The treatment of our mentally ill and abused/neglected children could
be a lot better than it is. In the case of the mentally ill, the
problem has been the move over the past few years to get them out of
institutions (not a bad idea in itself), which in reality became a
cost-cutting exercise, and means in effect there are fewer and fewer
resources for those with mental illness and they are abandoned to
their families (for those who are lucky) and the resources of the
homless (for those who are not). Unless of course they have private
health insurance - which as you can imagine, a large number don't.
(In which you see the "privatising" of these once public services).

The funding of these services has, as Randolph points out, very
little to do with the funding of our treatment of asylum seekers and
refugees; unless you point to a philosophy in common, which manifests
in attitudes towards the vulnerable in our society which border on
the punitive.

The "detention centre" is a euphemism for "prison": they are run by a
private "correctional" company which also runs prisons in the US.
Except in the case of the extremely mentally ill, we don't
involuntarily imprison them; we only imprison juvenile offenders.
Our treatment of asylum seekers is _a lot_ worse: they are imprisoned
across the board. All of them: men, women, children, legitimate and
illegitimate. No other country does this.

It is very expensive and very cruel.

I think also Josephine that you are confusing "migrants" with "asylum
seekers" and "refugees". They are, officially speaking, very
different categories. "Asylum seekers" are people who arrive in
desperate circumstances through unofficial channels seeking refugee
status in a foreign country. "Refugees" are those asylum seekers who
are officially recognised under the UNHCR as those unable to return
home because they are endangered in their own country. A very large
proportion of Australian asylum seekers - like those who arrived on
the Tampa - are recognised as genuine refugees. The Federal
Government has for many years been making the definition of "refugee"
tighter and tighter, in order to be able to refuse them visas. It is
one of the policies heavily criticised by the UN.

"Migrants" are people who voluntarily leave their own country for
another. Not because they are forced to for reasons of famine, war,
or persecution. I am a migrant.

Alison




At 6:58 PM +0000 23/1/2002, Randolph Healy wrote:
>Josephine> > No worse than the way we treat our own mentally ill or
>> > children in protective custody - I just see here another
>> > opportunity cost, we could be remedying that instead.
>
>me
>> There are surely other sources of funding for the mentally ill or children
>> in protective custody.
>> The state, having placed these people in detention centres now have a duty
>> of care towards them. This is obviously true in the case of the minors,
>but
>> no less so in the case of the adults. No amount of blame levelled at the
>> asylum seekers can remove that duty. And it is clearly not being
>discharged.
>> Not by a long chalk.
> >

--


Alison Croggon

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