Gregory Clark, Woodend
One meaning of ‘a fair go’ is that it can be used to ask for leniency for some trivial infraction. Isn’t it time after five years of detention that our asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus be given a fair go?
Their ‘crime’ was the temerity to jump a ‘fence’ to save their lives. Yet even after five years, they are still in detention. Children have been born and bought up in detention, men, women and children have been denied proper medical treatment, some have died and most, if not all, suffer psychological torture. All this documented by experts. In the last week alone, our government argued in court that a child self-harming and in a very serious mental state did not need expert medical treatment. Fortunately, our courts have given these detainees ‘a fair go’. Yet Minister Dutton, a former policeman, denies the medical treatment demanded by experts is not needed. Furthermore, the silence from our PM is deafening, even when the courts, time and time again, over-rule the Minister’s medical pronouncements against experts. Just how much longer will our government continue this inhuman farce? Bring them here!
