This has got to be the worst time in the world to be a boat person. Since last Tuesday, the zeitgeist is security, not compassion.

 

Late last week, the government took its link between the New York bombing and the boat people refugees into the Federal Court. At a time when anti-Arab feeling was rampant over the Tampa issue, to conflate it with the bombing is incendiary, as well as irrational. But it’s happened.

 

Now, government ministers’ rhetoric is of hatred and contempt for the courts in the lead up to the Federal Court’s decision on the Tampa appeal today (Remember, the government KNEW its actions were unlawful, and that’s why it tried to ram retrospective laws through the Parliament.) . That rhetoric climaxed yesterday with Peter Reith denying the truth of the foundation of the Westminister system of democracy we imported from the Britain. The Westminister system holds that there is a separation of powers between the government and the courts. The government makes the laws, provided the court holds they are acting with in the Australian constitution, and the Courts interpret those laws. The goal is the rule of law, not of men. It is a protection for all of us.

 

Yesterday on Network Ten’s Meet the Press Reith said that even if the High Court upheld the next appeal, “it’s still wrong”. “The highest court in Australia is the Parliament.” Heaven forbid. I’m betting both major parties will join together this week to reverse Justice North’s decision retrospectively. Another nail in the coffin of the rule of law.

 

Today, I begin with a Court report on the Tampa case from The Age, then a passionate critique by John Wojdyl of Herald columnist PP McGuinness’s linking of the two issues in Thursday’s Herald.

 

Contributors are: Colin Todd, Allison Newman, Robert Keep, Lea Walsh, James Dean, Norm Martin, Rick bailey, Michel Dignand, Sean Cody, Zainab Al-Badry, Carmine Di Campli

Canberra push for right to expel

 

By PETER GREGORY

CHIEF COURT REPORTER

Friday 14 September 2001

 

Australia could receive New York-style hijackers as “friendly aliens” if the Commonwealth Government was found to have no executive power to expel asylum seekers, the full Federal Court was told yesterday.

 

David Bennett, QC, the Commonwealth Solicitor-General, said Australia would not have the right to defend its borders in migration cases if those opposing the government over the 433 Tampa boat people were correct.

 

He said one of the essential rights of sovereignty would be denied if the Australian military could not “stand at the border and say ‘no one gets across here’.”

 

Mr Bennett was appearing in an urgent appeal before three judges against a ruling made on Tuesday by Justice Tony North. Justice North said the asylum seekers transferred from the Norwegian freighter, the Tampa, to HMAS Manoora two weeks ago must be returned to Australia.

 

In its submissions before the full court, the government argued that the armed forces could stop people entering Australia. It said if Melbourne solicitor Eric Vadarlis and bodies including Liberty Victoria were right, the government lacked executive power to expel once an asylum seeker put a foot across the border.

 

But Julian Burnside, QC, for Liberty Victoria, accused the government of trying to treat the asylum seekers as non-humans who could be moved around at the whim of the executive government.

 

He said the government, on its argument, could decide on a case-by-case basis whether to use the Migration Act or to control people without rules. He said the Tampa boat people had been kept in the dark and could not exercise their private rights, a position almost unthinkable in Australian peacetime history.

 

Mr Bennett said the problems of patrolling borders were worse at sea. He said the Migration Act did not cover the situation and the use of executive powers allowed authorities to turn back asylum seekers or force them back if they resisted.

 

John Wojdyl in Germany

 

At a time when clarity and rationality is of utmost importance, P. P. McGuinness has disgraced himself in his role as a public intellectual by linking the terror in the U.S. with the Tampa issue and the Federal Court’s judgment. He writes dishonestly: “They are in no way connected”. Oh, but they are in his mind, because: “The whole point of checking on the credentials of the Tampa people is that some of them may not be true refugees and could even be agents of Taliban or one of the many other fanatical Muslim terrorist groups.”

 

He is thinking: the U.S. terror was probably carried out by fanatical Muslim terrorist groups. And fanatical Muslim terrorist groups may be among the Tampa boatpeople. This is the connection these two events have in his mind.

 

Add to this McGuinness’s deep suspicion – based on ignorance of both the difficulty of getting official travel papers from Taliban authorities, as well as Department of Immigration screening processes of middle east asylum seekers – of the lack of “credentials” of a number of asylum seekers.

 

McGuinness is saying that any or all of the Tampa boatpeople may be agents of a Muslim fanatical terrorist network. His argument is: Australians have seen what these people are capable of; therefore Australia’s stance against the Tampa boatpeople is justified.

 

Instead of calming the irrational reaction of those Australians who are prone to xenophobia towards Muslim refugees, towards the Tampa issue, McGuinness is actively pouring fuel on the fire. Like the Howard government’s tactics all along, he is cynically and knowingly fanning the flames of division to achieve a public backlash against the Federal Court, a court he has been campaigning against for years.

 

Consider carefully what McGuinness is saying with: “Popular feeling will now ensure that the Government will have little difficulty in tightening up on refugee policy so as to diminish the interference of the courts.”

 

“Will ensure”? Why is he so certain? Where is McGuinness’s rational criticism of a xenophobic backlash? Why doesn’t he try to act against xenophobia, as would be the duty of a public intellectual?

 

He says nothing against it, because when the effect of xenophobia is to achieve a goal he agrees with, McGuinness will say nothing against it.

 

Much more importantly, consider the following. McGuinness is arguably consciously encouraging – certainly not discouraging – suspicion of the Tampa 433. This hides a much, much bigger suspicion that he must hold. McGuinness has never written this explicitly, but he must mean it in all his criticism of people advocating the acceptance of the Tampa boatpeople: Australians cannot trust the Department of Immigration to do their job properly and screen these 433.

 

But the xenophobia-prone amongst Australians are not so stupid as to focus narrowly on just the Tampa 433. If we cannot trust DIMA to screen these 433, then we cannot trust DIMA with the previous 4000 or more Afghan boatpeople that have been allowed into Australia since 1996. With or without “credentials”.

 

Any, all or none of these 4000 could be agents of Osama bin Laden or other muslim terrorists. McGuinness is encouraging doubt in the DIMA process, and therefore he can only be encouraging irrational suspicion of all recent Afghan, in fact, “Arab-looking” immigrants. Xenophobia. Absolutely contemptible.

 

At a time of mourning, when people are vulnerable and some are looking for scapegoats and revenge, that contemptible man is attempting to place Australian xenophobia against Afghan refugees on a rational basis. He is rationalising xenophobia.

 

Australians are drawn into changing their attitude towards Afghan refugees from one of welcome to one of suspicion.

 

What might be a rational response to the fears Australians have, the fears that McGuinness promulgates?

 

First: the question of lack of travel documentation. McGuinness writes: “It is certain now that would-be refugees trying to gain access to Australia will not receive a friendly reception if they have destroyed all means of identification, so that their precedents cannot be investigated.”

 

Of course, McGuinness will not lift a finger to cast a rational light on the xenophobia. This is why he uses the word “certain”, and in the absence of offering rationality, thereby himself promotes the xenophobia.

 

a) The Muslim fanatic coming in on a boat to Australia would have to be very stupid to use personal identification that is known to the West. He could easily obtain forged papers in Afghanistan or wherever anyway, as most legitimate Afghan and Iraqi refugees have been doing for years.

 

(Can you imagine the following absurd scenario? “Excuse me Mr. Taliban official, I’d like a passport.” “Why do you want to leave our country? You should be fighting at the front.” “I want to go to the golden beaches of Australia.” “Sure. OK. Here you are. A full set of travel documents. With our blessings. Have a nice trip.”)

 

A good reason why they might ditch their passport is that they know it’s forged. And probably not very good quality.

 

The “lack of travel documents is suspicious” argument in the Tampa case is a red herring.

 

b) Perhaps DIMA can reassure the Australian public that during the screening process, they cross-check photographs or other means of identification with Interpol and overseas intelligence agencies. Travel documents are themselves a flimsy source of identification.

 

From the point of view of policing of illegal international travel, the most important use of travel documents is when the person has had the same documents for an extended period of time. e.g. when they have resided in the same country for a while. The two terrorist pilots identified in the U.S. had the same documents for long enough to ascertain that the same person lived in Florida for over a year.

 

These documents originally would almost certainly have been obtained fraudulently.

 

In the case of asylum seekers to Australia who come without documents, whatever identity they claim, whoever they “really” are, what matters is that this is who they are when they are in Australia. As long as this stays constant, they are identifiable to Australian authorities.

 

Other physical features – photographs etc. of face, profile – can be matched with overseas intelligence agency records.

 

Those that are allowed to enter following screening by DIMA need not be treated as suspicious by the Australian public. There is no need to instigate a witch-hunt of “Arab-looking” immigrants to Australia.

 

But I suspect P. P. McGuinness believes that even overseas intelligence records may be insufficient to identify potential muslim fanatics coming in on boats.

 

In that case, given the ready availability of fraudulent travel documents, he will have to decide whether he wants zero immigration from the middle east. Perhaps this is the deepest question troubling him at the moment.

 

Colin Todd in Mittagong

 

One commentator speaking of the US disaster quoted Malcolm X saying the death of Kennedy sounds like chickens coming home to roost.

 

This applies to Australia too but the context is slightly different.

 

In Australia we have been dumbed down for years. Education has been gutted, media has been monopolised and lobotomised, and the population has become incapable of concentrating for more than a microsecond. Without constant light, noise and movement the(Australian/American) people become afraid because they are confronted by the inner silence and emotional ambiguity which exists below the sentimental response encouraged by our media. Considered introspection can be a scary place.

 

In the face of a huge disaster many people take a sentimental/emotional prejudiced tribal position and dig in to defend it. By force if necessary! This position allows no ambiguity, no shades of grey, no evolution as circumstances and knowledge change.

 

This kind of primitive response is different only in degree to that of those who perpetrated the violence in the US.

 

The chickens will surely come home to roost here too. We have destroyed much of our educational and cultural infrastructure. We have destroyed much of our social capital. We are now being manipulated by a Prime Minister and Cabinet in the most callous way.

 

When we as a country need most to be thoughtful and considered, working together to address very complex issues, we cant do it.

 

Why? Because contrary to the economic rationalist point of view, it bloody well does matter if you rape our social capital, cause when he chips are down thats what holds our society together.

 

The disintegration of our society is likely to increase unless these issues are addressed. This disintegration our chickens coming home to roost after decades of destruction of our social capital.

 

Allison Newman

 

OK, I don’t get it. Why shouldn’t there be a link between refugees and acts of terrorism? Particularly when the refugees are coming from a state known to openly support some terrorists?

 

As far as I can see, the Australian Government (and indeed the Australian people) have done precisely the right thing with regards to the Tampa. We have denied a prior access to Australia for the refugees, but are providing them with the ability to apply for immigration to Australia as legitimate refugees. This gives us a chance to make sure that they aren’t undesirable. I would suggest that this is the minimum level of security which the Immigration Department must provide for the nation.

 

However…..Once refugees have been checked out, and found to be legitimate, then our human decency is at stake if we refuse them access. They must be permitted entry as legitimate refugees. Furthermore, having been allowed into the country, we as Australians must greet them with open arms if we wish to be able to hold our heads high on the international stage. This also goes for those that are already here. They are citizens of this country, with the full rights of anyone in this country. They should not be vilified on the basis of race or religion.

 

If we cannot stand for these ideals, then I for one am very frightened for Australia. These ideals are the same ideals that protect every ‘Aussie Battler’, and must not be put aside because of the horrendous acts of members of another culture. Indeed, it is in our best interest to put these ideals to the forefront.

 

If you are scared of a similar attack being perpetrated closer to you than New York, then the best way to defeat it is to embrace those that come here. If refugees can find wealth and comfort here, the odds of them turning into terrorists is very low. It’s hard to get worked up enough to kill yourself, when you have to catch Friends on your 68cm TV, after getting home from the restaurant.

 

Robert Keep

 

It is strange to me, as a young and free Australian, to see the distinctions made between people on account of their ethnicity. I grew up in a house free from any kind of indoctrination of either religious or any other other kind. From the earliest time I can recall, the only mantra I ever heard was simply that “people are people”.

 

I have always been surrounded by friends of many diverse ethnic backgrounds, political, sexual and religious orientations. I doubt that they ever looked at me – white, heterosexual, educated and middle class – as anything out of the ordinary, so what reason did I of they? Though I pride myself on being the open-minded and secure person I perceive myself to be, and am thankful often for the rich life this has allowed me, I suppose that it is really a credit to my parents to have entrusted me with the freedom to make my own choices.

 

It is not to say that I am someone who is faithless, nor ignorant of other’s religious beliefs – on the contrary – it is to say that I chose not to subscribe to any organised religion, but to rather seek out my own spiritual path.

 

This is not a luxury afforded many people in the world, who are from birth taught to believe in a value system they are never allowed to question. They know of nothing else, so assume their actions to be right, and blessed from beyond this world. Hatred is bred in a demented cycle stretching back for centuries. It is here that notions of intolerance are encouraged, and lead to tragic events and ‘holy wars’ raging in numerous parts of the world.

 

It is an unfathomable sight to have beheld the razing of the two giants of the World Trade Centre. Even more so as it came to us live through the often make-believe medium of television. It still seems a nightmarish blur that unfolded across the other side of the world. I scrambled to find the photos of me, standing atop the World Trade Centre, from where it seemed you could see the ends of the earth.

 

I will never in my life be able to forget first seeing the footage of the people hanging from the top floor windows, a feeling akin to the ground dropping from under me. As people fell from the windows we could no longer contain our emotions – held in check by disbelief – and we cried uncontrollably. All I could do was make some kind of prayer; that at the moment of their death, they felt no fear.

 

It will be said that this is the result of zealots gone mad. That they must be exterminated, and eradicated from the earth. That terrorism will not be tolerated.

 

Terrorism is an unspeakable evil that has no right to be visited on any people anywhere. But it exists as a very real and present threat to us all. But there is a massive distinction to be made between those who take their beliefs to the extreme, and those whose God is as compassionate as yours.

 

Equally beyond my disbelief is how anyone can look at their fellow man and by the colour of his skin judge him guilty by association. It is beyond my ability to look at any human being and see them as anything other than exactly that.

 

If – and it is still a very large IF as several of the world’s major media outlets seem to have forgotten – this immense human tragedy proves to be the work of a handful of extremists, it is paramount to remember that a few madmen are not indicative of and entire nation/culture/belief system, in much the same way that few Americans would say that Timothy McVeigh spoke for them with his actions.

 

Before we leap to launch massive retaliatory strikes on a nation not yet decided upon in the hope of eliminating the few whole pull the strings, can we justify the unavoidable deaths of hundreds if not thousands of innocent already impoverished people? Those who would come under the euphemism “collateral damage?”

 

If there can be anything of worth gained from this, is it not a terrible reminder of the sanctity of human life? Should we not look at the man of Arabic decent on the bus and be glad he is alive, as we ourselves should be? It is unfortunate that it often takes a disaster of this horrific magnitude to make us see our blessing for what they really are. We can come to such a place in our own freedom that we are so comfortable as to fall asleep. At times such as these our lives are brought into sharp focus; all our actions need to be reassessed in our lives – you will never know when the next time you see someone could be the last.

 

Smell the flowers while you can.

 

 

Lea Walsh in Perth, Western Australia

 

I am very fearful of what’s going to happen. I am particularly concerned about the demonisation of the Muslims in general. It’s time our religious and political leaders called for restraint in Australia. They are strangely silent.

 

It’s purely a lack of understanding (partly fuelled by the government and media) that many people can’t see that there are loonies in every religion and groups of people. That doesn’t mean that they are all crazy. Because I’m Catholic, I would hate to think that a few fanatics in the IRA determine how people see me BUT that’s what happens for the poor Muslim people.

 

If John Howard wins the next election on the back of this

hatred, I fear for this country.

 

James Dean

 

The idea that terrorists would risk 2-4 years in a detention camp to get into Australia is ludicrous. International terrorists use international airlines and travel under false identities.

 

It seems the men involved the the U.S attacks were in the US for over a year and even trained at a US based commercial Jet training company.

 

The concern now is that all sorts of terrorist organisations will realise that great “success” can be had through meticulous planning, rigorous operational security and exploitation of weaknesses. When it comes the next attack it won’t be the now paranoid airlines at risk but some other institution we all considered safe.

 

The establishment of strong and well supported international institutions that can pursue criminals and resolve disputes is our only hope for lasting peace.

 

Here’s hoping.

 

Norm Martin

 

I have recently spent several hours reading letters to editors in US publications re the terrorist attacks. Many of these letters seem to have attracted the type of bleeding heart clientele that came with your stand on the Tampa issue.

 

I agree with one of your respondents that you have gone from an objective journalist to a dispenser of private opinions. Surely the American events must make you re-assess your opinions. Saira Shaw’s 4 Corners certainly made me brush up on Islam. I looked at quite a few websites, and responses to Saira’s forum, and I must admit I didn’t like what I read.

 

Sure, these might be the radical fundamentalists, but let’s not write open cheques for them to waltz in through our borders until we have done some real research on their backgrounds.

 

It seems to be par for the course both here and in America for certain people to attack the Government and Establishment simply because the problem doesn’t have an easy solution.

 

 

Rick Bailey in Duffy, Canberra

 

Disclosure: I am an avid webdiary reader and a life-long Labor Party supporter (though Big Kim’s moral reticence lately is testing this).

 

David Lim wrote in The end of multiculturalism? “I’m afraid, and I’m frightened. I’ve never felt like this before, not even during the whole Pauline Hanson “anti-Asian” race debate. Soon, very soon, the racial persecution will start. Our country will give in to its lust for hatred and revenge. May god have mercy on us all.”

 

This last paragraph crystallised many attitudes including my attitude to recent events. News reports indicate that that persecution has started and that wee johnnie has poured petrol on the problem.

 

It seems obvious that the CAUSE of the terrorism needs addressing. Despite media coverage to the contrary, a person needs to be VERY pissed-off with their life/circumstance to contemplate a head-on with a large building? It seems an attempt to discover WHY these people are so dedicated would prove more useful, and less costly in lives lost and maybe even (in a singularly mercenary sense) dollars expended.

 

Feed a potential terrorist – Create an ally?

 

Michel Dignand in Wagga Wagga, NSW

 

Margo, what a mess. It seems clear to me that the only solution to this catastrophe lies in help and education, not in retribution.

 

The Afghanis and all the other immigrants, whether they are seeking wealth or sanctuary, need to come here because we have plenty and they have next to nothing. If their children are starving, they want to take them somewhere there is food. If they are ignorant, they want to take their children somewhere they can learn.

 

If we are rich (and even the very poorest poorest of us are richer by far than millions upon millions around the world), then we have two alternatives: We can keep our riches in vaults and live behind barricades, or we can share much of the wealth with those around us and live in freedom and harmony. I do not believe that there can be any other way.

 

Look at South Africa, at how the rich lived in armed compounds; Look at the security-ringed mansions of the rich and fatuous in the USA and England.

 

But let us also remember that not all Americans are wealthy or educated or free. The much vaunted freedoms in America are there for a few only, while the majority are ignorant and poor and diseased and incredibly violent. Far more Americans are killed by Americans every year than have been killed in this terrible, horrifying attack.

 

It easy for us to be afraid of those with darker skins than our own.

Very very few of us have any experience of what life is like overseas (real life, I mean, not that supposedly experienced at tourist destinations). We know that many of those with dark skins face death and murder and violence every day, and are thus less afraid of it than we are, and probably far better able to deal with it than we ever will be.

 

If want freedom from fear, we must learn to share, really share, everything we own with the other people of the world. As we approach equality, the danger of jealousy recedes.

 

But for those who want to kill all the arabs, just let me remind you that Jesus Christ, supposedly much beloved by many in this country and in the USA, was an Arab.

 

Sean Cody in London

 

There is no doubt that the events of the past few days have changed the way not only America but the world will look at itself. And that is perhaps one of the crucial issues in this matter. Acts of terror such as those perpetrated in Washington and New York cannot possibly have any justification whatsoever in any sane and compassionate mind – the suffering and fear that these acts have engendered will haunt people for a great deal of time to come.

 

But there is, also, a subsequent part to this tragic situation, and that is that any fear and hate-mongering among societies against an ethnic or religious group, as a whole, is just as despicable as the act that spawns it.

 

Stereotyping is the refuge of those who are afraid, ignorant, ill-informed, or just filled with hatred. It is impossible to justify on moral grounds any statement that attempts to link the events in the US with Muslims as a whole – indeed, it has not even been confirmed that the attacks were definitely carried out by Islamic extremists.

 

While initial evidence points to one or more Islamic groups, it is by no means conclusive as yet – need I remind everyone of the events in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing? Muslims across America were targetted, not only by the public, but by law enforcement officials as well, for questioning, harassment and vilification. How must people have felt, then, when it was discovered that the guilty party was in fact one of America’s own, a decorated soldier, one of their brave heroes?

 

If an Islamic extremist group is responsible, this is under no circumstances whatsoever to be used as justification for any sort of attack on any group in any civilised society. Rule of mob is deaf to the voices of reason, and hence the rule of mob must be stopped at all costs.

 

All politicians and civic leaders in our society must denounce totally any act or thought that serves to demonise or attack Muslims within Australia or around the world. It is a most worrying trend that we have Reith and Ruddock speaking in the manner in which they have recently, for when emotions run high, people take comments such as these to be tacit endorsement of actions against those demonised groups.

 

Howard, for all my criticism of him, has at least acted in a manner that can be applauded – he refused to make a link between the Tampa issue and the attacks in the US, as he most certainly should have refused to. It is of the greatest regret that Reith and Ruddock have not maintained a similar line. The two issues, the Tampa refugees and the US terrorist attacks, are unrelated!!!

 

Here’s a spot quiz for anyone out there who doubts this. You are the leader of a terrorist organisation that wishes to make an attack on people in Australia. Do you ship your operatives across the Middle East in the company of genuine refugees, dump them with people smugglers, and run the risk that your operatives will drown, starve, be injured by the smugglers or caught by the Australian authorities, only to spend up to a possible 3 years in a detention centre, or do you arrange for visitor visas and get them on the first, closest available plane to Sydney so that they may arrive with no other problems than a little jetlag?

 

The fact is that the refugees fleeing to Australia’s shores have been caught in a cycle of conflict, terror and repression for many years, and all they are doing is trying to find a place of safety and peace. Why must we now as a society adopt an approach that will result in those same people being denounced and possibly even physically injured as a result?

 

To immediately label every Muslim as being complicit in these horrible acts is the same as saying that every French citizen is arrogant, every New Zealander has sexual relations with sheep, every American soldier in Vietnam participated in the slaughtering of women and children, every Australian male is a beer-swilling redneck, every person of Jewish descent resembles Shylock in his or her actions. All of these stereotypes, some barely amusing, some downright hateful, are all spawned from ignorance, and in most cases fear and hatred. So why, now, do we as a society allow stereotypes just as bad to be made in public? Have we truly lost that much of our rational minds? Are we really that afraid of people who have different beliefs to ours?

 

In truth, Islam is, in its pure form, a tolerant religion. The corruptions of Islam that currently masquerade as legitimate lines of thought around the world have been shaped by many different factors, and the hatred that people associate with Islam springs from no single cause. In this matter, all sides in the conflict must bear their own share of the responsibility for the world’s current attitude towards Islam.

 

For ourselves, if we hear our peers speak in terms that are racist and hateful – do something about it. Try, at the very least, to make them see how their attitudes are wrong. And if they do not see the problem, well… For me at least, I will not associate with people that participate in the propagation of hatred, fear and ignorance.

 

If we wish to remain in freedom, then we must not adopt attitudes and actions that seek to curtail the freedom of those around us who are innocent. This is the point of the matter – Australia should be a free, democratic and civilised society. The demonisation of a group within that society, the exclusion of a group based on their race or religion, and the pathetically

ignorant attitude of “All Muslims are terrorists or are complicit in terrorism”, will achieve only one result.

 

We will not be free because we will be prisoners of our own ignorance, hatred and fear.

 

We will not be democratic, because we will be denying a voice to those elements of our society who are in a position of vulnerability and weakness when compared with the rest of the population.

 

And finally, we will not be civilised, for we will have reverted to our most primitive instincts.

 

Zainab Al-Badry

 

My heart is bleeding for all the victims and more to those who left behind. For them the tragedy is bigger and uglier as they have to live with it for their entire lives. On the other hand I saw a tiny spot of light at the end of the long long tunnel, and that’s when I read some of the responses you chose to publish.

 

There are still people around who are able to think rationally and separate issues. When I heard and saw what happened in the US I feared the worst and I can see it is coming. People already linking EVERY Muslim around the world with those criminals (even though there is no definite evidence yet). To those people I just wanted them to remember that there are extremists and radicals in every faith and religion, does that make us ALL guilty?

 

Carmine Di Campli

I think we all realise the enormity of what has happened over the last 24 hours. It seems obvious to me that now more than ever is the time for balance.

 

I am a psychologist and work for a Mental Health Service providing assistance to people from diverse cultures. NSW Premier Mr Carr has asked us to be on 24 hour alert to assist people who may need assistance

as a result of being harassed over the next few days. I hope no body needs the help of our service tonight.

I also hope we can remember that we are all in danger of much worse

things if we lose our balance.

 

I think the future of our society is at stake here over the next few days.

I also believe the way we listen to one another and the way we will sit with each other will set the tone

for our beloved Australia and our life here for years to come.

 

Let’s choose to be civil to one another, I would like my sons to regain some of the childhood trust they lost in

humanity this morning when they complained “why is there only news on this morning”.

You see I saw the expression on both their faces when they realised the jet ploughing into the building was not a movie.

My seven year olds first question was, Why did those people do that? His second question was, What will happen to all the boys like he and his brother who mothers and fathers were both killed?

 

If we need to express our hatred just remember our children are looking and it will shape what they think is normal in their world to come.