Help Me Understand This…
Because I Can’t
I’m trying to understand something. I’ve been battling it all week.
And to be fair, I’ll agree with the points that deserve agreement as I go.
In Australia, if you’re not a citizen and you commit a crime and receive a Head prison sentence of 12 months or more, your visa will be cancelled automatically.
I get that. I agree with that.
A line has to be drawn somewhere. A policy has to exist. No issues there.
Then comes the next step.
You’re given the chance to ask Home Affairs to reverse that decision. You can put forward your case. Show who you are now, not just who you were when things went wrong.
Again… fair enough.
They review it, and most of the time, they say no. That’s their role. They made the original decision, so it makes sense they’d stand by it.
No complaints there either. I get it.
But then comes the part that really matters.
The independent review.
This is where it feels like the system is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
You take your case out of the hands of the original decision-maker (Home Affairs) and place it in front of someone else. Someone neutral. Someone who wasn’t involved the first time.
A fresh set of eyes.
And this isn’t a quick look either.
This is months, sometimes years, of preparation. Evidence. Statements. Reports. People speaking on your behalf. Your whole life laid out and examined properly.
A senior member sits there and weighs it all up.
Not just the mistake… but everything around it. The context. The change. The risk. The reality.
And eventually, a decision is made.
Sometimes, that decision is:
You can stay. In my case, that was the outcome.
And at that point, I think most reasonable people would say… that’s the system working.
A tough law at the start. A chance to respond. And then an independent body making the final call.
That’s fair. That’s structured. That’s procedural.
And for those of us, and our families, going through it… that’s emotional.
That’s balanced.
That’s how it should work.
Up to there… I understand it.
More than most. And, ironically, more than some of the staff in detention centres, whose understanding of the very system they’re enforcing can be surprisingly limited.
It’s what happens next that I can’t understand.
Help me out.
Because even after all of that… the Minister can step in and cancel it anyway.
Same person.
Same facts.
Same evidence that’s already been tested.
Just a different decision.
Usually explained the same way:
“There is a risk to the Australian community.”
How conveniently broad.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the very reason the visa was cancelled in the first place? The reason this entire process even began? As a risk to the community you were sent to prison.
So what’s being said here?
That if the Tribunal reaches a decision that isn’t liked… it can simply be reversed anyway?
Then… why have a Tribunal at all?
And again, I’ll agree.
Of course, the community should be protected.
No one’s arguing that.
But this is where it stops making sense to me.
Because what was the independent review for?
Why have a process where someone completely separate looks at everything properly, takes their time, weighs the evidence… and makes a decision…
If that decision isn’t actually the final one?
Why go through months, sometimes years, of hearings, preparation, stress, and hope…
If at the very end, it can just be undone anyway?
It’s like playing a full football match, winning fairly, shaking hands… and then being told afterwards,
“Actually, we’ve decided you lost.”
Not because you cheated.
Not because you broke the rules.
But because you might… at some point… in the future. Or.. because you cheated in the past and were punished accordingly back then.
And that word “might” is where it all starts to fall apart.
Because if that’s the standard… then who doesn’t fall into that category?
Who can honestly say they are zero risk?
Not low risk. Not unlikely.
Zero.
Because if even a small possibility is too much… then the bar isn’t high…
It’s impossible.
And if the standard is impossible, then the outcome starts to feel predetermined.
Not decided.
And that’s the part I can’t reconcile.
We agree on the rule.
We agree on the review.
We agree on the need for an independent decision.
But if that independent decision can always be overridden…
Not because anything changed,
but because of what might happen…
Then what exactly was the point of it?
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be consequences.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be caution.
I’m just trying to understand how a process can be called fair…
If the final decision… isn’t really final.
Because right now…
Help me understand this.
Because I can’t.
Stay Unshackled, my friends,
Stephen
Stephen: The reason you can’t understand it is simple: you can’t understand superstition.
The entire process is slapped with a label called “democracy”. That sanctifies it. It cannot be questioned. It is an article of faith that a “democratic” system is always “right”, because in a political state, what is “right” is defined by what is legal.
The highest “officials” are elected by the majority. Due to the universal misconception that “democracy” means “majority rule” (it doesn’t actually…but that’s the interpretation that has been adopted for convenience because real democracy requires intelligence for its implementation), “the will of the majority” is held to be sacrosanct. By extension, all ministers and other bureaucrats appointed by the elected officials are held to be representative of “the will of the majority”.
Thus sanctified, their word is law. Any other part of the process is ultimately subject to their pronouncements.
The fact that it is tyranny masquerading as democracy is either ignored (too inconvenient), or more frequently, not even perceived. That is the potency of the superstition of political democracy, which has nothing to do with real democracy. It is tyranny dressed up in democratic clothing, except that even the clothing is fake. It’s pseudo-democracy…democracy in name only.
It pretends to be a necessary evil — tyranny of the majority over the minority — which is presumed to be morally superior to tyranny of the minority over the majority. But in reality, it’s tyranny of the minority in power over the majority who have no power, and it’s all done with the consent of the majority, who believe that this arrangement is “democracy”, and therefore they have “freedom”.
The truth is that the only freedom they have in the entire process is the freedom to choose their tyrants. The tyranny itself remains sacrosanct and unquestioned.
I suspect that’s why you’re confused. The system is not what it claims to be. It appears that you still believe otherwise. That’s understandable. With all the posturing the politicians and bureaucrats do — a charade that the citizenry seems to accept as real, because they’re expected to — it is considered Your Civic Duty™ to go along with the masquerade. Then, when the mask falls away and the tyranny is up close and personal, and you see the game for the fraud that it is, you are baffled. You think, “No…it can’t really be THIS! There must be some mistake,”
But there is no mistake. The mistake is the belief in the superstition that the state is the protector of your rights, and the guarantor of justice. Nope. That’s the purpose of government. The problem is that the the state is not government.