Australian Coalition Government & Labor Opposition Trash Human Rights,
Child Rights, Free Speech & Medical Ethics
By Dr Gideon Polya
Contercurrents.org
Australia has invaded 85 countries, with 30 such invasions associated with genocidal atrocities, and has an appalling record of child abuse both at home and abroad, with as many as 25% of Australians suffering sexual abuse as children. Now on top of draconian anti-terrorism laws grossly violating human rights, Australian doctors, nurses, teachers and care-givers face 2 years in prison for reporting ongoing physical, psychological and sexual abuse of children and other inmates of Australian refugee concentration camps.
The evil perversion of child sexual abuse is endemic in
Notwithstanding enormous Government and Mainstream media claims of horrendous Indigenous child sexual abuse (claims that led to a racist military Intervention in Australian Northern Territory Indigenous communities), the subsequent “Little Children are Sacred” Report (p57; [2]) stated that “As noted previously, it is not possible to accurately estimate the extent of child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory's Aboriginal communities (see The Extent of Child Sexual Abuse, Part II). However, the Inquiry has found clear evidence that child sexual abuse is a significant problem across the Territory”. However in contrast to its inability to accurately quantitate the extent of child abuse in Indigenous communities, the “Little Children are Sacred” Report (pp234-236; [2] ) refers to studies in America indicating that 25% of females and 10% of males experience childhood sexual abuse [3] and in Australia indicating that 34% of females and 16% of males today experienced child sexual abuse [4]. The Australian Institute of Criminology determined that in
Of course
One can conclude that 15-25% of adult Australians have been sexually abused as children, this corresponding to 2.6-4.4 million Australians having been thus abused (as determined from UN Population Division demographic data) [8]. 6.65 per 1,000 Australians die each year and accordingly, if we ignore child mortality (very low in rich countries like Australia) and apply this figure to adult Australians, then 117,050 adult Australians die each year and of these 15-25% (18,000-29,000 or an average of about 24,000) die prematurely each year linked to child sexual abuse.
These 24,000 annual premature deaths of Australians who have suffered child sexual abuse constitute a complex part of an overall tragedy in which circa 83,000 Australians die preventably each year, the updated 2015 breakdown being as follows [9, 10, 11]:
(1). 26,000 annual Australian deaths from adverse hospital events.
(2). 17,000 obesity-related Australian deaths annually.
(3). 15,500 smoking-related Australian deaths annually.
(4). 10,000 carbon burning pollution-derived Australian deaths annually.
(5). 5,600 Australians die alcohol-related deaths annually.
(6). 4,000 avoidable Indigenous Australian deaths annually.
(7). 2,100 Australian suicides annually.
(8). 1,400 Australian road deaths annually.
(9) 1,400 drug-related deaths annually (this including 630 Australian opiate drug-related deaths annually with 570 annually linked to US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry).
(10). 300 Australian homicides annually, of which about 100 are domestic homicides and about 75 are women victims (noting that 0.5 million Australian women suffered domestic violence in 2005).
Note that the 24,000 annual premature deaths of Australians who have suffered child sexual abuse, and indeed the 4,000 annual avoidable deaths of Indigenous Australians, variously overlap with the preventable deaths in the 10 categories listed above.
A substantial body of Australians are jingoistic, very poorly educated and grossly misinformed by US-owned or otherwise Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-perverted and subverted Mainstream media.
Thus US-owned Murdoch media (that have about 70% of Australian readership of city newspapers) and other US-beholden Mainstream media have an appalling record of misinforming the public on all kinds of Elephant in the Room matters from war to Humanity-threatening climate change, and of genocide-ignoring non-reportage of mass mortality in which Australia has been complicit e.g. Australia's invasion of 85 countries (as compared to the UK 193, France 80, the US 70 and Apartheid Israel 12) [12], 9 million Iraqi deaths from 100 years of Western violence and violently imposed deprivation [13], 6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death by the British with Australian complicity in the WW2 Bengali Holocaust [14, 15] , 6 million Afghan deaths from Western violence and violently imposed deprivation since 2001 [16], 12 million Muslim deaths from Western violence and violently imposed deprivation in the post-1990 US War on Muslims, 10 million Muslim deaths from Western violence and violently imposed deprivation in the post-9/11- US War on Terror [17], and 7 million annual global deaths from air pollution [18], noting that Australia is a world leader in annual per capita greenhouse (GHG) gas pollution and climate change inaction, disproportionately contributing to a worsening climate genocide in which an estimated 10 billion people will perish this century unless requisite climate change action is taken [19, 20].
Although zero (0) Australians have ever been killed in Australia by a terrorist belonging to a Muslim-origin non-state terrorist organization [9], Mainstream media-brainwashed Australians overwhelmingly (circa 70%) regard Middle Eastern terrorism as the major threat to their distant island continent Australia that is “girt by sea” (as expressed in the national anthem). Thus in 2015 the Lowy Institute reported the results of polling revealing that “Fewer than one in four (24%) Australian adults say they feel very safe. This is the lowest recorded result in our eleven-year polling history. Of eight potential risks to
The Coalition Government with craven Labor Opposition support has passed draconian anti- terrorism laws over the last decade that egregiously invade Australian privacy , civil rights and human rights. There are some limits to public acceptance of this Orwellian terror hysteria. Thus, while 1-2 Australian women are murdered every week by an intimate partner (see above) as compared to zero (0) Australians having ever been killed in Australia by a terrorist belonging to a Muslim-origin non-state terrorist organization, polling in 2015 has shown that 74% of those Australians polled regarded domestic violence as more of a threat (48%) or about the same as a threat (26%) than terrorism [22].
The biggest child abusers in
(1). 3 million under-5 year old infant deaths in Occupied Afghanistan since 2001, 90% avoidable and due to gross violation of the Geneva Convention by the US Alliance, including
(2). 2.0 million under-5 year old infant deaths in
(3). The Australian Government supports US nuclear terrorism and US state terrorism but is an enthusiastic part of Zionist-urged Sanctions against nuclear weapons-free and peaceful Iran that can be estimated to kill 100,000 Iranians each year, about half of whom are children [8, 24].
(4). In pro-Zionist Lib-Lab (Coalition or Labor Right)
(5). In the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide about 4,000 Indigenous Australians die avoidably every year, noting that about half of Indigenous Australians are children. The Aboriginal under-5 infant mortality rate is about 3 times greater than that of White Australians [10].
(6). Lib-Lab Australian Governments support an Educational Apartheid system that disproportionately excludes the majority of Australian children from decent education, university, top universities and top courses. In contrast, this Educational Apartheid lavishes taxpayer funding on private religious schools as well as religious chaplaincy for State schools – they are accordingly complicit in massive intellectual child abuse applied to millions of Australian children who are variously falsely and obscenely brainwashed with superstitious claptrap, creationism, intelligent design, homophobia, sexism, sexual guilt, unsafe sex, racism, ultra-nationalism and support for the invasion, occupation and ethnic cleansing of other countries [26, 27].
(7). The pro-war, pro-Zionist, US lackey Australian Labor Government is committed to the US War on Terror and the consequent accrual cost to Australia of this dishonest, racist obscenity has been estimated at $125 billion (by way of comparison, the national GDP is about $1.6 trillion). This huge fiscal perversion inescapably contributes to the deaths of the 83,000 Australians who die preventably each year [9] and a miserable life for millions of Australian children, 15% or about 700,000 of whom live below the poverty line
(8). While being complicit in the generation of over 30 million Muslim refugees by the racist Zionists and the endlessly war-making, Zionist-beholden US Alliance, Australia has drawn the ire of the UN Human Rights Commission for highly abusive, indefinite and punitive imprisonment of thousands of child refugees and adult refugees in remote concentration camps without charge or trial.
It gets worse. The Rudd Labor Government in 2013 largely stopped the flow of refugees in boats by determining that any such arrivals would be sent to concentration camps on Nauru or on Manus Island (Papua New Guinea) and forbidden to ever be re-settled in Australia. The subsequent Abbott Coalition Government added to this policy with a highly secret program of illegally turning refugee boats around in contravention of the Refugee Convention and sending boats back to
Outrage over the highly-abusive imprisonment of children has resulted in refugee child imprisonment falling from about 2,000 in 2013 to about 220 in 2015. Child refugees arriving by boat are not sent to the
However courageous and ethical medical, paramedical, teaching and social work staff from Australia's on-shore and off-shore refugee concentration camps have reported horrendous physical, psychological and sexual abuse of children in these “detention centres”. The Australian Human Rights Commission, headed by eminent lawyer Professor Gillian Triggs, investigated these abuses and issued a Report in 2014. In her forward to the Report, Professor Triggs stated: “
The Coalition Government responded by smearing Professor Triggs and demanding her resignation but this marvellous humanitarian has stuck to her guns in a dignified, articulate and non-partisan way. Further, the Australian Immigration Department ordered 10 members of Save The Children to leave
Not to be undone, the Coalition Government , with the support of the cowardly and craven Labor Opposition, has now passed a Border Force Act that makes it a criminal offence punishable by 2 years' imprisonment for detention centre staff – e.g. doctors, nurses, social workers and teachers – to report abuses. Decent Australians have been outraged by this legislation, noting that in
The Australian Medical Association (AMA), the Australian Medical Students' Association and the Australian Education Union have all attacked this violation of the right and duty of health professionals, teachers and care-givers to report abuse and in particular abuse of children [31]. An open letter from 40 former medical and non-medical off-shore detention centre staff stated: “Today the Border Force Act comes into force. It includes provision for a two-year jail sentence for “entrusted persons” such as ourselves if we continue to speak out about the deplorable state of human rights in immigration detention without the express permission of the minister for immigration and border protection. This strengthens the wall of secrecy which prevents proper public scrutiny. We have advocated, and will continue to advocate, for the health of those for whom we have a duty of care, despite the threats of imprisonment, because standing by and watching sub-standard and harmful care, child abuse and gross violations of human rights is not ethically justifiable. If we witness child abuse in
Conclusions.
Notwithstanding zero (0) Australian deaths ever in Australia from Muslim-origin non-state terrorist organizations, supported by US-inspired “terror hysteria” the extreme right wing Australian Coalition Government with the support of the right wing Labor Opposition has war criminally re-invaded Iraq and passed draconian anti-terrorism legislation that makes Australia a secret police state with detention without charge or trial, Australian Intelligence officers (e.g. of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization, ASIO) having criminal and civil immunity from prosecution, and reportage on any special intelligence operations criminalized with maximum punishments ranging from 5 years' to 10 years' imprisonment. All computer metadata (who is contacted but not what is communicated) is now compulsorily retained for the Government with court orders then permitting follow-up to determine what was communicated. Anti-terrorism laws now threaten Australians with custodial punishment ranging up to life imprisonment for seeing, reading, writing, saying, supporting or communicating all kinds of things the neo-fascist Government doesn't like. Citizens can be arbitrarily arrested by the Australian secret police and there is a 5 years' imprisonment punishment for refusing to answer questions or for anyone reporting such arrest. New bipartisan legislation will be passed later this year to strip citizenship off dual citizenship people the Government doesn't like [33, 34, 35].
And now this Orwellian, Kafkaesque authoritarianism has spread to criminalizing the fundamental ethical obligation of doctors and other health professionals to report endangerment and abuse of their patients. The International Business Times reports (2105): “According to the report, titled “The Forgotten Children,” the government-funded commission found that in the 15-month period between January 2013 and March 2014, nearly 300 of the over 1,100 children being held in onshore and offshore detention centers had committed or threatened to commit self-harm, and nearly 30 children were sexually assaulted. The children involved in self-harm were between 12 to 17 years old” [36]. However Australian doctors, nurses, social workers, teachers ands other care-givers who report such abuse in Australian concentration camps face 2 years in prison. Indeed one is reminded of Samuel Butler's novel “Erewhon” (roughly “nowhere” spelled backwards) in which social support is lavished on dangerous sociopaths while the sick are scorned as outcasts.
Successive US lackey Australian Coalition Governments and the US Alliance have been variously unwittingly complicit in the generation of the barbarous ISIS in the
Free speech is fundamental to rational risk management, that is crucial for societal safety and successively involves (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis, this involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses, and (c) informed systemic change to minimize risk. Unfortunately, this rational risk management protocol is typically perverted at the individual, family or local level, at the level of the family of nations and most blatantly by the pro war, war criminal, pro-fossil fuels, climate criminal, human rights-abusing and child-abusing Australian Lib-Labs (Coalition and Labor Right) by (a) lying, self-deception, spin, obfuscation, intimidation and censorship, (b) anti-science spin, this involving the selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position, and (c) blame and shame that is counterproductive because it blocks reportage crucial for rational risk management and in the worst cases leads to war [39].
The Australian Lib-Labs are still committing war crimes abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan and through the key role of Australia's Pine Gap spying facility in targetting illegal and war criminal US drone strikes in Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan [12], the post-1990 US War on Muslims being now associated with 12 million Muslim deaths (half of them children) from violence or violently -imposed deprivation. At home, Lib-Lab inaction makes them complicit in 83,000 preventable Australian deaths each year (inescapably linked to the fiscal perversion of Lib-Lab commitment to an annual long-term accrual cost to Australia of $11 billion per year of the US War on Terror) and to an ongoing child sexual abuse epidemic that is associated with 24,000 deaths annually of traumatized and socially disabled people.
What can decent people do about the Lib-Lab (Coalition and Labor Right) criminality, human rights abuse and child abuse? Just as health, teaching and other care-giving professionals are obliged legally and by professional ethics to report child abuse, decent people everywhere must inform everyone they can and urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Lib-Lab Australians complicit in horrendous child abuse and in criminalization of its reportage. Decent Australians will utterly reject the anti-science, pro-war, child-abusing Lib-Labs, vote 1 Green and put the Coalition last.
References.
[1]. Jane Lee, “Child abuse victims lead “shorter lives” than other children, royal commission hears”, The Age, 25 May 2015: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/child-abuse-victims-live-shorter-lives-than-other-children-royal-commission-hears-20150525-gh8y1d.html .
[2].“Little Children are Sacred”, 2007: http://www.inquirysaac.nt.gov.au/pdf/bipacsa_final_report.pdf .
[3]. Finkelhor, D. (1994), Current information on the scope and nature of child sexual abuse”, Future of Children, 4(2), pp31-53).
[4]. Dunne, M.P., Purdie, D.M., Cook, M.D., Boyle, F.M. & Najman, J.M.(2003), Is child sexual abuse declining? Evidence from a population-based survey of men and women in
[5]. Australian Institute of Criminology (1993). Second Conference on Violence (June 1993).
[6]. Brave Hearts, “Child sexual assault: facts and statistics”: https://www.bravehearts.org.au/files/Facts%20and%20Stats_updated141212.pdf
[7]. David Finkelhor, “The international epidemiology of child sexual abuse”, Child Abuse & Neglect, Volume 18, Issue 5, May 1994, Pages 409–417: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0145213494900264 .
[8]. UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/wpp/unpp/panel_indicators.htm .
[9]. Gideon Polya, “Australian State Terrorism - Zero Australian Terrorism Deaths, 1 Million Preventable Australian Deaths & 10 Million Muslims Killed By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 23 September, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya230914.htm .
[10]. “Aboriginal Genocide”; https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/ .
[11]. International Overdose Awareness Day, “Overdose: worse than road toll”, 2013: http://www.overdoseday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Factsheet-Greater-than-the-Road-Toll-KE-FINAL-15-August-2013.pdf .
[12]. Gideon Polya, “As UK lackeys or US lackeys Australians have invaded 85 countries (British 193, French 80, US 70)”, Countercurrents, 9 February, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya090215.htm .
[13]. Gideon Polya
[14]. “Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Bengal Famine) writings of Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/bengali-holocaust
[15]. Gideon Polya (2008), “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2008 edition that is now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ .
[16]. “Afghan Holocaust Afghan Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/
[17]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .
[18]. WHO, “7 million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution”, 25 March 2014: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/
[19]. “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
[20]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “The Cambridge History Of Australia” Ignores Australian Involvement In 30 Genocides”, Countercurrents, 14 October, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya141013.htm .
[21]. Lowy Institute Poll 2015: http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/lowy-institute-poll-2015 .
[22 ]. Matthew Knott, “Domestic violence a bigger threat than terrorism, poll shows”, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July 2015: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/domestic-violence-a-bigger-threat-than-terrorism-poll-shows-20150705-gi5fat.html .
[23]. Gideon Polya, "Horrendous Australian child sexual abuse. Mainstream media ignore 4.4 million victims", MWC News, 15 November 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/22859-gideonpolya-sexual-abuse.html .
[24]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes a history of every country from Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ .
[25]. "Palestinian Genocide": https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .
[26]. "Educational Apartheid": https://sites.google.com/site/educationalapartheid/ .
[27]. Gideon Polya, “37 Ways Of Tackling Australian Educational Apartheid And Social Inequity”, Countercurrents, 22 May, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya220513.htm .
[28]. Australian Human Rights Commission, “The Forgotten Children. National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention”, 2014: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/document/publication/forgotten_children_2014.pdf .
[29]. Australian Human Rights Commission, “The Forgotten Children. National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention”, 2014: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/publications/forgotten-children-national-inquiry-children .
[30]. Stephanie Small, “Moss review: Immigration report finds no evidence charity staff encourage
[31]. Michael Safi and Paul Farrell, “AMA joins protest against asylum law that can jail detention centre staff”', The Guardian, 1 July 2015: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/01/ama-joins-protest-against-asylum-law-that-can-jail-detention-centre-staff .
[32]. “Open letter on the Border Force Act: “We challenge the department to prosecute”, 1 July 2015: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/01/open-letter-on-the-border-force-act-we-challenge-the-department-to-prosecute .
[33]. Gideon Polya, “Terror Hysteria - Draconian New Australian Anti-Terrorism Laws Target Journalists, Muslims And Human Rights”, Countercurrents, 08 October, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya0810114.htm .
[34]. Gideon Polya, “50 Ways Australian Intelligence Spies On
[35]. Bill Rowlings, “I could go to jail for this next month”, Civil Liberties Australia, 26 August 2014: http://www.cla.asn.au/News/i-could-go-to-jail-for-this-next-month/ .
[36]. Avaneesh Pandey, “Refugeee children in Australian detention centers subjected to sexual abuse, denied rights: Report””, International Business Times, 12 February 2015: http://www.ibtimes.com/refugee-children-australian-detention-centers-subjected-sexual-abuse-denied-rights-1813728 .
[37]. Gideon Polya, “Fundamentalist America Has Trashed Secular Governance, Modernity, Democracy, Women's Rights And Children's Rights In The Muslim World
[38]. ABC TV Q&A, “Peace, ideology and free speech”, 13 July 2015: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4256958.htm
[39]. “Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home .
Dr Gideon Polya has been teaching science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis,
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