Julian Burnside QC is a renowned barrister who has appeared in many high-profile legal cases, including representing the Maritime Union of Australia in the 1998 waterfront dispute with Patrick Corporation, which became Australia’s most famous industrial relations controversy. But it wasn’t until acting against the Australian Government over the Tampa episode in 2001 that he became more widely known to the public. Today, Burnside is one of our most prominent human rights advocates and, increasingly, one of the most consistent voices arguing for truth and compassion to be embedded within Australia’s approach to asylum seekers. Here, James Dryburgh speaks with Burnside about language and law, art and asylum.
JD – I’m going to read you a quick quote from Scott Morrison, from 2013, when he was Immigration Minister, when he was queried about his use of the term ‘illegals’ when describing asylum seekers:
‘I’m not going to make any apologies for not using politically correct language to describe something that I’m trying to stop.’
How are we supposed to respond to such language from our political leaders?
JB – Well, I think it’s outrageous, because politicians calling boat people ‘illegals’ has nothing to do with political correctness; it’s got to do with honesty. To call them ‘illegal’ creates the entirely false impression that these people have committed some sort of criminal offence; and renaming the Department as ‘Immigration and Border Protection’ adds to that false impression by creating the sense that we are being protected in some way by criminals who are, by definition, dangerous.
It is a lie, and what it has done is to lead Australians into accepting complacently that it’s alright to mistreat boat people. In fact, the September 2013 election was disfigured by the fact that both major parties tried to win support by promising cruelty to boat people. I don’t think that reflects the Australian character. If it was correct that these people are criminals from whom we need to be protected, then what Australia is doing might make some sense, but the fact that we’ve been seduced into tolerating the deliberate mistreatment of innocent, frightened human beings, strikes me as outrageous, and to be seduced into it by the dishonesty of people like Scott Morrison is a political scandal…
And let me make it very clear: I would say publically that Morrison is a dishonest hypocrite. Dishonest because he lies to the public by calling boat people ‘illegal’ in order to pursue his political objectives, and a hypocrite because this is a man whose maiden speech proclaimed the importance of his Christian values.
JD – Most church organisations are becoming more and more vocal against their policies. How do you explain the growing advocacy against asylum seeker policies from church groups, when, as you say, Morrison, Abbott, and indeed most of the current Cabinet (like Rudd before them) consider themselves devout Christians?
JB –I don’t know how the self-declared Christians in the government manage to reconcile their position with their asserted ethical views. Except by saying they’re hypocrites, and I don’t have any problem saying that. I am very grateful the churches are getting into it. Broadly speaking, churches have been pretty quiet on this issue for quite a long time and I suspect that the reason for that is that most of the major churches have got their hands in the pocket of government for a lot of the delivery mechanisms for social welfare schemes.
But, increasingly, major churches are now speaking out. Father Rod Bower at Gosford Uniting Church has been a fascinating example of that. Archbishop Philip Freier of Melbourne has used his position to say some very sensible things in relation to refugee policy, and he’s used the walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral to hang large pro-refugee banners. All of that’s terrific and I say good on them.
And quite right, too, because I see this as an ethical issue, and the church these days has very little power except as a reflection of ethics – they have a special authority in relation to ethics. I mean, sure, it’s all been a bit clouded by allegations of sexual impropriety in some churches, but it is the meat and drink of churches to talk about ethical, moral questions. If any group has the right to speak authoritatively about the treatment of asylum seekers it is the churches.
JD – As a generalisation, I think it is fair to say Australian society has become less compassionate and more selfish over the past couple of decades. How did Australia become so cruel? Where and when did it all go wrong?
Read the full interview, James Dryburgh HERE
Published first in Island Magazine HERE
• Guardian: All children should be removed from Nauru detention, Senate inquiry finds
SATURDAY, September 5 …
• Guardian: A life in limbo: the refugees who fled torture only to end up trapped indefinitely on Manus It’s 766 days since Papua New Guinea agreed to resettle refugees from Australia’s detention centre on Manus Island. So far, not a single one has been resettled, but 41 have been moved to quasi-detention in a ‘transit centre’. They have no idea if they will leave it, they tell Guardian Australia
• Guardian: First refugees arrive from Hungary after Austria and Germany open borders People disembark at reception stations inside Austria after Hungary provides buses for those camped in Budapest and others who had already set out
• Guardian: Greens leader calls for emergency intake of 20,000 Syrian refugees But the prime minister, Tony Abbott, says he will not bow to the Greens’ calls for Australia to take more refugees
Chris
August 30, 2015 at 12:37
Will the expenditure of $55 million dollars to Cambodia be sheeted home to the Hypocrite.
Now reported that Cambodia has told Australia (read Dutton/Abbott/Morrison) to get lost and they will take no more refugees from Nauru, but keep the money.
When Morrison becomes treasurer after Hockey is sacrificed as the greatest rent lifter (pun there somewhere) will he spend the taxpayers money “illegally”.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/plan-to-resettle-refugees-in-cambodia-collapses-20150830-gjavdv.html
john hayward
August 30, 2015 at 15:30
This being Tasmania, very few Tasmanians would be aware that Julian Burnside appeared before a tribunal in Tasmania last December.
Even more bizarre than his presence before such a humble forum were the legal and moral issues he was confronting against a Tas government agency.
This month TT should be publishing an account of this astonishing and disturbing tale.
John Hayward
Richard Kopf
August 30, 2015 at 19:08
The Abbott Government has no qualms about expending, sorry, wasting,taxpayers money to maintain their Government in power. Attacking “illegals” one day, the rest of us, firstly in Melbourne, the next. At least, in the latter instance, we showed we care.
William Boeder
August 30, 2015 at 20:22
This is the second in depth article I have had the pleasure in reading, Tasmania is indeed fortunate to have such an exemplary person sharing our midst.
I look forward to the revelations that John Hayward has alluded to as will become the subject of a soon to be interesting revelatory experience for the Tasmania Times attendees.
There is another Australian Silk that holds many of the same views as held by Julian Burnside QC.
This second person is as much deserved of respect as that accorded to Mr Burnside, however at this point in time I choose not to reveal the name of this other exemplary person for reasons that may compromise a current case that has huge ramifications toward Tasmania’s Human Rights record.
Alison Bleaney
September 1, 2015 at 00:38
No children or families should be in mandatory detention in off-shore centres under the present conditions.
TV Resident
September 4, 2015 at 19:40
While our soldiers are over in the Middle East fighting an unwinnable war and bombing innocent people (in the guise of beating ISIS) at the request of USA, at the same time displacing citizens of these countries, Australia should be compelled to accept a hell of a lot of these displaced people.
The Abbott gov’t and labor with their fantasy of ‘stopping the boats and subsequently the drownings’ has not worked, it is just happening elsewhere or we are simply not being told of any drownings in Australian waters. Our country are being cruel to put innocent people in ‘detention’ when they haven’t broken any law, but are doing the same thing that many of us would do if the shoe was on the other foot.
It’s high time that the cruel bastards in charge of our ccountry, both liberal and labor, were punished for ‘war crimes’ against these innocent people. We have no right to have soldiers over there in the ‘killing fields’, it is nothing to do with our country at all and, in my opinion, can only make us a target for ISIS or any other nutter for that matter.
Leonard Colquhoun
September 5, 2015 at 18:17
So, ‘we’ are “bombing innocent civilians” in the Middle East – exactly which “innocent civilians”? And exactly where? And when?
Reminder: most Muslims in the Middle East have been and are still being slaughtered by fellow Muslims.
Anyone still remember the very conspicuous expressions of ‘outrage’ at the start of the Bush 2 war about us evil westerners being so insensitive, racist and barbaric as to see mosques as military targets? And how some of the more naive offered to be human shields. So, where are these offers now?
Dr Buck Emberg and Prof Joan
September 7, 2015 at 15:21
It’s not surprising that Abbott should reject the Green’s position. This might explain why the Morgan Poll has the Greens running at 16.5 approval.
Leonard Colquhoun
September 7, 2015 at 15:47
And, in addition to the causes asserted in Comment 8, if “they” didn’t keep continuing “their” 1400-years-old inter-sectarian violence, hatred, vilification and mass-murder.
And how arrogant to claim that “we” are the root cause, as if the Arab / Muslim umma and its peoples are too immature or undeveloped, or too childishly naive (aka “innocent”) to do this to themselves.
Plus, this nonsensical claim gives them added excuses for not facing up to “their” own problems.
Imagine, if your imagination is weird enough to do so, the ‘Arab Street’ scene needed for Comment 8’s hypothesis:
~ “Damned kaffirs, spawn of Satan, al-Australi dogs and pigs, how can we get back at them?”
~ “I know, let’s go and find some Sunni / Shia heretics, apostates and traitors to true Islam, and kill them all! That’ll show those Australiya Nazarenes and atheists!”
Simon Warriner
September 7, 2015 at 23:46
re the question posed in #7.
Perhaps this will help: http://www.mintpressnews.com/centcom-document-reveals-coalitions-hidden-civilian-carnage-in-syria-and-iraq/209265/
It was stumbled upon during the regular review of the non-mainstream media that I use to stay abreast of world affairs, and no, I was not looking for that information.
Garry Stannus
September 8, 2015 at 12:15
I’m not sure that I want Burnside’s ‘Tasmania Solution’. And I don’t want a detention centre at Pontville. Bryan Green [Here] seems to omit mentioning the real reason that’s often cited in support of Pontville – as a boost for local employment and as another conduit for federal dollars. In reference to the Kosovars, he smudges the history with his “Despite an impassioned effort by Mayor Tony Foster to have many people remain in Tasmania, most returned to Kosovo when it was deemed safe to do so.†The truth however is that they were removed from Brighton against their will, to be deported back to Kosovo. Eric Abetz and Phil Ruddock had a hand in that … “Kosovars removed from Tasmania†in Green Left Weekly [Here] .
Leonard Colquhoun
September 8, 2015 at 15:20
Have no idea what Comment 12 refers to. None whatsoever.
And about its “Roman/Jew” reference: the Roman empire was well on its way to being the most multi-national, poly-ethnic and religiously variegated entity in history – as anyone who watched “Meet the Ancestors” will know. This is the reason for Saul / Paul’s claim of ‘Civis Romanus sum’ to the examining magistrate (“The Acts of the Apostles” ch 27) clearly shows. Actually, the first recorded reference was over a century earlier for the same reason, but in the reverse direction, in Cicero’s “In Verrem”, the case which put him on the road to legal eagle status, a consulship, political failure, and a premature death.
After the first century CE, even the emperors were rarely ‘Roman’ in the ethnic sense – there was even a British one. (Turned out to be an ‘Eddie the Eagle’.)
So, what is intended by this “Roman/Jew” reference – stuffed if I know.
Anyway, and irony of ironies, Judaism is the least proselytising religion in the world – keeping yourselves as a numerically insignificant micro-minority is hardly the way to “inherit the earth” and world domination – no depth of devilish cunning, no number of ‘Protocols of Zion’, will make up for that. Conversion to Judaism is the most arduous of all such moves, and Saul / Paul’s main work was to largely uninstall Judaism from the emerging Nazarene sect.
But still don’t have the faintest of where this is in Comment 10.