This week’s show partially continues in the vein of trying to show they care about things besides abortion, stem cell research and gay rights.

Asylum Seekers Being Charged for Their Stay on Christmas Island

Like me and I dare say most other Australians the ACL had no idea that our government was charging people $120 a day to stay in detention camps while they are being processed and had been doing so for 17 years when Keating was Prime Minister. Like me and I dare say most other Australians they were shocked to hear about it especially since it can leave people with debts of up to $45,000 – debts most people simply couldn’t afford to pay. 97% of all debts were not paid and it was costing fortune to get the remaining 3%.

They quote Petro Georgiou when he said “we don’t change drug deals, paedophiles or the most sadistic of murderers for their time in gaol and make them pay for that out of their own pocket, so why are we imposing this draconian regime on asylum seekers?” They point out how and unjustified and punitive this is.

They try to walk a fine line by keeping their Liberal supporters on side by saying we do need strong boarder protection but we need to be compassionate to people in detention.

Then we get the Right Wing bullshit that presumes that if you are seeking asylum you have to be poor, if you arrive on a plane in Indonesia you can’t possibly be fleeing your country in fear of your life, noooooo you’re too rich. It just shows where these guys belong politically – however non-partisan they pretend to be.

No action.

Fallout from the Auscar Affair

Like they say, pretty much all of the time Parliament sat last week was devoted to this stupid issue and serious debates on climate change were postponed until the spring session because Malcolm Turnbull didn’t check his sources. They try to say everyone looked bad at the end of it, again showing themselves to be true blue Libs since there was universal agreement in the press, even amongst those commentators who are ardently pro-Liberal that Turnbull stuffed up big time.

No action.

New Homelessness Enquiry

The Federal Government commissioned a White Paper on homelessness in Australia last year. As a result of this, the relevant standing committee of the House of Reps has set up an enquiry that is seeking input on new homelessness legislation and supported accommodation. Submissions are due by 14^th August.

No action.

British Judge Calls for Action to Stop Family Breakdowns

A Judge in England has called for a national commission to tackle family breakdowns and a stigma to be attached to the break-up of relationships and they tie this in with claims by a British sociologist they had at their annual conference last year who said basically strong families equals happy, wealthy communities and weak ones equal poor, unhappy communities. This of course is an extremely Right Wing analysis because it then shifts the emphasis from where should be – on what action the state can take to fix the problem and privatises social ills in an extremely simplistic manner (‘get your marriage sorted out and all will be well’). Then we get the saccharine closing comment that ‘of course we’re not judging people whose relationships have broken down’…perish the thought!

No action.

Equality Bill in Britain

I knew it couldn’t last, they had to revert to form sooner of later. A new Bill in England proposes to comprehensively ban discrimination. They claim the Bill could ban the display of crucifixes and religious symbols in hospitals, given their previous lies about tobacco advertising in Canada I find myself rather sceptical about this claim. The Bill also would remove the exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation for faith schools. Faith schools can no longer discriminate against gay and lesbian Britons (which makes sense, not just on its merits but also when you consider that fully 1/3 of schools in Britain are faith schools thanks to the policies of Tony Blair) the Bill seeks to widen it so that they can’t discriminate on the basis of faith. Naturally they have a bit of whinge about this.

No action.

They close by telling us they’ve got 14,000 signatures against a Charter of Rights, it seems to be petering out.