Backlash
B Y R O N
B A Y
Right: This drawing by a 14-year-old at Darwin detention centre, 2014, comes from the Human Rights Commission’s report on children in detention, The Forgotten Children, which paints a sad picture of institutionalised child abuse, which is why the HRC is recommending a royal commission into Australia’s detention policies. You can read the report at http:// bit.ly/asylumchild. Tony Abbott isn’t having a bar of it, accusing the government body of playing politics. Fortunately the more compassionate Asylum Seeker Resource Centre www.asrc. org.au (which has an appropriate petition you can sign) sees through his bluster: ‘Last week, Tony Abbott said he was going to lift his game and deliver good government. It’s now clear that he hasn’t changed. [The government’s response] shows that they do not care about the children they have indefinitely locked up in detention – they only care about themselves and their political survival.’ GetUp! getup.org.au also has
A U S T R A L I A
an online petition addressing this national shame. Q Q Q Q
While we’re on the subject of national shames, the latest Close the Gap report (http:// bit.ly/gapclose) shows that not nearly enough is being done to support Indigenous Australians. Even Tony Abbott was ‘bitterly disappointed’! National Close The Gap Day is coming up on Thursday March 19 – see https://www.oxfam.org.au/ act/events/national-closethe-gap-day/ – and there are ongoing projects such as the Indigenous Literacy Foundation – www.indigenous-
literacyfoundation.org.au. Q Q Q Q
Byron Shire may have trouble planning its way out of a paper bag, especially when the state government keeps interfering, but the City of Gold Coast has commissioned KPMG and eminent demographer Bernard Salt to see them into the future. The vision will no doubt have impacts
upon our Shire, as the Gold Coast’s population is expected to double to around 1.2 million people by 2050 to make it Australia’s sixth largest city. The projected growth of the number of sedentary retirees – those aged 75 and over – is 239 per cent. There’s also talk of a light rail link to Coolangatta. Overall the plan is a very interesting document and it can be downloaded at http://bit. ly/GCfuture. To be fair to our council, it has nowhere near the rate base of Gold Coast from which to pay for grand futuristic designs. Q Q Q Q
If you’d like to help musician Mick McHugh fund his debut studio album (and learn the secret to Irish coffee) go to www.pozible.com/ project/187903 and hear his music at http://bit.ly/ mmchgoodday.
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And now for something lighter: We suspect the Channel 7 reporter might have been conned when he/she asked for this young man’s name. Another favourite when responding to photographers in search of a caption was the surname ‘Farr-Connell’. Journalism is not all beer and skittles.
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40 February 18, 2015 The Byron Shire Echo
Byron Shire Echo archives: www.echo.net.au/byron-echo