I think that it is time to use the word oppression. In ways which are effaced and erased in the discourses of the upper reaches of the state government and seemingly within those institutions which might register such facts, the police are acting to oppress those on international student visas, and those who are thought, by police involved in such actions, to fall within this or related groups.

Reluctance and indifference become hostility and intimidation, threats of charges or deportation, a selective refusal to take action, even violence: the ‘anecdotal’ evidence is substantial that the police are working hard to repressively manage away any further risk to international education economies and to the interests of the state. Which means actively oppressing the guest consumers who make up a new exploitable sub-class of the proletariat in Australia.

These facts are so obvious to anyone who looks, to e.g. anyone who talks to those being oppressed, that it is tempting to conclude that the mainstream media, journalists, realise that the Australian state and population prefer to not confront the violent bases of existing economy, the realities of society. We don’t want to know, and they have the decency not to try to find out.