Tag: Kerryn Phelps

A man, barely in his 30s, left catatonic, unable to speak, unable to eat, wasting away in a bed. The medical and humanitarian crisis in Australia’s offshore detention camps in Nauru and Manus Island keeps escalating, with the bearers of our government’s harsh policies being the bodies of the people who have been held captive for nearly six years. As a lawyer, I’ve seen people literally crushed by these policies to the point where they urgently require medical evacuation to Australia in order to save their life. Death is not a hypothetical in this situation Rather than leaving medical transfers in the hands of lawyers, bureaucrats and judges, the bill compels the minister to promptly evacuate a person on the recommendation of two qualified medical practitioners. The minister still has the power to deem the transfer unnecessary and can veto any transfer on national security grounds. It’s not humane, it’s not dignified and it’s not safe. Kerryn Phelps' offshore detention bill could pass with simple majority, academic says Read more Death is not a hypothetical in this situation. There is an urgent medical crisis on Nauru and Manus, and it needs an urgent medical solution, not a political one. Morrison played every trick in the book to delay passing this bill last year. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.

I think the convulsions we are seeing in Australian politics right now — in fact , since John Howard was defeated in 2007 — are a culmination of decades-long trends that center on the slow decline of our two big political parties. There’s a void at the center of our politics because the public and the political class have both retreated. Again, this is happening in all Western democracies: people have stopped joining political parties and civic organizations with a political voice, and the parties have responded by making politics more elite and professional. At the last federal election, nearly 25 percent of voters gave their primary vote to an independent or small party, and that figure is on a slow upward trend as the primary vote of the two major parties declines. In fact, minority government might be the new norm in Australian federal politics. Unfortunately, however, I don’t think the cynicism about politicians actually motivates the public to get involved. In fact, it may just reinforce the retreat I talked about. Now, for the most part, that has not been terribly damaging — O.K., politics is hollowed out and Australians are deeply cynical, but by global standards the place is still pretty well run, and economically we are in enviable shape. What might that look like in Australia? Readers from all over the world, including Australia, have been sharing questions all week with the climate scientist Kate Marvel, who has already started answering some of them.