quote:

Immigration department officials screen asylum seekers at sea 'via teleconference'
July 2, 2014 - 3:05PM
Sarah Whyte
Immigration correspondent

EXCLUSIVE


The second asylum seeker boat to recently attempt the journey to Australia has been intercepted by Australian officials who allegedly screened people on board via a teleconference.

A source from the immigration department has confirmed the ACV Triton, a 98-metre Australian customs patrol boat, intercepted the asylum seeker vessel on the weekend.

The boat was initially thought to have come from Java, Indonesia, but Fairfax Media understands the boat departed from Sri Lanka.

It is understood interpreters were brought into the Sydney and Melbourne offices of the department on Saturday and Sunday to help ''screen'' the asylum seekers.

Four questions were allegedly asked of the 50 passengers, including their name, country of origin, where they had come from and why they had left.

According to a department document, the Customs and Border Protection Marine Unit personnel aboard the Triton are trained in use of force, ship searches, and can undertake armed boardings at sea.

It is unknown whether the 50 asylum seekers remain on board the Triton, which can carry up to 98 people.

Greens Immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the reports were ''extremely concerning''.

"There is no way that people can have their claims for protection properly assessed by immigration officials over the phone and when they are in the middle of the ocean,'' she said.

It comes as there are unconfirmed reports 153 Sri Lankan asylum seekers on board another boat have been handed over to the Sri Lankan navy.

The asylum seekers, who have not communicated with civilians since Saturday morning, were on a boat allegedly intercepted by the Australian navy near Christmas Island, president of the Shire of Christmas Island Gordon Thomson said. They were then handed over to Sri Lanka's military.

A spokesman for the Sri Lankan military late on Tuesday denied the reports.

''We are not aware of any arrangements of the Australian Navy handing over refugees, to Sri Lankan Navy,'' he told ABC Radio.

Human Rights lawyer, David Manne said if the allegations were true, Australia would be endangering the lives of all asylum seekers on board the boat.

''There is no more serious or dangerous violation of our international obligations to hand someone directly to the authorities that they are fleeing from,'' he said.

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison said: ''Responding to speculative claims is contrary to the policy and practice of Operation Sovereign Borders as described by the Joint Agency Task Force.''

adamantium|wang posted:

(Sydney's newest solution to cheap housing)

quote:

Hiro Protagonist and Vitaly Chernobyl, roommates, are chilling out in their home, a spacious 20-by-30 in a U-Stor-It in Inglewood, California. The room has a concrete slab floor, corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units, and - this is a mark of distinction and luxury - a roll-up steel door that faces northwest, giving them a few red rays at times like this, when the sun is setting over LAX. From time to time, a 777 or a Sukhoi/Kawasaki Hypersonic Transport will taxi in front of the sun and block the sunset with its rudder, or just mangle the red light with its jet exhaust, braiding the parallel rays into a dappled pattern on the wall.

But there are worse places to live. There are much worse places right here in this U-Stor-It. Only the big units like this one have their own doors. Most of them are accessed via a communal loading dock that leads to a maze of wide corrugated-steel hallways and freight elevators. These are slum housing, 5-by-10s and 10-by-1Os where Yanoama tribespersons cook beans and parboil fistfuls of coca leaves over heaps of burning lottery tickets.

It is whispered that in the old days, when the U-Stor-It was actually used for its intended purpose (namely, providing cheap extra storage space to Californians with too many material goods), certain entrepreneurs came to the front office, rented out 1O-by-1Os using fake IDs, filled them up with steel drums full of toxic chemical waste, and then abandoned them, leaving the problem for the U-Stor-It Corporation to handle. According to these rumors, U-Stor-It just padlocked those units and wrote them off. Now, the immigrants claim, certain units remain haunted by this chemical specter. It is a story they tell their children, to keep them from trying to break into padlocked units.

No one has ever tried to break into Hiro and Vitaly's unit because there's nothing in there to steal, and at this point in their lives, neither one of them is important enough to kill, kidnap, or interrogate. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords, but he always wears them, and the whole idea of stealing fantastically dangerous weapons presents the would-be perp with inherent dangers and contradictions: When you are wrestling for possession of a sword, the man with the handle always wins. Hiro also has a pretty nice computer that he usually takes with him when he goes anywhere. Vitaly owns half a carton of Lucky Strikes, an electric guitar, and a hangover.

At the moment, Vitaly Chernobyl is stretched out on a futon, quiescent, and Hiro Protagonist is sitting crosslegged at a low table, Nipponese style, consisting of a cargo pallet set on cinderblocks.

As the sun sets, its red light is supplanted by the light of many neon logos emanating from the franchise ghetto that constitutes this U-Stor-It's natural habitat. This light, known as loglo, fills in the shadowy corners of the unit with seedy, oversaturated colors.

quote:

Move in (two people or one person) private kitchen for 4 people in camper (caravan)

Bedroom kitchen, you have another room separated by a door from the dining living.
Is the size that can be used easily in the two because it is originally for 4 people.

$ 100 / week, if two people: $ 160 per week is / is your occupation alone.

The location is close to the Alexandria City is also the airport.
5 minutes to the bus stop, to the train station is 10 minutes.

Furniture all the necessary kitchen utensils, DVD Player, TV rooms.

Toilet, shower, washing machine will be jointly used, but no one is being used with fixed now.

It is recommended for those who want to concentrate on the study in a quiet environment, those who want the privacy.
I think without hesitation, that it is a reasonable choice comfortable.

We are looking forward to 0418 228 162 Imaeda only in Japanese feel free to contact us.
Please refrain from SMS, to EMAIL.

Captain Pissweak posted:

"Welcome to Australia, how white are ya."

Quantum Mechanic posted:

Also is the ABC Fact Check ever going to stick to a reasonably simple scale or would that stop them from being able to weasel out of ever displaying something resembling a judgement

adamantium|wang posted:

I would describe this as farcical but we are well past that point and aren't stopping any time soon.

Palmersaurus posted:

Sisgmund posted:

Sri Lankan navy officials have confirmed we're going to transfer the Tamil asylum seekers over to them.

In the middle of the ocean.

During monsoonal weather.

Sisgmund posted:

Sri Lankan navy officials have confirmed we're going to transfer the Tamil asylum seekers over to them.

In the middle of the ocean.

During monsoonal weather.

Sisgmund posted:

Sri Lankan navy officials have confirmed we're going to transfer the Tamil asylum seekers over to them.

In the middle of the ocean.

During monsoonal weather.

Endman posted:

Good news, everybody. I listened to the radio again!

Turns out Eric Abetz is still banging on about seasonal fruit picking as a solution to all of Tasmania's unemployment woes. He's even using data that suggests that unemployment welfare recipients have, on average, poorer physical and mental health to justify taking them off welfare for six months to pick fruit, as though the "dignity of work" will forever solve all of your ailments.

I guess I'll stop taking my pills and tell my therapist to kill him are self, all I need is to pick fruit for probably less than minimum wage and none of the benefits proper employment would afford me.

Ragingsheep posted:

"Oops, dropped that one."

"Oops, dropped that one again."

...

"Oops, can't believe we dropped them all."

Pred1ct posted:

As in putting out ads which say "Asians only". http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s4028391.htm

adamantium|wang posted:

I would describe this as farcical but we are well past that point and aren't stopping any time soon.

Captain Pissweak posted:

"... and that's how we found out that these wicked Muslim asylum seekers threw their children overboard."

Anidav posted:

Went on another resume run today, talked to a manager who bluntly told me to "Wait your turn on SEEK". Turn huh? Thanks Boomer.

Hypation posted:

Wait with High speed broadband its just like being in the same room.
Even crappy satellite teleconference would do.
I mean Foxtel is delivering HD channels via satellite with 2Mbps to 4Mbps so a 6Mbps connection 3 up and 3 down should be way sufficient to get it done.
(Apart from the 800ms latency or whatever - but that's just extra thinking time)

Reminds me of one of my favourite quotes: "Just because you can't do it, doesn't mean I can't either."

Anidav posted:

Went on another resume run today, talked to a manager who bluntly told me to "Wait your turn on SEEK". Turn huh? Thanks Boomer.

Mr Chips posted:

800msec+ latency ruins any flow in a conversation. Foxtel broadcasting at 6Mbps from a satellite is a one-way thing, and not comparable at all to a 2 way real time voice/video call. Unless you're going to spend military levels of money, flying people up there would be more cost effective. Of course, accomodating them in the community in Australia while claims were being processed would cost orders of magnitude less.

Reminds me of one of my favourite quotes: "Everything is easy when you don't understand what's involved."

Cassa posted:

Got informed by the JSA recently that I was the pick of a crowd I'd interviewed with a month ago, but small business affected by death in the family, and now they're selling the business.

Nibbles141 posted:

It's IR reforms from another angle.

Anidav posted:

Went on another resume run today, talked to a manager who bluntly told me to "Wait your turn on SEEK". Turn huh? Thanks Boomer.

quote:

Karen Middleton ‏@KarenMMiddleton 1h

Janet Albrechtsen & former Fraser Govt minister Neil Brown appointed to the nomination panel for the ABC & SBS boards. Notice on PM&C site.

Fruity Gordo posted:

Re: HECS/FEE HELP, reminder that if you have European citizenship you can study in Sweden completely free. No application fees, no tuition. When I go back to Uni that's where I'll be, probably university of Gothenburg since their social studies department is amazing.

adamantium|wang posted:

quote:

Crikey has been tipped off that conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen is about to be appointed to a powerful role overseeing the ABC and SBS boards. The Coalition government is talking to Albrechtsen, who writes for The Australian, about appointing her to the four-person nomination panel that plays a crucial role in appointments to the ABC and SBS boards.

That would be an interesting development for ABC managing director Mark Scott, given that Albrechtsen last year used her column in the Oz to call for him to resign. As MD, Scott sits on the ABC board.

It wouldn’t be Albrechtsen’s first official role with the ABC. She sat on the board from 2005 to 2010 (she was appointed by John Howard).

The nomination panel was a Kevin Rudd initiative and was supposed to depoliticise the process of appointing board members to the ABC and SBS. The ” independent” panel considers applications then presents a shortlist of board candidates to the minister or PM. There are currently two vacancies on the panel; Albrechtsen would take one. It’s currently chaired by former diplomat Ric Smith. All positions on the panel expire by April next year, so the Abbott government can entirely remake the panel as it sees fit.

The nomination panel has some important decisions to make in the coming months. There has been some media speculation that the government was stalling on certain broadcasting board appointments because it wanted to stack the nomination panel with sympathisers.

Appointments that the panel will mull over include one new ABC board member (to replace Julianne Schultz) and one new SBS board member (to replace Elleni Bereded-Samuel). Two more ABC board members are due to leave next year (see the current board here). These decisions have lengthy ramifications as each new board member will sit for up to five years.

Meanwhile, SBS chairman Joseph Skrzynski has of course left the job (Fairfax reported Malcolm Turnbull wanted him to stay, but was rolled by Tony Abbott). It appears that the nomination panel will be involved in replacing him. Has the Coalition government been waiting to get Albrechtsen on the nomination panel before that decision is made?

This is not the first occasion where the Coalition government has appointed friendly figures to key positions. Columnist Gerard Henderson was appointed a judge for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, and Tim Wilson made a Human Rights Commissioner.

Expect to hear more on this very soon.

freebooter posted:

Wow. I have Euro citizenship and had no idea about this. Why do they allow it? I have Irish citizenship which means I can live in both Ireland and the UK even aside from any EU stuff, and neither of those countries will even give me their equivalent of HECS until I've lived here for three years.

edit - I was looking at that link and it also appears they do most of their classes in English and even have English fluency as a prerequisite? Again, very grateful, but... why?

freebooter posted:

Wow. I have Euro citizenship and had no idea about this. Why do they allow it? I have Irish citizenship which means I can live in both Ireland and the UK even aside from any EU stuff, and neither of those countries will even give me their equivalent of HECS until I've lived here for three years.

edit - I was looking at that link and it also appears they do most of their classes in English and even have English fluency as a prerequisite? Again, very grateful, but... why?

duck monster posted:

New zealand either is or was offering free or pretty drat close to it education for Australian citizens at one point. Maybe still is.

Mr Chips posted:

800msec+ latency ruins any flow in a conversation. Foxtel broadcasting at 6Mbps from a satellite is a one-way thing, and not comparable at all to a 2 way real time voice/video call. Unless you're going to spend military levels of money, flying people up there would be more cost effective. Of course, accomodating them in the community in Australia while claims were being processed would cost orders of magnitude less.

Reminds me of one of my favourite quotes: "Everything is easy when you don't understand what's involved."