
Paul Stevenson has had a life in trauma. The psychologist and traumatologist has spent 40 years helping people make sense of their lives in the aftermath of disaster, of terrorist attacks, bombings and mass murders, of landslides, fires and tsunamis. He's written a book about his experiences, Postcards from Ground Zero, and for his efforts in assisting the victims of the Bali bombings, the Australian government pinned an Order of Australia Medal to his chest.
Now, he says, it is the Australian government deliberately inflicting upon people the worst trauma he has ever seen.
Stevenson is president of the Queensland branch of the Australian Democrats. The party is not registered in the state, so he is standing in this federal election as an independent, with the support of his party. He doesn't know whether his slim electoral chances for a Senate seat - "somewhere between zero and a half" - will be helped or harmed by speaking to the Guardian. But he says he feels it is incumbent on those who have been inside Australia's offshore detention centres to tell those at home the truth about regional processing.












Comment: Let's call these sites for what the are: concentration camps. Australia's psychopathic, racist, neocon government is simply warehousing those it finds inconvenient.
- Australian government's anti-immigrant poster shocks planet
- Rape and self-immolation in Australia's refugee centers
Neither is this a recent development:Australia Asylum: Christmas Island Unrest Continues