By Simon Hukin:
Reading back over my very first article for theangle.org it’s interesting to note the changes (or lack of them) to Australia’s policies regarding treatment of asylum seekers.
From what seemed a new and promising approach – relaxing residency conditions, eradicating Temporary Protection Visas, closing our detention centre on Nauru, and ensuring children aren’t kept behind the wire – government policy, as was almost a given come election time, devolved to pandering to the lowest common denominator by making sure the populace can see their government don’t want ‘foreigners’ seeking asylum in Australia. The ‘Timor Solution’ and any of a similar ilk are, laid bare, a return to the Howard government policy of “out of sight, out of mind.” The notion that it, or its predecessor – the ‘Pacific Solution’ on Nauru – represented off shore processing, rather than off shore detention is reminiscent of the spin around the former Bush government’s policy of extraordinary rendition.
The idea, as set out in my earlier article, of off shore processing is a good one. The practice of off shore detention is barbarous. Deprivation of liberty, poor conditions, and terrifying uncertainty are hallmarks of life in detention centres, and those based off shore are almost certainly under-staffed, under-resourced and without adequate information flow. Compounded with the ‘temporary suspension’ of processing of asylum claims from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, the great leap right on the part of the ALP can only be seen as a vote winning exercise. Having spoken with soldiers recently returned from Afghanistan, as well as a number of Afghanis, it’s fair to say that the country is beset by strife – clearly an adequate case for making an asylum claim. Furthermore, the political and natural turmoil of Sri Lanka provides compelling evidence for any former resident’s claim to be fleeing persecution. Every other signatory to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees seems to think so. Does Australia have special knowledge the rest of the rest of the world lacks?
Before the 2001 Tampa election there was a convention long in force between the political parties that refugees were not to be used as political cannon fodder. This had been upheld by every Prime Minister and Opposition Leader since Menzies. I don’t hold out much hope of returning to that genteel state of affairs, but it does bring home the reality that this is not just some ethereal political football, but that when we’re talking about refugees, asylum seekers, and illegal immigrants we are talking about the lives of real people – as tacitly acknowledge by every political leader from Menzies to Keating. When we make policy we must bear in mind that we are dealing with people terrified, in pain, and fleeing for their lives. It will be a long, hard road to public realization of that, and in the meantime both parties will continue to squabble like school children, bickering over the last great wedge issue.
Hopefully, however, some wiser, cooler, or at least more humane heads within the ALP will prevail and act to sculpt what looks to be the inevitable “Pacific Solution II” into a mould more akin to that outlined in my article “Leaky Logic” than that of Nauru in the Howard years.
Share on FacebookSimon Hukin is a student at the Australian National University, General Secretary of the Western Australian Secondary Students’ Association, peripatetic music teacher and general curmudgeon. He is heavily involved in politics and the union movement.
