immigration department woes

Meanwhile back here the approach of our immigration authorities continues to nonplus, embarrass and humiliate, and that’s just we observers, not to mention those in their power. The Taipei Times has run a piece on Hu Cuiyu, the 104 year-old Chinese woman who has been declared an unlawful non-citizen as a visa overstayer. Apparently she came over on a 12-month visitors’ visa in 1995, and was denied a return flight by airlines who considered her too frail to travel. So what can you do? The department doesn’t allow her to stay in the country, the airlines don’t allow her to leave – maybe she should go live in the airport like in that movie I haven’t seen? Julian Burnside’s on the case, hoping to further embarrass the government over this one, and good luck to him.
This has caused me to look up Burnside, and I find he’s been debating our Amanda and reading her the riot act, or rather, section 268.12 of the Australian Criminal Code. Burnside’s full speech is reported at Crikey, and its powerful indictment of the Howard government, and of Ruddock in particular, I fully endorse. In fact my loathing of Ruddock has found me wandering about the house talking angrily to myself/Ruddock at all hours, promising lengthy terms of imprisonment for human rights abuses. Burnside has managed to channel that anger more effectively, but still the government seems impervious.