Illegal immigrants on Manus Island now no longer refugees  -- if they ever were.  Now have residence in Papua New Guinea

They didn't want to be freed from detention.  Detention suited them better than freedom did

The month-long standoff on Manus Island came to a violent end on Friday after Papua New Guinea police carrying batons raided the decommissioned processing centre and forced out about 330 remaining refugees and asylum seekers.

The men had subsisted on stockpiled food and rainwater for 24 days since the facility officially closed on October 31, having refused to leave citing fears for their safety and an unwillingness to move "from one prison to another".

PNG police entered the site for the second day in a row in Friday's early hours, and by midday all the remaining men had boarded buses for the nearby town of Lorengau, saying they could no longer resist police willing to use force.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull welcomed the men's capitulation, telling reporters in Canberra: "That's as they should. That is precisely what you should do if you're in a foreign country: you should comply with the laws of that other country."

But the altercation was rough, with video seen by Fairfax Media showing local police appearing to wield long batons against refugees, and several of the men posting on social photographs showing cuts and bruises they said were sustained on Friday.

"They hit me on my hand," Pakistani refugee Samad Abdul said during the raid. "The police are so aggressive. They are telling us 'you should go back to your country'. They are swearing at us. Everyone is scared, everyone is just terrified. "We don't have any option to stay here. All of us, we all are going."

Another Pakistani man, Ezatullah Kakar, said the men were "crying" as they left the camp. He boarded the last bus and said the men spent Friday afternoon arranging transfers to one of three alternative accommodation sites in Lorengau.

Manus Island police commander David Yapu denied his officers used force and said the operation had proceeded "smoothly", but noted there had been "some resistance".

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said three people had sustained very minor injuries and claims of violence were exaggerated by Australian activists. He urged advocates to stop the "cruel hoax" of suggesting refugees might be allowed to come to Australia if they kept up their protest.

"You are offering out false hope to people who are in a difficult situation. You have compounded their problems," Mr Dutton said. "Under no circumstance will people be coming to Australia. We will provide whatever support we can to see people resettle elsewhere."

The minister also said backup power generators and water infrastructure at the new sites had been sabotaged, in what he called "an organised attempt to provoke trouble and disrupt the new facilities". Repairs were under way and the matter was being investigated, he said.

Labor's immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann said reports of force by PNG police were of "deep concern", and demanded the Turnbull government agree to a refugee resettlement deal with New Zealand "immediately".

Mr Dutton dismissed that as "not an option that's on the table for us now" and said intelligence reports suggested it would mean the boats would restart.

Hundreds of refugees on Manus Island are awaiting possible resettlement in the US under a deal struck between Mr Turnbull and former president Barack Obama, which has been slow to get off the ground under President Donald Trump.

Only 54 refugees have gone to the US from both Manus Island and Nauru so far. Most have been on the islands for more than four years and many, such as Mr Abdul, are yet to be interviewed by US authorities.

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"Woman" is now a bad word

MOTHERHOOD, it used to be said, is sacred. But perhaps in these supposedly more enlightened times we should change that to “carer status is sacred”.

As reported yesterday, Australia’s national Nursing and Midwifery Board just almost passed a new code of conduct which, among other things, would have made midwives refer to their patients as “persons”, not “women”.

As in, “the person in Delivery Suite A has been in labour for four hours”.

Welcome to mother… er, make that parenthood.

The shift was proposed, apparently, to make a universal change so that the profession would be more inclusive of those “individual instances” of women who identify as men giving birth.

Now of course everyone knows that transgender people are part of the community and surely no one of good will wants to make life more difficult for them.

But couldn’t it be left up to midwives and patients to work this out when these “individual instances” occur?

In any case, thanks to strong opposition from the profession, the Board relented, but not for lack of trying.

If anything, the progressive push to re-engineer the entire English language to suit whatever the rules are about what we can and cannot say this week is stronger than ever.

Political correctness used to be defended on the grounds of politeness, but the current language wars go far beyond that, even if they follow a predictable pattern.

What starts out as attempts by progressives to burnish their own moral standing by finding something to be offended about on someone else’s behalf quickly morph into campaigns to so comprehensively divorce words from their meanings that the rest of us dare not open our mouths lest we say the wrong thing.

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Australia's seniors say the political correctness of millennials is ruining society

Older Australians are sick of the younger generation's manners, obsession with technology and political correctness, which they say is ruining society.

That was the verdict on the nation's young which emerged from a study commissioned by the Australian Seniors Insurance Agency (ASIA).

Of 1,000 people aged over 50 surveyed by CoreData for the ASIA, 88 per cent thought people in modern Australia were too politically correct.

As well, 74 per cent of seniors said people who strived to be politically correct annoyed them, and 45 per cent said they tried to avoid being politically correct just for the sake of it.

And 86 per cent of those surveyed said the drive to be politically correct was ruining society.

Study findings:

85 per cent of older Australians found millennial social etiquette confusing

88 per cent thought people in modern Australia were too politically correct

86 per cent said the drive to be politically correct was ruining society

Employment etiquette included putting phones away in meetings, punctuality, personal hygiene

Posting online when tired, intoxicated or emotional in the top 3 no-nos

Nan Bosler, president of the Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association, said seniors found it difficult these days when it came to simple things, such as certain words they used day to day.

"Names we have known things by all our lives, they weren't there out of disrespect or anything like that, it was just a name we knew things by," she said.

"And if we have to always modify what we're saying, it's a little distracting, it's a little bit frustrating.

"We of course do respect other people, so we understand about political correctness. "But we don't always think it's the way we want to go — we want to be true to ourselves."

Ms Bosley said too much sensitivity about the meaning of words and phrases acted as a barrier between younger Australians and people aged over 50. "I think we can just be too politically correct," she said.

"I suppose it's for the majority that the minority have to sometimes think well 'ok, can't say that anymore, I must remember that'."

SOURCE






Queensland election: Labor to form majority government, Antony Green predicts

Annastacia Palaszczuk will be returned as Queensland Premier with her government likely to win up to 48 seats, giving it a slim majority, ABC election analyst Antony Green says.

He said he was certain Labor would have at least 46 seats, with the ABC election computer predicting they would win one or two more, clearing the 47 needed to govern with a majority.

The LNP is predicted to win 39 or 40 seats.

One Nation and the Greens are predicted to win one seat each, Katter's Australia Party two, and one independent.

This afternoon, Labor state secretary Evan Moorhead said only Labor could form a majority government.

"Of the remaining 13 seats in doubt, we need to win four seats for a Labor majority," he said. "We are leading in six of these seats and very close in five further seats.

"We're confident that as counting continues, Labor will confirm a majority in the Queensland Parliament."

Green said on his numbers it looked like the Palaszczuk Government would get a majority. "But even if she falls a seat short, she doesn't have to do any deals," Green said. "She can leave it to the Parliament to vote her out, because it would be unlikely that all the crossbench would vote against them at once.

"It is a fixed-term Parliament — the Government can't just resign and walk out of office and leave someone else to form government — they can't do that, so somebody will form government. "So it is very hard to see how anyone other than Annastacia Palaszczuk can form government in the new Parliament.

"They have a certain 46, and they only need one more vote and at the moment we are giving them another two seats on a prediction."

Green said although One Nation had done well, it was not well enough to win many seats.

"There is a strong likelihood they could win the northern mining seat of Mirani — that's the only one," he said.

"The only other seats where they have done very well, the LNP has been re-elected on Labor preferences."
Mr Moorhead said Labor succeeded in keeping One Nation from the balance of power.

"Our principled decision to put One Nation last has rescued the LNP in regional Queensland, where their vote collapsed," he said.

SOURCE

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