Published 3 September 20123 September 2012 · Politics Welcome to Australia Jeff Sparrow Here’s how the Australian government addresses you if you’re rich and have time on your hands. Here’s how it addresses you if you’re poor and desperate. It gets worse. The clip below, from the same series, directly addresses Tamils, warning them that Australia has decided that their situation has improved and they’re not likely to receive asylum. Here’s what Amnesty International says on that subject: Amnesty International has warned that Sri Lanka remains a region of great insecurity and danger for many people and that there are no grounds for a blanket suspension on claims for asylum by people fleeing persecution in that country. Amnesty International is calling on the Australian Government to return to the usual process of assessing each claim for asylum on its merits, as thousands of people continue to face a real risk of persecution and abuse in Sri Lanka. […] More than 10,000 people, detained for suspected links to the LTTE, remain in detention without charge. As recently as 24 May hundreds of people demonstrated in Vavuniya, demanding that the Sri Lankan government make public the names of detained people and do more to help families trace missing relatives, many of whom, their families claim, were either arrested or abducted. Amnesty International continues to receive reports that LTTE suspects are being held in secret places of detention and tortured in those facilities. Killings in custody are also alleged. The police and the military have retained their extraordinary powers to arrest and detain individuals for lengthy periods without trial. Torture in detention remains common and enforced disappearances continue to be reported. If you thought that the asylum debate couldn’t sink any lower, think again. There’s no depths that won’t be plumbed. Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor, broadcaster and Walkley award-winning journalist. He is a former columnist for Guardian Australia, a former Breakfaster at radio station 3RRR, and a past editor of Overland. His most recent book is a collaboration with Sam Wallman called Twelve Rules for Strife (Scribe). He works at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne. More by Jeff Sparrow › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 1 April 20262 April 2026 · Politics United in grief, divided in strategy: the limits of Australian Muslim political engagement Sara Cheikh Husain The invitation by the Lebanese Muslim Association, and the intense criticism it received, reveal that, despite a shared sense of collective grief, the Australian Muslim community currently lacks a unified strategy for interacting with a political system that continues to marginalises it. 16 February 202616 February 2026 · Health On the misuse of Cultural Safety Ruth De Souza Since its original formulation and application in the health sector in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1980s, Cultural Safety has been subject to wide reinterpretation. Its entry into institutional life more broadly has seen it turned it into a concept that allows it to be appropriated by the very powers that dominate the culture wars.
