Protesters at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy have defended its existence while their message has been largely ignored by mainstream press. Jerico Mandybur reports.

Activist Isabelle Coe and a traditional dancer take part in sacred fire ceremony. Image: Jerico Mandybur

As Aboriginal protestors gathered to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy last Thursday, the majority of media coverage focused on a perceived threat of violence towards Prime Minister Julia Gillard, rather than on the group’s calls for representation and the recognition of sovereignty.

Michael Anderson, the last surviving founder of the Tent Embassy, stressed that the 1872 Pacific Islands Protection Act (which includes Australia) asserts Queen Victoria saying “I know not claim dominion or sovereignty over the Aboriginal people and their places or their leaders.” Mr Anderson continued by adding “the Government and the courts in this country haven’t got a high hope from now on, to take us on… because we will force these issues.”

Mr Anderson addressed the 1000-strong crowd, many of whom had gathered from interstate, on the subject of land rights, saying “we own this country; we’ve never given it away.

They’ve never beat us in war, they’ve never asked us to cede, they’ve forced us into situations, and look at us… we’re still standing, we’re still strong.”

One of the original Tent Embassy activists Paul Coe, spoke about the creation of Australia as a sovereign entity, contrary to Aboriginal people’s sovereign rights. “They never asked us. They never included Aboriginal people in what they were on about; we were excluded, marginalised, as if we didn’t exist… and unfortunately, that same process is still going on right now as we speak.”

Michael Anderson in front of a line of police. Image: Jerico Mandybur

The three-day-long program of events and workshops held at the Embassy were designed to celebrate the achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activists, but also to honour those who defended the Embassy and have since died. “Here in 2012 we gather at this very sacred site, to pay tribute to those generations of patriots, to those men and women who’ve stood for the struggle… our blood is on that ground. The cops came here and smashed us, and we stood there as one mob, and we got up again,” says Murri Activist Sam Watson.

Prominent activist Rosalie Kunoth-Monks stated that the Invasion Day ceremonies were emotionally taxing for many involved, after hearing a roll-call of names of the deceased members of the original Tent Embassy protests in 1972. “Today we’re reminiscing about the struggles that we’ve had and just listening to that and thinking of the plight of the First Australians… Australia Day still brings a lot of pain.”

Rosalie Kunoth-Monks speaking her traditional Indigenous language.

Throughout the day, speakers from a cross section of nations and age groups spoke about a desire for self-determination and adequate national representation, with many referring to oft-quoted Indigenous public figures in Government as ‘gate-keepers’. Ms Kunoth Monks said: “the acknowledgement of black people as the first residents of this land is denied by our Government and it is a heartless, uncaring attitude by those that are supposed to be representing us.”

Elder Harry Nelson of Yuendumu, also brought attention to what he sees as a misrepresentation of his people, by those Aboriginal members on the advisory board with the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, saying “I find it really disgusting and shameful that these advisors to the Minister have never been to these communities, never spoken to us or sat around in a circle, discussing our problems.

The only advice that they give the Minister, is what they read in the papers.”

Similar sentiments were echoed by members of the Aboriginal Provisional Government, who issued an Invasion Day statement, saying “in a democracy, it is the right of Indigenous peoples to select their own representatives.

In the last 16 years, the opportunity for Aboriginal people to have our say has been stage managed by government and its lackeys, and the agenda has been theirs, not ours.”

1972 Aboriginal Protest Flag. Image: Jerico Mandybur

Redfern community leader Lyall Munro stated that Northern Territory Intervention should also be on the lips and tongues of all Aboriginal people in this country and claims “we cannot be free in the south unless our people in the Territory are free.

“We have to attack this racist indoctrination of our people for the want of land… what is happening up there is disgraceful and defies all international conventions that this country has signed and ratified.”

Barbara Shaw of the Intervention Rollback Action Group in Alice Springs feels strongly about the impact of the Intervention on the lives of local Aboriginal people, saying “four years I’ve been fighting the Intervention, and then they announce they’re going to have another Intervention for ten years.

We’ve had an Intervention for 200 years… we know what we want for our people. When will enough be enough?”

On the subject of Tony Abbott’s earlier comments on the Tent Embassy, in which he stated activists should ‘move on’, Ms Shaw said: “he is a coward to say that behind closed doors to the media… politicians and their parties need to recognise and understand and acknowledge that people were here before them. And we’ve got nowhere else to go, we were here first and we’re here to stay.”

Barbara Shaw being told of Tony Abbott’s statement.

Isabelle Coe is the wife of the late Billy Craigie, another of the Tent Embassy’s original founders. She has devoted her life to working for Aboriginal sovereignty and recognition. Looking back on the birth of the Embassy, Ms Coe said: “the people that came here back then, we only came here for one thing, and that was tell to the government that this country belongs to Aboriginal people.

I hope I don’t have to stay here for another 40 years.”

PJ Harvey performs 'Silence'. Image: Il Fatto Quotidiano

Justine McNamara reviews PJ Harvey at The State Theatre.

PJ Harvey last caused a stir in Sydney in 2008, when she was touring 2007 album ‘White Chalk’. That show saw her mostly alone on stage, with only a little help from long time performance buddy Mick Harvey. He joined her again on this tour, along with John Parish and Jean-Marc Butty, to bring life to her most recent album ‘Let England Shake’.

The band arrive on stage before PJ and waited for her to walk out. She doesn’t waste any time with greetings or introductions and jumps straight into the album’s title track. Her voice sounds delicate and wavers throughout the song’s high notes, but this is no criticism. The nature of it calls for urgency and vulnerability, which she delivers.

They finish abruptly and shuffle around in darkness to prepare for single ‘The Words That Maketh Murder’. The lyrics to this song are incredibly graphic and war-themed but it’s easily the catchiest on the album. The lyrics: “I’ve seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat… Arms and legs were in the trees,” should sound sinister but set to this melody, it’s hard not to dance.

PJ swaps between an auto harp and a guitar throughout the set and while both are played perfectly, she’s clearly more comfortable holding the guitar. The only song that has any movement from her is ‘Pocket Knife’ where she dances around the stage showing off the top of her leg by pulling up her dress.

The sound in the State Theatre is loud but not confronting and every note on every instrument sounds clear. The only problem on the night is at the start of ‘Bitter Branches’ – Mick Harvey’s guitar isn’t making any noise. But no one makes a fuss, PJ simply comes closer to her microphone and plays her guitar harder until Mick’s can be heard. PJ stays silent between every song until the encore and then introduces her band. The lights are still on when they start ‘The Piano’ and this unfortunately takes away from the haunting atmosphere they’d built before.

‘Silence’ is the last song of the encore and upon finishing, the crowd jump up into a standing ovation. PJ and her band watch us and smile for a few minutes, giving people a quick chance to snap some photos, before they walk off and leave us to reflect on the beauty we’ve just witnessed.

Two decades on since the Royal commission into Deaths in Custody, have we given Indigenous youth a chance? Image: alimander

Government report recommends re-establishing Indigenous bodies to improve shocking incarceration rates. Ashleigh Berdebes reports.

A House of Representatives report, released in June, calls it a “shameful state of affairs” that Indigenous youth are currently 28 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous juveniles.

The situation has only worsened in the 20 years since Government accepted the previous Royal Commission’s recommendations, with the incarceration rate for Indigenous Australians increasing by 66 per cent between 2000 and 2009.

Recommendations such as cross-cultural training for police, arrest and gaoling (as a matter of last resort), and an advisory body to liaise with police and Government regarding Indigenous justice were also present in 1991’s Royal Commission report and have reappeared 20 years later in the current one.

Ray Jackson, President of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, says Doing Time – Time for Doing: Indigenous Youth in the Criminal Justice System is just “reinventing the wheel”.

“If one has a look at the recommendations that are in the report, one can quite easily refer those recommendations back to the 1991 Royal Commission that handed down 339 recommendations.”

The Federal Government recently accepted all of the report’s 40 recommendations to minimise incarceration, recidivism and the overrepresentation of Indigenous youth in the criminal justice system, who represent 53% of Australia’s juvenile inmates.

Ray Jackson says, “The major problem with all of these reports is the recommendations appertaining to the police are totally ignored.”

“The police will not accept any of the recommendations that change their everyday work practices, and they will continue just to do what they do every day, which is focus in on Aboriginal kids and continue to churn them through the courts.”

With 58% of Indigenous offenders being re-imprisoned within 10 years, the Law Council of Australia suggests that “‘therapeutic’ or restorative justice mechanisms” such as “Aboriginal sentencing courts, youth courts, drug and alcohol courts… have been demonstrated to have a greater impact on recidivism, particularly among young people.”

Constructive proposals in the Commission’s report include finding accommodation for those let out on bail, hearing tests for all pre-schoolers, providing pre-natal and ante-natal support for Indigenous mothers, diagnosing and officially recognising Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder as a disability, creating school attendance incentive programs, and providing teacher development and defense force recruitment.

The Federal Government has also promised to act on the recommendation of the creation of an Indigenous Law and Justice Advisory Body, a mediating force between youth and the criminal justice system, strikingly similar to one which Ray Jackson was a chairman of in the early 1990s, following the first Royal Commission.

When being asked what happened to the previous Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council, or, AJAC, Ray Jackson says “well, the police didn’t like it, because we used to question the police on their methods, and we questioned the government on their methods.”

“The major problem was, at each monthly meeting, we would have a different Copper with a different rank… they just stumbled through the whole thing, they just filibustered, in a sense. And we were bought to a screeching halt.

“We couldn’t do anything, nothing was happening.”

In response, Aboriginal members of AJAC decided to abandon the Government offices and take the meetings to Aboriginal members of the public, in places like La Perouse, Liverpool, and Mount Druitt. During this time, AJAC was dismantled by the Government.

“The Coppers didn’t like it, the government didn’t like it, so they shut us down.”

The justice system – including police and juvenile justice, is the responsibility of the each State and Territory Government, making the extensive reform of Indigenous justice practises that the Commission recommends difficult to monitor and more vulnerable to bureaucratic neglect.

Ray Jackson believes that if anything is to be achieved following this report, the Government needs to do away with self-regulation, and that an oversight body needs to be established that includes community representatives.

The accountability for implementing these recommendations needs to be sufficiently regulated; responsibility must be allocated, enforced, and audited on a long-term basis to have any effect on the incarceration rates for Indigenous youth and intergenerational disadvantage and discrimination in general.

“They have to have equal involvement and power to the government bodies, and the departmental bodies.

“It’s no use going to meetings and they just politely hear to what you’ve got to say and you walk out and it’s all over… It’s forgotten.”

“I don’t have any great belief that the government really wants an Aboriginal advisory body that’s going to tell them like it is, they want a tame cat body who will come along and mumble a few words and have a few beers and a canapé or something and that’s it!

“Well, we want more than that.”

With the rise of internet shopping on sites like ASOS in Australia, Danielle Gay finds out how traditional local retailers will stand the aggressive competition.

The Australian Retailers Association is urging traditional local retailers to remain competitive, by boosting their online options. Image: maistora

Britain’s biggest online fashion store has launched in Australia, bringing with it increased competition for local retailers.

ASOS, which stands for As Seen on Screen, released its highly anticipated Australian URL in September.

Russell Zimmerman, Executive Director of the Australian Retailers Association (ARA), said the introduction of the site would bring further competition to local brick-and-mortar stores.

“Consumers are looking overseas for brands and they understand these brands,” he said. “We are all very much into the online scene at the moment.”

ASOS, which is marketed to 16-34 year-olds, sells cut-price fashion, with hundreds of new pieces added to the online store daily.

The cult website sees 13 million visitors to its UK site a month and has named Australia as its second biggest market after the UK.

Mr Zimmerman said the wide range of options is the biggest driver of the brand’s success.

Boasting 40,000 branded and own label product lines, ASOS is a virtual wardrobe, covering everything from dresses to beauty products.

“It’s their range, their offer, there’s a raft of reasons why the website works well,” said Mr Zimmerman.

The Australian URL has brought advantages for consumers with shorter delivery times and local returns, offering a faster exchange service.

It is a localised experience, with domestic currency options, and there are plans to base the apparel designs on Australian seasons.

Already, the website has ignited a positive response from Australian fans.

“ASOS welcome to Australia with arms wide open!” one fan wrote on Twitter, while another added: “Kind of feel the need to shop on ASOS Australia, just cos [sic] it launched.

However, the site has brought more online competition to already struggling brick-and-mortar retailers.

According to figures from retail forecasters Deloitte Access Economics, this year retailers had faced a small growth of just 1.5 per cent, up from 1.3 per cent in 2010-2011.

Scott Ewing, researcher at The Swinburne Institute for Social Research said this is compared with domestic Australian online sales, which are at 4 per cent with a further 2 per cent going overseas.

“I think all traditional retailers should be considering the impact of online retail on their business,” said Mr Ewing, whose research is part of the World Internet Project.

Mr Zimmerman said the competition is good and believes it will encourage retailers to diversify their own range.

“This will make our Australian retailers look at their range and their offering to ensure they remain competitive to these overseas international brands,” he said.

“It’s a good thing all-round.”

Mr Zimmerman said the competition of international brands like ASOS should be seen as an opportunity.

ARA is urging retailers to remain competitive, by boosting their online options with a series of e-tail seminars.

“We’ve done two in Sydney and we’ve got another couple to go,” he said. “The reason we’re doing them is to ensure that we educate our retailers in the necessity to be in the online space.”

“They need to be in the online space to make sure that they’re competitive,” he said.

Mr Ewing agrees, saying he also urges retailers to consider what they can offer as a point of difference to online stores.

He said customer service and personalised advice are two things that keep consumers going back to traditional retailers.

“I think all retailers should be identifying their point of difference from online options and strengthening and communicating that point of difference,” said Mr Ewing.

Mr Zimmerman said Australia is becoming a global marketplace and retailers need to consider this.

“We’re very much an international country now, we have a whole bunch of retailers coming to Australia,” he said. “We need to make sure we’re engaged with the consumer at that level.”

A international leader in successful organ transplants, Australia still has one of the lowest donation rates in the world. Lucy Cormack asks why.

The lacking support structures and negative experiences during the initial request process are a major factor in many families' decision to decline donation in Australia. Image: #PACOM

It’s a frightening thought, to be asked to give away the vital organs of our loved ones.

But for registered nurse and PhD student, Holly Northam, it’s even more frightening that less than 60 per cent of Australian families ever say yes.

A recognised leader in successful transplants, Australia has one of the lowest organ and tissue donation rates in the developed world.

In her ten years of medical experience, Northam has seen a stark conflict between the approach taken by hospitals requesting donations and the reactions of potential donor families.

It’s the “agony of the human aspect of organ donation”, said Northam, which prevents shocked and grief-stricken families from being able to handle such an emotional and confronting decision.

Northam’s PhD research, due for completion in 2013, canvasses families who have declined a request to donate their deceased relative’s organs in the last three years.

Despite it being early days, Northam’s data already outlines a strong link between the decision to say no and the way families are approached in the hospital. Many were initially pro-donation.

Specific guidelines for initially approaching donor families recommended by the Australasian Transplant Coordinators Association are largely unknown.

“It is the doctors themselves doing the requesting and many are not aware of the steps,” she said.

Northam hopes her study will support a growing view that lacking support structures and negative experiences during the initial request process are a major factor in many families’ decision to decline donation.

“In the past we haven’t had suitable people working in hospitals with families,” she said, though she pointed out that public hospitals are gradually starting to address the issue by re-training staff to work specifically with remaining relatives.

“If we don’t understand, it’s hard to fix it.”

The current Australian process relies on an individual or their family expressing the intention to donate organs.

Potential donors can register their wishes on their driver’s licence, though there is no legal requirement to do so.

Confusion arises, however, when hospital staff and relatives have the authority to override directions to donate.

Transplant surgeon, Dr Deborah Varren, said she is often asked to explain who has the final say on the matter.

‘Why are my relatives asked for consent if I have said yes to donation on my drivers licence?’ is a common question, she said.

The difficulty is often in helping families and potential donors understand the many other factors involved with such a sensitive issue. It’s important that they do, however, as a possible donor’s wishes will only be enforced if their relatives verify the deceased’s intentions and medical history and consent to moving and operating on the patient.

Yael Cass, CEO of the Organ and Tissue Authority , agrees that Australia’s historically low donor rate is a direct result of an incohesive national system.

“Holly’s hypothesis is that donor family support is key, and we support that,” she said.

A 150 million dollar, Commonwealth-funded National Reform Agenda aimed at re-focusing a consistent approach to the request process was launched in 2008. A specialist workforce, intensive training and improving public relations, community awareness and acceptance of organ donation were key improvements to be made.

The results, said Cass, are a huge improvement. Australia’s donor acceptance rate has jumped by 51 per cent to 14.5 donors per million, on par with the UK and Germany.

Though the improved rate is still nothing close to Spain’s world record of 34 donors per million, Australia’s recent result is much closer to the European average than previously.

The most effective way to continue increasing donation rates it to ensure an individual’s wishes are translated into family knowledge. It’s already starting to become a common point of domestic discussion, said Cass.

Northam is also positive about the future.

“The money’s in the right place and the heart’s in the right place,” she said. “Now we’ve just got to keep going.”

For more information on organ donation, visit the Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplant Authority’s website, Donate Life.

Found on the streets of Newtown, crystal meth is on the rise in Australia again. Image: michelle.irish

It is one of the world’s most dangerous drugs and has been for a number of years. So why, after a brief hiatus, is crystal meth on the rise in Australia again? Sean Slatter investigates.

As a single girl living in Newtown mid last year, Stacy did enjoy a night out. The stresses her job placed on her during the week meant that it was not uncommon for her to want a little something extra when enjoying the weekend nightlife with her friends. A woman in her early thirties, she had previously experimented with drugs and was well aware of the dangers certain substances could pose to her general well being. Her knowledge and experience meant that she was not afraid to occasionally indulge in methamphetamine’s such as ice on a night out.

Stacy however was by no means dependent on the drug. Government advertisements might have you believe that she sits at home all day scratching her arms for imaginary bugs but the reality is invariably different. She has a career and a large network of friends, many of whom share her experience when it comes to drugs such as methamphetamines. While she would never publicly endorse crystal meth or recommend it to anyone, she believes that the government has gone the wrong way about warning people about the dangers of the drug. “All that they did is create a stigma. Once I experienced it, I realised that their propaganda is for the most part just a scare campaign. It wouldn’t have stopped addicts and I don’t think it stopped casual drug users from trying it.”

The government launched its hard hitting media campaign against crystal meth, otherwise known as ice in late 2007 as a response to the near epidemic levels of usage by Australians in 2006. Despite a slight decrease in usage in the couple of years following this, it appears as though the drug is on the rise again with a study released by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) this month showing a significant increase in its usage among drug users in the last year. Forty-five per cent of people who inject drugs said they had used ice in the previous six months- up from 39 per cent in 2010. There has also been a surge in the worldwide consumption of the drug with amphetamine-type stimulants now ranking as the world’s second most widely used drug after cannabis (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime).

Natasha Sindicich, Illicit Drugs Reporting System Coordinator for NDARC says the increase can be traced back to a number of different factors in the Australian drug trade, most notably a shift where the drug is being produced. “There has definitely been a change in the major players, countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia used to be just middle men in the distribution cycle (of ice). What we are seeing now is that these countries are beginning to make and sell their own stuff on the market.” As well as this, Sindicich also believes that international trends are having an effect on the popularity of certain substances within Australia “We tend to mimic Europe a lot when it comes to this sort of thing and right now they are definitely having a taste of it”.

These recent developments have meant that methamphetamine has inevitably become more accessible to those who have the means at their disposable. On the subject of accessibility, Stacy states that she was able buy crystal meth more or less whenever she wanted it last year and a lot of the time she says, “it was just a phone call away”. The phone call that was made was to a man who is known only as T. A heavy user who deals to supplement his habit, he confirms that there has been somewhat of a boom in the methamphetamine market over the past year. “Yeah there is a lot of good cold stuff (ice) coming in at the moment … you don’t have to look far”. In regards to his sources for the drug, T confirms Sindicich’s theory concerning its production “(I get it from) Asian syndicates mostly. They seem to have the best stuff”.

When T is talking about the ‘best stuff’, he is referring to the purity, another major factor in determining whether a drug increases or decreases in popularity. In the case of methamphetamines such as ice, the quality of the product relies almost entirely on how it is made. One of the reasons given for the significant increase of the substance was that it had become easier to make. Recent US reports have told of how people are now manufacturing meth without specially made laboratories. According to NDARC, the four main processes used by ‘cooks’ in the production of meth are ‘red phosphorus’ in which the title chemical is used as the catalyst, ‘the nazi method’(much the same as red phosphorus but was invented during WW2), ‘P2P’ which uses chemical precursors, and hypophosphorus which can reduce the need for pseudoephedrine in the production.

Despite a large number of websites promising to give the exact details of each of these procedures, Sindicich says that government authorities are well aware of what’s out there. She also claims another concern for the authorities could be the success of tv shows such as Breaking Bad which focus heavily on the production method. Sindicich, explains that while the popularity of these types of shows may broaden the scope of public curiosity towards illicit drugs, it is unlikely to have an effect on the actual market. “There is no doubt that people will being asking questions after seeing episodes of shows like Breaking Bad. However I think it is fairly unlikely that we will see an increase in production rates as a result. People are still aware of what could happen if they get involved with a drug like this”.

The plot of Breaking Bad revolves around a high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with cancer and decides to cook meth so his family will have some money to live off after he is gone. The meth that he cooks is so pure that it becomes the only drug that users ask for. Although the circumstances were somewhat different, a similar kind of phenomenon could be seen to be occurring in Australia in 2010. The purity of the meth that was coming into Australia meant that other substances such as ecstasy were often rejected in favour of the crystallised form of speed. NDARC’s research shows that crystal meth’s recent rise in popularity is coupled with a steady decline in the quantity of ecstasy that was taken last year in the Australian drug community. According to the council, in 2011 only 27 per cent of drug users surveyed named ecstasy as their drug of choice. This is down from 37 per cent in 2010 and seems to be a part of a continuing trend which has seen less and less people purchasing pills over the last couple of years. A suggestion perhaps that maybe the once infamous party drug is on the way out and the stronger form of speed has taken its place. After all, 27 per cent is around half of the 52 per cent who nominated it as their main drug in 2003.

These statistics are backed up by results from research done by the Australian institute of Criminology which conducted its own investigation into these trends. Rachel Mcgregor works for the Drug Use Monitoring Australia program, a branch of the AIC that gains information about the current state of the Australian drug market through interviewing drug detainees immediately after their arrest. She states that the changes in usage rates of crystal meth over the last couple of years indicate the direction in which the illicit drug market is heading towards. “In 2009 13 per cent of detainees had used ice in the month before they were arrested. In 2011, 21 per cent had. Both Cocaine and heroin rates remained stable in this period. Our research has shown that the increase in ice has come as a result of an improved product that is being provided by more sellers.”

So with the once notorious ecstasy on the slide and the more dangerous, more addictive methamphetamine ice on the rise, there remains the question of what needs to be done to stem this recent pattern in the Australian drug trade. Both Natasha and Rachel are in agreement with Stacy that a different tact needs to be tried than the one the government was using in 2007. “Things are different now” says Sindicish. “We know more about the long term effects that it can have and that needs to be emphasised in any education that is given regarding the drug”. Meanwhile Rachel believes that advertising should be aimed at people who know someone who is taking the drug rather than at the users themselves, “I don’t think the campaigns made by the government would have had an effect on regular users. We need to show the effect that their usage is having on people close to them”.

At the end of the day however, it appears as though usage of meth will depend on what drugs are the most accessible to Stacy and her friends . . . and their quality.

The name of Stacey and T has been changed as per the request of interviewees.

Robot Assist presented his first guest lecture at UTS earlier this year demonstrating to students the developing field of robotics. Tawar Razaghi reports.

Is the budgeted $2.5 billion to manage the arrival of asylum seekers by boat unnecessary? Karen Tong reports.

Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre. Image: DIAC

The Australian government has budgeted $2.5 billion to manage asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat, with detention centres expected to be the biggest expense.

But with Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan itching to get the budge “back in the black”, it’s possible that this spend on the running of Australia’s detention centres, estimated to be just over $1 billion, is unnecessary.

“There’s been billions of dollars wasted on all sorts of draconian measures to respond to asylum seekers,” CEO of the Refugee Council of Australia, Paul Power, says.

“Current estimates are somewhere around $800 million a year for the detention of 67,000 people, the vast majority of whom actually don’t need to be detained.”

In Europe and North America, where tens of thousands of refugees arrive unannounced on their shores each year, asylum seekers are held in detention for a minimal period in order to conduct health, identity and security checks, before they are released into the community.

“If the government was using mandatory detention as a short term measure they would actually find that the vast majority can live supporting themselves in the Australian community as temporary residents while their long terms status is resolved,” Mr Power says.

The median age of resettled refugees in Australia is between 19 and 24 years, which, according to Mr Power, means that they have the potential to “make decades of economic contribution to the country.”

Director of the Centre for Refugee Research at the University of New South Wales, Dr Eileen Pittaway, agrees that allowing refugees to participate in the community will be economically beneficial.

“Economic rationalisation would say, ‘get the refugees out into the community’,” Dr Pittaway says. “It’s crazy to have fortress Australia, or fortress Europe; we have a low growth rate and we need migrants.”

However, with asylum seekers on the receiving end of criticism over rioting on Christmas Island and burning down buildings at Villawood detention centre, it’s not surprising that the Australian government and the Australian community are not rallying behind a more relaxed asylum seekers policy.

“There’s been a lot of damage done to the causes of asylum seekers,” Mr Power says. “[The federal government’s] finding it very hard to come up with anything other than this extremely expensive and destructive policy of mandatory detention.”

But on 7 May 2011, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a deal with Malaysia that would ultimately see Australia send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia in exchange for 4,000 refugees to be resettled in Australia over a period of four years.

The budget has set aside $292 million for the agreement labelled the ‘Malaysia Solution’ by the media.

Ms Gillard deemed the policy a “groundbreaking new arrangement” that would form part of the Regional Cooperation Framework in the Asia-Pacific region to tackle people smuggling and irregular migration.

Mr Power, who was in talks with the federal government and the United Nations’ Refugee Agency UNHCR on this issue, as well as the need for more effective co-operation on refugee protection, was surprised by the announcement.

“To see that this very constructive approach of promoting dialogue and cooperation between governments was actually resulting in a pretty seedy deal really with Malaysia well before the preconditions for a reasonable agreement with Malaysia could possibly be in place, was a real disappointment,” Mr Power says.

“It really highlights how desperate, politically, the Australian government is to find some answer to asylum seekers coming by boat.”

According to Mr Power, this desperation is largely based on the perception that an unmanageable number of asylum seekers are arriving on Australian shores each year.

“We’ve managed to convince ourselves as a nation well pretty broadly anyway, that the whole world is plotting and planning to find all sorts of spurious means to enter the country,” he says.

Dr Pittaway says that European delegates at UN events laugh when she tells them that only a few thousand asylum seekers arrive in Australia by boat.

“A lot and people say to me, ‘your laws are so draconian you must be swamped with refugees’,” Dr Pittaway says, “And they laugh at us because they get 50,000, 60,000, and they deal with them better than we do with our 4,000.”

The Malaysia Solution has also raised concern from human rights groups and refugee advocates that by sending asylum seekers to Malaysia Australia could be in breach of it’s international legal obligations to protect refugees.

Malaysia is not a signatory to the United Nations’ Refugee Convention and it’s Optional Protocol, and has no formal process for granting asylum or registering refugees.

“We do know that the conditions in Malaysia are so bad that often people, if they’re put into detention, they’re brutalised in detention,” Dr Pittaway says. The Centre for Refugee Research has conducted extensive interviews with refugees who have come to Australia from Malaysia.

“We have many reports from women who have managed to get here of being raped in detention, men been beaten, being caned, and it’s endemic.”

“When we talk about sexual abuse were talking about little girls and up, were not talking about ‘the rapists wait until she’s 18 then they’ll rape her’.”

While the government has stated that asylum seekers will be treated in accordance with international human rights standards, it is unclear as to what this entails.

“The Prime Minister said they won’t receive special treatment then the Minister for Immigration said that they would be treated humanely,” Mr Power says. “The sad reality is if they are to be treated humanely they must receive special treatment because asylum seekers are not treated humanely as a matter of course in Malaysia at all.”

“The resettlement of 4000 refugees over the next several years [in Australia] is certainly the most positive aspect of an appallingly bad arrangement,” he says.

Many tenants feel disempowered and neglected by the public housing system. Image: Alex Singh

Today concludes a special investigation by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism on mental health and housing in western Sydney.

By Paul Farrell, Franziska Weigelt, Richard Barry, Jonas Lovschall-Wedel, Veronika Pitrová, Michael Davis, and Simona Suciu.

Public housing tenants are taking matters into their own hands – and a recent ruling by the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal (CTTT) could mean Housing NSW is legally liable if it ignores complaints about abusive, disruptive and dangerous tenants.

A Safe Place: Searching for Solutions

In previous stories we’ve documented the difficulties faced by public housing tenants with mental illness who need to move away from where they’re living because they’re being harassed or victimized by neighbours.

If they want to stay in public housing, the only option is a transfer.

But this can be a long and arduous process. Housing NSW runs a ‘Mutual Exchange Program’ for tenants who need to swap houses.

Peter, a long-time public housing tenant, has attempted swaps using the exchange program, but has given up long ago.

“I only got action when I did it independently of Housing NSW.  I’ve been in housing 14 years and I don’t recall one time when I’ve actually done a successful swap through Housing NSW,” he said.

Tenants like Peter told the ACIJ the NSW Housing exchange system has become so gridlocked that many are instead using a private swap site called ourhouseswap.com.au.

Ourhouseswap.com.au is run by Jackie Kennedy. She’s lived in public housing for many years, and set up the site to allow tenants to find suitable matches to suit their needs.

“There was the official channel through housing but you would fill in a form and it would just go into the black hole.  You were never contacted, nobody ever worked actively to try to find you somewhere better to live.”

Kennedy says her site has had over 17000 registrations for swaps since she started it 10 years ago, with over 500 successful swaps a year.

“Housing NSW really don’t care.  Transfers and mutual exchanges are really low on their list of priorities.  They really do not care about making the tenants lives better.  And that’s all it’s about”.

The ACIJ requested that Housing NSW supply the number of successful swaps facilitated by their own Mutual Exchange Program in a year.  The department did not supply the figures, but a spokesperson said:

“Housing NSW tenants can transfer out of one social housing dwelling into another location by applying for a transfer or registering with the Mutual Exchange Scheme. Providing a mutual exchange scheme frees up the workload of Housing NSW staff and allows them to concentrate on serving people who are yet to be housed.”

Quiet Enjoyment

Many of the vulnerable public housing tenants interviewed by the ACIJ for this series, and the workers and carers who support them, say Housing NSW ignores complaints about the disruptive or abusive tenants who make their lives hell.

But that could change.

Recently, Jackie Kennedy brought a successful legal action against NSW Housing for failing to act against bad tenants.

The action was heard in the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal for failing to protect her right to quiet enjoyment under the Residential Tenancies Act.

Despite a constant stream of complaints to NSW Housing, NSW Police, and government ministers dating from 2008, the Tribunal found NSW Housing failed to act on Ms Kennedy’s complaints.

“No action was taken to adequately deal with the protracted problems between the neighbours,” the Tribunal found.

“The landlord needed only to rely upon the tenants’ willingness to give evidence against [the tenant], to either issue a notice to termination or to seek a specific performance order.  Either action would most likely have avoided the subject claim.”

The ACIJ sought comment from Housing NSW regarding Kennedy’s case, but a spokesperson said: “Housing NSW doesn’t comment on legal matters, including issues arising in the CTTT.”

Kennedy said that after 3 years and over 40 complaints from her and her neighbours she finally decided to take action, and the tribunal forced Housing NSW to refund Kennedy part of her rent.

“When they don’t enforce those rules the tenants learn that they can get away with anything, and that’s what happened and that’s escalated into the problems that we had,” Kennedy said.

“The point was to make housing accountable for their own policies.  I wanted to make them live up to what they are supposed to do, and that’s be my landlord.  I’m not asking housing to do anything more than their job.  Their job is to look after the tenants.”

Kennedy’s experiences are not isolated incidents and may pave the way for similar claims.

Garry Mallard, from the Tenants Support Network, says more actions could be brought by housing tenants against NSW Housing if tenants provided sufficient documentation.  But he says one of the key reasons more actions aren’t brought is because tenants feel increasingly disempowered:

“When you have a clientele that is increasingly disaffected in some way from society, people who aren’t coping very well, whether they be age frail, mentally ill, physically ill in some way, all those things come together in one low socio-economic client group and those people are disempowered.  They don’t feel they can represent themselves adequately.”

Mallard was also critical of O’Farrell government’s decision to remove the position of Housing Minister.

“The cowardice of politicians is amazing. They are unwilling to address the issues appropriately  and decisively.”

There are, however, some success stories in public housing – where community groups and support services have worked together with mentally-ill tenants to create safe places for them to live.

The inner city model

Douglas Holmes, 61, has been living in public housing since 1979. For the last ten years he’s been living in government subsidised housing at South Coogee, ten minutes walk from the beach.

Douglas used to work for the NSW Consumer Advisory Board, a state-wide organisation that provides ongoing opportunity for mental health consumers to participate in policy and service development, implementation and evaluation.

Douglas now works as a case manager at Northcott estate, in inner-city Surry Hills. He’s based out of St Vincent’s Hospital, and when dealing with mentally ill people in the community, he tells them that he is a member of the BAD club, an acronym for Bi-polar Affective Disorder.

Douglas proudly says that he has not relapsed in ten years.

On average, bi-polar affective disorder takes 11.8 years to correctly diagnose. 15% of sufferers commit suicide. This has only heightened Douglas’ passion to help the community.

Douglas explains that as part of a concerted effort in community development they have arranged workshops at Northcott estate to involve tenants. Northcott estate comprises four large towers that house some 900 people. Prior to various community supports coming into effect in 2005, the environment was regarded as unsafe and feared by some of the tenants.

Since then, bright lights have been installed in dark areas, fences have been erected to create a sense of security, and CCTV surveillance has been implemented.

An ‘Issues’ workshop was inaugurated to shed light on any particular issues concerning the residents – the main one being a desire for increased support- while the last Tuesday of every month is now host to a Mental Health Recovery group.

Douglas believes that the model of community development that began and flourished in Northcott estate is transferable to the housing system in Western Sydney.

“We keep telling them if they actually put some bodies on the ground they can replicate what we’re doing here,” he says.

Douglas illustrates the changes that inner city housing has undergone through one of his current cases: a man who lives in a unit on the sixth floor of the estate who’s become mentally ill. He suffers from agoraphobia and fears ascending the storeys to his apartment in the lift.

“Previously, his rent would have stopped being paid and he would have been evicted,” Douglas says.

Behaviours like this are now questioned prior to action, as case managers are allocated to individual cases, and neighbours are made aware of affected people’s conditions. In the past such tenants would have simply been “tossed out”, but now “there’s a lot more social supports around”, says Douglas.

As part of a new advanced mental health project which commenced in June, entitled the Cadre Project, residents, workers and interested parties alike can undertake a mental health first aid course, which ultimately empowers them to know what to look for “if people start to travel a bit rough”.

In 2005 the World Health Organisation awarded ‘Safe Community’ accreditation to the Northcott public housing estate as a result of its tremendous progress. Despite this, the estate still experiences some adversity.

“We still get suicides off the [13-storey] building. Some of those are what we call death by misadventure,” says Douglas. He tells the ACIJ that it is suspected certain people have been thrown off the building by drug dealers to whom they owe money, although those in the know are reluctant to come forward, “due to the nature of the people involved”, and authorities cannot act on hearsay.

Meanwhile, a partnership between Housing NSW, Landcom and a Christian charity in the heart of Sydney’s West suggest there are successful models which can work for vulnerable tenants – but at present they are the exception rather than  the rule.

Affordable houses for underprivileged families

25-year-old mother of two Bethany Gordon is a lifelong public housing tenant. More recently, however, she has found an enterprising alternative established to deliver decent, simple and affordable houses to low-income families.

Habitat for Humanity is a charity organisation whose donations of land, finance and labour are mainly used for the provision of houses in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia.

Habitat’s project in collaboration with the NSW Government in Bidwill caters for underprivileged families willing to purchase their own homes.

“The family is not given the house; they have to buy it from us. How it is supportable is that we don’t charge interest,” explained James Allardice, executive director of Habitat For Humanity (HFH) NSW.

Land for the project was secured from Housing NSW but public housing tenants are selected on the basis of independent (non-government related) criteria.The pre-selection process commenced with attendance at a public meeting.

“We told people what our program is about, what the responsibility of Habitat is to the chosen family and what the responsibility of the partner family is to Habitat. It required an extensive process to let people know exactly what they are getting into, thus we wanted to ensure that people had actually heard the story and heard it correctly. So we weren’t accepting applications from anybody who was not at that meeting.”

A basic criterion requires that the applicant be living in “housing stress” at the time of application.

“Housing stress” may be defined as a house inappropriate for tenants’ needs, a building in deterioration, or where 40 per cent or more of household income is spent on mortgages or rent. A $500 deposit and further means testing of applicants is required in order for them to be eligible buyers.

Seventy applications were submitted to the HFH NSW office following two public meetings in 2007. At present, nine houses have been offered in Bidwill and another three are currently under construction. Another requirement is a commitment to 500 hours of “sweat equity” to the building of the house by the applicant or another person in their network.

Public housing tenants interviewed for this series who are living in “housing stress” can only hope the Habitat for Humanity experiment in Bidwill is replicated elsewhere. But many of them cannot afford the repayments on a mortgage, even when it’s interest free.

Making it possible for them to live with safety and dignity will require a massive shift in attitude on the part of Housing NSW, and the other government agencies that are ultimately responsible for their care. It will also require bold and determined action from the new Minister for Mental Health, Kevin Humphries  – and the Mental Health Commissioner he’ll appoint in 2012.

Paul Farrell, Franziska Weigelt, Richard Barry, Jonas Lovschall-Wedel, Veronika Pitrová, Michael Davis, and Simona Suciu are reporters with the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism.

Paul Farrell, Richard Barry, Jonas Lovschall-Wedel, and Mike Davis are enrolled in the Journalism program at UTS.

Franziska Weigelt, Veronika Pitrová and Simona Suciu spent a semester at UTS on the Erasmus Mundus exchange program.

Sub-editing by Dan Kaufman. Coordinating editor: Tom Morton

This special investigation is published in collaboration with Crikey