Now that we’re in the “let a thousand flowers bloom” stage of the asylum seeker ‘debate’, the queue jumper theme has been getting a good working-over.
Senator Steve Fielding — who busted wide open ‘Macgate’, in which asylum seekers were given access to computers on Christmas Island — yesterday tweeted “Stop the boats by sending boat ppl 2 the back of the queue in refugee camps. Then take 2 from the front of queue for every1 we send.” On Monday’s Q&A, professional talking head Grahame Morris gave us his insight into the plight of people forced to flee their countries by war and persecution by talking of jumping the queue with impunity at Toy Story 3.
“But we have hundreds of thousands of people around the world who do the right thing. We have embassies. We have high commissioners. They’re talking to mums and dads and cousins of people who want to come to this country. They stay in the queue. They do the right thing. They try and get sponsors. They show that they’re going to be good citizens. These people wait for years. The refugees coming in the boats are jumping those queues and the government, in a sort of a fairness thing, has got to say — change the rhetoric and say to these people, ‘look, come if you’re fair dinkum, but come through the front gate. Don’t kick in the back door’.”
Cheers for the mixed metaphors, Grahame, but we decided to go looking for the queue.
Pamela Curr of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre looked up online how to ‘get in the queue’ and found this online message from the Australian Embassy in Kabul.
The Australian Embassy in Kabul operates from a number of locations that are not publicly disclosed due to security reasons. Australians seeking consular assistance should, in the first instance, contact the Consular Emergency Centre in Canberra + 61 2 6261 3305 for assistance to be arranged.
So, Curr told Crikey: “I rang Canberra and after eight minutes and 35 seconds they were unable to find anyone who could tell me where or how to find the queue.”
So in the search for the queue, we went back to basics.
‘The queue’ confuses two issues: who is a refugee, and who is actually resettled? A ‘refugee’ is someone who is recognised by the UN as a refugee — that is, someone who has a well-founded fear of persecution and who can’t receive the protection of his or her government. But that doesn’t mean they get resettled in a safer country, where they can stop living in fear and start living the rest of their lives.
To have a chance of resettlement, you first have to be registered with the UNHCR. According to a background note recently prepared by the parliamentary library, only a small proportion of asylum seekers are registered by the UN — around 10%, and the proportion grows smaller every year. But if there’s a queue, this is where it is likely to be.
However, under the UN Refugee Convention, there’s no right to be resettled, and no country has an obligation to take people for resettlement. Every year there are about 80,000 resettlement places offered globally by countries like Australia. We offer 13,750 places a year — although it should be noted under Tony Abbott’s proposal yesterday, this could be supplemented by community groups “sponsoring” resettlement.
According to UNHCR figures, that’s slightly more than 10% of the number of new refugees likely to seek resettlement in 2010.
That is, the ‘queue’ doesn’t even meet the number of new refugees each year, let along ones who have been waiting for a long period. In fact, less than 1% of the world’s refugees will be resettled each year.
Meantime, the burden of housing and feeding refugees falls, mostly, on poorer countries. Between 75% and 90% of refugees remain in the countries bordering the lands they’re fleeing.
There’s also the strange Australian twist that the charge of ‘queue jumping’ only ever seems to be levelled at people who arrive by boat. Far more people arrive by air and claim asylum — and they’re far more likely to have their claims rejected than the people who make the dangerous journey by boat.
So the ‘queue’ is one in which your plight is recognised by all accepted standards, but no one does anything about it. Even removing people who aren’t registered with the UNHCR, it’s an ever-expanding pool of millions of desperate people, 1% of whom will ever get a chance to be resettled. If there’s a queue to jump, it’s one from the pages of Kafka.
QUESTION TAKEN ON NOTICE
SUPPLEMENTARY BUDGET ESTIMATES HEARING: 20 OCTOBER 2009
IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP PORTFOLIO
(80) Program 2.1: Refugee and Humanitarian Assistance
Senator Fierravanti-Wells asked:
In relation to the number of places allocated to non-UNHCR-registered asylum
seekers, please provide a breakdown including:
a. the number of places allocated to unauthorised arrivals by boat;
b. the number of places allocated to unauthorised arrivals by air;
c. the number of places allocated to persons who had arrived on a valid visa and
then sought asylum;
d. the number of places allocated to over-stayers who subsequently claimed
asylum.
Answer:
Allocations, targets, or limits are not made in relation to Protection visas for asylum
seekers. If all the criteria for a Protection visa are met, the visa will be granted and no
distinction within the Program is made regarding the lawful status or arrival means of
the applicant.
Visas granted to asylum seekers in Australia are counted towards the Special
Humanitarian component of the Humanitarian Program. In 2008–09, 2497
humanitarian visas were granted to persons in Australia which were counted toward
the overall humanitarian program outcome of 13 507 visas.
Here is it in DIAC’s own words.
The ignorant cowards in Australia got sold this deranged queue scam by Ruddock and it’s bizarre to me how they can watch situations like the rush of 250,000 Uzbeks over the border recently and then still claim that Australia alone in the world has this magic queue.
It’s always surprised me that queue-jumping is so frowned upon when you’re a refugee but praised as a noble duty when it comes to access to hospital services for the privately insured.
If we were truly solution focussed- we could adopt a UNHCR former High Commissioner recommendation and agree to resettle 0.1% of our population that is 22,000 refugees. we could then lobby campaign and harrass other wealthy Western Countries to do the same – some would do it willingly and a large part of the problem would be solved certainly our self created “boat problem”.
Another strategy would be to set up processing AND RESETTLEMENT from Pakistan to provide a formal mechanism for refugee applicants so that they have a choice other than people smuggler/boat option. 2115 of the 3498 people who have arrived by boat so far this year, have been Hazaras from Afghanistan for obvious reasons. lets face it if you could come by plane – you wouldn’t catch aboat and lets not forget that not everybody wants to leave everything they know, their homes, lands and animals and come to Australia.
But then what would our pollies have to scare us all with- they would have to go back to telling us that our Hills hoist clothes line were at risk from Aboriginal land rights- remeber that one!!!
When people feel forced to flee their own country for their own protection I can’t see how they are in a position to choose where they will go. For Australia, you just can’t walk in – you fly or take a boat. If you arrive here uninvited then you can expect to be screened for entry, and among the criteria to be applied at the time is “how many are we prepared to take in the next preiod of time (a year or whatever). If you don’t want to return to your own country then you will have to wait somewhere, either at the arport from which you took then plane without applying to come, or some port in a country not Australia and wait. My own view is that you might have to wait a long time. Why? Because this country cannot ecologically sustain its own present population. This might not always be the case but until we who live here have sorted out our own porblems you will need to wait – there is no adavantage in adding more people to an already unsustainable situation. As Australains are not allowed to go to the country of orign for these refugees and sort out their problems – we have to focus on where we can have an effect and that is here. The problems we face is not one of space but of the provision of water, dealing with urban sprawl and housing, adequate medical facilities, proper education for all, reducing our ecological footprint, etc etc. Any policy that overwhelms this country with too many immigrants so that the problems we have to deal with are even more difficult should be opposed.
Nikki and Bernard, Many thanks for a somewhat dispassionate and level-headed view of this topic. It may not change many people’s opinion at first, but the message is infinitely more useful than the emotion attached to it.