Australians
are learning more and more each day about the cruel, incompetent and
unaccountable apparatchiks who staff our immigration system as the
frightening details of the Vivian Solon bungle emerge (see here).

And the world is learning more and more about our immigration policies as the film The Ball,
a short directed by Sydney lawyer Anny Slater, continues to win
international recognition. The political comedy was short-listed in the
best short live action film in the 2004 Oscars, was nominated for a UN
Media Peace award, and has recently been screened to an enthusiastic
audience at the Yale University film faculty in Connecticut, the alma
mater of Jodie Foster, the Cohn brothers and David Hyde Pierce.

Now
it has been cited for showing “exceptional promise and creativity in
the comedy genre” by the Gene Siskel Film Centre at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago. It will receive an Honorable Mention in the
annual Christopher Wetzel Comedy Film Awards which will be presented in
Chicago on 25 June 2005.

But none of this excuses Amanda Vanstone and her heavy-headed bureaucrats from their Keystone Cops routine.