The destructive and divisive debate about various asylum policies is designed to scare us. The most shameful manifestation of this in the past few weeks has been the alleged “terrorist” in community detention.
A person sought asylum in Australia. He was given an adverse security assessment. He was then held in community detention with his family. He was subject to reporting and monitoring. The authorities knew where he was at all times. Given these facts we were probably safer from him (if indeed he was a danger to the security of Australia) than from the mindless violence that seems to happen on our streets with depressing regularity. We should not hide behind an ASIO assessment as a way to whip up community fear and insecurity, and in the process destroy a family.
If we take on trust the policies on refugees and asylum seekers that the main parties are taking into the election campaign, it makes for disturbing reading. Setting aside the posturing, what do they really say they are going to do?
The Coalition says it will stop the boats and tighten up the process for determining if a person is a refugee. Labor, saddled by incumbency and actually having to have a policy, says it would also tighten up the refugee determination process, keep mandatory detention, strengthen regional co-operation and try to stop the boats.
The reality is there are no magic answers to the question of asylum and why people get onto boats. There is no one action that will make the “problem” go away, despite what Opposition Leader Tony Abbott or Prime Minister Julia Gillard say.
Here is a quick summary of what the two main parties stand for.
The ALP platform is pretty quiet on the issue of regional co-operation and creating a genuine regional protection framework, where people do not feel that their only way to safety is taking a dangerous journey by sea. The best clues to its polices are found in the budget papers, in which the government has committed additional funding for the Bali Process, for capacity building and enhanced screening and refugee resettlement. It will take time to work, and 100 days will not cut it.
“In his rhetoric, Abbott proposes three things to stop the boats. None of them will work.”
The opposition, on the other hand, has very little to say in its “weighty” policy document “Our Plan; Real Solutions for all Australians“. The Coalition aims to “rebuild relationships with our neighbours damaged by Labor’s mismanagement and failed border security policies” and says the first overseas trip Tony Abbott would make as prime minister would be to Indonesia to renew co-operation against people smugglers. That is not a policy, let alone likely to bring any results.
The real damage, fueled by the Greens and the opposition, in our regional relations is the way we have continued to insult Indonesia and Malaysia while they continue to host much larger numbers of displaced people than Australia.
Whatever the public debate has been on asylum seekers there was an encouraging all-party agreement on the resettlement of refugees from overseas. The increase of the program to 20,000 with 12,000 for offshore resettlement had been a beacon of hope in an otherwise awful debate. It is regrettable the opposition has now gone back on its promise to maintain that number and in its platform returns the program to the previous 13,750, while reserving 11,000 places for the offshore program.
On paper, the parties are all quite muted on boats. The ALP’s platform merely says we need to ensure we meet our safety of life at sea obligations. We all know what Abbott would do: “A new order to the navy to tackle illegal boat arrivals and turn back the boats, when safe to do so.”
The Houston Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers, however, suggested it would be better to focus on regional and national codification of Search and Rescue protocols and the development of operational guidelines. If we truly want to prevent tragedies, it is these arrangements and protocols that are much more important than the empty and ultimately unachievable rhetoric of “stop the boats”.
In his rhetoric, Abbott proposes three things to stop the boats. None of them will work. He said he would reopen Nauru. The government has done this, but the boats have kept coming. He said he would re-introduce temporary protection visas, but we know that when the Howard government did this the number of asylum seekers increased, and many people drowned. Abbott keeps telling us that he would turn back the boats, but both the Indonesian government and our own navy have cast doubt on the possibility of such an approach.
Both the government and the opposition want to toughen the penalties for people smuggling, but there is little actual policy.
In any event the number of asylum seekers coming to Australia by both air and sea are very small in world terms. Our “problem” is overwhelmingly a political one, with politicians on both sides appealing to our darker angels of fear.
Where is the voice for decency?
* John Menadue is former secretary of the Department of Immigration. Arja Keski-Nummi is former senior refugee policy officer in Department of Immigration. They are fellows of the Centre for Policy Development
What you too lazy morons forget is that these people have the right to seek asylum and we cannot blame the Greens for not wanting to illegally trade and traffic human beings.
You two super annuated clowns should now remain silent.
The refugee convention is binding law, it is not onerous and if other countries manage many times more asylum seekers than we do we should stop our frigging whining.
It’s not about us, it is about them and their rights.
Apart from Tony Jones challenging Turnbull on the fact that Indonesia has stated they will not permit asylum boats to be turned back, Abbott has been parroting and lauding this as his main policy point – unfettered.
It’s a crying shame that the overwhelming majority of Oz journalists are asleep at the wheel by not hounding Abbott/Morrison to explain the inexplicable.
While the government is bleeding to death over this issue, don’t expect the coalition to be too policy specific before the election.
I realise this will allow the bleeding heart left to argue that Abbott’s promise is an empty one but such rhetoric will have little impact on voters who just want something done. And something can be done. Here are some examples.
Zut alors has helpfully pointed out that Indonesia, a country close to us, has a highly effective ability to stop the boats. We should send a study team there to learn how they are doing it.
Shepherdmarilyn has also made an excellent suggestion by pointing out our obligations under the refugee convention. We should repeal our ratification of it. It is clearly being used around Australia and in the Mediterranean Sea as a cover for economic migrants who would not otherwise get a visa. As it has become a loophole in 2013 in a way not anticipated by its creators just after WWII, we should dump it and draft a new refugee law.
The long term answer to this problem is to work closely with Indonesia and that is what I expect an Abbott government to do. Just don’t expect them to tell us all about it on Q&A. Anyone can do this better than the lot we have in charge today.
I am wondering if a gifted Christian mathematician can run their eye over this: There is an Abbottism around which says ‘Jesus knew there was a place for everyone and not every refugee belongs in Australia’ or words to that effect. Malcolm Turnbull ran a variant of this on Q&A last night that there are ten million genuine refugees and we can’t take them all. Then there is the actual Christian teaching of by Jesus about the Good Samaritan, summarised here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan . I got to thinking a few weeks back that when parliament excised the Australian mainland from land that a refugee could lodge an onshore refugee asylum application might also mean we are no longer ‘a Christian country’ as regards refugees. Now I’m wondering what are the maths for Jesus’s parable for number of refugees we ought to take under PM Abbott?
According to Jesus one righteous person helps one other beaten traveller. That’s a 1:1 ratio according to Jesus who after all is Christ to the Christians.
On that ratio we should consider helping say 5 million refugees, if you assume 5 million adult Christians in Australia (?) (it may be more?) Or a bit more generous with the calculation: Say each Oz Christian helped out for only 1 month in their life to get the 5 million tortured refugees back on their feet. How many refugees would that amount to at any one time?
An life span back in the day of say 45 years. Call it 20 years of adult potential capacity – not too young or too old. It may be this: 30days/(20yrs x 365) x 5 million Aussie Christians = 20,547 refugees at any one time?
Is that right? 20K refugees at any one time is the “Christian” thing to do?
No one has come out with much credit over the asylum seeker issue, especially the Liberal Party.
John Howard got what he wanted in 2001 – an election win. Offshore processing was a gigantic bluff. The people smugglers and their potential customers did not know what was going to happen. They know now – after a years or so there’s a good chance of ending up in Australia. It won’t work a second time, as Labor’s return to offshore processing has amply demonstrated.
TPV’s were introduced in October 1999 and had the effect of increasing the numbers of arrivals as whole families crammed into boats. The Coalition can’t possibly believe they would work now.
In 2011 the Liberals rejected a start on regional processing because they were afraid it might work. They want the boats to keep coming for the time being. After the Coalition wins and the boats don’t stop, the Coalition and their media allies will blame Labor for the first year or so then quietly decide other issues are more important.
Actually addressing the issue of asylum seekers has taken a back seat to the playing politics. At every stage, the Coalition has exploited the issue for political gain. Labor has at different times tried to fix the issue, bury it or try to be as nasty as the Liberals, but the Right has the racist and paranoid vote sown up. Meanwhile the Greens, like the impotent, remained pure.