Australia accused of discriminating against disabled migrants
When Luca was born in a Perth hospital two years ago, it flipped his parents’ world in ways they never expected.
With the joy came a shocking diagnosis: Luca had cystic fibrosis. Then Australia - Laura Currie and her husband Dante’s home for eight years - said they couldn’t stay permanently. Luca, his parents were told, could be a financial burden on the country.
“I think I cried for like a week - I just feel really, really sorry for Luca,” Ms Currie says. “He’s just a defenceless two-and-a-half-year-old and doesn’t deserve to be discriminated against in that way.”
With a third of its population born abroad, Australia has long seen itself as a “migration nation” - a multicultural home for immigrants that promises them a fair go and a fresh start. The idea is baked into its identity. But the reality is often different, especially for those who have a disability or a serious medical condition.
I would argue its the system doing exactly what its meant to do.
The whole point of migration and visas is that you get to choose who you allow in, get to pick the skills and abilities your country needs, in exchange for the ability to work there and/or apply for citizenship.
Immigration is meant to be selective, meant to be picky, and meant to fill gaps your country has. Is it harsh, and more than a little cold - absolutely. But that is what Immigration is.
I think your assessment of what immigration does is accurate, but the conclusion I come to from that fact isn’t, “actually this is fine” but “actually fuck borders”.
Also, the idea that a disabled person will be a net negative to a country because of their “financial burden” is incredibly short sighted. There’s no consideration there that maybe kicking out a disabled two year old might have negative effects on the fabric of society.
The Australian state in particular has been on an anti-human rights kick of late. This is just more evidence of their complete indifference to humanity, and it is eroding their legitimacy.
Yeah here’s a good reason not to kick out disabled people: if I ever feel like I want to immigrate to another country, I sure as hell am not going to go to Australia now. Not when there’s a chance I’ll have a child born while waiting for citizenship to be approved. But maybe they don’t need more engineers in Australia.
There’s the reputational damage for sure, plus people who live here can see what a shitty government we have, and the more this kind of shit happens, the more people start to want to smash things.
Like, back when the right wing Liberal government last got back into power, they sent the federal police on an illegal raid of our national broadcaster’s journalism offices, and they stole a bunch of evidence of things they were investigating. You know, straight fascist shit. Turns out that raid revealed the identity of David McBride who blew the whistle on Australian special forces’ war crimes in Afghanistan. Now we’ve got a “Labor” government, and guess who just went to prison for that whistleblowing? David McBride. Guess how many people doing actual war crimes went to prison. It was none. Our supposedly for the people left wing government did nothing to intervene, even though they could.
Also the conservative government did a robodebt scheme that coldly calculated debts and slapped the most vulnerable welfare recipients with thousands of dollars of debt based on technicalities. A lot of people committed suicide as a result. The debts were pretty much all bullshit, and there was illegal information sharing between departments to make this scheme happen. Guess who’s being prosecuted for this scheme now under our “Labor” government? If you guessed the whistleblower that exposed the illegal behaviour, you’d be right. His name is Richard Boyle.
At a certain point people start to realise that the state just isn’t on our side and we need to do something about it, and that something isn’t elections, because nobody is coming to help us regardless of who we elect.
First of all, thanks for coming in with an actual arguement - not typical of many of my comments here.
My arguement back is that immigration Australia, or more to the point the individual case manager, is not responsible for the wider fabric of Australian society. Their purpose is getting right people to right place. Immigrants get told to leave, visas expire all the time and its done in a processed way - individual visas are noting compared to the wider focus.
I can do the same thing with many of the hats I wear - as a coach I am responsible for keeping my kids safe and involved in the sport, not the wider direction of sports in my county. As a tutor im responsible for getting my 30 students through the course, not the wider academic achievements of the university. As a parent im responsible for raising three good adults, not the future of the country. Immigration Australia is responsible for filling skill gaps - thats it.
In a perfect world we could take wider holistic views of individual decisions and its effects on the wider population, but its just not realistic. Similar to your “fuck borders” arguement - basic human action and game theory are why borders exist in the first place.
Sure they are. That’s literally what you said their job was 5 minutes ago, and that’s their stated intention. They think the disabled 2 year old is bad for Australian society.
No, their job is to follow the process they are given. You’re assuming their job is to change the rules because otherwise it will affect the wider society.
Your physical ability, and the potential burden it would place on society is a part of that processes - their job isn’t to make an exemption because wider society might not like it.
All people have an ethical obligation to challenge the rotten aspects of the society they live in. But that’s beside the point of the fact that you’re simultaneously saying they need to deport a toddler for the good of society, and that they don’t need to worry about the good of society. You’re doublespeaking.
The double speak is completely from the fact its the visas job to deport them. These are the conditions of the visa, you’re here for this reason and you don’t have citizen rights. They don’t need to worry about the good of society with what everyone else may think because that’s not their job. Do you want every person in every role in government to make decisions based on their personal feelings in the matter, or the process and rules they are trained in?
Its like saying I’m double speaking by needing money but also spending it to live.
You went straight from justifying it according to the good it supposedly does for society into “not my job; not my problem”. But that’s been explained to you, and you weasel-worded your way out of it.
Also:
That’s a massive red flag on two levels. Firstly I find people who make a big song and dance about how much they love being so reasonable and calm and civil about everything are actually very likely to immediately transition into spouting off some bullshit. Secondly… well you straight up said you don’t usually get reasonable answers, which you seem to think reflects badly on everyone else but actually just reflects badly on you. If it smells like shit everywhere you go, check your shoe. I was telling you that your value system is monstrous. I did it politely but please don’t take that as respect for what you said.
Like, I was trying to tell you that being able to soberly assess the grim reality of what borders actually do, and then use that as justification for those horrific actions, actually makes you a monster. Then you immediately took a completely un-self-aware journey through an autobiographical account of The Banality of Evil. When everyone just accepts their position in society and acts like a cog in the machine completely devoid of any agency or ability for judgment, then those who hold the levers of society can steer that machine straight into fascism. “When good people fail to act, evil prevails.” That’s you. You’re the person who would rather let evil win than rock the boat, and it makes you a coward. You don’t have to be a coward, but as long as you continue to act in the way you have said that you do, that’s what you are.
Also, if you pay attention to actual game theory, being good to people as a default position always gives better results. The Australian government was incredibly shitty to these people with absolutely no provocation from them. The agents who betray others tend to get fucked over in the long run, because everyone else stops feeling like they owe them anything. That’s one of the big reasons why this policy is self-defeating. If the cogs that make the machine run start to believe the machine is evil, they will stop letting it run.
That’s fascist.
Thats fact
Thanks