The pruning job’s half done

this little lovely from Slow West

Cathy McGowan MP and Nauru

THE EMAIL

Sent: 19 October 2018 17:31
To: McGowan, Cathy (MP)
Subject: Children on Nauru

Congratulations Ms McGowan

Thank you for challenging the bipartisan policy of offshore regime that has seen children detained on Nauru for more than five years.
I hope your support for Mr Wilkie's private member's bill generates enough support and pressure on the PM to be effective.

Please, stay strong to help ensure every child and every family is transferred to safety now.

Sincerely,
19 October 2018

Stewart Jä
cc:
Rebekha Sharkie Rebekha.Sharkie.mp@aph.gov.au
Andrew Wilkie andrew.wilkie.mp@aph.gov.au

First Dog on the Moon has it:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/12/we-all-know-what-is-going-on-in-nauru-even-if-we-pretend-it-is-not-happening

THE REPLY

Dear Stewart

Please find a link to a question I asked of Prime Minister Scott Morrison on 15 October 2018, and his response. I asked the Prime Minister what it would take for the Government to act with compassion, mercy and justice, to accept the resettlement offer from New Zealand and have the children and their families off Nauru by Christmas.

There is recognition the existing situation for those who remain on Nauru is untenable. A bipartisan solution is needed. Both the Labor Party and the government have to move on this. My call has been for them to work this out. The people of Indi want a compassionate, permanent solution.

Could you please share this speech with your networks and encourage friends and family to view the speech at my website at www.cathymcgowan.com.au/what_will_it_take_to_get_kidsoffnauru. 
Stay in touch with further activity on the issue at my website and at the Weekly Scoop.

Warm regards,
Cathy

Cathy McGowan AO MP
Federal Member for Indi
117 Murphy St Wangaratta VIC 3677
P: 5721 7077 | F: 5721 7066
E: cathy.mcgowan.mp@aph.gov.au

MSF calls for the immediate evacuation of all asylum seekers and refugees from Nauru and an end to offshore detention.

Dear Mr Dutton           Coleman         Neuman          Shorten

I support that call.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has strongly condemned the sudden decision of the Government of Nauru to end MSF health care on the island. MSF staff have expressed strong concern for the conditions of the patients that they have been forced to leave behind.

MSF now calls for the immediate evacuation of all asylum seekers and refugees from the island so that they complete their resettlement process with dignity and in safety.

MSF calls for an end to the Australian policy of indefinite offshore detention; cruelly and inhumanely separating families and holding men, women and children indefinitely with no hope and little protection – except, possibly in the case of a medical emergency.

The Australian Government’s policy of detention of refugees and asylum seekers should be repealed immediately. It is not MSF’s psychiatrists and psychologists who should have left Nauru, it is the hundreds of asylum seekers and refugees whom Australia has trapped on the island for the past five years.

Sincerely,

  

Stewart

14 October 2018

Stewart Jäckel Postal address		m: +61xxx xxx xxx b: http://albertswars.blogspot.com.au/ t: @Stewart_Jackel
Editor: Ragg & Co	Author: Albert’s Wars Raising Rosie The Boobiebum Doodle Machine		Volunteer: Refugee Legal paralegal RMIT PWE: Judy Duffy Award

cc:        peter.dutton.mp@aph.gov.au             david.coleman.mp@aph.gov.au             Shayne.Neumann.MP@aph.gov.au             bill.shorten.mp@aph.gov.au

advocacy@sydney.msf.org http://albertswars.blogspot.com.au/ @Stewart_Jackel

First Dog on the Moon has it:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/12/we-all-know-what-is-going-on-in-nauru-even-if-we-pretend-it-is-not-happening

Refugees on Nauru - Ashkan and Nima

There’s a bitter irony to the postscript of Abdul Karim Hekmat’s piece about Ashkan and Nima, (“I am not a ‘death meat’ of Australia”, Saturday Paper 15-22 September 2018). It's the contact for Lifeline 13 11 14.

Nima is dying on Nauru. His partner Ashkan is helpless.

Over months, Ashkan has asked for help. Lots of well-placed people went to work. But so far the only person who can save Nima is deaf tohim.

Anna Brown from the Human Rights Law Centre appealed to Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop who referred her to Peter Dutton. Brown found Mr Dutton “unresponsive”, “unsympathetic and “not compassionate”. She asked Tim Wilson, then the Human Rights Commissioner, to raise the case with Mr Dutton. The response of Mr Dutton and The Department of Immigration and Border Protection was disdainful and risible. 

If Nima and Askan are refouled to Iran they will be killed. The Cambodia option presents extrajudicial killings, and warrantless and arbitrary arrests, even though homosexual activity is not illegal. Staying on Nauru exposes the men to bashings and police indifference.

My gay friend can live happily with his partner, my lesbian friend can live with hers without being terrified of thugs breaking in and bashing them. They can go shopping together with as much safety as my wife and I can..

A week ago I fell over. Within a few seconds I had help. I was staring up at the faces of about ten people. Within a couple of hours my osteotherapist mate was at my door. I had access to a full range of pharmaceuticals and professional people – including Lifeline if I needed it - to help me. But I'm not effectively locked up on Nauru.

What can I do to make sure Nima and Ashkan get the help the need.

If Brown and Wilson can’t help them how can I?

The short answer is I can’t.

The longer answer is that I can write letters to a not-compassionate, unresponsive minister and my invisible local Labor member. I can write tweets. I can write 200 words on my blog. All totally futile. I can work as a volunteer paralegal for a refugee legal service. Slightly less futile.

Someone tell me please, what can I do to stop Nima dying in Ashkan’s arms?

Mr Morrison, tell me ...

Mr Morrison, tell me how Jesus would have refused treatment to mentally ill and suicidal children?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/26/what-does-scott-morrison-mean-when-he-says-if-you-have-a-go-you-will-get-a-go

I'm listening.
Have a go.

Mr Morrison, Mr Dutton; BRING THESE KIDS HERE

This is a little boy who was born behind bars in detention on Nauru. 

The only life he's known are guards shouting, steel fences, and unending detention on a tiny island the size of Melbourne's airport. 
He's called by a number, not even his name.

There are still 119 children detained on Nauru.


Gabby Sutherland is a teacher who worked on Nauru in 2014 and 2015. She taught kids like this little bloke. She writes about kids like him in today's Guardian, a GetUp email and
http://getup.to/g2NOJTv1dCElmudeZ

Mr Turnbull, Mr Dutton, you are condemned.

NOT IN MY NAME!

Deaths in offshore detention: the faces of the people who have died in Australia's care

Twelve refugees and asylum seekers have died while in Australian immigration detention on Manus Island and Nauru. On World Refugee Day, Guardian Australia acknowledges those who have died and begins a project to record lives lost in offshore detention

https://hope1032.com.au/stories/life/social-justice/2018/12-empty-chairs-a-haunting-reminder-of-deaths-on-manus-nauru-in-vigils-across-australia/

Not in my name Mr Turnbull, Mr Dutton, Mr Shorten.
You shame all Australians.

Girl on Wire. Lucy Estela and Elise Hurst

https://www.amazon.com.au/Girl-Wire-Lucy-Estela/dp/0143787160/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1530412293&sr=8-1&keywords=girl+on+wire

This is a book about fear, about adversity, about courage and about love.

It is an allegory, a metaphor, a parable.

Like good metaphors it is a trigger for discussion – book group or classroom.

It is deceptive.

It seems, at first, to be a young girls’ picture book and in some ways it is. But the language and the ideas are capable of more mature discussion.

In that respect it defies categorisation.

It’s a picture book: words and images give us integrated narrative and emotion.

Lucy Estela’s words are sparse and stark – a voice that reflects the setting and the message.

Elise Hurst’s paintings are a sort of neo-Aussie-impressionist style. They have energy and bleakness and are wonderfully beautiful. Typically, her work has hope and this collection does too. Here, the original paintings complement and develop the sparse text.

This is a beautiful book that never preaches or concludes. Rather, it treats its reader with intelligence and respect.

Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and Anna Goldsworthy

Elizabeth Murdoch Hall

Sunday 24 June 2018

I’ve listened to a lot of pianists. Some, mainly competition finals, out to impress a jury, seem to have decided that louder and faster is better: the rock band syndrome. The corollary of that is, to find the musician, listen to the pianist play something that’s not presto agitato. The more lento, more pianissimo the better.

Anna Goldsworthy played two concertos this afternoon each with a slow movement. No agitato here; no hint of presto – except in the Hungarian movement of the Haydn concerto where there was plenty.

Haydn’s Piano Concerto No.11 was written between 1780 and 1783 in the gallant style. The style required light elegance in music. Perfumed handkerchiefs were in fashion. The second movement is marked Un poco adagio. It’s writing is elegant and chromatic and in Anna’s hands it’s performance became absolutely beautiful as well. She took her time to find the elegant phrases and she often introduced them with micro-rubato with absolutely no hint of affectation.

Anna Goldsworthy
Source: http://www.annagoldsworthy.com/

Anna is a pianist whose head is firmly in the Classical style, including Haydn. She restrained the hints of romanticism – they are there are in both Haydn and Mozart – and so made them all the more powerful; a case of what’s unsaid. There was an obvious intelligence in this work that impressed me. Anna told me a few months ago that she was about to begin to learn the work. In my ignorance I thought she meant the notes. It became clear yesterday that she’d been talking about its style, its culture, its colour and its modulations.

Gallant style was young Mozart as well. Mozart 6 was written in 1776 when he had just turned 20 so it almost overlaps with Haydn 11. The major difference, though, was clear in Anna’s playing of its slow movement. It is marked Andante un poco adagio and it was the adagio bit that allowed her exploration of the incredibly beautiful modulations that, in typical Mozart fashion, are complex, extended and very interesting.

An integral part of that Mozart piece is the orchestra – strings with a brace of horns, of oboes and of flutes. In the orchestra-only sections Anna gently, unconsciously, conducted with her right hand just below the keyboard with a gentle up-beat onto the keyboard to continue her piano part.

Which brings me to this problem: the first movement and the Rondo all'Ungarese movement of the Haydn concerto was not too fast for Anna but it was for the violins.

The violin’s delicate semiquavers lost their definition in bars three and four then nine and ten. I heard a sort of chord rather than four discrete notes. It was often a problem in the third movement too, made worse by the contrast with the piano playing the same figure but with precision and clarity. It’s common to hear this in the ‘best’ commercial recordings. But my view is that if it’s written as four semiquavers, that’s what you play; that’s what I want to hear. Was it under-skilled violinists? I‘m certain it was not. Was it under-rehearsal due to lack of funds? That’s my guess.

http://imslp.org/wiki/Keyboard_Concerto_in_D_major,_Hob.XVIII:11_(Haydn,_Joseph)

Having said that, there’s some incredible talent in that orchestra. That’s no surprise since Bill Hennessy knows where the talented young musos are in Melbourne – and there are plenty. Emma Double-bass Sullivan with her celli accomplices set the pace for Haydn. (She’s brilliant, is Emma) and a pair of horns had the running for Mozart (brilliant musos as well).

And when the band wasn't playing there were the solo piano sections. After this single hearing I was convinced the cadenzas of both concertos were the composer's. But they were Anna's own. "It was a delightful and creative process to devise them", she said. She could also have said "fascinating" - the  idea of getting into Haydn's head (that mixture of serious classicism and deadly humour) to write something of her own that could easily have been his. (Getting into Mozart's head doesn't bear thinking about.) In any event, they were simply superb. And I was fascinated by the fact that she did not use them as a vehicle for self-aggrandisement. But then she had no need to.

I heard a world-class performance of two not-very-showy concertos today. I heard delicacy, lightness and elegance from both piano and band that made me glad. All that was needed was the hand-kerchief, perfumed, of course.

Peter Dutton's torture of Rohingyan refugees, ...

... with the support of Turnbull's government, continues ...

Rohingya refugee camp near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. © Kevin Frayer / Getty Images

in Australia and on the Bangladesh border.

And we are complicit by our silence.

Support Refugee Legal

John Howard: Risen from the dust bin of history ...

Tide turning for Turnbull but byelections won't be easy, says Howard

Former PM tells Liberal party council there’s a clear mood change among people because of Shorten’s ‘very leftwing agenda’

Amy Remeikis

 @amyremeikis

Sat 16 Jun 2018 12.24 AESTLast modified on Sat 16 Jun 2018 12.40 AEST

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 John Howard speaks at the 60th federal council of the Liberal party in Sydney on Saturday. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

The former prime minister John Howard says he senses “a clear mood change in the community”, with people turning back towards the Turnbull government, but pulling off a victory over Labor at the coming byelections would be “something approaching a political earthquake”.John Howard.

... back ya go son-o!

[Liberal party ... 60th national council] voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to privatise the ABC.

Over my dead body - or preferably, yours.

Join ABC Friends

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/16/tide-turning-for-turnbull-but-byelections-wont-be-easy-says-howard

NSW government brumby bill: disaster. Bugger the science; play the politics

Feral horses are incompatible with a world heritage area. It's one or the other

Reprinted from: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/11/feral-horses-are-incompatible-with-a-world-heritage-area-its-one-or-the-other

After the NSW government gave them heritage protection with the brumby bill, I had no choice but to quit the NSW threatened species scientific committee

David M Watson

Professor of ecology, Charles Sturt University

 You can have brumbies and horseback adventures at Kosciuszko, but not without damaging the heritage the park was designed to protect. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

You can have brumbies and horseback adventures at Kosciuszko, but not without damaging the heritage the park was designed to protect. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

Last year, I drove up to the New South Wales high country with my oldest son. We arrived at Geehi, found a camp site, rigged up our rods and waded into the crystal clear water, hoping to snag a trout. Between casts, my attention was drawn to a pair of black cockatoos, sailing overhead. Looking up, I noticed the main range of Kosciuszko. Ancient and imposing, granite worn smooth by rain and snow, embroidered with lichens and wildflowers. I don’t know how long we stood there, in silent awe of the jagged peaks, but it’s a treasured moment frozen in time.

In the weeks leading up to this trip, this place had been occupying my mind. As a member of the NSW threatened species scientific committee, I’d been involved in monthly day-long meetings for the past few years, participating in detailed discussions with people who knew far more than me about frogs and plants, bats and snails. I’m an ecologist — for the past 25 years, I’ve studied interactions between plants and animals — working out why some areas support more diversity, why particular plants and animals have positive or negative effects on their communities. This group of independent experts, appointed by the NSW minister for the environment was charged with synthesising available information about species, communities and ecological processes, advising government on the top priorities for management.

With shrinking budgets and the ever-present spectre of unprecedented climatic conditions, we wanted to ensure we were giving government the most up-to-date advice in our determinations. We worked diligently through hundreds of pages of journal articles and reports, emails from experts and concerned stakeholder groups. One of the determinations we were working on was listing feral horses as a Key Threatening Process.

The literature was quite clear on this issue. As with deer, goats and all the other exotic ungulates in Australia, these large hoofed animals have dramatic impacts on soils, breaking through the delicate crusts that hold them together, compacting the soil down so that they can no longer soak up water when it rains. But horses have a range of other effects. Unlike native grazers, they need to drink daily, chopping up creek-banks as they come and go. And because they don’t chew their food as much as deer and goats, many seeds pass through intact, including many weeds, tracked far into remote corners of this rugged country miles from management trails.

Some of the clearest information about how horses affect Australian environments comes from the high country, where fenced-out plots demonstrate just how dramatically they’ve altered these alpine communities. Within Kosciuszko national park, a 2008 report found 76% of stream banks were degraded in areas with horses, compared with 11% in areas where horses didn’t occur. We, the scientific committee, tallied the information, compared it with international benchmarks, finessed the language to ensure it was balanced and evidence-based, then voted and moved on to the next determination.

While this draft determination was open for public comment, John Barilaro, the outspoken Nationals state member for Monaro and deputy leader of the NSW government introduced a bill into parliament. The proposed legislation protects feral horses within Kosciuszko national park, requiring all future management plans for this World Heritage area to consider the cultural significance of horses.

New South Wales government to introduce 'brumbies bill' banning culls – video

We felt gutted. Not only did this fly in the face of the document we had just prepared for government, it made a mockery of the years of careful scholarship distilled within it. 

Discussing this issue with my wife and sons, we decided that if this bill was passed, I would have no option but to resign. And last Wednesday, the bill was passed without amendment. The minister for environment our committee directly advised gave the brumby bill her strong support. The next day, I resigned, sharing my letter over Twitter.

Much has been written about this issue, but let’s be crystal clear — feral horses are incompatible with protected area management. It’s one or the other. You can have brumbies and trail-rides and epic mountain adventures on horseback, but all of these things cannot occur within a national park without causing further damage to the very flora, fauna and ecological communities the park was established to protect.

Putting horses, mountains and the complexities of feral animal management to one side, this issue brings into very sharp focus the disdain our government shows for science. Being a “clever country” necessarily involves listening to our scientific community. If governments continue to ignore considered advice from the very panels they sanctioned specifically to give them considered advice, a lesser Australia awaits. An Australia where sharing quiet moments with your kids, wading along a crystal clear mountain creek, is no longer possible. Our rivers fouled, our mountains choked with weeds. Maybe they’ll tell stories about that instead. Or write poems.

ANAM: Caleb Wong with Louisa Breen

ANAM Solo Recital

South Melbourne Town Hall

Friday 1 June 2018

Mature-age audience-people have been listening to music for decades. They can tell the good from the excellent from the superb in a flash. When 50 or 60 of them – with 20 or so student-support – recognise a performance as superb and rise as one person to say so it’s good evidence that the muso concerned is a winner. At ANAM on Friday the winner was Caleb Wong.

Caleb Wong
Source: https://www.maroondahsymphony.org.au/future-concerts/concert-sunday-16th-september-2018/

The Strauss/Mendelssohn opus 6 cello sonata was written when Richard was in his late teens: it’s late-ish 19C. So playing it very well, answers, ‘can I play German romantic with my eyes closed - because you can’t play Mendelssohn well with your eyes open. In Caleb’s case on Friday, the answer was,’ Why are you bothering to ask?’ He had the score open but I have no idea why. He spent a lot of time not looking at it and it showed in the way he let the music channel through his head and out over the space between stage and audience He gave us wonderful brio in the first movement and great vivo in the third with beautifully controlled andante but non-troppo in between. Simply beautiful. But was it competition winning stuff? Yes ... ish.

The late Debussy sonata was next. Not easy, that piece. Challenging to listen to with its unusual sur la touche and sur la chevalet bowing instructions. Caleb describes the second movement as sarcastic. I’ve never thought to describe even late Debussy like that, but he’s right. It’s a wonderfully acerbic piece that Caleb clearly understood very well. Hmmm ... it's not all sweetness and light in that head.

Grace Wong with brother Caleb
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xobm-7xhdWo

But to cut to the chase, Caleb was, I’m certain, doing a practice run for a high-powered competition. In that, his next choice of repertoire was ideal. He came nowhere near the boring and banal of which there is heaps in the cello list:

Samuel Barber? No! American schmaltz.

Béla Bartók? No?

Britten? Hmmm … later, maybe.

Elliott Carter? Bit risky. Very risky!

Elgar? Du Pré! So no, not until I'm very famous.

Variations on a Rococo Theme? No bite! What Tchaikovsky has?

Prokofiev Sinfonia Concertante? Yes! Bite!

But can we handle the horrendous technical stuff? The answer was, yes, firmly, yes – apparently with ease. We were given (thank you Caleb) a brilliant, gut-grabbing performance of a piece that is rivalled for Russian bite and satanic writing only by Prokofiev’s third Piano Concerto. We heard only the second movement with the deceptive instruction, Allegro. Now I want to hear the whole deal. Even in a piano reduction it’s a spectacular piece of music with enormous music values and we got a spectacular performance that tapped into those values. Not just my opinion. The audience were on  their feet before I could move.

Louisa Breen was the Associate Artist – not the accompanist. Gerald Moore killed that concept by asking sardonically, Am I too loud? Louisa’s playing was equally as stunning as Caleb’s.

Louisa Breen
Source: https://www.melbournerecital.com.au/events/2018/natural-landscapes/

  

When they stood, exhausted, Caleb waved his right hand in her general direction. I’m absolutely certain that he didn’t intend to be dismissive: he’s too good a bloke for that. But as a piece of stage manners, next time Caleb might indicate Louisa firmly or shake her hand or kiss he on both cheeks or hug her then do a hand-holding bow with her. Mate, she was your associate artist! The performance was not possible without her – her work was top-class . You were both equally superb, mate!

Dutton’s moral twilight: The Saturday Paper's view.

EDITORIAL

Behrouz Boochani describes it as something like the obliteration of personhood. The words he uses are the “extermination of the self”. He says this is a type of erasure – that the system of detention and deprivation on Manus Island exists with “the objective of distorting your sense of self so you forget that you are human”.

Boochani wrote these words before Salim Kyawning was found dead. Kyawning was a Rohingya refugee, the 14th person to die in offshore detention. It fell to a charity to tell his family of his death. The Home Affairs office had not bothered. It put out a single line statement: “This is a matter for the PNG government.”

Australia has given up entirely on the men on Manus Island. It has no plan for them. It doesn’t care how they leave: whether they are resettled or refouled or sent home in bags. This was the suicide of a man transformed by cruelty into a non-person. He was killed by the instruments of Australia’s border protection policy.

The moral twilight of this system once asked whether it was worth saving a man from drowning to watch him die by his own hand. No longer does it bother. No longer does the government seem to care. While friends attempted to make sense of Kyawning’s death, the government leaked details of his case history to The Australian. The story ran with the headline “Mentally ill refugee ‘had violent history’ ”.

Boochani, an imprisoned writer, the voice of Manus prison, said he held special sadness for the fact Peter Dutton said nothing about Kyawning’s death. “He couldn’t even be bothered to make up a lie, as he always does. The media is also deliberately silent about this tragedy.”

Boochani asked how many people should die before Australia offered medical assistance to the men it has abandoned on Manus Island. “Salim was a father of three. A Rohingya man who escaped genocide and prosecution, endured five years of prison and illness, but lost his life to Australia’s cruel offshore processing regime. A tragic ending. Then Australia has a seat in UNHRC. Strange world we are living in.”

Perhaps nations do not have souls. If they do, Australia’s is hopelessly stained. Not just with the blood of these men, but with the indifference to it.

Australia is involved in a legal fiction over its responsibility to the people held on Manus and Nauru. It is a game of make-believe, a terrible one, in which people are dying, in which people are being tortured, have been assaulted and abused, in which childhoods have been stolen and lives taken.

Some months ago, Australia decided it was not playing any longer. It pulled down the buildings. It took back the doctors and the medication. Like a child, it got bored.

That is what killed Salim Kyawning: a country’s boredom at his fate. It will keep killing people like Kyawning until every last refugee and asylum seeker on Manus and Nauru is brought to Australia and offered the safety they deserve. That is the only end to this horror.

Then will come the inquiries, the commissions, the apologies, the dawning of a national shame. First, though, these people must be brought here.

Malcolm Turnbull

(02) 6277 7700

(02) 9327 3988

Bill Shorten

(02) 6277 4022

(03) 9326 1300

Lifeline

13 11 14

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on May 26, 2018 as "Dutton’s moral twilight". Subscribe here