Australian company Wilson Security recently announced it would withdraw from working in Australia’s offshore detention facilities from October 2017. It’s one, small positive step in the collapse of Australia’s privatised immigration network. I was recently interviewed about this development and privatised detention on ABC Radio’s 702 Sydney with host Wendy Harmer:
Showing all posts tagged Australia
Torturing asylum seekers in secrecy and proud of it
My column in the Guardian: The recently released… Nauru files… reveal an inventory of horrors unleashed by Australia on brown and black bodies away from public or media scrutiny. These people now have a voice, albeit in often… banal… descriptions of sexual abuse, rape, violence and psychological breakdown. After more than two decades of brutalising asylum seekers on the…
Australia's 6PR Radio on refugees and calling Gaza "occupied"
I was interviewed today by journalist Tony Serve from Perth, Australia for 6PR Radio about asylum seekers and Australia’s public broadcaster refusing to call Gaza occupied (which it is):
Disaster Capitalism book receives thorough examination
My book, Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe, was released in 2015 (and it’s out in paperback in January 2017). It received many reviews and the latest is by Dr Jason Von Meding, an academic in Australia: The US Presidential Election is in full swing. Over the next few months, Donald Trump and…
Why I was asked to join Australians for War Powers Reform
Before the 2003 Iraq war, I feared the seemingly inevitable conflict would be a disaster. Based in Sydney at the time, I watched as the general public massively opposed the impending invasion while most politicians and many in the media celebrated the prospect of “shock and awe”. The last 15 years have seen untold bloodshed…
Oppose Israeli occupation, face Zionist lobby tears
Australian Zionist lobby group AIJAC have been attacking me for over a decade for daring to challenge the Israeli occupation of Palestine and questioning their blind and obedient support for Israeli violence. Years ago they consistently tried to bully editors and publishers against publishing my work. It was a spectacular failure. The pro-occupation organisation is…
Remembering Australian Greens MP John Kaye
A man who died too young. John Kaye was a New South Wales Greens MP and friend. I was asked to comment about him by Wendy Bacon in online magazine New Matilda: “John was a friend, a trusted, funny, witty and principled man who also happened to be a politician. It’s hard to find that…
How occupation truths about Palestine often hidden by politicians and reporters
My column in the Guardian: New South Wales Premier Mike Baird… recently visited Israel… and Palestine, the first for a sitting leader of the Australian state. After travelling to the occupied West Bank and seeing the Aida refugee camp, Baird… wrote on Facebook… that the situation was “heartbreaking.” He continued: “I don’t know where the cycle of thousands of…
The risk and financial cost of speaking honestly about Israel/Palestine
Crikey is one of Australia’s best independent news websites. I… contributed extensively over the years from 2009 – 2012. Its current departing editor, Marni Cordell, with whom I worked when she edited another great Australian site, New Matilda, has written a revealing article that interviews previous Crikey editors and their experiences. It contains this anecdote that…
Disaster Capitalism film asks key questions about aid and politics
The following article appears today in the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age and is written by Garry Maddox. The headline is, “Australia’s foreign aid is largely wasted because of corruption, says documentary maker Antony Loewenstein”: Australian feature films have largely avoided hot political subjects… lately –… though that may… change with Matthew Saville’s planned film on the…