Morrison is basically blackmailing Australians to hand over their privacy to ease restrictions & blackmailing teachers so parents can put "food on the table". This is not the first time he’s used dirty tactics involving freedom and children to get what he wants....A thread.
In December 2014, Scott Morrison promised to release around 1500 asylum seekers on Christmas Island in time for Christmas, including 460 children. He was accused of using the children “as bargaining chips, as pawns in his political play, to get legislation that he wanted through"
The legislation was 'The Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014.' This Bill gave then Immigration Minister Scott Morrison "unheard-of powers over the fates of asylum seekers and refugees....
...allowing him to turn back boats with impunity, return asylum seekers to their home countries even if they faced torture & removed all references to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the defining document for nation-states dealing with refugees, from Australian law."
Australia was now effectively operating entirely outside international law. Ben Doherty said the law made Morrison “the most powerful person in the Australian government” by giving him unprecedented, unchallengeable, and secret powers to control the lives of asylum seekers.
No other minister, not the PM, not the foreign minister, not the attorney-general, would have the same unchecked control over the lives of other people.
"With the passage of the new law, the minister can push any asylum seeker boat back into the sea and leave it there."
"With the passage of the new law, the minister can push any asylum seeker boat back into the sea and leave it there."
Morrison could block an asylum seeker from ever making a protection claim on the ill-defined grounds of “character” or “national interest”. His reasons could be secret.
Morrison could detain people without charge, or deport them to any country he chose even if it is was known they would be tortured there. Morrison's decisons could not be challenged.
Critics including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN’s Committee Against Torture and parliament’s own human rights committee – said the bill "strips the checks and balances....and removes basic protections for those who arrive seeking asylum
In December 2014, Morrison said he wanted children out of the Christmas Island detention centre by Christmas, but would only remove them if the Senate passed the legislation. He also refused to separate the bill to allow 30,000 asylum seekers to be processed.
The Coalition and Morrison faced a hostile Senate that and it had to pass the bill somehow. So, Morrison told the crossbenchers that unless they voted to pass his legislation, those children would stay in detention & 30,000 people awaiting processing would be left in limbo.
Scott Morrison could have freed those children any time he wanted. He chose not to. He used children as leverage to extract political concessions.
"He told other politicians that unless they voted the way he wanted them too, children would suffer."
newmatilda.com/2014/12/12/kid…
"He told other politicians that unless they voted the way he wanted them too, children would suffer."
newmatilda.com/2014/12/12/kid…
Remember, Morrison didn't do this decades ago - it was only 6 short years ago. This is what he is capable of. "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." Never forget.
theguardian.com/australia-news…
theguardian.com/australia-news…
