My weekly Guardian column is published today (here’s my archive): Blind compassion is killing the asylum seeker debate. While Tony Abbott entangles his new government in megaphone diplomacy with Indonesia,upsetting our biggest neighbour… in the process,… refugees… are struggling to survive closer to home. Vast swaths of the Australian public remain hostile towards asylum seekers, and the advocacy…
Showing all posts tagged Australia
3AW Melbourne radio interview on Profits of Doom
3AW is one of Melbourne’s biggest radio stations. I was interviewed by… Alan-Pearsall last weekend on his overnight program about my new book, Profits of Doom, and we mostly discussed privatised detention centres for refugees and war contracting in Afghanistan:
Australian Attorney General in scandal buying/reading radical literature!
Well, that’s one way to see. This supposedly exclusive story in today’s Murdoch Australian outlines the reading habits of Australia’s new Attorney General. And yes, in his collection is the book I co-edited last year with Jeff Sparrow, Left Turn. I dearly hope George Brandis is taking the ideas in there to heart, including backing…
Stanton Library in North Sydney about Profits of Doom
I’m currently on a seemingly never-ending book tour for Profits of Doom and this week I spoke at a packed event at Stanton Library in North Sydney (the audio is here for 24 September). It was a great opportunity to engage with people, many of whom were over 60, on issues that too rarely receive…
The Wire interview on Profits of Doom and poor Serco care
A theme in my book Profits of Doom is the role of multinationals in running Australia’s detention centres for asylum seekers. I was interviewed by The Wire… radio program on these matters:
Eagles Waves Radio interview on For God's Sake
Issues of religious and cultural identity are endlessly discussed in society. My recent book, For God’s Sake, touches on these issues (as does my… Guardian column this week). I recently appeared on Eagle Waves Radio – a small outlet in the heart of Sydney – alongside my co-writers Jane Caro and Simon Smart. We were interviewed…
ABC Radio Triple J's Sunday Night Safran interview on Profits of Doom
This was enjoyable. On Sunday an extended interview with John Safran and Father Bob, hosts of Triple J’s Sunday Night Safran, was aired and we discussed detention centres, Serco, Palestine, Haiti, Afghanistan, private war, BDS, democracy and human rights:
How I became a German citizen (while maintaining the Australian passport)
My following article is published today by the Guardian (where I’m now a weekly columnist): It was hard to forgive the Nazis. The “1,000 year Reich” lasted a mere 12 years, and the German state was crushed under the weight of bloody streets, genocidal concentration camps and despotism. For this to happen in the heart…
ABCTV News 24's The Drum on asylum seekers and Indonesia
I appeared last Friday on ABCTV News 24’s The Drum (video here) talking principally about the reality of asylum seekers and why Australia’s policy towards them is based on cruelty and not compassion. In summary, I’ve long argued that Australia, as a rich nation, is making a choice to punish refugees in remote detention camps…
America happy to share raw intel with fellow occupier Israel
A killer story (and yet more evidence that the revelations from Edward Snowden are undeniably in the public interest). This is by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill in The Guardian: The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data withIsrael… without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens,… a top-secret document provided to…