Bill Shorten channeled Tony Abbott at the Victorian Labor conference this weekend, claiming that a Labor government would “stop the boats”. Shorten was keen to dismiss calls from the Coalition that a Labor government would see a weakened asylum seeker policy, effectively closing the door to alternative policies.
But what alternatives have been suggested, and how realistic they look in our current climate? Crikey takes a look.
Abolish carrier sanctions and allow free travel for people seeking asylum
First and foremost is what seems like an obvious one: make it easier for asylum seekers to fly here by forgoing charging airlines for transporting them without a visa.
This was floated as a prime alternative by the Kaldor Centre’s Professor Jane McAdam on Q&A last year, and subsequently explained at length by lawyer and researcher Asher Hirsch.
Australia is the only country in the world that forces a universal visa requirement on non-citizens, charging planes and boats for transporting anyone without a valid visa. The policy has openly racist roots and doesn’t really work for anyone who may have forgotten to pick up a visa while fleeing for their life. Australia charges carriers whether the transported person is a refugee or not, which in turn forces people seeking asylum to more dangerous routes.
Political reality: A seemingly easy win no one has touched. While free and safe travel through established carriers would put a massive dent in the need for people smugglers, the Coalition are unlikely to go for it. Policy reforms (such as Dutton’s fast-track system) have only made the existing application system more difficult, not less. But the dissolution of carrier sanctions seems like an easy bone the Coalition could throw to human rights groups, and should be a no-brainer for Labor. After all, if your sole concern is deaths at sea, why not make it easier to fly here?
Mass processing centres in Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka
Basically, nip the boat issue in the bud and process at the most prominent points of departure.
While people seeking asylum by boat obviously originate from a range of regions, turn-backs have overwhelmingly backlogged Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Voyages from Indonesia and Malaysia are often the final leg of the asylum seeker journey, and also the most dangerous.
Groups like the Academy of Social Sciences Australia, the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network and the Refugee Council of Australia have called to increase funding and political coordination for centres in these regions, while the Greens are calling to increase our annual intake from 12,450 a year to 50,000.
Political reality: Has recent precedent but is ultimately unlikely. The Coalition have not only ignored calls to increase our intake, they have cut off resettlement eligibility for refugees in Indonesia and cooperated with Sri Lanka’s policy to intern and torture Tamil refugees. While their one-off offer for Syrian refugees seemed like a welcome precedent for this option, Australia has ignored similar calls for people in Myanmar and taken significantly longer than countries like Canada to implement the Syrian program.
Labor again seems like the best bet here, who want that initial increase and are at least, on paper, more open to the idea of increased regional assistance.
Read part two of Crikey’s list of immigration alternatives here.
The second needs to be paired with the on-sea rescue and immediate flyback of any maritime arrivals (yes, I know that violates our HR obligations, but this is all 2nd-best anyway) if it’s to completely undermine the incentive for boat arrivals (and thus remove the ethical figleaf and crocodile tears of, inter alia, the Coalition, Tony Burke and Bernard Keane (and now, most disappointingly, Jacinda Ardern) that their only concern is those poor, poor souls lost at sea.)
Flyback to where?
Indonesia et al are under no obligation to allow the disembarkation of undocumented interceptees just coz Australia reckons that’s where they began the traditional leaky boat voyage.
They are entirely complicit in allowing unfettered entry to muslims whilst knowing full well – follow the bribes money trail – that they are not coming to surf Bali or see the glories of Borobudur.
But that’s not the point is it?
Australians have consistently voted in their millions, 70%+, for parties which revel in this bastardry.
Bop the stoats indeed.
Yes, sorry, I did mean flybacks to the point of departure. No, these countries are under no obligation to accept such returns, which is why they would have to be explicitly negotiated in setting up this “solution” in the first place. It is all a bit fanciful, I agree, in a country in which the vast majority of voters and their reps don’t give a damn about the people or the issue.
I’m not holding my breath that the ALP will come up with a reasoned refugee policy. The toxic atmosphere of federal parliament seems to have resulted in the parliamentary ALP being terrified of changing from the current simplistic ‘stop the boats’. It assumes the people in the broader Australian electorate are unable to comprehend a more nuanced alternative.
Shorten is one of the right wing scabs who got Rudd fired because he was doing the right thing.
The refugee convention and protocol, the rights of the child, the convention against torture, the international covenant of civil rights, the convention against all forms of discrimination and the universal declaration would be a good place to start instead of having pple devise all sorts of weird plans.
Marilyn, do take a look at the countries that are signatories to these laudable (UN) policies and then reflect upon the domestic politics of these countries.
Indiscriminate rape and setting fire to teenage girls are hobbies in one country in particular (that is also a signatory). Ink is negligibly more expensive than talk.
One the one hand : congratulations on the kudos from Crikey but on the other is a shame that the adjudicators are so inclined to statements of yours, however well-intentioned, at face-value.
Its a bit like a Bill of Rights Marilyn. Only the gullible (or the politically untutored) “believe” such a document will guarantee a Utopian existence.
The CMFMEU shutting down debate about this at the conference was a treat. No-one can top Labor heavies in agenda control; it was just like the old Trade Hall shenanigans of my youth; made me quite nostalgic.
We survived the Vietnamese boat people and they turned out quite well. What is the problem with boats?