Simon Copland

It’s been less a week. Less than a week into the election and I am completely sick of it. Actually – sadly enough – I’m pretty sure we’re all sick of it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love politics. I love engaging in debates about issues and political theory and I am truly passionate about who will lead our country for the next three years. I’m really passionate about ensuring it is the right people and I will spend the next weeks campaign hard to ensure that is the case. The issues at stake in this campaign aren’t just important, but they are essential to our future.

But god it has been an awful week. We’ve seen two more than ridiculous front covers from the Daily Telegraph. Yesterday’s (the Hogan Heroes cover) attack on the ALP was all because apparently because having a beer with a former colleague is  the worst of all sins. It seems like we’ve all decided it’s a sin, but no one has the capacity to say why. Well, I guess Christopher Pyne did – according to him Albanese and Thomson were potentially discussing deals for the next hung Parliament. Because yes, they would do that in a pub where they can be photographed. And then there was the hair sniffing incident (to be fair I tweeted about that), and of course the hair flicking. Our future Deputy Prime Minister said that she was worried about our Prime Minister’s ‘state of mind’. And of course, we had the articles that tried to create controversy because Kevin Rudd apparently avoided traveling to Lindsay yesterday because of a gaffe by the local member. Hey, we even have a page now where we can look at all the gaffes of the past, as if they are really important. And, and don’t forget the incessant Tweeting yesterday from politicians and journalists alike, commenting that the election of Peter Beattie into the House of Representatives will create future leadership tensions for the ALP from day one. It seemed like tension between Beattie and Rudd was the only thing we could talk about.

Fucking hell, what an awful week.

I think we’re all sick of it. I know so many people who have just had enough. I have never seen a community that is so despondent, and I think we all feel it. Predictions of the percentage of people who will vote informally are sky high. And it’s not that people have stopped caring – I’m pretty sure we all still care. But we are all just sick of the ridiculous trivia – whether it is politicians spending all their attacking each other, or the media spending all their time talking about leadership tensions, hair sniffing and beers with former colleagues.

But do you know what I am sick of more? The excuses. We all, politicians, journalists and public alike know that there is something wrong here. We all know that people have had enough. That we’ve lost the essential focus on policy. That we’ve lost the debate we need. Yet we all blame someone else.

Just have a look at the politicians. In 2010 it was Tony Abbott who said that we need to have a ‘kinder, gentler polity’. Yes, the same Tony Abbott who spent the last three years attacking Julia Gillard (in particular) for everything under the sun – the most negative campaign I have ever seen. The vitriol has been shocking. Coming back into power Kevin Rudd called out for young people to get back engaged into politics, and when he announced the election called out Tony Abbott for his negative campaigning. The same ALP that has a stream of negative attack ads at the top of their Youtube account.

But it’s worse than that – for years politicians have been complaining about the media coverage – that they simply don’t get the coverage of the policy that they so desparately put out. Our former Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner even wrote a book about it (I haven’t read it). Yes, the same politicians (obviously not Lindsay Tanner) who spent years attacking Craig Thomson, Peter Slipper and Julia Gillard’s dealings with the AWU. The same politicians who just spent the last three years infighting incessantly over leadership.

But journalists, you’re not going to get off scott free. We’ve heard it a lot in the past few years – the cuts, and deadlines, and increasing pressure have all made journalism extremely difficult. And I have no doubt that this is the case. Journalism is not an easy job.

Well do you know what? No one forced you to all spend a significant amount of questions on Wednesday, and newspaper inches yesterday on a casual beer. No one forced you write articles about Beattie’s and Rudd’s potential leadership tensions instead of what sort of experience Beattie may bring to a future Government. You may have been given the leaks from politicians, but nobody forced you to write and/or publish articles continuing speculation on the ALP’s, and more recently the Coalition’s, leadership. And even though there is a lot of policy detail to cover, and I appreciate the time constraints, that doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions. Hey, the Business Spectator have already developed a list of climate change policy questions you could ask Tony Abbott. How about we start with those? I’m sure we could all work together to develop some more.

And to the public. I’m sick of it. You’re sick of it. We’re all sick of it. But that doesn’t mean we have to give up. It’s about time we all started to demand better. It’s about time we stopped, said ‘no’, and demanded a new way (to steal an election slogan). And we can do it. There are plenty of politicians who don’t engage in the mud slinging and genuinely care about policy (these politicians comes from all parties). Maybe we could vote them in? There are plenty of journalists and news sites as well who are genuinely focused on the issues – I reckon we could start paying them more attention and giving up on the others.

It can be easy just to give up. I know I feel like it. But instead we need to demand better. It is the only option we have.

Orginally published in Crikey 9 August 2013. 

In 1971, academic and queer activist Dennis Altman wrote the bookHomosexual: Oppression and Liberation. Positioned between the riots at Stonewall in 1969 and the expansion of the gay liberation movement in the 70s and 80s, Homosexual was in many ways before its time. Altman managed to predict the key trends within the queer movement and propose ways we can create community out of shared sexual identity – propositions that have often been followed through.

This year, Altman has followed up Homosexual with a sequel – The End of the Homosexual?

The question of the title comes directly from Altman’s original work. InHomosexual, Altman posited that a ‘homosexual identity’ had been developed through the ‘coming out’ of homosexuals. Seeking community and solidarity, homosexuals moved into the ‘gayworld’, defined by its queer spaces, and in turn created a distinct ‘homosexual identity’ defined by centuries of oppression. As coming out continued however, and oppression turned to acceptance, Altman argued that this distinct identity would eventually disappear. As we discard sexual ‘norms’, a new world would be opened up that doesn’t label people through their sexuality. In other words, as homosexuality becomes accepted into our society, sexuality will no longer form the basis of our identity. Altman argued that this would be ‘the end of the homosexual’. Now, 40 years later, The End of the Homosexual? reflects on this thesis, asking whether the ‘end of the homosexual’ has happened or is near.

You can read the full article at crikey.com.au 

Well, one day of the election campaign is over. And media bias has already become a hot topic, after the Daily Telegraph ran a front cover with the headline “Finally, you now have the chance to kick this mob out” (pictured below).

We’ve all known that the Daily Telegraph is highly conservative for a while now. Yet for some reason, yesterday’s paper brought up the same old tired debates about ‘balance’ in our media, and questions of what happened to ‘good old objective journalism’.

And I understand why. A desire for a balanced media makes sense in an abstract world. If we get all the ‘facts’ in a paper people can then make up their own mind on the issues. “We report, you decide”. And I can also see the concern about the impact of a newspaper as popular as the Daily Telegraph – a lot of the reaction is based on fear of what impact such a headline will have.

But I cannot help but question this  desire for a ‘balanced media’.

Let’s start with the obvious – journalists are inherently subjective. We are all born into different worlds and lifestyles and therefore have different viewpoints. To think that we can simply get rid of this the day we become a journalist is foolish at best. As Antony Loweinstein argues:

They (journalists) are humans like everybody else, not exactly a shocking revelation, with experiences and perspectives that shape their world view.

…

We are long past journalists being able to say with a straight face that they’re simply reporting the news as they see it. Objectivity only ever existed in the minds of the deluded.

Journalists, and (more importantly) owners of news agencies are people, and have their own bias (and power base to protect). And we cannot expect that this will change simply because they work in or own a newspaper. And this highlights the much broader problem – that ‘balance’ is a completely unrealistic goal. And that’s simply because there is no real such thing as balance – the whole idea is objective in itself. Look at one of the more curious developments in Australian journalism recently and you can see for yourself.

One of the most interesting things about journalism in recent months has been the growth of ‘fact-checking’ websites. We’ve seen Politifact, the ABC’s fact-checker, Crikey’s fact-checker, The Conversation’s fact-checker and now ‘facts fight back’. But the most interesting thing watching all of this is how controversial these fact checking sites have been. In the early days of Politifact we saw a significant debate over their decision to rate an ALP claim that because of the Government ‘penalty rates cannot be stripped away’ as ‘false’. The same problems have arisen with its US counterpart – with criticism a couple of years ago against their decision to make the Democrats argument that the Republicans budget would be the ‘end of Medicare’ the ‘lie of the year’.

These criticisms highlight a very simple point – that facts are subjective. Fact-checking sites are not some magical ‘objective’ agency – but come with their own bias and approach. Even in a site that is supposed to increase ‘balance’ of reporting, that balance is extremely contestable.

And we can make the same argument about any form of journalism. Fundamentally the idea of balance itself is subjective – what I considered balanced may be very different to what somebody else considered balance. I think that a balanced approach on climate change is to give climate sceptics a tiny amount of the airspace because that is where the science sits, whereas somebody else thinks balance means giving them 50% of the airspace. I think balance means having more than simply two views on policy positions (Government and Opposition) whilst others will be more than happy to hear from the larger players. If even how we approach ‘fact-checking’ is subjective, how on Earth are we going to ever create ‘objective’ political reporting.

And so here is where I think the fundamental problem is. The problem is not necessarily the Daily Telegraph’s main page yesterday, but rather their code of conduct that states that their reporting should be “accurate, fair and balanced”. And it’s not that they contradicted their code of conduct, but rather that they have that in their in the first place.

The simple issue is that ‘accurate, fair and balanced’ are all heavily subjective ideas all open up to many different interpretations. The simple idea that any newspaper could ever reach them is simply impossible. And we should just be willing to acknowledge that.

Antony Lowenstein has argued for something like this – saying that journalists should have to declare who they are voting for. I disagree with Antony because I think voting patterns is a very simplistic way to identify political beliefs, and that it assumes that journalists (a) always know who they’re voting for and (b) don’t change their mind. But other than that I think his argument is sound. Whilst I think there is a range of things that we should expect from journalists, I’m not convinced ‘balance’ is one of them.

And so instead of complaining about the Tele not being balanced, I think we should reframe the debate. That’s about creating a media that allows for contestation of ideas, rather than hoping that our conservative friends will live up to some code of conduct that has never been realistic. And if (as is the case) one perspective has gained more power than others in the media, the solution is not to expect them to change, but to challenge the power base that gives them so much authority (if we believe that they have real influence).

We won’t get the ‘balanced’ media so many of us want, but that will make us honest about it. It will allow for real contention of ideas, rather than some faint hope that we can all just make up our ideas once presented with ‘facts’.

Originally published in the Overland Journal, 1 August 2013

I travelled to Turkey in late June to attend Global Power Shift, hosted by 350.org. It was about a month after the start of a nation-wide protest movement sparked by the proposed demolition of Gezi Park in Istanbul and I was intrigued to see what was going on. I went in with no idea about Turkish politics and little understanding of the movement. But through talking to activists and seeing it in action, I learnt a lot.

If I could use one word to describe what I saw in Turkey, it would have to be ‘space’. This was a fight about space – whether physical or metaphoric – in a world where that space is being eaten up all around.

•

Arriving in Taksim Square is quite intimidating. Taksim, and the adjoining Gezi Park, have been the epicenter of the protests. It is here where fifty activists took to the streets late at night to protest the removal of some trees. In so doing, they sparked a national movement.

Taksim is a bare concrete square. At one end sits the Atatürk Cultural Centre, a huge Soviet-style building with three massive flags draped down its edge – two Turkish flags and one of the building’s namesake, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey and its national hero. Gezi is big and lusious – beautiful. But it was surrounded by ugliness: police tape was wrapped around its perimeter and, inside, hoards of police sat, some stroking their weapons, others chatting and laughing. All had one job: to keep the public, or more importantly, the protesters out.

Whilst I thought it Gezi nice, I didn’t really understand what all the fuss was about. How could one city park spark such a movement? It was only after I started to get to know Istanbul that I understood. It wasn’t just ‘a park’ – it was ‘the park’. Istanbul is amazing, but it is not a city of parks. Buildings, shops, merchants, cars, and people are all jammed in together in a massive metropolis. Activists lamented the growth of the place. Parklands destroyed, they said. Millions of trees cut down for highways, bridges and developments.

And it is getting worse. The government has pushed through plans for a third airport, as well as a third bridge over the Bhosphorus River (which splits Istanbul between the Asian and European sides). I was told that the Bhosphorus Bridge alone would see 1.4 million trees cut down. I could suddenly see why people were so keen to fight over their space. I could see why saving every park was so important.

But the fight wasn’t just about physical a space – it was about a public space.

About a week into my trip I went to Istanbul Pride. As we made our way on the march, the crowd started booing at a grand old building. They were booing because the building had been turned into a shopping centre – an ancient building along one of Istanbul’s grandest streets, sold for private profit.

Suddenly I could put the pieces of the puzzle together. The fight for space was, at its heart, a fight about neoliberalism. Across the city I could see the conversion from public to private, a conversion people simply did not want. Parks turned into shopping centres, historical monuments turned into expensive tourist attractions, old buildings turned into malls. Gezi was just another step in the slow degradation of public space for private profit.

•

It was almost haunting.

In the foreground, thousands were chanting, ‘We will not be silenced. We are gays and lesbians’. In the background, an ancient tradition, the call to prayer, blared across the crowd.

An odd contrast. A new social justice movement up against a religion seen by many as the most socially conservative in the world. Yet, somehow, it worked.

Falling just a month after the Gezi protests began, Istanbul Pride was a deserved beneficiary of the movement. Queers have played a major role in the protests. The area around Taksim is the queer part of Istanbul, potentially the most queer-friendly place in the country. Gezi itself is known as a gay beat. The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is also considered to be quite homophobic. And so queers have been on the front lines defending the park.

You could see that in the march. We didn’t just chant ‘We will not be silenced, we are gays and lesbians’ and ‘You better escape, the faggots are coming’ – but also the catch cry of the Gezi movement, ‘This is just the beginning, the resistance will continue.’ We booed as we walked past Starbucks for they refused to let in injured protesters who were looking for refuge and medical help.

Activists who might not normally have been at Pride turned out in full force. The Gezi movement wasn’t just a fight for space, it became a space in itself – a space for all.

One of the biggest criticisms leveled at Tayyip has been that he is steering the country towards an Islamic system. Apart from his homophobia, of particular concern has been newly passed alcohol legislation, which significantly increased restriction on alcohol sales and advertising. Many see this as a major shift towards moving Turkey away from secularism.

As 50,000 stood in Taksim with the call to prayer in the background, this issue couldn’t have been stronger. Most of the people in the crowd would have identified as Muslims. But as they marched down the street carrying rainbow flags and chanting the catch cry of the resistance of the movement, they were fighting for a space that was all-encompassing: a space that many feel the government is trying to take away. Of course, I am sure that this space wasn’t always harmonious. But on that day, people young and old, Muslim and non-Muslim, GLBTIQ, men, women and those who didn’t identify with either gender came together to support each other in their fights.

•

We were told it was only going to last half an hour or so.

With the occupation of Gezi cleared out a couple of weeks earlier, activists turned to suburban parks. Each night they ran general assemblies in these parks. The movement was called #ParklarBizim (Parks are ours), with activists stating that they were showing how ‘real democracy’ works. #ParklarBizim made its way to suburban parks across the country.

We decided to go along to one in Abbasağa Park in Beşiktaş. Beşiktaş became the hub of activist activity after Gezi was cleared out, and each night Abbasağa hosted the largest of these general assemblies.

I think we lucked out. This was no regular assembly.

The assembly rules seemed pretty simple. People held their hands up and moved their fingers if they agreed with something (we call that ‘twinkle fingers’ in Australia activist circles) and would make their arms into a cross if they disagreed with something. A couple of guys facilitated the meeting, but anyone could ask questions, make arguments or move their own motions.

That night, a motion was moved to head back to Taksim, and it seemed as though people were quickly in agreement. Before I knew it, a decision had been made to march there. My heart started beating at a mile a minute. No, wait, the plans had changed.  Instead we would march to a media office close by: the Sabah and Takvim Newspaper, which have been very friendly to the Government. We would do a sit-in, and then march back. Simple.

The choice of a media agency was highly symbolic. Protesters have been highly critical of the media’s coverage of the movement. One of the more humorous symbols of the movement was the penguin, not a symbol you would expect in the summer heat of Turkey. In the first days of the protests, while CNN International was providing a live cross to Turkey, CNN Turk continued their screening of a documentary about penguins. Soon, penguins were appearing all across the city, and merchandise was made with the slogan ‘we are all penguins.’

But it was not the coverage as much as the government’s approach to the media that is the real concern. Tayyip has been accused of being heavy handed with the media and in his time has restricted television content, freedom of speech, freedom of press and internet use. More and more journalists are ending up in jail.

It took about an hour for the march to start. The assembly had to continue with its other business: asking for people to join the Legal Working Group and the Women’s Working Group, talking about education in the movement, making an announcement about the upcoming Pride. As it ended we were told that the police had stationed themselves outside the office with water cannons and ‘scorpions’: a type of police truck used to crush protests.

Now my heart was pounding even harder. The police violence in Istanbul has been well-documented, but getting there you hear shocking stories. The police are indiscriminate in the way they use their weapons – tear gas shot into main streets, hotels, and through the windows of people’s apartments. There were also reports (of course denied) that during the clearing out of Gezi unmarked officers went into the crowds and threw Molotov cocktails – a way to rile the crowd up, and to make them look culpable in the violence. The violence had been one of the major catalysts for the growth of the movement. It seemed as though the government decided there was no space for peaceful protest, and that was clearly not an idea people could handle.

I wasn’t expecting different treatment but I wanted to go on.

In the end we were lucky. The march was peaceful. We made our way loudly the media station, chanted there for half an hour or so as the police watched on, and then marched back to the park. The support we received was amazing. As we walked down streets people lent out their windows and clapped or ­– as had become tradition – banged their pots and pans together. On the main road, cars – and I mean almost every car I saw – beeped their horn in support.

As we marched back to the park I couldn’t help but think that this really represented what people were fighting for, the sort of democratic and open space people want.

After the first wave of protests, the government was quick to make concessions. They offered a referendum on the park, then started re-planting trees, and eventually a court ruled the proposal illegal. On my last day in Turkey I found out that Gezi had been reopened. Yet the protests haven’t stopped.

While this started as a fight about physical space, it is now a fight about a lot more than that. It is about a government that has been accused of becoming more conservative and more authoritarian – imprisoning journalists, taking the country on the road to becoming an Islamic state, violently breaking up protests and transferring public space into private hands at an alarming rate.

Activists are fighting for a democracy that means more than just voting once every few years. As the government becomes more conservative, and more neoliberal, they are fighting for a space for the public, a space for all.

How their fight ends will not only to define the future of Gezi Park but also of democracy in Turkey.

Originally posted on Mamamia, 31 July, 2013

When Pope Francis was installed earlier this year many were hoping for a shift in the church’s tone towards homosexuality. It seems like we may have got our wish. In a wide-ranging interview over the weekend, Francis, it was reported, reached out to homosexuals. He said:

“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

The Pope has quickly received praise for his comments.

Reverand James Martin commented that ”Pope Francis’s brief comment on gays reveals great mercy.” Here at home, Australian Marriage Equality said:

“While the Pope still opposes marriage equality and thinks homosexual sex is sinful, he has opened up a space for discussion about these issues that did not exist under his predecessors.”

“This is glasnost for gay Catholics.”

I can see why people are happy. His statement is more progressive than anything that ever seemed to come out of Pope Benedict XVI’s mouth. It definitely is a shift from the past years. But unfortunately I’m going to have to hold back from my cheering.

You can read the full article at Mamamia.com.au 

I couldn’t help but think it was some form of sick joke. This whole week has felt like a sick joke actually. Despite everything though, this felt like the worst. The most sick. At almost exactly the same time (and I mean literally the same time) Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was announcing the ALP’s new asylum seeker policy, Foreign Minister Bob Carr tweeted this:

@bobjcarr: Meeting with members of #LGBTI community on making LGBTI rights a core foreign policy priority of Rudd Government pic.twitter.com/aQUv8Y2FrO

@bobjcarr: I promise to stand up against homophobia, transphobia & biphobia. Always. pic.twitter.com/1rRHaRZbis

It’s a nice sentiment Minister, but here’s the deal. In Papua New Guinea – the place where you’re sending thousands of asylum seekers for resettlement – homosexuality is illegal. Consensual anal sex between two men can result in imprisonment for up to 14 years a man who ‘commits an act of gross indecency with another male person’ in public is subject to three years imprisonment. GLTBI people face significant discrimination, with activists reporting that queer people often find it difficult to find employment and a decent wage.

What this means is that LGBTI people fleeing persecution via boat will now be sent to a country where they could find themselves facing a very similar situation. The UN says that even the existence of laws like those in PNG, even if they aren’t strictly enforced, provide enough reason to claim asylum. We are now potentially sending queer asylum seekers to a place where they will need to seek asylum from.

This is not how you make ‘LGBTI rights a core foreign policy priority of (the) Rudd Government’. In fact, it is how you trash LGBTI as part of your foreign policies.

I have to ask what really happened on that day. Maybe Carr didn’t get the “don’t talk about LGBTI rights today, you’ll look like a fool” memo. But what I actually this is a sign of, is that whilst this Government could easily be called the most queer-friendly in the country, despite Carr’s tweets, we are far away from LGBTI rights being at the ‘core of Government’. We are far away from a ‘queer Government’.

In many ways you could consider this ALP Government as the most queer-friendly Government we’ve ever seen. In his first term Rudd moved through the same-sex omnibus bill – changes that are probably much more influential than same-sex marriage will ever be. As Foreign Minister he announced that sex and gender diverse Australians would no longer have to have a gender affirmation surgery to change their gender on their passports. And now, Rudd becomes the first PM to support marriage equality.

Despite this however, in the short month or so since Rudd has come back to power, this isn’t the first time he’s come under fire for the impact of his decisions on the queer community. In his first week, Rudd appointed Jacinta Collins as the Minister for Mental Health. Bernard Keane explains:

“Collins is from the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association and  holds the social views one expects of a Shoppie: she is stridently anti-abortion  and a diehard opponent of same-sex marriage; “stable, biological parenting”  should be fostered “as a social norm” she said in reference to the same-sex  marriage bill last year.”

What this shows, is that whilst the ALP is almost as queer-friendly as you can get when it comes to legislation directly targeted at queer groups – marriage equality (even though that hasn’t passed yet), anti-discrimination legislation and moves to remove discrimination against trans* people, when it comes to policy that isn’t directly related to queer groups, it is showing to be lacking.

And this shows how far we have to go. Because whilst most queer-advocacy has focused on legislation to end discrimination, the queer agenda has to be about a lot more than that. Queer rights do not just sit in some part of the Attorney Generals Office as we ensure all discrimination is removed from legislation. It sits in every Government Department and in every part of our society.

In the Foreign Affairs Department it means making sure all decisions take into account LGBTI rights and that we actively promote these rights globally. In the Health and Education Departments in means not just removing discrimination, but also making sure these services take into account the needs of diverse spectrum of our community. That means having services that don’t make assumptions about sexuality or gender, and are ready and prepared to work with the full diversity of our society. In the Department of Employment this means facing up to the discrimination queer people face in the workplace and tackling it head on.

But it is more than that. Because a queering of Government isn’t just about queer people – it is about all of us. A queering of Government also means working towards a queering of society – breaking away from norms about sexuality and gender across all spectrums of our society, creating an inclusive and free place for all to express themselves. That means not using terms like ‘mincing poodle’ when attacking the opposition and certainly not promoting MPs and Senators who have a history of homophobia to important ministries.

So despite nice words being said by our Foreign Minister the last few weeks have shown that we are far away from a proper queering of Government. The ALP may say the right things, but their actions show we have a long way to go.

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. On Friday night I had no idea where to start. Kevin Rudd’s new asylum seeker policy shocked me. I literally had no words. Over the weekend, I’ve been trying to ask myself, how have we ended up at this point? How has the PNG solution been the answer that we’ve apparently been looking for? For me, it all comes down to the policy question we have been asking, and I think we’ve been asking the wrong one for far too long.

The problem I have with the ALP’s policy is not the practice or the deal itself, but the logic that underlies it. A logic is based on one simple question; how can we deter people from coming to Australia by boat? How can we ‘stop the boats’?

Concern about stopping the boats is genuine. I don’t want to deny that. Even if I don’t agree, I am not here to say that concerns about border security, about asylums seekers taking jobs, and about the idea that they are jumping the queue are not real. The latest concern, the genuine horror of people dying at sea, is probably the most serious, and in many ways, the most compelling.

And if we look at it this way, deterrence makes sense. If we want people to stop dying at sea, we need to deter them from making the trip in the first place. The question, how do we deter people from coming, is obvious. But, when you look at this policy – one which is a pretty clear final answer (for the moment) of this question – you can see why the question itself is so problematic.

The logic behind a deterrence strategy is simple as well. You create an end destination that is worse that the place people left in the first place. You create a place that is ‘not worth the risky boat trip’. We’ve tried many different ways; detention centres, temporary visas, no-disadvantages tests – but they’ve all still resulted in the final goal – the opportunity to live in Australia. This policy takes that away.

Let’s just reflect on. I’ve never been forced to live in a war-torn country. I’ve never faced persecution that has made me fear for my life. I’ve never thought I needed to seek asylum somewhere. I cannot speak for the experiences asylum have and are going through. But it seems logical to me that in a world of terror, war, persecution, famine, disease and death, you have to create a pretty terrible place to be a real deterrence.

And this is where it all unravels. Because unfortunately for Rudd and the ALP, I don’t think the PNG solution finds that place. In fact, I don’t think anywhere does. In Australian Greens materials sent out over the weekend they featured an asylum seeker Najeeba who fled from Afghanistan by boat in 2000 fleeing the Taliban. Najeeba, the Greens said, is Hazaras, an ethnic minority in Afghanistan that still faces significant discrimination. One quote from Najeeba really stood out to me:

“We take our chances with boats because the Australian Government could never match the horror we flee from.”

And this is the reality, and will stay the reality for many when looking at the PNG solution. The terror so many people are facing means that deterrence is almost impossible to achieve. In fact in an interview over the weekend, Immigration Minister Tony Burke, unexpectedly highlighted that fact, saying:

“The commitment under the convention is not for people to be able to move to a country with a particular average income … [it] is for people to be safe and to be free from persecution.

“The Australian Government will assist Papua New Guinea in making sure those commitments can be met.”

In doing so, Burke admits one of the fundamental flaws of the policy – that it still provides an opportunity to find a place that is safer than many of the situations people may be facing, and therefore find a place that is worth a risky boat trip to. There is a real chance people will still come by boats – but we will now just be making life much more difficult for them.

But it is not the failure of the basic logic that makes this policy so bad. It is when it works that it becomes really terrible. By creating a place that is worse than the place people are fleeing what we are doing is potentially leaving people in situations of persecution, war and potential death.

Let’s take a look for example at people fleeing persecution because of their sexuality. Under the UN, the simple existence of legislation that bans homosexuality is cause for claims of asylum. The problem is however that these very sorts of laws exist in Papua New Guinea. Anal sex between two men is banned in PNG with prison sentences of up to 14 years. A person who ‘commits an act of gross indecency with another male person’ in public in subject to 3 years imprisonment. GLTBI people face significant discrimination in PNG. LGBTI people in PNG are not free of persecution.

That means we could easily have situations where people who are fleeing persecution because of their sexuality end up in a place where homosexuality is illegal. They end up in a place with legislation that the UN defines as harsh enough to warrant a claim of asylum. The capacity to escape persecution is gone.

And it’s not just queers who face this fate. We’ve heard plenty of statistics about violence against women, sex trafficking and general violence in Papua New Guinea. It is considered one of the most violent places in the world. Unfortunately, our most northern neighbour is not a safe place for many, and the details of the current plan don’t provide answers to how people will be safe in their new home.

And so for some, the policy will work. The deterrence will be enough. PNG will be an awful enough place to avoid to ensure people stay elsewhere. But that in itself is where the greatest tragedy lies.

Because whilst Labor and Coalitions politicians are talking about ‘saving lives at sea’, the harsh reality is that people are only risking their lives at sea because they are at risk at home. Most of the people who are coming to Australia by boat are not doing so because they just feel like risking their life, but because the threat at home is so grave that the risk is worth it. As Karl Kruszelnicki said:

“Refugees are not coming here because we have really good TV shows. They’re coming because people are shooting at them.”

And so when we deter them from coming, what we are doing is leaving them in a place where their lives are at even more risk than when they are at sea.

So yes, we may ‘save lives at sea’. But in doing so, we are ignoring the lives being lost at war, in famine, and through persecution overseas. We wont get awful images on our TV screens anymore, but the lives are still being lost.

So where does this leave us? For some, the trip on the boat will still be worth it. With the realities of life in so many places, I can still see why the option presented by this Government is a better option than what many may be facing at home. But for the ones we stop the fate could be even worse. For the ones we stop, the fate is to keep them in a world of persecution, fear and death. They may not die at sea, but they will face the threat of death and persecution at home – somewhere we can’t see them.

The fundamental problem with this policy is the underlying logic behind it. We are asking the wrong questions, and in doing so getting the wrong answers. The question shouldn’t be how do we deter people, but how do we ensure people are safe and free of persecution? Deterrence is not a solution to the refugee problem. Instead, the solution lies in ending the persecution and death in the first place, and then when it exists providing safe options for people to escape to safety.