Yesterday’s High Court ruling on temporary protection visas highlights again the fact that Australia’s refugee processing system is anything but.
Asylum seekers are held in limbo for years on end while decisions are supposedly made about their status as genuine refugees.
In truth, no such decisions are being made, and the time spent in detention serves two shameful purposes.
The first? Detained asylum seekers are there to act as miserable human deterrents to others thinking of attempting the journey.
The second is to buy time while the government spends millions of dollars — in a time of “fiscal emergency” — in legal fees to design and defend laws that prevent asylum seekers from ever being granted humanitarian protection.
The refugee at the centre of yesterday’s ruling spent two years detained on Christmas Island before he was finally granted a temporary humanitarian concern visa — and thereby prevented from applying for permanent protection — by Immigration Minister Scott Morrison. The court unanimously ruled the move invalid. The ruling will likely deal a significant blow to the government’s plans to reintroduce temporary protection visas.
The High Court also ruled that detention is “not an end in itself”. It’s a message that must to be heard by both sides of Australian politics.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the Refugee Convention talk about “temporary” protection? Isn’t the idea to provide safe haven to those who are temporarily unable to live in their country of citizenship? Surely none of us has a crystal ball to rule out the possibility that some refugees may be able to return to their country of origin over time?
I cannot find anything in the Convention that states a country like Australia is obliged to issue “permanent residence” or citizenship to any/all asylum seekers. I fully accept there might be a moral argument for same, but that’s a bit different to saying we have a “legal” obligation.
And just to clarify, I DO NOT support the actions of this, and past governments, in locking people up in detention for years.
Just asking!
What I cannot understand is the recent debate whether our asylum-seeker facilities are “detention centres” or “jails”. I thought we are Australians, renowned for calling a spade a spade, so why aren’t we calling a concentration camp a f*****g concentration camp.
I look forward to hearing Scrot Morriscum railing about this decision in his weekly slot with Rat Hately on 2GovernmentBroadcasting on Moday morning – it should be a treat.
I’m with Norm – they are nothing less than concentration camps and we will be fortunate indeed if some future authority doesn’t force us all to tour them as US troops forced the civilian populations of Germany to do at their friendly neighbourhood death factory.
The government does what it does with refugees because a majority of Australians don’t want shiploads of muslims here. Dress it up any way you like, that’s what’s happening and why. It is popular policy.
The leftie commentariat is constantly bleating about how governments don’t reflect public opinion on social issues (marriage equality, surveillance, military spending, conservation), but when it does (refugees by boat), they want it overridden. Of course what the left really wants is government policy to reflect their opinion, not that of the population because it’s the right and proper opinion. Hmmm.
I was really hoping someone could tell me if my reading of the Refugee Convention is correct.
Does anyone know?
(See comment #1 above)