The denial of Julian Assange's liberty in London for almost nine years since June 2012 and, more so, his imprisonment in Belmarsh prison since April 2019 in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day, is against British law and International law. Had the Australian government chosen to use its authority, it could have long ago ended Julian Assange's ordeal, got him out of prison and back to Australia, to be with his two children and their mother Stella Moris.

Instead the Australian government chose variously to do nothing or else to smear Julian Assange.

On 12 April last year a number of Australian parliamentarians began to speak up for Julian Assange. Some even personally visited Julian Assange in prison. John Shipton, Julian Assange's father puts their number at 28, speaking in a video about his "Bring Julian Assange Home" tour. [1]

In spite of this sizeable number of members of the support group, and in spite of the massive support for Julian Assange in Australia and across the world, the Federal Government has yet to be properly held to account before the Australian people for its abandonment of Julian Assange.

The reason for this is that, as far as I can ascertain, the only avenue so far used by members of the Support Group to raise the issue of Julian Assange, has been Question Time in either of the two houses of Parliament. This consisted of an exchange between Greens Senator Janet Rice and Foreign Minister Marise Payne, on 25 March, on the subject of Julian Assange. That exchange lasted only 2:17 minutes, and much of that time was wasted with Marise Payne's obfuscation and shouting down Janet Rice.

From this, it seems that avenues other than Question Time should be used by the "Bring Julian Assange home" support group.

The most obvious alternative is to put a motion requiring this government to act in support of Julian Assange, to the floor of either The Senate or the House of Representatives. Even if the numbers of the current Australian Parliament will prevent such a motion from being carried, then at least putting such motions would give supporters of Julian Assange far more time to put their case both to Parliament and to the broader Australian public through social media and blog sites, such as this one, https://candobetter.net. For the Parliamentary Support Group not yet to have done so appears to be a terrible oversight.

The correspondence included, below, as an Appendix to this article, included two motions I have asked members of the Parliamentary Support Group to put. I wrote the first on 29 March. As far as I can tell no member of the Support Group put that to Parliament.

#whatYouCanDo">What you can do

The House of Representatives is meeting later today (Tuesday 1 June 2021), Wednesday and Thursday. Please contact one or more of the Senators and Members of Parliament #bringAssangeHomeGroup">listed below and ask him/her to to put to his/her House the motion included below in my letter of 24 May to Senator Andrew Wilkie.

My e-mail of 24 May to House of Representatives members of the "Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group"

Dear member,

I am sending you this e-mail in which is enclosed a copy of an e-mail I had sent very early yesterday morning to Andrew Wilkie. I am sending this to you because your name was included on a list of Australian Parliamentarians who have spoken up for Julian Assange.

As you would understand, Julian Assange's circumstances make this issue urgent. Quite possibly his health has been irreparably damaged by his long imprisonment and neglect. He could well die if he is not released or, at least, given urgent medical treatment for his conditions including terrible tooth abscess.

The included letter to Andrew Wilkie includes a request to put, to the House of Representatives, a motion which calls upon the British government to quickly expedite, in a manner more transparent than was previously the case, all outstanding legal matters concerning Julian Assange. Furthermore, should the British government not do so, the Australian government should be instructed to take this issue to the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

I believe this motion should be put to allow this vitally important issue to be more adequately discussed and scrutinised, than for example, the very short (2 minute, 17 second) exchange between Senator Janet Rice and Senator Marise Payne of 25 March (see /node/6093 for video and transcription of the exchange).

I believe that if the Australian government was resolved to help Julian Assange it could, in very little time, before world public opinion, and with the option of recourse to the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, make the British government release Julian Assange from Belmarsh prison and also make the US abandon its outrageous attempt to extradite Julian Assange to face the rigged Grand Jury in the eastern district of Virginia.

Surely, in a functioning democracy, the Australian government should be held to account for failing to meet up its basic obligation to uphold the rights of Julian Assange. Unless my proposed motion, or something similar is put to the House of Representatives, the Senate or both, I think that holding the Australian government to account for this will prove to be much harder.

Thank you for reading this.

Yours faithfully,

James Sinnamon

Enclosed Letter of 23 May to Andrew Wilkie

Dear Andrew Wilkie,

My Apologies for this late notice, but I only realised not long before midnight that the House of Representatives will be sitting again later today.

Just for now, I am sending copies to other members of the House of Representatives who have previously shown their support for Julian Assange. Later today, I will also send copies to Senators who have also shown support as well as any other supporters in the House I may have missed.

Some time during the next four days sitting of the House of Representatives, could you please put the following motion:

This Parliament finds it unacceptable that Australian journalist Julian Assange, who is not guilty of any crime, continues to be held in London's Belmarsh prison in solitary confinement for 23 hours every day, whilst those who started the 2003 Iraq war have yet to be held to account for this crime against humanity.

Accordingly this Parliament calls upon the British government to immediately expedite, and in a more transparent fashion than previously, all outstanding legal matters concerning Julian Assange including his own appeal against his continued imprisonment.

Should the British government fail to do so, this Parliament instructs Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne, as a matter of urgency, to raise this at the United Nations and at the International Criminal Court.

?

Please feel most welcome to draft a similar motion if you think you can improve upon my wording.

As you will surely appreciate, this is a matter of utmost urgency, given the state of Julian Assange's health and given the stated resolve of the United States government to appeal Judge Vanessa Baraitser's ruling against the extradition of Julian Assange.

Whilst it now seems unlikely to me that such a motion would pass either in the House or the Senate, I still believe that having this debated on the floor of either or both houses of the Australian Parliament would enormously lift the profile of the International campaign.

Also, I think it will most likely increase the public support for those who speak and vote for such a motion and will have the opposite effect on those who oppose the motion or abstain.

I include below, as an Appendix, another proposed motion, which I sent to you and other supporters of Julian Assange on 29 March. As far as I am aware, that was not put, which I think is unfortunate.

For further information about my own efforts to free Julian Assange, please look at /JulianAssange/.

I will endeavour to contact you and the other recipients of this e-mail later today. If you want to contact me, I can be reached on 0412 319669.

Thank you for having read this.

Yours faithfully,

James Sinnamon

Appendix: My earlier proposed motion of 29 March on Julian Assange

Noting that multiple award-winning Australian journalist, Julian Assange, who has committed no crime against British or Australian law, has been illegally detained and psychologically and physically tortured by the British government since 19 June 2012, firstly until 11 April 2019 inside the London Ecuadorian Embassy, and, after that, in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day in Belmarsh Prison, this House/Senate requires Scott Morrison to use all his authority as Prime Minister to demand of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that he immediately release Julian Assange and facilitate his return to Australia or to any other country of his choosing with his wife Stella Moris and his two children.

 

Should the British Government refuse to release Julian Assange, this Parliament instructs the Prime Minister to ask the United Nations to act for Julian Assange's release and, should it be necessary, to put the case to the International Criminal Court.

#bringAssangeHomeGroup">The "Bring Julian Assange Home" Group

Whilst Julian Assange's father John Shipton said on 24 April that there are 26 members of the "Bring Julian Assange Home" Parliamentary Support Group before Peter Khalil joined, I only count 24. (In my opinion, this is still more than enough to make this government pay dearly for its unconscionable refusal to stand up for Julian Assange). I would be most grateful were anyone to supply me with the names of other members of the Group - JS, 14/6/21.

House of Representatives members and supporters

 

	Electorate	State	Party	M/S
Mr George Christensen MP	Dawson	Qld	Liberal National Party of Qld	Co-Chair
Mr Andrew Wilkie MP	Clark	Tas	Independent	Co-Chair
Mr Adam Bandt MP	Melbourne	Vic	Greens	Member
Mr Steve Georganas MP	Adelaide	SA	Labor Party	Member
Dr Helen Haines MP	Indi	Vic	Independent	Member
Mr Julian Hill MP	Bruce	Vic	Labor Party	Member
Hon Barnaby Joyce MP	New England	NSW	The Nationals	Member
Mr Peter Khalil MP	Wills	Vic	Labor	Member
Ms Rebekha Sharkie MP	Mayo	SA	Centre Alliance	Member
Ms Zali Steggall OAM, MP	Warringah	NSW	Indpendent	Member
Ms Susan Templeman MP	Macquarie	NSW	Labor Party	Member
Ms Maria Vamvakinou MP	Calwell	Vic	Labor Party	Member
Mr Josh Wilson MP	Fremantle	WA	Labor Party	Member
Mr Tony Zappia MP	Makin	SA	Labor Party	Member

 

Senate members and supporters

 

	State	Party	M/S
Senator Mehreen Faruqi	NSW	Greens	Supporter
Senator Stirling Griff	SA	Centre Alliance	Supporter
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young	SA	Greens	Supporter
Senator Nick McKim	Tas	Greens	Member
Senator Rex Patrick	SA	Centre Alliance	Supporter
Senator Janet Rice	Vic	Greens	Supporter
Senator Rachel Siewert	WA	Greens	Supporter
Senator Jordon Steele-John	WA	Greens	Supporter
Senator Larissa Waters	Qld	Greens	Supporter
Senator Peter Whish-Wilson	Tas	Greens	Member

Footnote[s]

[1] See "John Shipton speaks at the Melbourne Vigil for Julian Assange, Flinders St Station, Fri 21 May 2021," video at https://www.youtube.com/embed/ifucM7rMcfw. It is difficult to know for sure the precise count of the number of members of the Parliamentary Support Group for Julian Assange. One list, divided into members of the House of Representatives and Senators is included above. I think I recall a hearing that the count was 28.

John Shipton is currently in Miami, touring the United States to put to the people of the United States, the case for why his son Julian Assange should be freed from his illegal imprisonment in London and not extradited to the United States

Last Thursday 25 March, during the Senate Estimates Hearing, Greens Senator for Victoria, Janet Rice (pictured left), asked Foreign Minister Marise Payne (pictured right) to explain her failure to act to free Australian journalist Julian Assange from his imprisonment in Belmarsh Prison in London. Given the very short time allowed for Janet Rice to pursue this issue, she did remarkably well in cutting through Marise Payne's evasions and attempts to obfuscate the issue.

The 2:17 minute video from Twitter, is embedded below and the text of the exchange between Senators Janet Rice and Marise Payne is included below the video.

Exchange between Senator Janet Rice and Senator Marise Payne on Julian Assange

Janet Rice : So, on Julian Assange, Minister, have you personally requested to the Biden administration that they drop their appeal against the UK court finding to not extradite Julian Assange.

Marise Payne : Senator, I said in response to Senator Patrick, that I had not discussed this directly with the Biden administration at this stage, but I expect it to be discussed in meetings with the Secretary of State (the United States equivalent of Foreign Minister).

Janet Rice : OK, and when do you expect those meetings to occur?

Marise Payne : In the coming months.

Janet Rice : Months?

Marise Payne : Well, Senator, nothing is confirmed because we are making arrangements in relation to travel. If I am not able to do that in person, then I will be raising a number of issues in a virtual engagement that will be sooner.

Janet Rice : And this is despite the reporting that if you had actually raised the issue of Julian Assange with the Trump administration to drop the charges, that they were very likely to have done so?

Marise Payne : Well, I did raise the matter with the Trump administration, Senator. I raised the matter with the Secretary of State, myself directly at AUSMIN (Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations) in July 2020.

Janet Rice : Well, in the last month, the Trump administration - that secondary reporting - but I will move on. Were DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) officials told that Julian Assange is on suicide watch from the time that of his arrival at Belmarsh Prison on 11 April 2019?

Marise Payne : Senator, while the [DFAT] officer is going to brief, I would remind you, Senator, as I have in the Senate, that the Australian Government has endeavoured to offer consular assistance …

Janet Rice : My time is short, Minister and I am aware that you …

Marise Payne : And I have two things to say, Senator. The consular assistance on 22 occasions, from 2019 to 2021, DFAT - consent was withdrawn for DFAT to consult about Mr Assange's personal circumstances, his health and his welfare in prison on the 13th of June 2019 by Mr Assange. So, given consent was withdrawn, Senator …

Janet Rice : I am asking you about the time between his arrival on the 11th of April until the 13th of June when DFAT had his consent.

Tomorrow it will be exactly 10 years since Kelvin Thomson spoke to the Parliament describing increasing population as the underlying cause of the world’s problems. He listed each of them - global warming, food crisis, water shortages, housing affordability, overcrowded cities, traffic congestion, species extinctions, fisheries collapse, increasing prices, waste, terrorism and war - and described the role that population growth was playing in fuelling them.

Sadly in the ten years since he gave that speech population growth has continued unabated, and Kelvin says he can’t claim that the speech has had any effect on it.

But the speech has certainly stood the test of time. Every thing he pointed out ten years ago remains valid and has been vindicated by the growing problems and turmoil that we see around us.

Kelvin Thomson gives the example of water shortages, which are now even more acute than they were in 2009. He cites a New York Times report which appeared 10 days ago (“A Quarter of Humanity Faces Looming Water Crises”) which said that World Resources Institute researchers had found that among cities with more than 3 million people, 33 of them, with a combined population of over 255 million, face extremely high water stress, with repercussions for both public health and social unrest.

Even worse, by 2030 the number of those cities in the extremely high stress category is expected to rise to 45 and include nearly 470 million people. Clearly the World Resources Institute doesn’t believe either the engineering solutions of the technological optimists, or the consume less/waste less exhortations of the social justice warriors, are going to actually prevent this debacle.

He was only wrong about one thing, he says:

"The one area where Australia has taken a different path from the one I predicted has been the question of price rises. Prices have risen less than I expected, largely because our mass migration program has put downward pressure on wages and caused them to be stagnant. Of course the effect on living standards, which was my concern, has been the same. As the ABC economics writer Carrington Clarke observed in 2017, the reason Australians have been concerned that their living standards haven’t been rising is because they haven’t, while migration has enabled Governments to pretend we have been recession free and that the economy is improving."

"We continue to go down a totally unsustainable path and ordinary people have less control over their lives than ever before. It’s time we started to take it back," he concludes.

Kelvin Thomson's Population Speech to the Australian Parliament Monday, 17 August 2009

https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=CHAMBER;id=chamber%2Fhansardr%2F2009-08-17%2F0178;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F2009-08-17%2F0000%22
Mr KELVIN THOMSON (8:40 PM) —We all know that the world has plenty of problems. Let me run out some that come to mind without much effort: global warming, the food crisis, water shortages, housing affordability, overcrowded cities, transport congestion, the fisheries collapse, species extinctions, increasing prices, waste and terrorism. We scratch our heads and try to come up with solutions. It staggers me that so often we ignore the elephant in the room: increasing population. Each of these problems is either caused by or exacerbated by the global population explosion. In the first two million years of human existence, the global human population was only a few million. Up to 1950, it had managed to climb to two billion. In the 50-odd years since, it has trebled to six billion people. And the population is projected to double again.

The consequences of the present population pressure are dramatic. In my belief, it is not plausible that the world’s population could double without the consequences becoming catastrophic. Yet, when it is suggested that the world’s population is a problem, there is zero interest from policy makers. In my view, it is not so much a problem as the problem. Let me return to that list of problems and describe the impact of population on them.

One: global warming. Population plays a critical role in global warming. We have one earth and one atmosphere, and every carbon dioxide molecule we release into it contributes to global warming. The more of us there are, the more carbon dioxide is released—simple and undeniable. Al Gore identifies population growth as one of the big three drivers of the rapid spurt of greenhouse gasses during the past 50 years. People who believe that we can meet serious carbon targets without curbing population growth are kidding themselves; they are delusional. There is no reasonable prospect that Australia will reduce its total level of greenhouse emissions while our population grows by one million every four years as is presently the case. Population stabilisation must be part of the plan to contain greenhouse emissions not merely for Australia but for the rest of the world as well.

Two: the food crisis. The combination of declining arable land and continued population growth has caused the world’s per capita food production to go into decline. We are now in a situation where there is a global shortage of food which is set to get worse. In future, more people will starve—not fewer. Figures released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation show that the number of people suffering from chronic hunger is rising, not falling. In June last year, the Australian government’s Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation said that world agriculture is experiencing a growing crisis, and its first named demand-side factor was increasing global population.

Three: water shortages. As with agricultural decline, population growth is fuelling water shortages both indirectly through climate change and directly through extraction and pollution. Around the world, one in three people is suffering from water shortage. Assuming modest rates of population growth, we will use 70 per cent of the world’s accessible fresh water by 2025. Already, 400 million children worldwide are drinking dangerously unclean water, and one child dies from a waterborne disease every 15 seconds. According to Melbourne Water, water scarcity in and around Melbourne is being driven by both climate change and population growth.

Four: housing affordability. Housing affordability in Australia has undergone a period of dramatic decline. John Edwards, an economist with HSBC, has noted that Australia’s high level of migration, the highest level in our history, is going to keep upward pressure on house prices. The same goes for rent. The General Manager of Australian Property Monitors, Michael McNamara, has said the shortage of rental properties will continue to worsen because of rising migration.

Five: overcrowded cities. Our cities are too large. They dwarf people. The sheer scale of them is overwhelming for some, who lose the plot and fall victim to mental illness or drug and alcohol abuse. For the rest of us, the madding crowd swells every year, giving us that little bit less room. Every square metre of space is fought over. In Africa and Asia the accumulated urban growth during the whole span of history is in the process of being doubled between the years 2000 and 2030. A United Nations Population Fund report released in June 2007 says that, as a result, a billion people—one-sixth of the world’s population—live in slums. The overcrowding of cities is not merely a Third World phenomenon either. In my home city of Melbourne, a lot of people of goodwill have supported high rise as preferable to urban sprawl. What they do not realise is that it is not halting any urban sprawl at all. Suburbs continue to continue to march out onto the horizon. Property developers are having their cake and eating it too. We are growing upwards and outwards. Melbourne is becoming an obese hardened-artery parody of its former self. There is something intangible but important about the personal space of a backyard. I believe the children who grow up in concrete jungle suburbs are subject to more bullying and harassment and are more vulnerable to traps such as crime and drugs.

Six: traffic congestion. More people equals more cars, and the more cars there are out on the roads the longer it takes us to get anywhere. The time that motorists spend on the roads in and out of Brisbane, for example—to the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast or Ipswich—is truly appalling. Each suburb we build out of the city fringes means more traffic coming through the inner suburbs, more congestion, more pollution and more noise. It does nothing for our calm, our quality of life or our sanity. We think we have no choice but to grin and bear it. It is not true.

Seven: species extinctions. The USA based National Academy of Sciences has reported that human activities are leading to a wave of extinctions over 100 times greater than natural rates. Over 12,000 varieties of animal, plant and water life are critically endangered. Thirty per cent of Australia’s 760 bird species are under threat. The world has entered the 21st century with little more than 10 per cent of its original forest cover intact. According to anthropologists Richard Leakey and Roger Lewis, all the forest cover will be largely gone by 2050. Sometimes I think we have declared war on everything else. The more there are of us the less there is of everything else. I consider it a grotesque piece of arrogance on our part as a species that we think that we have a right to destroy everything else on our way to affluence.

Eight: fisheries collapse. One of our favourite old sayings was, ‘There are plenty more fish in the sea.’ Not anymore: 90 per cent of the large fish in the ocean are gone. Australia is in the same boat as everyone else. Our annual catch has steadily gone down, and a Bureau of Rural Sciences fisheries status report says that two-thirds of Australia’s fisheries are either overfished or uncertain.

Nine: increasing prices. Increasing population consumes resources and makes them scarcer, leading to price rises. The rising price of petrol is a clear function of scarcity fuelled by population growth, and the increased cost of basic resources such as water and petrol feeds into everything they contribute to—food costs, transport costs, insurance, housing et cetera. Some economists argue that increasing population will create economies of scale and put downward pressure on prices. In reality, this downward pressure on prices is sighted less frequently than Elvis Presley.

Ten: waste. A vast area of the central Pacific Ocean has become smothered in plastic. It is referred to as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The area affected is estimated to be twice the size of Texas and to a depth of at least 30 metres. What a disgrace!

Eleven: terrorism and war. Analysts spend a great deal of time assessing the political and religious factors leading to the scourge of terrorism and war in the modern world. They spend less time noting the underlying cause: conflict over scarce resources—scarce land, scarce water and scarce oil—brought about by increasing population. A Pentagon report in 2007 detailed a range of scenarios in which population displacement caused by global warming and triggered by extreme weather events would lead to border tensions and armed conflict. An Oxford University study has estimated that 26 million Bangladeshis, 73 million Chinese and 20 million Indians are at risk of displacement from rising sea levels.

In short, it is time for governments and policy makers around the world to come to their senses and take steps to stabilise the world’s population. It needs to happen in every country, including here in Australia—especially here in dry, arid Australia. And it is time people and communities stood up and demanded better of their policy makers than the ‘she’ll be right’ growth fetish which is making an utter mockery of our obligation to give to our children a world in as good a condition as the one our parents gave to us.