from Afghanistan and Iraq, almost all are genuine refugees by the most narrow definition. Fewer than 12,000 reach Australia every year, many after perilous sea journeys. They are greeted, wrote Manne, with "the most humanly unpleasant mandatory detention system in the western world, where asylum-seekers, including children, now languish for months or even years behind razor wire, in some of our most remote regions and harshest climates". Indeed, no other western country, including Jack Straw's draconian Britain, routinely incarcerates genuine refugees for months and longer, without them even being interviewed by officials. No other western government minister personally abuses those in his government's care - people merely seeking safety - as venal and selfish, as Ruddock does constantly. Ruddock's camps are run by an American security firm. Last month, a guard at the Port Headland camp was given a suspended sentence for thrashing a handcuffed refugee. The day after the assault, 120 refugees rioted. Ruddock's reaction was to urge that chemical injections be used widely in the camps "to calm the detainees". Port Headland, one of the hottest places on earth, is a 20-hour bus journey from Perth. According to Eira Clapton, an Anglican deacon helping the refugees, those who get to Perth "have been brutalised. The guards call them by their numbers, they insult them, they criticise their religious beliefs. There is a complete disregard for humanity." There have been reports in the Australian press about this disgrace. In a vivid article in the Sydney Morning Herald, Penelope Debelle