If one were seeking to characterise Kevin Rudd, Australia's boomerang prime minister, one could go no further than the Texan jibe "Big hat, no cattle". One Rudd's failings which reportedly drove his staff and his former colleagues to drink during his first manifestation as Australian Prime Minister was his penchant for making spur of the moment decisions. Not just minor decisions, mind you, but big, chunky policy pronouncements, with little or no consultation or agreement.
It took Rudd all of a week in his role reprisal as Aussie PM to deliver another classic example of hubristic Ruddian chaos.
As before there is every indication that he left his colleagues gob-smacked and floundering. But when Nero proclaims, all creation must rush to comply and deliver. That's the Rudd perspective and the Rudd way. We have in mind, of course, the sudden dramatic announcement that all boat people turning up on Australian shores would henceforth be deflected to Papua New Guinea (PNG) where they would enter holding camps. Australia, in return, would pay heaps of moolah to PNG to make their boat problem (a Rudd Mark I creation, incidentally) go away.
The Sydney Morning Herald headline said it all: Rudd plan in tatters as camps labelled "gulags". Staff at the existing detention centres have gone public describing some of the cruelties and inhumanities already existing--which, of course, the Rudd solution, will likely make far worse.
Whistleblowers who worked for the Salvation Army at the Nauru camp said on Wednesday they could no longer remain silent. On Wednesday 32 current and former Salvation Army staff issued a joint letter claiming the weekend riot at the Nauru camp, ''although shocking, was … inevitable'' because of the conditions detainees face. Spokesman Mark Isaacs said the group spoke out despite facing lawsuits and court action. . . .The Prime Minister has just taken a brand new, big white stetson out of his closet. No-one, least of all Rudd, has thought through the details of the new policy. All details become "mere" when a visionary walks amongst us. If it weren't so tragic, it would be belly-laughable.
The staff on Nauru said the conditions on Nauru, and the indefinite nature of the detention, had caused people to break down. ''The mental health impact of detention in this harsh physical and policy environment cannot be overstated … we have witnessed a man scrabbling in the dirt, suffering a psychotic breakdown for several days without treatment, read another man's suicide note apologising to his family, and seen countless others who suffered similar mental breakdowns,'' they wrote.
The group's letter followed explosive allegations aired on SBS TV's Dateline program on Tuesday night from another whistleblower, former security guard Rod St George, that Department of Immigration staff failed to act on allegations of a series of rapes and assaults at the Manus detention centre.
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