Here’s some rich irony. And we do mean rich.
This year, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has adopted with gusto the “stop the boats” rhetoric that has proven so potent in Australia in the past decade. This eerie echo is no coincidence. It has been actively assembled from parts imported from our shores. We’ve noted the return of Australian political strategist Isaac Levido to the UK Tory fold shortly before the adoption of the catchphrase that came to dominate the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison years.
Sunak is facing criticism for his particular take on the approach — using a gigantic barge, known as Bibby Stockholm, to house “up to 500″ asylum seekers, something being slammed as “inhumane” and ultimately unsafe.
And it’s not just the intellectual architecture that comes from Australia, it turns out, but the logistics.
Via The Independent:
An Australian travel firm previously slammed for its handling of COVID quarantine hotels has been quietly handed a £1.6bn contract covering the UK’s new asylum accommodation ships, The Independent can reveal.
Corporate Travel Management (CTM) was put in charge of the lucrative two-year arrangement in February, weeks before the government revealed it would use a barge as its first offshore accommodation for asylum seekers.
CTM’s founder Jamie Pherous is a longtime favourite of The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window column. CTM has been the recipient of largess on both sides of the pond. As the Indie mentions, it was given a role in the hotel quarantine system in the UK (receiving criticism for “prison-like” conditions, a complaint that this new contract puts in context, we guess). And on top of trousering more than A$3 billion for managing the Bibby, in June it snapped up the highly lucrative travel management services contract for the Whole of Australian Government for at least the next four years.
Greens NSW Senator David Shoebridge noted the “floating prison barge” was “appallingly modelled on the brutal Australian precedent”, while Amnesty International called the set-up an “utterly shameful way to house people who’ve fled terror, conflict and persecution”, comparing the Bibby Stockholm to “prison hulks from the Victorian era”. Which, again, is ironic.
Because Australia’s involvement manages to reference not only our recent affronts to human decency but the early days of the colony, the brutal floating hulks filled with thousands of convicts, a practice that survived well into the 1800s.
Makes you proud, doesn’t it?
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The next time Abbott returns to his country of birth, we should use his own anti-terrorism legislation to cancel his Australian citizenship and deny him re-entry to the country.
He is quite demonstrably a terrorist, and a dangerous one at that.
It was Dolly Downer who advised the UK on this policy:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/19/alexander-downer-is-the-wrong-choice-to-review-the-uks-border-force-australias-record-is-nothing-to-emulate
Another wannabe Aristocrat…………………
………….although, come to think of it, with his penchant for cross-dressing, he’d fit right in.
Our own Hooray Henry.
Back to the good old days of convict hulks, with no better solution to keeping Britain nice than the one they used 200 years ago. Does that mean they’re going to take over Australia again? Should we ask Indigenous Australians to help formulate an anti-invasion strategy?
Bereft of imagination, intelligence and compassion, Britain now resembles the last days of the Roman Empire with collapsing infrastructure, decadent incompetent leaders and general chaos. History in action, folks.
The same individual that oversaw Liberal campaigns here is advising the Tory government ( ill bet the fee is huge) on strategy so no surprise there. The Tories are now the equivalent of American republicans who see government as little more than an opportunity to exploit the system for personal gain.
People with the courage and determination to look for a better life for themselves make the best migrants. I’m baffled why we turn them away.
So no limit on numbers then?
There seems to be no limit on numbers of authorised migrants. And we signed up to look after refugees, not shell out billions of dollars to mete out cruel and unusual punishment to them, or turn them around mid-ocean without even finding out who they are.
I never believe the newspapers or the politicians, preferring to make up my own mind. Sometimes I’m wrong, true, but if I believed politicians’ bs I’d be wrong every time.
If I’m ashamed at what is being done in my name, it’s probably wrong and shameful.
It doesn’t really answer my question. There are literally tens of millions of legitimate refugees in the world, not counting those Africans, Vietnamese, Pakistanis etc who are trying to get into Europe and are probably not truly refugees.
We can’t accept everyone who would like to come, so how should we decide? Leave it to the people smugglers?
I think a recent estimate was 60 million. The number who would like to live here could be larger, although most humans like to stay home, and most genuine refugees would stay home if they could, and survive.
Waving this huge number at us as a threat, as if it could ever happen that 60,000,000 desperate people could descend on us (please take a look in the atlas and the distances involved) with knives and diseases, is intended to strike fear into us by a bunch of aholes who want to control us. Fear works every time. It’s a scam. Trust me on that, at least. Fear is a SCAM. Fear is the tool of bullies and should never be complied with. Reason and courage will always defeat it. The people in Canberra must look around at each other and wonder why the hell we put up with them, and how will they ever keep us needing them? They are well aware that we need them like a hole in the head and would not miss them if a volcanic cataclysm swallowed them up. With State and Local governments only, we’d be better off. So they make us afraid to be without them there to keep us ‘safe’. ‘Enemies’ are their best friend.
But to answer your question as best I can. The authorised migrants are selected by the agencies who are the legal people smugglers. They make a great deal of money, and with no risk. Migrants have to jump through many expensive hoops to get here. It is a cruel hit-and-miss process. In my day, 1966, my fare was paid for by the Australian Govt. If I stayed 2 years I would then be granted citizenship. It was that simple. I came in a ship full of people like me, looking for a better place. We were all white of course. There seemed to be no limit on numbers, and when there were too few ships they used planes as well. These days things are very different, and you can’t come here until you are suitably afraid – afraid of being sent away, not having a visa renewed; and also suitably grateful for being allowed in, one of the lucky ones. You can even be sent away if you arrived here as a small child and now commit a crime, 50 years later, as an Australian. It’s a power thing, demonstrating it, to cause more fear.
All I can suggest is that we abide by our international obligations regarding refugees. And see what happens. Even if we have to adjust our authorised migrant intake. And rescue from the sinking ships where we can.
Still doesn’t really answer my question. I didn’t ask what the procedure is for migrants, that’s beside the point. I agree the current refugee/ migration programme is a shambles, but I can’t see any easy answer – nor can you apparently.
Sorry, I don’t ‘trust you’ about the numbers who would like to come, but I suspect it’s fewer than 60 million, but more than we could cope with.
In 2015, Merkel had an open door policy for refugees coming across Europe – for a while. When she realised there was no end to the flow, she shut the door, and negotiated a plan with Turkey similar to the ‘Malaysian Solution’, but much less generous.
Fair comment. As the situation demanded Merkel had to change, as would we as and when. But Germany is easy to get to from E. Europe and Africa. An African can think Germany reachable, but Australia not, and rightly. All that sea between us. We had a lot of Vietnamese boat people arrive, and to his credit PM Fraser welcomed them, also we had a moral obligation. But I doubt there were all that many, in the scheme of things. So I stand by my previous statement, above. There haven’t been any better ideas.
Boat to Greece or Italy, then a long, long walk is not terribly easy, though granted it is easier than flying to Indonesia and then getting on a boat. But if we had an orderly refugee programme (which we have, but it’s small – increased to 20,000 p.a. just today) there should be no role for people smugglers or dangerous and arduous trips. But I suspect there will always be desperate people willing to try their luck. I can’t see any solution myself.
Too many people equate refugee with immigrant – they are not synonyms.
The UN definition of refugee is quite specific and does not include migrants looking for an easier life than on offer in their homeland, usually because of malignant religiosity and sclerotic culture which often result in environmental degradation.
The usual bien-pissants should ponder why soi-disant refugees are overwhelmingly military age males who left women & children back in whatever hellhole they fled.
I watched a boatload of Tamils come into the harbour here but didn’t see your military age males. They were all women, children and old people as far as I could see. I expect your blokes were all dead, fighting for independence. The boat load was presumably sent back to be massacred – but that is a big secret of course. We’re not allowed to know what we did with them. They were trying to get to New Zealand, they said, presumably hoping we would help them along. If we did that’s a big secret too. They certainly didn’t get off the boat here.
Is Victim-Finder General a new gig now that offence seeking is so on the nose?
wottaNONsurpise – AAd.
Not Another ZAC!
“More than we could cope with”…………….
Given that we make almost no effort to “cope with” the demand I think that’s a big call.
For the last ten years our “government” has actively refused to acknowledge that Australia even has an obligation under the UN treaty on refugees (which we signed in 1951).
We have absolutely no idea of how many we could “cope with” – the very wording implies that refugees are considered a problem rather than a resource – yet look at the numbers of refugees who were doctors and engineers in their home countries and compare that with the numbers of doctors and engineers who are on our shortfall list of skills required.
Perhaps we could “cope with” a hell of a lot more if we actually tried.
Yes, I would like to look at the numbers of refugees who were doctors and engineers in their home countries – do you have a link?
I was involved in refugee resettlement programmes, and in the official refugee stream a typical refugee would be a South Sudanese single mother of eight, illiterate and with no English, and very likely traumatised. They did need to be ‘coped with,’ believe me. I’m not saying they or other refugees won’t eventually make a contribution, but the reason for accepting them is humanitarian, not to fill a skills gap.
Some of my ideas are derisory, but there isn’t much wrong with honouring our agreements, surely?
Oh my god, myths never die in Australia do they? Seeking asylum is legal, smuggling is clandestine, people seeking asylum do not hide, they want to be found, ergo the people smuggling protocol states that people seeking asylum and those who assist them must not be punished
Legislating that the power to go to war be decided by the parliament and not just the ‘prime minister’ would be one way of reducing those numbers. Stopping all public investment in and permission for fossil fuel extraction and export another. I’m sure there are plenty of more ways to reduce the amount of conflict and need that we generate beyond our boarders currently encouraging others to depart theirs.
Huge numbers of authorised migrants are brought in to keep wages down, house prices up, employment insecure and unemployment up. Life used to be relatively easy, but Prime Minister Fraser said it wasn’t meant to be, and our politicians since him have taken that as their goal in life. And with a great deal of success.
Take renting. A third of us do it and thanks to government policies it has become insupportable. This government will now ease the pressure, but only slightly, on renters’ throats, and proclaim very loudly how good they are. And be believed!
Yes,
Why not productively use these people. Why keep one lot out while letting the same people come in when we need the labor force?
Because, as the covid sealing of the borders showed, we do NOT need an increased labour force.
Those years were the first in a generation that saw wages increase.
Alas, that increase is precisely the reason for the demands from the Right for opening the floodgates to a record 300-400,000 per year, apparently in perpetuity.
The mystery of why the current government gave in is something the Rustadons must ponder before the next (s)election.
……….and it only cost the tax-payer A TRILLION DOLLARS to make it happen.
Not exactly what I’d call a game-plan.
Look at the shortfall in immigration numbers required to make up for a years-worth of border closures.
“Make up” for what ?
Surely not “skills shortages”. Record high levels of immigration for well over a decade have not remedied any “skills shortages” – at least according to the people who claim they exist. Meanwhile the typical “skilled” immigrant barely earns more than the median wage.
How do you think MOAR IMMIGRANTS are going to help the trillion dollar debt ? Their primary purpose is to put more money into the pockets of people who consider paying as little tax as possible an honourable life’s work.
You are parroting neoliberal propaganda.
Oh for gods’ sake does that vacuous nonsense still get peddled, EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO SEEK ASYLUM FROM PERSECUTION and that has no limits.
That is the law as decided 70 years ago. If it’s not working, it should be changed.
That is as per a United Nations Treaty – not “a law”.
If you think it’s not working, contact the UN and let them know what the answer is.
I do think it’s not working, and as I said in a previous comment, I can’t see a solution.
So you are arguing for arguing’s sake…………….
………….glad we cleared that up.
It’s a problem that bothers me greatly. As I said, I’ve had personal involvement with refugees. The fact that I can’t see a solution means I am being honest, not arguing for arguments sake.
You wish us to believe that you worked with refugees, although given your obvious dislike of them and that you do not accept the very basis of refugee rights anyway, exactly how – and more importantly WHY, you ever got involved seems inexplicable.
(Unless you were the guy at Border Force in charge of saying NO.)
Assuming you did work with them, you obviously never developed any sympathy for their plight, nor the lengths they went to to get here (and no, they don’t all fly to Indonesia to pick up a people-smuggling boat), nor would you have chosen such an emotive example of an “average refugee”. Did you ever stop to think exactly HOW a “South Sudanese single mother of eight, illiterate and speaking no English” actually managed to GET to Australia? Or was that just a random extract from your grab-bag of racist tropes?
If you had spent time working with refugees you would also know that 80% of refugee applications in Australia are rejected.
https://www.worlddata.info/australia/australia/asylum.php
So forgive me if I doubt the very basis of your (non)argument.
The involvement I had, as I thought I’d made clear, was with refugees accepted under the government’s humanitarian programme, the one that was increased to 20,000 pa yesterday.
I know how someone like in my example got to Australia: by plane, after having been invited to apply from the Darfur camp in Kenya. What did you think?
So why did you get involved?………..
………you seem to have neither vocation nor interest in refugees.
It seems an insoluble mystery.
What made you reach that conclusion? (And can you point out where I’ve been ‘racist’ while you’re at it?)
I think I’ve shown I know more about the refugee situation than you do.
All you’ve shown is how little you know about the refugee situation and what contempt you hold them in.
You still haven’t said why you got involved at all?
Was it for the fun of knocking back refugees?
Or a power trip?
Because from everything you have said it is blatantly obvious that it was not out of concern.
Have you ever looked at how many are still on welfare many years after being accepted?
Ah, the ol’ “Dole-Bludger” argument……………..
……I wondered when that particular line of bollocks would get a run.
The UK also copied Australia’s Pacific “solution”, proposing to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which is encountering predictable difficulties and is currently blocked in the the Court of Appeal. There is talk of sending them to Ascension Island. I haven’t read any discussion of the possibility of sending them to the Falklands yet.