Images from ABC and The Guardian
By Situation Theatre 14/6/2021
The Chief of Staff who prosecuted Tony Abbott’s “Stop the Boats” campaign is made an Officer of the Order of Australia as a four-year old victim of the nation’s punitive offshore prison camps lies sick in a hospital bed. What could be more Australian than that?
A patriotic Aussie enjoying a bevvy at his local is now wondering whether in fact “this is exactly who we are” after hearing the news that Peta Credlin has been honoured for “distinguished service to parliament and politics, to policy development, and to the executive function of government”.
Credlin, serving as Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Chief of Staff from September 2013 to September 2015, is responsible for some of Australia’s most heinous policymaking towards refugees and therefore some of the worst human rights abuses this country has ever committed, and that’s saying something. She has just been awarded the nation’s second most prestigious award
Tharnicaa is a four-year-old child who has spent most of her life in an island prison camp thanks to the policy architecture Credlin help set-up, and is now in hospital suffering from a blood infection after 10 days of medical neglect.
Australia, Australia, this is you.