Russell Brand Has Called Out Tony Abbott On Australia’s Treatment Of Asylum Seekers

Only a few months after casually labelling the PM “an absolute raving lunatic” comedian, philosopher, political protestor and ‘Parklife’ enthusiast Russell Brand has now issued a much more detailed smackdown on Tony Abbott and more specifically, his government’s treatment of asylum seekers.

Posting a dedicated episode of his current affairs/epic feels series ‘The Trews’ on Youtube, Brand has criticised the federal government’s ongoing refusal of asylum seekers, the conditions of the offshore detention centres in which they are held and concurrently vilified Rupert Murdoch for tax evasion.

Stand-outs of the eight-minute clip include a moment when he pulls off a surprisingly adept impersonation of Abbott himself and then cautiously refers to detention centres as “concentration camps”.

As with all of Brand’s statements, there’s certainly a lot to take in.

Though it’s been online for just a little over a day, this clip has now been viewed more than 92,000 times on Youtube. And, despite showing no awareness of the living hell Tony Abbott has found himself in this week, the message does come at a very pertinent time.

Circumstances are worsening with hundreds of asylum seekers in the Manus Island facility protesting their treatment by swallowing razor blades or refusing food and water and similar events are taking place in Darwin detention centre as well. Now, after years of this problem becoming arguably normalised in the public eye, it seems that a growing number of Australians are now speaking out.

There were of course the protestors at the men’s grand final of the Australian Open who were quickly arrested, but there are also other groups practicing hunger strikes in solidarity with the detainees.

UPDATE: I’ve gone 60+ hours without food in the 72 hour hunger strike. You can amplify my efforts by supporting the @ASRC1

— Sheree Joseph (@tinyfleu) February 4, 2015

In the past, we’ve written at length about Brand and his particular brand of social activism — remember that time he tried to start a revolution on the BBC? He’s a busy guy.

Following that memorable outburst, Daniel Katz wrote a piece for us which criticised the controversial celebrity for being idealistic and simplistic in his conceptions of egalitarianism and talk of revolution, as well as having a lack of material support for the causes he purports to preach. That, in turn, elicited such a passionate and vehement response from so many that we published this follow-up piece by Edward Sharp-Paul.

The moral (if there can possibly be one at this point): Brand is definitely divisive and the internet can be a problematic place to have these kind of large-scale ideological debates.

With that in mind, it can be hard to know how to feel and perhaps how to best express it when presented with another of Brand’s increasingly regular rants. But, at the very least his call to action this time seems less controversial than encouraging people to topple capitalism or not to vote.

He closed the segment with the following:

“If you want some more information or you want to support some of these causes look at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre or A Just Australia or the Refugee Action Coalition.”