Left Flank Thoughts on the Biennale boycott and the state. It would be churlish to thumb one’s nose at the successful artist boycott of the Sydney Biennale, which cut the Biennale’s partnership with Transfield over the latter’s participation in the federal government’s border protection regime.
A new tactic within the mishmash of often mutually hostile campaigns in support of asylum seekers, its triumph certainly brightened my day and that of many others after the depressing spiral of retreat and impotence that seems to have dominated refugee activism in recent years. That it happened soon after the killing of Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati in a pogrom-style attack on detainees on Manus Island — the site of Kevin Rudd’s PNG Solution — shows how politically combustible the apparent elite consensus on asylum seekers can be. Of course the result has been a reaction from the federal government.
But there my agreement ends. Piping Shrike Asylum seekers: a panic of the political class – an update. Something has to give this week or sometime soon as a circuit-breaker in what is policy dysfunction and a failure on behalf of the Australian community.
Rob Oakeshott They only have themselves to blame. Let’s not forget this. Rob Oakeshott may think it’s a failure of the Australian community, but it’s really a failure of the political class that he came in to rescue on Wednesday. So before Rob Oakeshott gets on his moral high horse and clip clops away, let’s just recall what the failed Australian community actually thinks. This blog is going to throw something wild and crazy out into the ether, in a way that only a detached blog on the internet can – asylum seekers might not be that important an issue in voter-land. OK, completely crazy. It’s just that it never seems to appear as a leading issue in opinion polls. But get this. So why does it seem so important? Some context first. But it was much more than that. When national security faded in importance so did that triumphalism. Piping Shrike Sovereignty :The Piping Shrike.
David Rowe, AFR This is a breach of our sovereignty and the Indonesians need to understand that, instead of a lot of pious rhetoric about the Australian Government breaching their sovereigntyLord Downer, just a few months agoWe will decide.
From happier times. The panic about asylum seekers is primarily a panic of the political class, that politicos on the left and right continually project onto the public, but for whom polls show it remains no more than a middling concern. It is a panic out of all proportion to its real impact because asylum seekers capture two concerns that the political class has no solution for: a declining social base (Labor) and authority and “sovereignty” (the Coalition). During the Rudd-Gillard period we saw asylum seekers become a political football between Rudd and Gillard centred on Labor’s insecurities about its lack of social base. Australia’s sovereignty has always been surprisingly uncertain for a stable, prosperous country. Operational Matters : An important note on Superannuation Fund Divestment from Mandatory Detention.
Ever since private superannuation became compulsory in Australia, superannuation funds—and superannuation fund managers—have created an immense pool of investment dollars.
Running in the trillions of dollars, these are both significant elements in the economy and, at the same time, they are also the retirement funds of thousands of workers. This is why there are occupational-specific funds with union representatives on the Boards of such funds. Individuals can take action to check whether their funds are invested in mandatory detention, as Jennifer Mills did. Unions can take action to represent the interests of members whose money is invested in these funds, particularly where they have representation on the Boards of these funds. We do not recommend specific superannuation funds here. Decisions about which private or public superannuation fund company you put your savings in should be made by you after careful research and consideration of verifiable information. Related.