Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what your mother’s adopted country can do to you if she doesn’t get the paperwork right:
As to the issue concerning the effect, if any, upon s 501(2) of the Migration Act 1958Â (Cth) of ss 200 and 201 of that Act, I would make the following comment. The contention that ss 200 and 201 give a person in the position of the respondent a protection or immunity from the exercise of the power conferred by s 501 is a statement of a conclusion, rather than an expression of a reason for reaching that conclusion. If there is such a reason, it must be found in a process of statutory construction. The provisions of s 501(2), on the one hand, and ss 200 and 201 on the other, are not repugnant, in the sense that they contain conflicting commands which cannot both be obeyed, or produce irreconcilable legal rights or obligations. They create two sources of power, by which a person in the position of the respondent may be exposed, by different processes, and in different circumstances, to similar practical consequences. There is nothing novel, or even particularly unusual, about that.
Gleeson CJ in High Court of Australia, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs v Nystrom [2006] (emphasis added)
And there it is. All you need to understand about Australian Law, and the relationship between Government and citizens, Government and non-citizens in two short sentences, from no less an authority than the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.
For the sake of simplicity, it might be a good idea to adopt a single, comprehensive term to cover everyone who might be exposed, by different processes and in different circumstances, but with similar practical consequences to the exercise of political power. “Subjects� seems to fit very nicely.
Gummo, I’m sure that there’s an important point being made eloquently here, but without any background info, it’s a bit hard to pick it.
Ummm, Gleeson is talking about processing involving the executive as empowered by a statute. You know, a law passed by elected representatives? The power is not political per se. Tell me, do you object to the existence of police forces?
BBB
Could it be this?
From the ABC report:
Convicted of 87 offences — God knows how many others he committed — and his lawyer wants the Minister to issue a warning!
“Dear Mr Nystrom,
You are hereby officially warned against committing any further acts of theft, burglary, arson, or rape.
Yours faithfully,
A. Vanstone.”
This is beyond parody.
Jeeebuss! What a country we’ve become. A friend of mine in France recently made the observation to me that we’d become the new South Africans. I found it pretty unsettling but the more I think about it and read these type of things, (not to mention seeing our 20something yobbos yell and puke themselves around the toursist traps of Europe) the more I think he was bang on the money.
Sigh.
Given we’re a nation born out of a policy of criminal export, you’d expect Australia to be the last country on earth that’d consider doing something like this.
Maybe it’s because convict ancestry is now considered a badge of honour rather than in indelible stain, we think it’s perfectly OK to ship our problems offshore. And, regardless of his citizenship, given Nystrom has been here since a week or so after birth, he’s most definitely our problem.
I remember how deeply pissed off a lot of people were when it was reported some in the UK Government had floated the idea of sending the killers of James Bulger to Australia on their release.
Granted, most of the anger was motivated by the nature of their crime. But I remember many were equally disgusted by what the idea revealed about how certain sections of English society still viewed Australia.
From memory, our Government wasn’t too happy about it, either.
Which is a feeling they’d do well to remember before handing Nystrom his one-way ticket.
I’m not exactly sure what Gummo’s on about, either. The CJ was simply stating the obvious, which is that more than one section of the act gives the Minister power to cancel a visa, and that she can exercise the power under whichever section she prefers. (In this case, one of the provisions was not available.)
Of all the people whose opinions I would have the least regard it would be the French. Cynical hypocrites who mask blatant self-interest with a veneer of principle.
Choose your friends more wisely.
Transportation of convicts ended over 150 years ago in NSW and 120 years ago in Western Australia. Countries do tend to move on.
Amanda Vanstone is from South Australia, the founding principle of which was free immigration. I doubt that she would have any convict ancestry.
The killers of James Bulger were Australian citizens? Who’d have thought!!
Right. Because every person in France sticks to the groupthink and marches in lockstep, and never has an original non-governmental-approved thought.
Wave a broad brush around much, do you?
Describes the French intellectual caste to a tee.
You must go through broad brushes at a rate of knots.
I agree with GregM. These are the same French who ban the hijab and whose immigrants are so happy with their lovely non-racist compatriots that they’re burning down buildings? Those worthless backstabbing quislings want to lecture US about tolerance?
No more so than the French person who made the observation that Australians had become the new South Africans. Now there’s a nice broad brush stroke if ever there was one.
But you’d expect that from the French, and there are idiots who would take them seriously.
GregM and Jason Soon: you dismiss far too readily the opinion of this wise Frenchman (or woman). After all, the French are experts on the South Africans — France was apartheid South Africa’s best pal. They were happily selling arms to the South Africans to keep those kaffirs in their place: for example, the SAAF flew Mirage fighters made by the Dassault-Breguet corporation, while the Navy operated French Daphne class submarines.
The French are the new South Africans? This is news. Look up the colonial history of Algeria and North Africa: the French are the old South Africans.
…
As to deporting crooks, I look forward to every country to which we deport petty criminals deporting to us, in turn, their Australian-born drug-fucked wrecks.
Liam, I don’t think that committing aggravated rape at age 16 constitutes petty crime. The severity of the sentence he was given indicates that, given his age at the time, it must have been a pretty horrific crime. And other countries can and do deport Australian criminals when they have served their prison sentences, as they should. I think that Schappelle Corby would be pushing it if she asked for a tourist visa so that she could resume her holiday in Bali at the end of her sentence.
Quite right about the French in Algeria and North Africa.
So you’re comparing a bong smoker to a rapist, Liam? Nice one. So much for your progressivism.
One other thing. You can’t deport people who are already citizens, can you? On the other hand this ability to deport PRs has been on the law books for ages. This fellow had all the time in the world to take out citizenship and he didn’t. So he fell under this exception. If he’s taken out citizenship he’d have been OK. I don’t see anything to cry about. The law’s the law and this one isn’t particularly harsh.
Game on.
Ask Vivienne Solon’s family, Jason.
I most certainly am. I’m an internationalist; I don’t believe in exporting problems, individual or collective. Just because we don’t have enough prisons for rapists or potsmokers doesn’t mean the Australian state can just fuck off the people it doesn’t want to deal with, not unless we want other countries to respond in kind with the Australian-born scum we export to the world through the glory of drug tourism.
If that happens, we’re going to get a whole lot of utter wastes of space returnin’, a whingin’.
Oh, and before you ask, I for one don’t want Hicks back. I’d like the Americans to try him properly.
Damned you are obtuse Liam. The Solon case was a mistake. It was a fuck up. This decision has been confirmed by the High Court but the policy that you can deport PRs but not citizens has always been on the books. It’s that simple. It’s got nothing to do with us trying to save prison space because there aren’t that many criminal PRs to deport to justify a cost cutting policy based on the strategy.
This rapist whose crime was worse than Corby’s whatever you might say, simply drew the short end of the stick. Tough luck. He should have taken out citizenship when he had the chance.
I’m very much inclined to deport anyone who uses “game on” to close a comment.
Just sayin…
Jason, it is not possible to deport people who are Australian citizens as, being citizens, Australia is their home country. The exceptions are where the citizenship has been obtained by fraud (giving false information on the citizenship application, etc.) or committing a criminal offence in the time between making the application and receiving the grant of citizenship.
Nystrom would never have had a chance of becoming a citizen as he already had a lengthy criminal record and a conviction for aggravated rape by the time he would have been able to exercise his option to choose between his Swedish citizenship and Australian citizenship on reaching majority at age eighteen and therefore he would have failed the good character criterion. The wonder is that he is now aged thirty-two and has been allowed to remain in the country for so long, given his long criminal history.
Liam, as I pointed out above other countries do deport Australian criminals back to Australia when they have completed their sentences (unless, of course they hang them, in which case the issue is moot). We can expect a number of returnees from the UK now that their Home Office has decided to enforce their laws in this regard.
Greg M, I concur with tig-tog’s observation. Those sort of broad brush generalizations make you a racist dope.
I can disagree with the foreign policy of a state without discounting the opinions of (each and all of) its citizens, which would be true of Australia right now. You should try it.
Apartheidt South Africa’s best pals BTW were Israel and Reagan’s US of A.
Oh, and the NZRU.
Justaguy, you can happily adopt the view of a French person which is a broad brush generalisation about twenty million Australians with an inherently racist subtext both in its generalisation about an entire nation and the implication that Australia is remotely comparable to apartheid South Africa and then you criticise my commenting sarcastically on that.
Oh the irony of it.
You are also, it seems, blissfully ignorant of France’s current social problems, its appalling colonial history which is the root of those problems and, as Paulus has pointed out, its history of support for the apartheid regime which should make any French person a litte circumspect about throwing stones for fear of breaking windows in their own glass house and any sensible Australian cautious about accepting the broad generalisations of a French person about the current social policies of Australia, and its social situation when France’s policies, such as on the hijab, are much more worthy of criticism than Australia’s and its banleuies are turning into racially segregated ghettoes every bit as bad as South Africa’s townships. On the evidence one could more easily mount the argument that France is the new South Africa than that Australia is. But then, as Liam has pointed out, France is the old South Africa.
Finally you seem to be quite ignorant that the apartheid regime started in 1948 and therefore had a much longer history than just the eight years of the Reagan Administration, during which time the French were quite happy to do their bit to prop up that regime, and make a buck out of it at the same time, but then, of course, there is a certain intellect that can’t think beyond the narrow blinkers of “America is the source of all Evil”.
If you want to see a dope look in a mirror and, as you adopt the inherently racist opinions of your French friend, you’ll be looking at a racist one as well.
Before you go and get too smug (whoops too late), you should maybe consider that my friend’s comment was about the prevailing perception of Australians in the wider world, so the irony is on you.
Your overly rightwingnut blog influenced perception of France and its teething troubles with the intergration of North African immigrants is sensationalist nonsense. Go and have a look for yourself.
I’d walk through the immigrant heavy suburbs of Paris anyday rather than through Watts, Compton, South Central or poorer areas of any US city of more than 20,000 people.
The Reagan administration may only have been around toward apartheidts end, but it propped them up like no other in their history. Have a read about the extraordinary lengths Reagan’s neocons went to the keep the ANC down along with ruining the econo mies of most of SA’s neighbours by supporting state terrorism via SA’s armed forces. Its great, if a little bloody, reading.
Gentlemen, I’d like to think you could stoush without abusing each other personally.
Please check the comments policy.
Fair enough Mark.
I’d point out to Mr M though, that said friend in France, is in fact, not French, but an Australian living there, as do I from time to time. It corresponds roughly with other comments I’ve heard from people of various nationalities around the globe.
Mark, happy to comply.
Justaguy, I live in the wider world, South East Asia, and I see no evidence that the French view, if that is indeed its view, is shared by anyone in South East Asia. South East Asians have varied views on Australia and Australians, some very positive and some on to the negative, although overall Australians are perceived as no worse than any other orang putih, bole, farang or barang. Certainly I see no evidence at all that they make any comparison between Australia and apartheid South Africa. Quite a few have family in Australia, or have studied there, and would like very much to migrate there so it’s hardly likely that they would be of the view that Australia is an apartheid hell-hole.
I see no reason that I should have any regard for a Eurocentric and specifically a Francocentric perception about Australia, (the world is more than Europe and as globalisation progesses European views become ever less important to the wider world view) especially as it is likely to be informed by ignorance and prejudice as very few people in France would have taken the opportunity to visit Australia to inform themselves of the actual conditions that prevail there, so I find it strange that you would at the same time want us to have regard to your French friend’s opinions while telling me that I should go and visit France’s banleuies before I comment on them.
I am glad that you feel that you can walk more safely through the immigration heavy suburbs of Paris than those of American cities although the relevance of that as to whether Australia is the new South Africa escapes me.
If your point is perception then the wider world’s perception is that France has created ghettoes of alienated North Africans where the writ of French law, as represented by her police, does not run. That’s not rightwingnuttery, that’s just the impression the wider world formed after watching, this time last year, night after night on television, scenes of rioting and car burnings on the streets of Paris and other French cities, which the police seemed powerless to stop. You will recall that it created a crisis for the French government.
If your point is reality on the ground then, since the point of discussion is your friend’s perception that Australians are the new South Africans, your point of comparison should be with the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne with large migrant, and particularly Muslim, populations, such as Marrickville, Preston and Coburg. Plenty of commenters here who live in such suburbs have commented on past threads that they are dynamic, vibrant places where the residents from all over the world rub shoulders harmoniously.
As to France having “teething problems” with the integration of its North African immigrants I point out to you that they have been there for more than forty years, since the end of the Franco-Algerian war and that their lack of integration doesn’t speak of teething problems but of a systemic failure of French society over an extended period of time to adopt effective policies for their integration into French society. Australia has absorbed a large number of immigrants from all over the world (many more, as a percentage of population, than France) since the 1960s and has done so without a fraction of the strife that France faces with its immigrant population. We must be doing something right. Certainly better than France.
Finally, whatever the policies of the Reagan Administration were that does not absolve France from its culpability in upholding the apartheid regime.
Much more on the topic of Mr Nystrom than French perceptions of Australia, the United States has, since 2002 been deporting Cambodians back to Cambodia where they have criminal records and do not have US citizenship. Most of these Cambodians came the the US as refugees having fled with their families from the Khmer Rouges or the chaos that followed the overthrow of the Khmer Rouges and the Vietnamese occupation. As many as a thousand may be deported over the next few years.
Many of them arrived the United States as small children and have minimal, if any, knowledge of the Khmer language and Khmer culture. Some are slated for deportation for offences as minor as shop-lifting and driving while under the influence of alcohol.
http://hyphenmagazine.com/features/issues/summer03/strangers.php
Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Asia with a non-existent social welfare net and for those deportees their deportation would be incomparably harsher than Mr Nystrom would experience if deported to Sweden. For some it would be a death sentence.
While I can’t muster up much sympathy for Mr Nystrom given his grave and extensive criminal record and knowing that Sweden has an extensive social welfare system, it would trouble me greatly if Australia were to deport a Cambodian refugee back to Cambodia in similar circumstances as clearly the High Court decision allows it to. The severity of that person’s criminal history would have to be very grave indeed before I could overcome the view that forced repatriation was such a harsh an outcome that Ministerial discretion should be exercised for mercy.
*Vietnam and Laos won’t allow repatriations from the US so I expect they’d take the same position for any attempts of forced repatriations from Australia of Vietnamese or Laos who had gone to Australia as refugees.
One of the reasons I wouldn’t say Australia is the new South Africa is that we still have a sense of self-deprecating humour – so far.
Incidentally I found in Vietnam that the locals much prefer Australians to the French and Americans , not least because we didn’t all get all huffy after the Indo-China war like the Frogs or Yanks did but instead stayed around to do some business and help out here and there. As far as I could see the most trusted brand name in Vietnam was ANZ.