Asylum seekers:
Moira Smith writes: Ken Lambert (yesterday, comments) wrote: “Australia is a country that, by and large, follows the rules and procedures set down in its laws.”
Is this supposed to be a “criticism” of Australia — especially as we are here talking about a) international human rights treaty obligations and b) some of the most vulnerable, mistreated people on the planet?
You seem to think these refugees are rich people who can “afford” to pay people smugglers and all the other expenses of getting family member(s) to safety. Do you really reckon these people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Burma, etc, have large savings accounts?
(And if they were well-heeled, wouldn’t they be also powerful/influential and would they need to escape in the first place?) I ask you, if it was your son/daughter/wife, wouldn’t you be asking relatives for loans, selling up what you could, to scrape the money together to try and ensure at least one member of your family got to safety?
And in fact I understand that’s why there are so many “unaccompanied minors” on these boats — the family got together and decided to get one person out, to try and ensure that at least one had a possible future somewhere else.
My family did much the same in Northern Ireland in May 1974 when (to quote Wikipedia) “Northern Ireland grinds to a halt as the Ulster Workers’ Council calls a strike following the defeat of an anti-Sunningdale Agreement motion.”
We feared the worse, including the imminent breakdown of civil society. My parents used their last tank of petrol to take my small brother to the airport to catch a plan to Glasgow where he could live with family friends. And I — independently — managed to get on what was then thought to be the last boat out of Belfast to get to England and friends who would take me in. In my backpack was my post office savings book which I believe then contained the grand total of about £3 (not even a week’s wage in those days).
We were lucky — things improved. And my brother and I were British citizens travelling to another part of Britain — passports not required. But families and individuals will go to great lengths to try to preserve their lives and futures. It’s not simply a question of “Have money, will travel”. It’s a question of “Who can get out, and how?”. If you’ve never experienced such an event, you really shouldn’t comment so confidently.
Ken suggests that “we simply withdraw from the UN Convention and enact our version into law. This would bring us into line with most of the countries in our region.” Great. Let’s line up with PNG, Malaysia, Fiji, Solomon Islands, etc. But not New Zealand, of course — who have taken so many of “our” asylum seekers out the goodness of their hearts, including many from the Tampa.
Justin Templer writes: Ken Lambert argues elegantly that Australia’s rules-based approach to illegal arrivals on our shores, which includes surrendering our sovereignty and flexibility to act through being a signatory to the convention on the Status of Refugees, allows our processes to be “gamed” by those who have the money to fund the boat trip to our shores. And it is a lot of money to anyone earning a typical wage of $2 per day.
Those millions of refugees who are unable to fund a boat trip or who are simply geographically unable to get here by boat (by virtue of being in Somalia) are left to rot and maybe die in refugee camps. What astounds me is the myopic view of the so-called refugee advocates who beat the drum for the people who have paid a relative fortune to move from one safe sanctuary to another. It is pure cant and hypocrisy.
To them I would ask: should we be chartering Qantas planes to bring to Australia the refugees in Somalia who are literally dying of hunger? If not, why not?
Thomson:
David Havyatt writes: Re. “Thomson’s tax time bomb. Tick, tick, tick” (yesterday, item 3). Chris Seage might know about tax but clearly little about politics and the parliament. The government would expect a question about tax regarding Thomson and having a statement of fact prepared by the Tax Office was prudent as it looked less like dodging. They didn’t need a private ruling or to have consulted tax specialists. On tax however I suspect he has also erred.
Craig Thomson is not an employee of the ALP, he is an employee of the Parliament. The ALP is quite free to make a gift to him — indeed it is hard to argue that the payment would be income as he certainly has provided no “service” to the ALP. A payment to keep Thomson from becoming bankrupt need not result in an ongoing cycle of new tax debts.
Climate change:
Tamas Calderwood writes: Matt Saxon (yesterday, comments) asked for a link to the UAH satellite temperature data. That link is here.
Holy sh-t. Tam_s Calderwood studies reams and reams of numbers as if he’s counting leaves on trees from space! No wonder he sees negative symbols (-) where (nearly) everyone else sees either no symbol () or a positive (+)? Tam_s, put the telescope down and reflect on natural reality for a moment. It’s OK, it won’t bite you.
Justin Templer, yes, the reality is that there are millions of refugees the world over. The debate over how ‘deserving’ the refugees who get here is, however, gravely mistaken. First, there’s really no profit in distinguishing between degrees of misery – it’s like asking whether death by starvation is worse than death by a bullet. If you meet the Refugees Convention definition (which is not nearly as easy as people assume), then the truth is your life is at a level of awfulness few of us lucky people can barely imagine.
Second, it’s not an either-or situation. In fact, Australia already takes in refugees from Africa who are assessed by UNHCR as requiring resettlement. This is far from a perfect procses or indeed an ‘orderly queue’. However, that doesn’t mean we can wash our hands of those who arrive here. There are two claims to our moral duty here: the claim of need, and the claim of proximity. So, for example, just because the government funds healthcare, if someone comes to your door in need of help you have a moral duty to assist.
Third, refugee advocates are not hypocritical. I think most of us would indeed like to see higher refugee intakes from overseas. However, we are realistic enough to realise that many Australians, like yourself, wrongly think there are already too many. So while I would love to see Qantas planes bringing Somali refugees, I also know that attitudes like yours would always prevent that.
Fourth, in my experience it is those who make this ‘deserving’ argument who are usually hypocritical. I ask them how much they have donated to the starving Somali refugees. I ask them if they would welcome a considerably higher intake from overseas. Usually, the ‘deserving’ argument is merely a cop-out for people not to take responsibility. It’s the argument of those who stand in a crowd watching someone get kicked and who say to themselves: well, somebody else should help, it’s not my duty.
Finally, the truth is that the Refugees Convention doesn’t operate on the basis of need, and the reason for that is that the States who wrote it and signed it – including Australia, so arguing we ‘gave up’ our sovereignty is just as wrong as saying you ‘give up’ your autonomy whenever you sign a contract – knew that limiting the responsibility to those who came to their shores meant they wouldn’t get very many refugees. Australia, most of all, because of that big wide ocean that surrounds us and ‘protects’ us from refugees.
At the end of the day, all this debate about refugees tends to boil down to one thing. There are some of us who realise that, there but for the grace of God, go I. We know the world is often a brutal and unfair place, and we therefore have compassion for those who suffer disproportionately. And there are those of us who assume that their good fortune is a matter of entitlement – that as an Australian we deserve more than others. At the end of the day, it’s not really a question of politics or policy or law, it’s a question of morality.
is this the first time Tamas has been reduced to a single reply of only one sentence?
result!
score:
Saxon: 1
Calderwood: 0
@ Tamas Calderwood: ” Matt Saxon (yesterday, comments) asked for a link to the UAH satellite temperature data. That link is here.”
UAH? Isn’t that where the dubious Roy Spencer hangs out? Cringe………..!:
http://
wottsupwiththat.com/2011/09/03/breaking-editor-in-chief-of-remote-sensing-resigns-over-spencer-braswell-paper/
Thank you Moira Smith. A human view will always be more powerful than the ranting.