By Neeraj Nanda

Melbourne: The Victorian Government today gave a Christmas gift to the traders of Little India, Dandenong by deciding to grant then six months rent relief and some other steps to address their grievances. The traders of Little India in Dandenong’s Foster and Mason Streets have been agitating for a long time demanding security of trade, relief in rent and many other demands including their lease issues which came up after the Vic Urban (Places TO Be) decided to go ahead with the revitalize Greater Dandenong project.

President of the Foster Street and Mason Street Traders Association Mr. Sayeed of Roshan’s Fashion, told South Asia Times (SAT) that he was informed of the government’s decisions on the phone by Victorian Planning Minister, Mr. Matthew Guy. According to Mr. Sayeed, Mr. Guy told him the government had decided to grant six months rent relief, Vic Urban will immediately have an offer of long term lease of the businesses and initiate talks about the business future individually with all traders.

Full details of the offer are officially not available because of Christmas holiday today. A media release is soon expected on the issue.

The Little India traders had recently held a protest rally outside the Victorian Parliament and the issue was raised by the opposition ALP in Parliament a few times.

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By Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Apr 19 (IPS) – Supporters of asylum seekers here say that the government’s response to recent
suicides in Australian immigration detention centres ignores what is already
well-known: that indefinite, long-term detention in crowded facilities results in
deaths.

“We’ve had so many reviews and they’ve all pointed to the same thing,” says Ian Rintoul, spokesperson
for the Refugee Action Coalition (RAC), which has been vocal in calling on successive governments to
abandon the policy of mandatorily detaining “unauthorised arrivals”.

Under this policy, people are held while identity, health and security checks are carried out. These
checks can take considerable time.

Rintoul says that there are thousands of people who have languished in immigration detention for six
months or more, and hundreds who have been detained from one year to 18 months. Several have been
held for even longer.

“Until you deal with the underlying cause, until you deal with the lack of certainty and the anxiety
associated with mandatory detention, nothing is going to change. It’s very obvious.”

Refugee advocates and human rights defenders are among those who have long been opposed to what
they regard as the harsh, unfair treatment of those who claim asylum in Australia, often fleeing
persecution in their homeland.

The Refugee Council of Australia, the national body representing more than 130 organisations, has
been calling on the governing Labour party to abolish indefinite, mandatory detention and implement
the reforms it announced back in 2008.

The government’s pledges included ending what then minister for immigration Chris Evans called
“dehumanising” long-term detention and removing children from immigration centres. But these have
never been put into practice.

“We would say that the system is broken,” says the Council’s Sophie Peer.

The latest available figures from the department of immigration and citizenship (DIAC) show that there
were 6,758 people in Australian immigration detention on Feb.18, up from less than 500 midway
through 2009. More than 95 percent of these are asylum seekers who arrived here by boat, labelled by
authorities as “irregular maritime arrivals”.

One of these “irregulars” was a 20-year-old Afghani who was found dead at the Curtin Immigration
Detention Centre in Australia’s remote north-west late last month. While DIAC has not released details
about the young man’s death, refugee advocates have identified him as Mohammed Asif Atay.

According to advocates, he hanged himself on Mar. 28, allegedly in response to delays and a lack of
information regarding his application for asylum.

The Curtin facility was controversially reopened in June last year for Australia’s spiralling immigration
detainee population after it had been closed in 2002 following a spate of protests and self-harm
incidents.

Mohammed’s death followed the apparent suicide of another 20-year-old male detainee from
Afghanistan, also an “irregular maritime arrival”, on Mar. 16 at the Scherger Immigration Detention
Centre in north-eastern Australia.

These cases brought the total number of suicides among the immigration detention population in a
six-month period to five.

A Fijian national committed suicide at the Villawood facility in Sydney last September and an Iraqi man
killed himself there in November. Also at Villawood, a British man detained for breaching his visa
conditions committed suicide in December.

DIAC has reacted to these deaths by recently agreeing to establish an independent review of mental
health services available to those held in its immigration detention centres. This decision was
apparently based on advice the department received last December from its Detention Health Advisory
Group (DeHAG), whose work focuses particularly on issues of mental health.

“The department is progressing a review of the psychological support programme and its
implementation within places of immigration,” a DIAC spokesperson confirmed to IPS on Apr.15, adding
that the organisation or person to undertake the review has yet to be determined.

Prof. Louise Newman, director of the Centre for Development Psychology and Psychiatry at the Monash
Medical Centre in Melbourne and chair of DeHAG, says that although the impact of the mandatory
detention regime on detainees’ mental health is well known, the review represents an opportunity to
alter the atmosphere inside the detention system.

She argues that DeHAG has been attempting to instil “a culture within the detention centres that is not
about law and order and maintaining a population in a state of virtual imprisonment. It’s also about
looking at how we might have a better system that actually recognises the vulnerabilities of these
people and prevents some of the incidents that we’ve seen.”

But with suicides and incidents of self-harming continuing, DeHAG appears to have much to do.

A 26-year-old Tamil man who had recently been transferred to Curtin from Australia’s offshore
detention centre on Christmas Island attempted suicide on Mar. 30, as did a 30-year-old Afghan
national on Apr. 7.

The RAC’s Ian Rintoul says the situation at Curtin is critical.

“I’m told both by detainees and people who work there in various capacities that you’re looking at a
self-harm incident, effectively, daily.”

For Rintoul, the review of mental health services will only amount to an audit that will highlight the
inadequacy of what is offered to detainees. He argues that psychologists, psychiatrists and pills are not
what people in immigration detention require.

“What they need is to get out…until that’s remedied, we are simply going to see repeats – and constant
repeats – of the self-harming and attempted suicides that we’ve got now.”

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By Melbourne News Bureau

Melbourne: There are 84 Indians in Australian jails. The revelation has come in a report in the ‘Tehelka’ magazine. The report which quotes the Ministry of Overseas Indians and Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), does not give the crimes under which they have been convicted or a state wise breakup in Australia. The number of Indians in Australia is 448330, according to the report.

Tehelka quotes data available with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), 6,795 Indians are in jail in countries all over the world. Indians are in prison in the UK, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Swaziland and even Lesotho. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) tops with 1,681 Indians behind bars. This is followed Saudi Arabia, where it is estimated that 1,400 Indians are serving jail terms at any given point of time. Other countries where Indians are jailed in a substantial number are the UK, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Nepal.
“Indians are in prison mostly for illegal entry, cheating, trafficking and murder. In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, however, Indians are in for bootlegging and adultery also,” Tehelka says.
Data for all countries is not available. But available date indicates Indians in jails in UAE (1681), Saudi Arabia (1400), Malaysia (634), Nepal (377), UK (350), Bangladesh (316), Singapore (220), Kuwait (219), Qatar (213), Iran (167), S. Africa (165), Italy (125), Pakistan (13), China (50) etc.
Source: SAT, March 2011

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Anna Bligh MP
Premier of Queensland
PO Box 15185
City East
Queensland 4002

Dear Premier Ms Anna Bligh,

We write to extend our support to you and your team in this very brave fight. The recent floods in Queensland are tragic and we are in absolute shock.

Every Indian in Australia stands with you today. We have already alerted various groups and societies to contribute to the relief fund established by you. We have advised, via public announcements, that all Indian students closely follow advice provided by your office.

Many concerned parents have called us and we have forwarded them to the number established by you.

We appreciate your leadership and support. Please let us know if there is anything that we can do to support your endeavours further. We can organise blood donation, goods donation, translating and interpreters (of Indian languages) or volunteers.

We request you to kindly keep us in loop. We are committed to support every Queenslander rebuild a better and stronger Queensland.

Kind Regards,

Gautam Gupta
Author and Spokesman
Federation of Indian Students of Australia Inc
0413 211 534

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By Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Australia, Nov 18 (IPS) – Environmentalists here are on the verge of a significant victory in their efforts to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas pollution, as the Victorian state government negotiates with the owner of the country’s “dirtiest power station” to shut
down the coal-fired facility.

Cam Walker, spokesman of the green group Friends of the
Earth, says that it has been “a great victory…in that we’ve
moved them in a few short years from a position of extending
the lease, almost indefinitely, to a situation where the
(Victorian) Premier is now saying there will be a staged
closure of the plant.”

The 1600-megawatt Hazelwood power station, located 150
kilometres east of the state capital, Melbourne, produces up
to a quarter of Victoria state’s electricity requirements.

An information war kicked off between environmentalists
and the plant’s owner, International Power, following a 2005
report by conservation group World Wildlife Fund that ranked
Hazelwood the largest carbon dioxide-emitting power station
in the industrialised world.

Campaigners now say that Hazelwood is Australia’s
“dirtiest” power plant, producing in excess of 16 million
tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution each year. Additionally,
they argue the plant is a massive user of water – some 27
billion litres per year – and is the country’s single
biggest emitter of dioxin.

The campaigners say that Hazelwood, first commissioned in
1959, has become outdated and needs to be replaced with
renewable energy technology.

International Power, for its part, argues that the WWF
study was “highly biased” and that “Hazelwood is well down
the list of the world’s CO2 emitting power plants.” It also
rejects claims that the plant is the most polluting in
Australia.

The company, whose global operations outside Australia
include power plants in Pakistan, Thailand and Indonesia in
addition to interests in North America, Europe and the
Middle East, argues that Hazelwood’s actual water usage is
less than half of that claimed by environmentalists and also
denies that the plant emits dangerous pollutants.

International Power purchased the previously state-owned
Hazelwood for 2.35 billion Australian dollars (2.3 billion
U.S. dollars) in 1996 with a 40-year life. The company
admits that the plant releases large volumes of carbon
dioxide – 13 percent of Victoria’s emissions, equating to
three percent of Australia’s total – but it dismisses claims
by green groups that Hazelwood was due to close in 2005 and
was only saved by an extension to its lease.

Instead, the company points to a government-approved
environmental impacts statement which, in 2005, allowed
International Power to move a road and the course of a river
in order to access brown coal reserves at Hazelwood in
return for a 445-million tonne cap on the plant’s total
greenhouse gas emissions.

But with the Victorian government now in preliminary
negotiations with Hazelwood’s owner to shut down a quarter
of the plant by 2014 as part of a process to close the
entire power station in stages, environmentalists are on the
verge of a big win.

Walker told IPS that he is surprised at the campaign’s
seemingly rapid growth. “Just over a year ago, I really
think this wasn’t on the agenda of the state government and
they have come a very long way,” he says.

The Victorian government, led by Premier John Brumby, has
committed to reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions
by 20 percent, based on 2000 emission levels, over the next
decade.

While Brumby has sought federal financial backing in
order to compensate International Power for closing
Hazelwood, the Premier says that his government will act “on
our own” if no assistance is forthcoming.

International Power also appears ready to step back from
its investment. The company submitted a plan to the federal
government in 2008 in which it outlined a phased closure of
Australia’s older coal-fired power stations over a 10-year
period “in return for a tariff that reflected the market
value of the asset and reflected the equity invested by the
owners.”

Company spokesman Trevor Rowe says that “nothing has
changed” in International Power’s position since this
submission was made.

While media reports here have suggested that the payout
to International Power will be hundreds of millions of
dollars, Rowe refused to discuss with IPS the amount of
compensation that the company is seeking.

Regardless of the dollar amount that is ultimately paid
to International Power, environmentalists are keen to make
the most of the situation.

“It would represent the first coal-fired power generation
that’s been turned off in Australia for climate change
reasons, so it would be a significant step forward,” says
Mark Wakeham of Environment Victoria, one of a host of green
non-governmental organisations campaigning for the closure
of Hazelwood.

Wakeham, who was involved in early protests against the
power station in 2005, has seen the campaign grow from
actions by local campaigners and environmental groups to a
movement that receives considerable media coverage on the
back of widespread community concern about Australia’s
greenhouse gas pollution.

“I think the Hazelwood campaign has very effectively told
a clear story about what we need to do if we’re going to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also that it’s possible
to do so in a very quick period of time,” he says.

The key to the campaign’s hitherto success has clearly
been its ability to result in tangible outcomes.

“For all the talk on climate change over the last ten
years, we haven’t had governments taking action to stop
polluters polluting. Until that happens, emissions aren’t
going to actually fall,” says Wakeham.

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By Neeraj Nanda

Melbourne: A Victorian Liberal Nationals Coalition Government will cement Victoria’s economic and cultural ties with India and South Asia with an ambitious plan to attract more Bollywood film production to Victoria.

“Bollywood is a cultural and economic powerhouse in India and the sub-continent and Victoria can only benefit from a much closer relationship with India’s film industry,” Coalition Leader Ted Baillieu said today.

The Coalition’s initiatives to build better links with Bollywood include:

• initiating a bid by the Victorian Major Events Corporation to gain for Melbourne the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards, the Academy Awards of India and Bollywood. The IIFA Awards are presented annually to honour artistic and technical excellence of professionals in Bollywood and celebrate the achievements of Indian cinema. The awards ceremony is held in a different country around the world every year to demonstrate and promote the international success of Bollywood. The Awards could be used to showcase Melbourne and Victoria to the world, opening up huge opportunities in tourism, Victoria’s film and television industry and business;
• committing $500,000 over four years to develop the Bollywood Film Festival, co-ordinated with the Melbourne International Film Festival as a permanent part of Melbourne’s cultural calendar, including releasing world premieres of new productions;
• appointing a well known Bollywood personality to be a Bollywood Ambassador for Victoria to help bring in more Bollywood productions, tourists and international students to Victoria. The Bollywood Ambassador will be promoted and supported to market Victoria in India and around the world as a great tourist destination and a suitable location for Bollywood productions;
• establishing six Victorian Fellowships of up to $20,000 each for young Victorian directors and producers to give them the opportunity to undertake short-term overseas study missions to movie production bases such as Bollywood;
• setting up a technical and artistic exchange program between the Indian and Victorian film and music industries to strengthen and promote commercial and professional links between the two industries; and
• reviewing and reforming the granting of film production permits to cut red tape for overseas productions, including Bollywood films, to ensure the Victorian industry is competitive with interstate and international film industries.

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