia is deservedly famous for being among the first countries in the world to have the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, free speech, a free press, free trade unions, free and compulsory education, the basic wage, the liveable wage, and the 8 hour day for workers over 100 years ago. However remorseless neoliberalism coupled with mendacious oligopoly Mainstream media has seen an erosion of these conditions. Australia has become a Murdochracy, Lobbyocracy and Corporatocracy, human rights for certain groups (notably refugees and Indigenous Australians) are violated, civil liberties are increasingly compromised by draconian anti-terrorism laws in a pre-police state with secret trials of un-named people, and there is now evidence of zero-income slavery in 21st century Australia.
Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, notably a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds”. He has also published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”. He has recently published “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” (2020) and “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions” (2021). For images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ .
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and may not necessarily reflect the editorial views or position of NRI Affairs.
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