Staff writers,news.com.au

A REFUGEE who used the disability support pension to take 16 taxpayer-funded holidays to Thailand, China, Indonesia and Russia has had his payments cancelled, the Courier Mail reports.

Palestinian-Kuwaiti Aladdin Sisalem, 37, who spent 17 months in the Manus Island detention centre in 2003 and 2004 after attempting to enter Australia by boat from Papua New Guinea, became a poster boy for refugee activists after his release.

When he arrived in Australia, Mr Sisalem told The Age he wanted “just a normal life, something good to do”, and briefly lived with prominent refugee advocate Julian Burnside QC in his Melbourne home.

“It’s a pity it took seven months of litigation for the Government to come to a fairly obvious conclusion that we have a responsibility to him,” Mr Burnside said at the time.

Mr Burnside said Mr Sisalem was a man with “considerable courage and strength” who had been traumatised by his ordeal. “When I told him about his visa he broke down and wept,” he said.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal last month ruled Mr Sisalem was not only ineligible for the DSP on medical grounds, but he wasn’t even eligible at the time it was cut because he had been spending too much outside of Australia.

Mr Sisalem told the tribunal that he funded 16 overseas trips in the past six years with his pension, including two months at a “clinic” in Thailand where he indulged in massages, herbal treatments, physical exercises, acupressure and meditation.

At the same time, the refugee told his doctors he found it “difficult to sit, stand, use my hands or arms for more than a few minutes” and “has difficulty coping with ... travel by public transport”, the Courier Mail reports.

But senior tribunal member Damien Cremean found this didn’t appear to hinder him lifting luggage. “[He] expressed no difficulty in being able to lift his 13kg of personal luggage into the overhead lockers on his flight [in July last year],” Dr Cremean said.


Dr Cremean said Mr Sisalem was an untruthful witness when he gave evidence in his bid to get the pension back last month.

“I do not accept the truth of [Sisalem’s] evidence except on basic uncontroversial facts,” he said. “I am satisfied ... he is prepared to advance or convey a misleading picture of himself (and his travels).”

In an interview with the ABC in 2012 about the reopening of the Manus Island detention centre, Mr Sisalem had a suggestion for how the government should use taxpayers’ money.

“The amount of money being poured into such centres could be used to help the detainees themselves instead, or help other part of Australians’ needs,” he said.

Mr Sisalem claimed he was still suffering health problems from his detention. “I’m constantly seeing a doctor and psychologist, [taking] different medication,” he said.

“But the result is some kind of disability, post traumatic stress, anxiety and other things. It’s formally some kind of long-term medical condition.”

Mr Sisalem said he was “trying my best” to study or work but “my progress is slow just like any disabled person”.

Well done Aladdin for saving , pretty impressive to see the world on a shoestring budget , the righties wanted you to spend it on booze smokes and drugs

cods wrote on Mar 30^th, 2016 at 6:40am:



Just fill out your Freediver Insurance and Liability Cover form and post it to... dang.. where? 

cods wrote on Mar 30^th, 2016 at 6:40am:


After reading some of your posts Cods I have no doubt in my mind they would give you a DSP 

Its time wrote on Mar 30^th, 2016 at 8:53am:


Why are you applauding someone who ripped off taxpayers? It's not cunning. It's fraud.

Its time wrote on Mar 30^th, 2016 at 9:03am:


You're so wrong you don't even realise.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1456025496

All the crooks are right here petal