Lieberal backbencher throws support behind Victorian doctors - kids in jail

Well, it started with a protest at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital, with doctors saying they refuse to send kids back to immigration detention on the grounds of their mental and physical well-being. It was breaking Abbott's legislation about reporting on conditions in such centres, but there have been no charges laid to date.

Following this the Victorian state minister for health stepped in to support the doctors at the RCH. Followed soon after by the Australian Medical Association. Now it's gone even further, into the ranks of the Lieberal gov itself.

Influential back bencher Russell Broadbent has come in supporting the doctors and calling for the release of all kids in detention. He claims that Australian sentiment has "shifted" on the issue but I disagree with that. The vast majority of Australians would never lock up kids, would never treat asylum seekers like both our Labor and Lieberal gov's have done. 

This was simply about politics. Using vulnerable people for political gain. They wanted to win important seats in western Sydney which is pretty much redneck central for Australia. Bigoted racists severely short of intelligence dwell there, but who vote as well. Hence the importance of western Sydney electorates to win elections saw the bogan demographic shape Australia's border policy.

It's taken years and years. This all started under Howard. But finally the voices of protest against treating people this way are finally starting to click in the heads of our unrepresentative swill in Canberra. Typical isn't it. Why can't they just lead, instead of being dragged kicking and screaming to the bloody obvious?

And now an influential Liberal MP is telling the Turnbull government that voters have shifted on asylum seeker policy and want children out of detention centres. 

Victorian backbencher Russell Broadbent is among government MPs calling for the release of 200 minors held on Nauru and the mainland. 

He spoke out today after hundreds of health professionals at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital revealed they were refusing to send young patients back to detention in defiance of Government orders. 

“The Australian people, through the Royal Children’s Hospital, have shifted. And they’ve said: ‘Our detention policies are not good enough’,” Mr Broadbent told ABC radio today. 

The latest Department of Immigration figures show there are 104 children in mainland detention and 93 held on Nauru. A further group of youngsters — possible about 100 — are living in the Nauru community. 

These children, aged from babies to late teens, have little education, and some are so institutionalised that when asked their names they reply with the three letters and three digits used by officials to record the boat they arrived on. 

The Government and Labor have vowed they will never get Australian residency, but there is no plan to settle them elsewhere. The Nauru children face the prospect of staying there for the rest of their lives in poor conditions. more