Letter to the Editor on the Budget …

This week members of the public were allowed to send their comments to the Minister of Small Business and to Treasury regarding what they would like to see in the Budget. My comments were as follows:

It has been revealed this week that around $2.3 billion spent on detention matters was a combination of unauthorised spending and/or spending that was authorised by people not in a position to give permission for this.

The $2.3 billion spent on detention would have gone a long way towards funding health, education, and other social needs in Australia, rather than taking money from the pensioners and people on Centre Link payments.

Some of that huge amount of money could also have been used on language and education classes and better health care for refugees, some of whom have died due to not being given access to health facilities available in Australia; others (including children) have suffered psychological and neurological damage from stress, poor living conditions, and physical and sexual assaults.

These people could have been settled here in Australia years ago, and would have ended up as valuable citizens of Australia. The policies of the Coalition government have cost Australia dearly in monetary and human terms.

Australia compares badly with other countries, some of which are much less wealthy than our own country but which have taken in literally millions of refugees. For example:

• Lebanon is hosting eleven million refugees, even though the population of Lebanese people is only five million.

• David Cameron, the U.K. Prime Minister, and his ruling Party, legislated that the U.K. foreign aid stay at its present levels, which are much higher than Australia’s. Mr. Cameron said that the U.K. would “NOT balance the books at the expense of the poor”.

I know that I am not alone in my belief that the detention centres on Nauru and Manus Islands should be closed, with the freeing up of funds to benefit both the general public and refugees.

We could have World Peace if less money were spent on armaments and much more on looking after the poor of the world. Wars are started when one section of Humanity seeks to withhold food, shelter, and social advantages from another section of that same Humanity.

Now is the time to find safe homes for all the refugees on Nauru and Manus, some of whom are refugees because of the wars started or supported by the Coalition government in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yours truly,
Gillian Blair
Gillian Blair, Panmure, 3265.