Dear Scott Morrison,
You’ve probably guessed that this is not fan mail. I’m sure you do have fans, but I don’t think there would be many game enough to admit it after your recent behaviour. Trolls perhaps, but not people. Why not people, you may ask? Succinctly, because no person with a shred of humanity, the sort of humanity needed to qualify as a human, could ever condone what you are doing to the world’s desperate asylum seekers who come to Australia begging for help.
Before you ready your list of excuses as to why it’s justifiable for someone to be murdered inside an Australian detention facility, there is no justifiable excuse you could possibly provide that will go anywhere near being a justifiable excuse. According to witness reports, a man has died after having his throat cut and sustaining head injuries. His name was Reza Berati. He had a family and friends who loved him. He had a personality. He had a whole life ahead of him. And he was murdered. With violence most compassionate people wouldn’t accept against an animal. A man was murdered. There’s no other way to describe it. You did not carry out the violence, but you were in charge of the person who did, and you were responsible for the victim, Reza Berati since he was in your care.
In the statement you snuck out on Saturday night in the most spineless of fashion, you admitted that your previous statement was based on incorrect information. We are experienced enough with your character to know that we will never find out what you knew and what you didn’t know when you released the wrong information. But I would like to point out that, even if you were personally misled, and you went with the information that was available to you, then you might not be as evil as it would appear, but you certainly are incompetent. So what is it Scott? Are you guilty of making up the first statement or are you incompetent in taking someone else’s word for it without endeavouring to find out the truth? Surely, in this situation, the truth would have been easy to find. If an asylum seeker was killed outside of the Manus Island detention centre, there would have been evidence of this. Because the crime scene, which I presume you are treating as such, would have been outside of the boundary of the detention centre? Or are you claiming you don’t know where this boundary is? This is becoming a bit of a pattern of not-knowing – the Navy apparently also did not know where the Indonesian maritime border was, on several occasions.
And we all know why you changed the official record. It was not because you respected the truth and wanted it to be known. And definitely not because you deeply regretted what you were finding out and wanted to make it clear how badly you felt about it. Because you didn’t feel bad about it. That’s obvious from what you have said and how you have said it. Tony Abbott has even congratulated you for the part you have played in this murder. And that’s the most immoral part of this situation. You’re proud of yourselves for being ‘uncompromising’ and ‘tough’ as if this is a chess game and your strategy has been successful. Think about that for a moment Scott. Someone is dead. Someone has been killed and many others horrifically injured in violent, hauntingly terrifying situation and you are proud of yourself. What is wrong with you Scott? This is not a game. This is Australia’s humanity being denigrated forever. Because you are doing this in our name.
However you try to play down this situation, it’s never going to work. Not just because the UN is now involved, and you’re destroying Australia’s human rights reputation on an international scale. No, it’s far worse than that. The worst of it is that this situation was no accident. When people drown at sea on their way to seek refuge in Australia, their loss of life is just as devastating as the loss of Reza Berati. And when young men installing installation are killed because their bosses don’t train them how to do their job safely, their loss of life is just as devastating as the loss of Reza Berati. But the difference with this death was that it was no accident. It wasn’t just one out-of-control person carrying out violence in an otherwise well run operation. Ever since you started your crusade to ‘stop the boats’, you made it clear you would do that by whatever means possible. And this murder has been part of that. This murder is the only place your ‘stop the boats’ strategy could go.
Before you think you can wash your hands of this, I want you to know that this is not going away. Murdoch might want everyone to forget, but we are not going to forget. And we are not going to forgive until you do the only thing you could possibly do to fully apologise for this crime by resigning from Australia’s Parliament. Reza Berati deserved better. His family and loved ones deserved better. Tony Abbott said proudly that you are not a wimp. But what he forgot to mention in this character assessment is that you might not be a wimp, but you’re also an evil, untrustworthy fool. And Australia deserves to have better people representing us.
Yours sincerely
Victoria Rollison
Media Inequality 
Nice one.
As the Labor Senator said,” Morrison has blood on his hands.” And so does Abbott and the rest of the LNP.Keep up the great work Victoria.
Actually, Morrison is a wimp. It takes real strength and moral fibre to admit you are wrong and apologise.
did any of the labor immigration ministers apologise for the hundreds that drowned due to their policies? did they admit that their policies were wrong?
Yeah but they are not in power mate ,when will you guys realise this.
The “you started it” argument is juvenile and the “you killed more people than us” argument is vile. The ends does not justify the means and I’m not into political tribalism. Both the major parties have engaged in a race to see who can be the biggest bastards and guess who won? If you think its ok to treat human beings the way our government is treating them then there is something really wrong with you. Presumably, since you seem to be a person of principles, would you subject your family to that treatment if they were in the same position? The simplistic answer youcan give is that they wouldn’t be in that situation and hooray for them, Aren’t they lucky they weren’t born into a society where people want them dead? But let’s just pretend for a moment that they were born a Kurd in Iran. Would you put them on Manus? Would you still defend the government that allowed them to have their throat cut and head stomped on until they were dead?
Guddy: that the ALP are not in power “now” does not excuse their lack of apology when they oversaw policies that killed over a thousand people.
Uknowi: so you’re defending the deaths on the ALP’s watch?
Is it really being a bastard to choose that we have a limited amount of charity that we can extend and to choose to elect to take those the UN decide are in most need of resettlement?
why do those who come by boat deserve more charity than those who wait in UN camps?
How many should we take in and what do we do when one more person comes?
Don’t try and put words into my mouth and learn to read. I am in no way defending anyone. The level of bastardry displayed by both major parties is abhorrent as is the defence of that bastardry with cheap politicisation by the political tribalists such as yourself. As for your unresearched claims about a “limited amount of charity”, and putting aside your heartless reduction of a humanitarian issue to one of economics, am I correct in assuming that this is a a throw-away line based on no actual budgetary analysis? You do realise that in fiscal terms, we punch well below our weight compared to other countries in terms of our total refugee intake? Are you also aware that the cost per claim of offshore processing is an order of magnitude more expensive than onshore processing? Given your economic concerns, it is a strange sort of position for you to take, but then it’s no surprise that supporters of the wingnuts currently in power show the same sort of hypocrisy as their idols and repeat the same unresearched ideological verbage without bothering to check the voracity of any claims made. This is the part where you now talk about queues and UN camps, not really understanding that these things don’t exist in most of the countries where asylum seekers are coming from, but then you don’t really seem to know much at all about any of it other than what you have gleaned probably straight from Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones or some other lunatic of their ilk, so I won’t be surprised. I would urge you to actually do some research. Go to the ABS, treasury or the UN itself and get source documents and actually get some facts instead of mindlessly repeating garbage. Try a bit of critical thinking instead of just accepting the garbage spewed out by right wing echo chambers. I am non-partisan because I am not prepared to attach myself to any political party so prepared to treat human beings like animals and I’m certainly not prepared to defend any that do. Ask yourself if your apparent tribalism is worth supporting the incarceration of innocent children and the state sanctioned murder of people trying to find a better life than a life of persecution. Be thankful that you were born in the lucky country and not as a Kurd in Iran a Tamil in Sri Lanka or a Shiite in Baghdad. Try and put yourself in their shoes if you can. It’s called humanism and empathy…two of the very human qualities that sociopaths lack. Perhaps then you will become a better person.
So if we use your logic, I guess we can mention john howard and his policies and the unfortunate deaths during his watch.
http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/r/stat-int.php
how about those stats? Our number of people that we resettle is by no means slack.
guddy: at least howard acted and put in place policies that stopped the deaths at sea. compare that to labor who took apart those policies, celebrated that dismantling, and did their utmost to cover up and distract attention away from the entirely predictable rise in boat arrivals and deaths
Andym when are you going to take them one eyed glasses off, this is not a competition. They are not numbers, they are real people, you have been brainwashed my friend and I genuinely feel for you.
Well spoken well written then short and sweet.
I am tired of right wing apologists and their despicable faux outrage at deaths at sea.
uknowi: at least the right tried and succeeded in stopping the deaths. do you really believe that they took joy in the deaths, or do you believe that their concern was just a cover for xenophobia? If xenophobic, surely they’d have cut our refugee intake as well.
I don’t play partisan politics like you. I’m not interested in playing partisan politics like you. I’ve already explained to you at some length why I’m not interested in partisan tribalistic politics and why your tribalistic attitude is abhorent. If you didn’t understand it, there’s not much I can do about that other than hope your idiotic LNP will introduce Gonski in its entirety so your descendents will become better educated than you. I don’t know what more I can say other than this…
http://wp.me/a2fD5I-El
uknowi: guessing you missed / glossed over my link showing that we do pull our weight internationally in terms of charity, or hwere in the meta i pointed out that this death was as unacceptable as any other death in custody. i don’t have a tribalistic attitude towards it. I prefer that people don’t die coming here. I prefer that we as a nation choose who comes here and how. On this matter, at this point in time, they do seem to have a more humane policy than any other credible alternative.
You are my hero, Victoria
Well said Victoria.
Well written Victoria,yes Morrison is not worthy to represent Australians,a lowlife!
I’m guessing that you were full of anger at the policies that labor enacted that lured over a thousand to their deaths if one death gets so much emotion. I don’t recall any of the ALP apologising for those deaths, resigning or even really acknowledging that their policy settings had incentivised people to come by boat.
The death is not being excused. It is as unacceptable as any death in custody. With the need to answer questions, and there being confusion, why are you so angry at things not being 100% accurate. Should they have waited for months like labor did after the deaths leading up to christmas on christmas island?
Fundamentally: why are those who come here by boat more deserving of our charity than those the UN have already processed and assessed as being most in need of resettlement? How many should we resettle every year, and what do we do when n+1 people arrive asking for a place here?
There is a comment on Get Up facebook making exactly the same claim here, i had a look at her fb , down a bit from the top was the remark ” every time a refugee boat sinks and the sharks eat them we have a celebration” another person also in on the deaths at sea diversion had written ” next time invite me”
Hello cruel world as life is not meant to be easy.
Well written Vic and I hope all those LNP lovers break out in tears at the thought of Abbott and Morrison having spilt some blood during their watch. While I am at it, these same goons sent our military to war and now they wont repay their efforts by denying their pensions they justly deserve from DVA. Yes it was the Vietnam Vets, decades ago, slogging it out for their compensation by being in a combat war zone. Now our Peace Keepers are facing the same situation especially those who were involved in the longest conflict ever for Australia. So keep it up Vic and looking for more of your investigative talents.
What a lot of hot cock boats have just about stopped it is what we wanted is it not, I do not like anyone losing their life but anyone that gets on a boat and travels to another land without permission is asking for trouble
Time for Morrison to get on the first plane to PNG to find out what is happening. His staff and the PS are obviously not telling him.
Thank you. Any one desperate to save their families would do the same… get on a boat… and take all risks to try to find safety. there is no “queue” in the countries people are fleeing.
Wake up #Australia… actually most of us are “boat people” at one time or another, including Abbott. Australia has signed on to the human rights conventions that require them to protect asylum seekers. Almost all asylum seekers are found to be legitimate. Close Manus Island and Nauru. Bring all asylum seekers to facilities in Australia for processing.
Thank you for a very powerful letter.
All Australians need to take action.
there is a “queue” insofar as there are UN camps, and the UN assessing who is most in need of resettlement.
Why do those who jump on boats get precedence over those who are in refugee camps and don’t pay off criminal gangs?
How many asylum seekers do we take in, and what do we do when n+1 people come?
Do you really think that there are refugee camps and the UN everywhere that there are people in danger of being killed, imprisoned and/or tortured?
Do you think the UN can handle all the needs?
Everyone in danger needs our support. Let’s do all we can. The UN cannot handle it. the UN is not everywhere nor are there refugee camps and a “queue” everywhere.
Boats have stopped arriving – but not necessarily stopped leaving.
Anybody noticed that we are now in the Indoneasian Monsoon Season?
All it will take is a flotilla of boats overwhelming the Navy’s ability to tow them all and filling up all the camps.
Then what?
The “Final Solution”?
Love your work Victoria.
ah yes. complete coincidence that when the policy changed the results changed.
Nice way to invoke Godwin’s law without actually mentioning Germany and with zero evidence. If you wanted to find callous disregard for human safety, you’d do no better than the ALP policy settings on asylum seekers.
The refugee crisis is despicable and untenable. When and how are we going to do something about It? Articulate as ever victoria well said.
Victoria, you wrote, “…but you’re also an evil, untrustworthy fool”. I have been criticised recently for over-using the word ‘evil’ to describe this government. But I believe Australia has never had a government before comprised of people with such evil intentions.
Spot on Joe I couldn’t agree more. Evil Pope Abbott the Inquisitor.
Enunciate why this government is evil. At present that is just a claim without evidence.
Well, well, well drop in some day AndyM. You have just answered all of Abbotts stupid accusations during Pope Abbot’s six years while in opposition haven’t you. For a start Australia’s unemployment has now reached a record high since 1999. Now all those 9’s makes Abbott evil. The constant lies from Pope Abbott and his inquisitors is another. You are a Right Wing-nut, so why should I recant anything when Abbott is guilty beyond reasonable doubt in stabbing Malcolm Turnbull in the back too, just to take his job from him.
[…] I was commenting at Victoria Rollison’s blog when a typical right wing Abbott apologist decided to have a go at me, in a sense accusing me of […]
How depressing this debate becomes when it descends into politics. The notion that our choice is between the current policy of “stop the boats, whatever it takes” or face being swamped with boat people is hardly the point. Opposition to the current policy is not opposition to the notion that immigration might need to be controlled. The problem with the current policy is the means being used to achieve it. The issue is not whether Labor or the Coalition are doing it, but that it is being done at all. Neither side of politics has anything to be proud of, but its the Coalition that now has the power to change things – not the ALP. That is were the blame must laid now – with those that can do something about it.
Morrison is a loathsome individual and a hypocrite to boot – not because he’s a member of the LNP, but because he is a loathsome individual and a hypocrite to boot.
So please, stop turning this into a political issue and decide whether “stopping the boats” is worth the cost. BTW, Has this policy put the People Smugglers out of business?
I endorse Victoria’s comments about Scott Morrison. I don’t share Victoria’s politics, but I do share her assessment of Morrison.
Kevin to answer your question about this extreme far right attitude “Stop the Boats” policy actually stopped those People Smugglers (or travel agents) then the answer must be NO!
Why is this so, as at the moment the weather is not in their favour due to cyclone and monsoon period we are in at the moment up north and will linger on until March. So at the moment there is a small trickle for the Navy to return asylum seekers back to Indonesia waters on those expensive one way life boats.
The biggest problem for Australia is they still are responsible for the well being of those asylum seekers no matter were they are, as they have been handled by our Australian Navy and Custom Officials by actual contact under the law. This makes those who seek asylum making that first contact with Australian soil as to speak for as if they had landed on our shores. Australia is already breached their signature to the Refugee Convention and it is only matter of time until the UNCH gets off their arse and does something about this situation in the world courts. Me no lawyer but I can read between the lines.
Both Pope Abbott and his little general are both hypocrites to boot around with, and I doubt if in the long run those boats will stop altogether for they will keep on trying to sneak through this so called boarder protection blockade.
Miraculous coincidence isn’t it that this complete drop-off happened when change in govt happened isn’t it. Surely you’d have stats from previous years showing the same dip if you’re putting it down to the monsoon….
I’m guessing that despite both of us not being lawyers, if there was a serious problem with the way things were being done, either the greens or the ALP would be singing it from the rooftops. They have cleverer lawyers than either of us, and at least with the greens, are very sympathetic towards asylum seekers.
Perhaps all of you left wing scum should be held 100% responsible for this 3rd world filth being dumped on our doorstep. You should be totally responsible for them, including being jailed with them when their criminal behaviour comes to the fore.
You all seem to live in fantasy land – these dregs of the earth dont give a rats arse about you or any other white person. They just want what they can get because they come from countries destroyed by colonialism and failed states trying to act European.
Well, you lot clean up the mess that is left when we are overrun with this scum. None of you have any basis in reality, you live in false utopia where you think we will all live together happily. How false, how stupid of you all to think like this.
With hateful ignorant and racist people of questionable intellect like you in the world there will always be conflict. I can only wonder if you even realise how lucky you were to be born in Australia. I doubt you could empathise with somebody trying to escape abuse and tyranny? Put yourself in their shoes if you can. It will demonstrate your emotional maturity and intelligence.
I wasn’t racist until consecutive governments, left wing “think tanks” and religious institutions forced this multi-kult lie down everyones throat. I am not one of you intellectual, inner city elites who have no idea what life is like in the suburbs where crime and racial tension are a daily chore to be dealt with. You think I am racist??? Wait until you see some of these asians, africans and lebanese in action, then you will see racist. Do you honestly think that these people are here to live in harmony with us or the Aboriginal people? IF you do you are even more stupid than I thought. They are here to colonise and promote their own agenda, not to live in this “wonderful, melting pot” as you idiots put it.
You and your left wing weirdos think that by “Europeanising” these people from war torn nations that all will be well. Never mind you are destroying them by dumping them in the middle of Anglo-Saxon countries with hardly any post settlement support. Do you ever ask yourself the question – why are these young africans so involved in crime? I bet you dont. Once the “feel-good”, intellectual masturbation is over (i.e. after you have dumped these people here), you go back to your champagne lifestyle while the community is left to deal with this mess. You are the racist – you impose your European world view onto these people and expect them to change overnight. This is another of your utopian, reality denying efforts that will eventually end up destroying all societies that these doomed policies have been inflicted upon. You are the racist for not leaving these people in their own lands, with their own people, culture and life. If they are war-torn then send them money, YOU help them in their rightful place, not bring them here to see them further denied human rights through the inability of them to quickly mould into little pseudo europeans. God your lot are so fucking stupid. Where do you think this will end? Your very existence is under extreme threat because of the uncontrolled immigration that you and your fucked up policies have imposed on normal society.
I am yet to meet anyone from the left who is actually intelligent and whose thoughts and leanings are based in reality. You are all extremely strange people. You dont even realise that you are pawns for the New World Order you are that fucking stupid. You are being used to create dystopia but you will never realise it because your head is so far up your own arse. All this bullshit such as: feminism, climate change, poofter dads, bullying, equality – its all a fucking sick joke perpetuated by the wannabe, marxist middle classes who have no idea what it is like to live in the real world. Well one day your twisted little world will come crashing down because people are waking up en masse. I pity you assholes when this happens, because next time your lot will swing from lightpoles for the misery and lies you have inflicted on normal people. Your masquerade as our intellectual elite is just about over. People, real people can see straight through all of your bullshit.
If you lot hate yourselves so much, if you hate the much despised white race so much then fuck off and do yourselves in while the rest of us get on with life. We don’t need you at all, your entire ideology is rife with hypocrisy and nihilist ravings that lend nothing to the miracle of existence and the will of life.
Wow. Seek help………really.
Konrad Go get a life.
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[…] scandals, embarrassments, tragedies, ships pinging themselves, diplomatic rows with Indonesia, a murdered asylum seeker, lobbyist chiefs of staff, expense scandals, a biased Speaker, back-bench revolts, the c-bomb in […]