Eight stupid things people say to advocates every day

Eight stupid things people say to advocates every day

 

Dear wanker. The following arguments are not original. In fact I hear them a dozen times a day. They’re not even very thoughtful, funny, or poignant. So please STOP yelling them at me.

1. “So you want children to drown.” No I don’t f*cking want children to drown. I have spent over a decade of my life fighting for the health and welfare of children. Unlike you I don’t believe the debate is as simple as “damage a child, save another child from drowning”. Australia we can do better.

Just because we don’t see the deaths, doesn’t mean they’re not happening by other means. How many people have died in detention? How many have died in Indonesia? Malaysia? How many babies have miscarried as women were given malaria shots on Manus? At least 50% from last count. How many have died in community detention? Like Leo Semmanpillai who set himself alight. Or died in detention, like Hamid Kahazaei, whose heart failed ostensibly due to a cut on his foot that got infected. Or Reza whose head was stomped on? How many children are slowly dying in detention now? At least 193 on Nauru. I believe in more than one kind of death.

2. “John Howard stopped the boats.” Actually, I don’t believe this premise, and if we look to OECD numbers you shouldn’t either. Graphs clearly show the fall in boat numbers correlated with a number of factors THROUGHOUT THE REGION. 

3. “If we release kids out of detention the boats will start up again.” And your evidence is? The last time we let kids out of detention this didn’t happen. And even if you do have evidence, aren’t you confronted with another moral dilemma? Would you imprison a child, just to stop another child from doing something? It’s contrary to the laws of many modern countries to imprison innocents. Let alone to imprison them to deter others. Let alone to do it indefinitely.

4. “There were no children in detention when John Howard left office.” The thing that pisses me off about this little ditty is that it makes the man out to be holy; a saint he ain’t. John Howard did not release children out of the kindness of his sweet little heart. He was pistol-whipped by Petro Georgiou, Russell Broadbent and Judi Moylan. Thousands of children spent years in detention under the Howard regime, banging their heads against walls.

5. “Why didn’t they just stop when they got to other countries along the way like Indonesia?” Here’s just one reason why.

6. “So aren’t we making ourselves a target for asylum seekers if things are too easy?” Are you suggesting we turn Australia into a war zone? Because that’s what people are fleeing. And if you want to make conditions so bad people won’t come, that’s what we have to look forward to. Besides we’re at the arse-end of the world. They already have to be pretty desperate to come here. Really we’re getting the most determined of people, and we should admire their extraordinary efforts to come all the way across the world. See them as entrepreneurs, see them as determined. Don’t see them as terrorists. They’re fleeing terror.

7. “These people are illegals.” No actually they are not. If you can’t be bothered reading the literature I can’t be bothered quoting it at you. Google it, fool. And in an interesting twist the High Court has just ruled that people can only be detained for certain reasons, for example processing, or removal etc. If we’re just doing it simply at HRH Morrison’s bidding those detained indefinitely are detained illegally. So technically the illegal shoe is now on the other – read ‘government’s’ – foot.

8. “You want an open door policy. You want to flood Australia with these people.” No I don’t. I’m asking for due process. For people’s claims for protection to be heard in a timely manner. I’m asking to not detain children for years of their lives. No one’s asking for an open door policy; those of you uncreative enough to claim this should go back to painting school.

Think about it. Seriously. You’re attacking an advocate for children. Stop being such a wanker. Go attack some merchant banker with minions at his fingertips.