I spent part of a year visiting a refugee detention centre in Melbourne, Australia. What is described here is very much like what I experienced at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Centre. So many stories I could tell. I particularly remember one woman whose young son had a medical condition concerning his heart He had caught some sort of infection and the Serco administrators were refusing him any medical help. I sat with her as she held him, worrying that these were going to be his last breaths. God, that was horrible.

Fast forward and I am visiting my parents in the US just before Donald Trump is first elected. My dad takes me to the cafe where he and a group of retired men regularly hang out for a cup of coffee. One fellow started talking near me about how he had heard about the Australian immigrant detention centres. He reckoned that the Australians had gotten it right, and the US should follow their lead. I carefully asked, what would that fix. He ignored me and went on talking.

The Children of Dilley

"Among logs we obtained of calls made to 911 and law enforcement about the facility since it began accepting families again last spring, I found pleas for help for toddlers having trouble breathing, a pregnant woman who passed out and an elementary-school-aged girl having seizures. Local authorities were also called in for three cases of alleged sexual assault between detainees.

"DHS said in its statement, 'No one is denied medical care.'"

From: Human Rights Law Centre Australia

Kmart challenge heard in the Federal Court today

Buying clothes should never come at the cost of someone’s freedom.

Which is why we are supporting the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association (AUTWA), who are in the Federal Court of Australia today seeking documents to determine whether Kmart engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct about the use of Uyghur forced labour by some of its clothing suppliers.

Kmart markets itself as an ethical business, but two of its suppliers have been linked to East Turkistan, also known as Xinjiang, China, where forced labour and other atrocities against Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim people are rife. Last month UN experts expressed concerns that this treatment may amount to crimes against humanity.

If the documents show that Kmart has not rigorously monitored the risk of the use of forced labour in its supply chain, it may pave the way for a legal claim that Kmart has engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct.

This case is the first of its kind in seeking to bring real accountability home to Australian retailers.

So very sad.

This was planned. And Chris Minns owns it.

I was there. Not watching from a distance. Not reconstructing events from police statements. I was on the steps of Sydney Town Hall, with organisers and MPs, looking out over a vast peaceful crowd and then watching the state choose violence.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog arrived in Sydney for a tightly secured visit. That context matters, because what unfolded was not crowd management. It was a demonstration of power. A message. A deliberate assertion of authority.

An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people gathered peacefully at Town Hall to protest Herzog’s presence. Thousands more were turned away by police cordons. Had the crowd been allowed to assemble freely, numbers would almost certainly have reached 30,000 or more. Families. Elderly people. Students. Health workers. Jews and Muslims standing together. Calm. Disciplined. Focused...

Inside the International Convention Centre, Minns broke bread with Herzog as the Israeli president spoke about social cohesion.

This is the same Isaac Herzog who once declared there were no innocent civilians in Palestine. The same Herzog who autographed artillery shells later dropped on Gaza. His government now stands before international courts, its conduct under legal scrutiny.Minns knew exactly what this moment represented.

Last year, more than 300,000 people marched across the Harbour Bridge in support of Palestine.

Minns tried to stop it. He failed.

He lost in court. He lost the argument. He lost control. That march exposed the limits of his authority and the strength of public opposition.

This was his chance to correct that.

Herzog was in town. The optics were international. Minns was not going to lose again...

As the evening wore on, the brutality escalated. Dozens upon dozens were arrested. Protesters were dragged across pavement, punched, kicked, restrained. This was not reactive policing. It was proactive force.

People who have been pepper sprayed.

Chris Minns, Premier of NSW