Higher priorities
Mike Seccombe (Mike Seccombe, “‘I am hopeless now’: Australia’s $9.65 billion torture camps”, September 10-16) reminds us of the senseless crimes against humanity successive governments have committed against refugees, in our name. It’s time the new government ended the cruel and unaffordable detention policies of both Labor’s and the Coalition’s making. Taxpayers’ money is better spent on pressing priorities, rather than being wasted on questionable prison-operator companies to maintain torture camps. Australians voted to reject abhorrent policies on refugees, destruction of the environment, the free-forall for fossil fuel companies, and unaffordable stage 3 tax cuts; not for Labor to continue implementing them on the Coalition’s behalf. Be courageous, Labor. Tweak outdated policies and chart a new course of your own.
– Jean Abbott, Corlette, NSW and children whose only mistake was to seek our protection. How is it that we believe we have the right to condemn them indefinitely to the aptly headlined “torture camps” where they have been deprived of any hope of building a meaningful life? We have pressured neighbouring countries and made them complicit in the injustice and cruelty of our treatment of people who remain our responsibility. Why should other nations – who have their own influxes of refugees – be asked to take those who have arrived on our shores? After more than eight years, these refugees still suffer the agonising uncertainty of being without permanent status, and the future remains uncertain for them. We could have used the $9.65 billion or more this policy has cost us to alleviate some more pressing concerns. It’s wrong to continue to call out other nations for their human rights abuses when we have such a glaring example in our own backyard.
– Genevieve Caffery, Greenslopes, Qld cease. There are thousands of refugees in Australia, some on visas that forbid them from working. Let us speedily process them, allocate them permanent visas and allow them to work. Many are skilled. Others should be offered training. This is an urgent problem of justice that must be rectified.
– Gael Barrett, North Balwyn, Vic