Lucky for some

November 20, 2009
Issue 

I'm Sorry Mr. Okoye — and Mr. Nguyen too
For the abuse you suffered at the hands
Of those who should have better things to do;
There are evils done under the cover of night
Or in distance and desert, hid from our sight

You know we mistreat many who come
Down here to our land sweating under the sun
The forgotten who work for a twelve-hour day
Coming to slave here for laughable pay
People who clean up our mess and our smell
Maybe chopping our greens in some fancy hotel
And if any man might need what he lacks
There are eight hundred women slaved into sex

We're not that kind here to the different or poor
Suffering harsh regulation and law
For some rules that were passed to save public face
Nine thousand this year lost home and place

You know that we all lost conditions as well
Sweating for tyrants in corporate hell
It seems that there's something we forgot to arrange
We were losing our freedom — so we voted for change

Got rid of those singing their paranoid song
Mr Ruddock Miss Vanstone thank Rudd that you're gone
Fired by a people weary of fearing
Though I see Mr. Abbott's still out there sneering

There's still in the night the knock at the door
Taken away, unprotected by law
In the hands of anonymous corporate guards
Without any rights, any lawyers or wards

Banging the sides of a van that's somewhere
On the way to the desert, dust and despair
And those GSL clowns, who laughed at your plight
Have no right! You have no fucking right!

The needs of indigenous, migrants, the weak
We were cowed into silence, but now we must speak
Now the world judges the crimes that dishonour us
They say we Australians torture our prisoners

Mr Rudd thanks for closing the hellholes overseas
And now close the others, Mr Rudd please
And perhaps be less harsh to the people that come
All the way to Australia — lucky for some.

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