Australian decency ?

Published in Union Songs
http://unionsong.com/u365.html

also published in Al-Moharer 30/5/2006 Vol. 243
http://www.al-moharer.net/mohhtm/tomlinson243.htm

also published in Green Left 21/6/2006 p.21
also published in New Community Quarterly Vol.4 No.2 Winter 2006

Refugee, asylum seeker
who’s the listener,
who’s the speaker?

Are you ventriloquist or faker
who’s the giver,
who’s the taker?

Compassion now, or racist pride
which is decent,
who has lied?

Come, citizen or overlord
were children thrown
overboard?

Welcoming the millionaire,
rejecting lonely, frightened, poor,
makes the whole world despair.

Can’t you see the tyranny,
won’t you show humanity,
or have we lost our decency?

A poem by John Tomlinson and Penny Harrington©2006