adamantium|wang posted:

Speaking of which:


Farifax have gotten the usual non-answer from the minister:

Konomex posted:

This is tragic but also somehow hilarious to me? We can't tow things from India to Indonesia can we?

quote:

Morrison denies refugees in trouble
June 28, 2014 - 12:17PM
Tim Elliott


The Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has refused to confirm claims by refugee activists that a boat carrying Tamil asylum seekers off the coast of Christmas Island is in trouble.

Refugee activists said the 21m boat carrying 153 asylum seekers, which left from India, had sprung an oil leak and was 250km from Christmas Island.

Mr Morrison said there were no significant incidents at sea to report.‘‘I am advised that I have no such report to provide to you today,’’ he told reporters in Melbourne.

But a man claiming to be aboard the boat told Fairfax Media via satellite phone: “We are experiencing huge waves and very bad conditions. We are very afraid and at threat. We have only three litres of water left. We can only manage for today, and tomorrow we will have nothing to drink.”

The man said the group are all refugees from northern Sri Lanka – mainly the war-effected cities of Jaffna and Mullitivu - who had sought refuge in south India before leaving for Australia on June 13. Since then they have been subsisting mainly on biscuits and milk.

He said two of the children on board, one aged 3 months and the other two years, “are sick with vomiting, fever and headaches. They vomit up the milk and biscuits.”

The man put their position at “about 175 miles from Christmas Island". He said they had received assistance from some Indonesian fishing boats, but had not yet spotted any Australian navy ships. “The wind is increasing,” said the man. “It is a very difficult situation, sir.”

The refugees' vessel, a 72-foot blue hulled fishing boat, is said to be carrying 37 children and 32 women. According to refugee advocate Ian Rintoul, it has a leak in the oil pipe supplying the engine. “They are only travelling very slowly, about 100km a day,” he said. “They are very anxious, and they aren’t sure they will be able to make it to Christmas Island without assistance.”

“What we are concerned about is that the Australian government will try to get a commercial boat from the area to try to pick them up,” said Rintoul. “They did that in the Indian ocean last year, but that boat was much further away from Australia than this one. They need assistance now, before it becomes an emergency.”

Last night Mr Abbott dismissed questions from the ABC about the boat, saying "we will be doing what we normally do in respect of Operation Sovereign Borders".

He would not say whether assistance would be sent to the vessel.

adamantium|wang posted:

You Am I posted:

OMG the PM seal. Brilliant.

Pred1ct posted:

For operational security reasons, for operational security reasons, for operational security reasons.

The very real and serious threat that this huddled mass of people on a rickety boat with their sick children cannot be ignored.

adamantium|wang posted:

Ahahahaha so we are literally disappearing children now. gently caress this loving country.

quote:

Manus unrest: new evidence suggests G4S handed control to PNG squad

• New documents given to inquiry about night Reza Barati died raise questions about statements given by G4S executives

• Immigration department was notified a day after unrest that the violence had occurred inside detention centre, not outside

Oliver Laughland
theguardian.com, Saturday 28 June 2014 09.21 AEST



New evidence has emerged suggesting that Papua New Guinea’s mobile police squad may have been handed control of parts of the Manus detention centre during the February unrest that left asylum seeker Reza Barati dead.

The new evidence, submitted to the ongoing Senate inquiry into the violence, raises more questions about statements given by senior G4S executives responsible for the centre. Earlier this month they repeatedly told the inquiry that PNG police were not invited to take command of the centre.

G4S regional managing director Darren Boyd, the security company’s most senior executive in the region, said then: “At no stage did G4S request or invite the PNG police to enter the centre whilst the riots were taking place.”

John McCaffrey, deputy regional manager and second in command of the centre that evening, told the inquiry that as G4S personnel withdrew from Mike compound, where the most substantial violence subsequently took place and Barati lost his life, he had instructed police not to enter and not to use weapons.

But key passages in the newly released supplementary G4S documents appear to show the interactions between PNG mobile squad members and G4S at the time the mobile squad assumed control in Mike compound.

The G4S incident report, written shortly after the violence, states that at 10.37pm on 17 February, McCaffrey took the decision to abandon the area under sustained bombardment from protesting asylum seekers. Crucially, the log then notes: “At approximately 2248hrs, 0B [McCaffrey] advised that the responsibility for restoring law and order in Mike Compound now belonged to the Mobile Squad.”

The Senate inquiry has also now opened to public view a set of handwritten, time-coded notes (pdf), understood to be written on the night by the G4S control scribe tasked with marking a forensic account of serious incidents. The notes read: “10:48 Withdrawing from Mike (0B) [McCaffrey] handing over to MS [Mobile Squad].

A G4S document submitted to the inquiry (pdf) then notes at 11.12 pm that “police have responsibility of Mike”. This document was reviewed by G4S on 13 May 2014, nearly three months after the unrest and was authorised by McCaffrey.

On Thursday a spokesman for G4S strongly denied that any of the new evidence indicated that control had been handed to the police and said the documents all contained inaccurate information. “There was no handover of the compound or any part of the regional processing centre to the PNG police mobile squad on the night in question,” the spokesman said.

“All references to a ‘handover’ made in radio traffic or in incident reports and in the incident log were in reference to a handover of Route Pugwash West outside the centre and directly adjacent to Mike compound,” he added.

The spokesman maintained that any handover to the PNG police would need to be authorised by PNG immigration. “No such approval was sought or given by chief migration officer for a handover of the centre.”

The spokesman drew attention to the findings of the Cornall review into the incident, commissioned by the Immigration Department, which said the incident report “may be an inaccurate record”.

The PNG mobile squad entering the compound was a key turning point in the descent into violence on 17 February. These mobile squad members, armed with guns and tear gas, clashed with asylum seekers and the violence led to multiple casualties, including one asylum seeker being shot and Reza Barati losing his life. Following their entry, other local employees who had been off-duty joined the violence. G4S managers “lost control” of some of their local employees who also joined the violence, according to eyewitness statements.

Government briefings at first suggested the violence took place outside the actual detention centre. Later there was talk of “conflicting reports” of where the violence took place. But the newly released documents also show that the Australian department of immigration was clearly supplied with information, just the day after the unrest, that the violence had indeed occurred inside the detention centre, not outside. Nonetheless it took immigration minister Scott Morrison almost six days to tell the press that this was the case.

The newly released documents show an email dated Wednesday 19 February from G4S to the Department of Immigration clearly briefing them that the PNG mobile squad entered the compound. It makes clear that the department were in possession of the G4S log of the night, with further emails showing that the handwritten timeline of events was also emailed out on Tuesday 18 February. Both documents show that the violence occurred within the centre.

The revelations continue to raise questions about the judgment of centre managers tasked with ensuring the safety of asylum seekers detained in the compound. Previously, leaked emails, signed by McCaffrey, have shown that G4S was aware of the threat the mobile squad posed to detainees.

On 10 February McCaffrey emailed the department to warn of the “significant problems” of engaging the mobile squad during crowd control operations and he suggested that using them “could result in VSI [very serious injury] or death of protesters”.

A number of eyewitnesses told ABC’s Four Corners in April that the centre was handed over to the PNG mobile squad, but Chris Manning, managing director for G4S immigration services, told the ABC’s 7:30 in May that: “G4S had no authority to hand over any part of that centre that night. That authority rests with the PNG immigration authority, the chief migration officer.”

The Greens’ immigration spokeswoman, senator Sarah Hanson-Young, said the new evidence “shows that the PNG mobile squad had control and the [Immigration] Department were fully aware of this.”

“Why then did it take the minister over four days to tell the truth about what happened inside the camp and who was responsible for the brutal attacks?” Hanson-Young said.

“G4S has attempted to blame the government, and the government wants to blame everyone else but themselves. Both have attempted to conceal what they knew about what happened on the night.”

Gough Suppressant posted:

This is also the same manus island mobile police squad which got drunk on duty and killed a pedestrian with their car.

adamantium|wang posted:

Ahahahaha so we are literally disappearing children now. gently caress this loving country.

Cartoon posted:

Although I defy the Po Po and all their works, there really needs to be an enforcement arm for the human rights convention. The mental image of some mirror shade wearing porkers in body armour kicking down Morrison's door and saying "You're under arrest" is just too sublime.

Gough Suppressant posted:

You have really lovely dreamcops. Mine are genetically engineered from american stock, kick the door down in the middle of the night and open fire with machine guns.

Duke Jeffrie posted:

Any of you folks familiar with consumer law? Basically, dry cleaners lost my garment and I've been trying to get compensation out of them for two months. The manager has blatantly ignored all my contact, staff members have promised and failed to organise the compensation for me on multiple occasions. The QLD Office of Fair Trading said they can't do anything in this situation because they can't direct a trader to provide compensation. I wrote a final letter to the business last week asking for compensation or I will take the matter to the QLD Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Yesterday was the deadline I gave and they failed to respond.

My specific question is to do with what they legally owe me. The staff members who promised compensation said I'd only be offered a percentage of the replacement cost, because of "depreciation" due to the age of the garment. I believe they are working off this document (incidentally they aren't a member of the Dry Cleaners Institute so I can't seek mediation via that organisation). However this just seems to be some bullshit made up by the industry, not an actual Australian legal document? The ACCC however, has this information, which to my understanding seems to indicate I'm entitled to compensation for the full cost of replacement. Otherwise, I won't be "returned to the financial position you were in before the problem occurred," I'd be out-of-pocket a certain amount. When I spoke on the phone to the ACCC, the operator believed I should be within my rights to ask for full compensation.

I'm going to put together whatever crap I need to submit to QCAT in the next couple of days, but does anyone know if I am right in my understanding that I am entitled to the full replacement cost, and "depreciation" is irrelevant here?

Check me out on ACA in a few weeks on some wacky SHONKY DRY CLEANERS RIPPING OFF INNOCENT YOUNG MAN SOMETHING SOMETHING MUSLIMS story.

Laserface posted:

There is an episode of Seinfeld that handles this I believe.

Laserface posted:

There is an episode of Seinfeld that handles this I believe.

Halo14 posted:

Alan Jones, Tony Shepherd and Tony Abbott all sitting in a row at the Swans game tonight.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BrNQKTZCcAEj0mR.jpg:large

Murodese posted:

What are we looking at, exactly?

Captain Pissweak posted:

Someone doesn't hang in cool kids AusPol.

quote:

...Andrews endorsed moving young unemployed people onto income management schemes, giving them welfare in the form of debit cards that could only be used in certain places.

“We would say, you can have a debit card that precludes certain expenditure. It could, for example, preclude expenditure on alcohol. You get a card, go to the bottle shop and they say ‘sorry, transaction declined’,” he said on Network Ten’s Bolt Report on Sunday morning.

The report says income management could be used to “build capabilities as part of a case-management approach to assist the large number of disadvantaged young people not fully engaged in either education or work”.

Andrews stressed that the government would have a consultation process before making final decisions about which welfare recipients would be subject to income management.

“The government believes that income management is important. We believe that it’s had very positive effects for quite a number of people, not the least of which are women and children in indigenous and non-indigenous communities around Australia,” he said...

in the miso soup posted:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/29/abbott-government-unveils-plan-to-restrict-how-young-people-spend-dole

IronicBeetCriminal posted:

Union has basically said take the new contract and cross that bridge when we come to it, but they don't think what the employer is proposing is entirely unfair. I was just wanting to get a heads up on what people thought?

in the miso soup posted:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/29/abbott-government-unveils-plan-to-restrict-how-young-people-spend-dole

in the miso soup posted:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/29/abbott-government-unveils-plan-to-restrict-how-young-people-spend-dole