Media Release
Tuesday December 21 2004 10:00am WST
For Immediate Release
No Embargoes

"After this morning's revelations by the Melbourne Age, which lifts the lid off the manipulations and spinlines coming from the former and current minister of immigration, assisted by the Trial by Media of the Bakhtiari family, Minister Vanstone should actually start doing her job and read the family's case file."

"Writer Bob Ellis in The Age revealed that the Minister had confirmed she had not actually read the case file of the family. As Bob Ellis put it:

"Asked yesterday if she had read their file, Amanda Vanstone said she hadn't. Asked if she had seen any evidence that they were Pakistanis, she said she hadn't. Asked if she'd seen, or anyone had seen, their Pakistani birth certificates, she agreed there weren't any. She said, however, that they had had a "fair go" - including, apparently, 32 months behind razor wire - and that fair go was now, sadly, fading to black. She never visited Woomera and, though a lawyer, never looked at the evidence."

Today Project SafeCom recommends that the minister "eats her shit, reads what she should have read last year, and issues a full and unreserved apology to the family, the large circle of friends and supporters that surround the family in South Australia, and the lawyers, that, even while they may have done a stupid job at times, carried a heart of compassion for the family."

"Once the Minister has read the case file, she sure needs to bring her Christmas present to the family, and needs to stop the machinery of spin, lies and uninformed slander and vilification this family has been subjected to."

For more information:

Jack H Smit
[phone number posted]

Online resources:

The new Australian fair go (The Age, Bob Ellis - December 21, 2004)

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/The-new-Australian-fair-go/2004/12/20/1103391697925.html