Let us remember Galang and Hei Ling Chau and other regional camps - and who stood up for asylum seekers fleeing the 'killing fields' and persecution

Let us honestly remind ourselves of the 1970s and 1980s in how we treated and resettled our Asylum Seekers, and who really stood up for them however let us not revise the past in some Camelot like myth as is happening by some and by others too young to remember, and by people ignorant of Galang and Hei Ling Chau and other like regional camps.

The hysteria around Asylum Seekers is deplorable and the result of perceptual modifications.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s moral leadership was demonstrated by the then government in assisting Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees who came in what appeared waves of boats. My sister-in-law, just a baby, came from Vietnam on one of those boats and which nearly sank.

Children who arrived from these countries without the English language and without possessions came to my school. With some of them I became friends. One of them profoundly dragged his right leg - a landmine victim.

During this period in Australia's history it was Andrew Peacock who led the way. He had said to his government that he would resign if people fleeing Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge Killing Fields were not assisted. Similar compassionate support from Fred Chaney and Malcolm Fraser ensured adequate humanity.

Mandatory Detention was enacted as legislation by the Paul Keating ALP government in 1992 and it raised its ugly spectre a dozen years ago and continues. However it is not right for people to revise the 1980s and say that Asylum Seekers were en masse welcomed - they were not, though not as unwelcoming as our contemporary witness.

There were forms of offshore processing or rather regional collaboration back then too - at Galang camp in Indonesia, at Hei Ling Chau camp in Hong Kong. These were places of horrific conditions where people died however there were UNHCR personnel at the camps to assist with resettlement.

Galang Island Refugee camp opened in 1979 and was closed in 1996 after all the refugees were resettled. It had two camps - one for newly arrived refugees and another one for those approved who then received enhanced English language classes, cultural information in relation to the country they were being resettled to. Caseworkers and legal officers were at the camps daily.

Most of the refugees at Galang preferred Australia for resettlement and Australia took a significant proportion of them, and this was because Australia had shorter waiting periods, and less bureaucratic red tape. The USA and Canada took in large numbers too however their waiting periods were longer. Babies were born in Galang, and people died there. Alongside the UNHCR, Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children maintained a near daily presence.

Hong Kong's little rocky island of Hei Ling Chau maintained a closed camp with barbed razor wire, and in there occurred many protests by the Vietnamese who felt they were languishing - many of the refugees broke down, many died. However, Hong Kong refused to push boats of refugees back out to sea as on occasion the Thais were doing.

I am a pronounced refugee advocate who despises mandatory detention and the Kafkaesque like ASIO 'security' clearances of people who are being brutalised by the traumatic waiting periods. However, it was wrong for all three major parties to viciously stick to their stances in Parliament. I give some respite to the Coalition because they appeared, for whatever reasons, to have made some urgent concessions.

None of these parliamentarians, or their families, children and friends were part of the near 600 Australia-bound who have drowned since 2007 - it is not them gurgling to ugly deaths to the bottom of our seas.

I understand what the Australian Greens are arguing for however when you can't secure sweeping changes then you go for what you can get when people's lives are on the line. They should have accepted the Coalition's offer of a near doubling of resettlement numbers - to 26,000, and a multiparty forum, and even bloody Nauru and Manus if need be. It is to the ALP's horrific shame that those I know within the party - Melissa Parke, Louise Pratt, Anne Burke and others, that they did not break rank with the long held Labor tradition of caucus and in Petro Georgiou style cross the floor.

I am PhD Law researcher in Australian Custodial Systems and I have interviewed hundreds of people who have been in prisons and in immigration detention and I know full well they come out worse than from when they went in. However, I will not stand by and grandstand the high moral ground, which generally I fight for, if the justice we need is not going to be done, if people are going to drown. Parliament should have taken up Abbott's offer and the rest of us keep up the good fight to end mandatory detention and the long waiting periods.

I have spoken to hundreds of Asylum Seekers and despite their traumatic suffering in detention, despite the mental meltdowns, they need to know that they've got somewhere to go where they will be considered as human beings and the right to Asylum represented. Those that went through Nauru, 96% of them were resettled in Australia.

I can write volumes on what hundreds of Asylum Seekers, refugees and the resettled, have told me, however I shall leave this for another article or possibly some of it for the comment section of this thread subject to the thread's conversation.

Malaysia should not be an option, the Rob Oakeshott Bill is draconian and worse than John Howard's Pacific Solution and it will solve nothing.

The Australian political landscape is damaging the Australian consciousness - our governments have created the problems that have eroded human compassion. On average only 56 refugees a year over ten years have been resettled in Australia from Indonesia. There are only 13,500 refugees being allowed on annual resettlement quotas. From the beginning of this year until end of May, only 24 refugees have been resettled from Indonesia to Australia, from a pool of 5,732 available places for Asylum Seekers and Refugees.

Urgently, the language and semantics needs to change and be resolved, and where we work regionally together in the pursuit of humanity then let us do so - let us send in the UNHCR to all camps to help them resettle - and let us, Australia, send in to these camps and centres and regional communities, our paralegals and lawyers, counsellors and NGOs to expedite resettlement. Let us work together in ways with example at the forefront and to inspire one another.

There are only 4,239 Asylum Seekers at this time in all of Indonesia - this is not an insurmountable number for us to assist with and save lives.

Gerry Georgatos
PhD Law researcher Australian Custodial Systems
Human Rights Alliance
0430657309
gerry_georgatos@yahoo.com.au
info@humanrightsalliance.org

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Comments

Mate, you are an encyclopaedia!

(This has been sent by a Greens)

There are 1200 proven assessed refugees in Indonesia right now.

Australia has just reduced our intake resettlement places from a piddling 500 to 300 so what is the message to the 1200 people who are waiting and hoping for a safe place to call home?
This is no way to stop the dangerous boat journeys.

The Greens amendment to take 1000 people now – away from the people smuggling agents- gives refugees a real choice and will save lives in real terms.

Sending 800 people to languish in Malaysia in some convoluted punishment mechanism is a cynical political response.

The Greens amendment deserves support.

Migration Legislation Amendment (The Bali Process) Bill 2012

(Second reading amendment to be moved by the Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Milne, on behalf of herself and Senator Hanson-Young)

At the end of the motion, add:

but the Senate:

(a) calls on the Government to take immediate action to:

provide safe pathways for refugees to discourage people taking life threatening journeys;

increase Australia’s humanitarian intake from 13,750 to 20,000, including additional places to be immediately allocated to targeted resettlement of 1,000 people from Indonesia and 4,000 people from Malaysia;

immediately increase funding to United Nations High Commission for Refugees by $10 million to boost the capacity of Refugee Status Determination assessments in Malaysia and Indonesia;

establish a multi-party committee, charged with developing a framework for a long-term regional solution which is underpinned by the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the related 1967 Protocol;

enter urgent discussions between Australia and Indonesia to address the critical need for cooperation and effectiveness of intelligence sharing and resourcing between Australia and Indonesia in order to save lives at sea;

codify Australia’s Safety of Life at Sea Convention 1974 obligations across all relevant government agencies and increase Australia’s rescue capacity in Australia’s northern waters; and

(b) resolves that a message be sent to the House of Representatives immediately to acquaint it with this resolution

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/like-it-or-not-indonesia-seems...

The challenge is to step back from the toxic politics, and even the images of traumatised asylum seekers rescued from sunken boats, and craft a plan that discourages people from risking their lives, honours Australia's international obligations and confronts the global phenomenon of people forced to flee their homelands - and to do it in a hurry. No wonder 3AW's Neil Mitchell called it a hospital handpass.

There are two ways of surveying the utterly dispiriting drama that ended in anticlimax this week. The first is to see it as a consequence of a hung Parliament, an unpopular Prime Minister with diminished authority and an Opposition Leader utterly focused on the task of destroying a damaged government.

There was never any prospect of Gillard and Abbott reaching a compromise because the contest between them is so bitterly intense, visceral and devoid of goodwill. Consider, for instance, Abbott's attack on Gillard on Thursday: ''This is a Prime Minister who sacrificed the welfare of the Australian people, who shredded her own credibility, who broke her own word, to save her job. That is the political crime that gnaws at this Prime Minister every hour of every day. That is the political crime which haunts this Parliament.''

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/like-it-or-not-indonesia-seems...

Peter Wilkie on Prime Minister Gillard being urged to reintroduce TPVS:

Most of this debate is completely fake. Anyone can look up the statistics online. Boat arrivals INCREASED after the introduction of TPVs in 1999. More people drowned AFTER Nauru was implimented during the Howard years than have drowned on Labors watch. Deterrance does not save lives, it only means 'go die trying to get somewhere else'. Only genuine resettlement solutions actually save lives. Labor and Liberal are both playing to racism and xenophobia.

To view your comment online go to: http://www.couriermail.com.au/prime-minister-julia-gillard-urged-to-rest...

our prattling media all focussed on pretending to care about those who drowned BECAUSE WE LET THEM.

and we will jail these babies here for daring not to drown and ask us for help.

The ALP should hang their heads in shame and so should the racist absurd press gallery who all exist in their bubble of safe delusion in the Taj on the hill.

And no-one asks what about them? Or what have they fled? Just us. It's the most arrogant racist nonsense since the white
Australia policy and with refugees sailing direct from Sri Lanka and coming from all over the world how do we set up regional care when almost none of them are from the region?

So many questions so few answers as the media and others babble and prattle about poltiical impasses that are lies and garbage designed to punish these babies.

http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=32044

Independent Rob Oakeshott has introduced to the House of Representatives his own Migration Legislation Amendment (The Bali Process) Bill 2012. If passed, this bill would amend the Migration Act removing the peg on which the High Court was able to hang the Malaysia solution out to dry. Under the unamended law, the Minister for Immigration is required to declare in writing that any country to be used for offshore processing provides access to effective procedures for asylum claims, provides protection for asylum seekers while their claims are processed, and meets relevant human rights standards in providing that protection. In August last year, the High Court of Australia ruled that the Minister could not make a valid declaration in relation to Malaysia as it was not a signatory to the Refugees Convention, and the Arrangement between the two governments was not legally binding.

Oakeshott is proposing that a new peg replace the old one, and that the new one be designed such that Malaysia could pass muster without High Court interference. His bill would permit the Minister to designate Malaysia as an offshore assessment country because it is a party to the Bali Process which at its last meeting a year ago included 32 countries working on a Regional Cooperation Framework. If Oakeshott intended meaningful public decision making by the Executive government and appropriate parliamentary scrutiny, he has failed. Participation in the Bali process could not be reckoned a sufficient precondition for a country to pass muster with human rights protection and appropriate asylum procedures. For example, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran are all participants in the Bali process.

The only other precondition in the Oakeshott bill is that “the Minister thinks it is in the national interest” to designate a country as an offshore assessment country. Anxious to avoid any further High Court scrutiny, his drafters have stipulated that the international obligations and domestic laws of a country are irrelevant to the process of designation. In considering whether designation of another country would be in Australia’s national interest, the Minister is required to have regard to the assurances offered by that country’s government about the assessment of asylum claims and the non-refoulement of asylum seekers whose claims have not yet been decided. These assurances need not be legally binding. The Minister is required to place a statement of reasons before Parliament within 2 sitting days of making a designation. He is also required within 14 days to make a request of UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) seeking a formal statement of their views about the arrangements proposed in the designated country. It would make more sense if the minister were required to make the requests and receive the statements before making his decision to designate a country, and before tabling the decision in Parliament. That way the UNHCR and IOM positions could help to inform both the Minster’s decision and Parliament’s assessment of the decision. The bill provides that “the sole purpose of laying the documents before the Parliament is to inform the Parliament of the matters referred to in the documents and nothing in the documents affects the validity of the designation”. Parliament has no power to disallow the designation and a failure to table the documents would not affect the validity of the designation. So the Oakeshott peg is designed to ensure that neither Parliament nor the High Court could hang a designated country out to dry, ever again. The bill is simply a convoluted means for allowing the Executive government to declare an offshore processing country without any meaningful scrutiny by Parliament or the High Court. It does nothing to advance the cause of public scrutiny of government decisions to provide offshore processing of asylum claims.

A completely toothless tiger.

Thanks Gerry for this, it makes me understand what exactly happened back then and what could be done now

MEDIA RELEASE

SYDNEY REFUGEE GROUPS TO HOLD VIGIL FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS LOST AT SEA

Refugee groups will hold a candle light vigil at Sydney’s Town Hall
steps in remembrance of the asylum seekers lost at sea while seeking
protection in Australia.

The vigil being supported by the Refugee Action Coalition, ChilOut and
others will be held from 5.00-6.30pm at Town Hall, Tuesday 3 July.

“In all the hurly burly of the political debate over the last week, we
want to ensure that do not forget that behind the headlines are human
beings that need protection. We want to show our respect for those who
lost their lives so close to the safety and security they need,” said
Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.

“ Any political party that had real concern for the lives of asylum
seekers and respect for the Refugee Convention would have permanent
protection and resettlement at the front of their refugee policies,
but both parties continue to push for off-shore processing.”

Refugee activists will also be collecting signatures on a petition
opposing off-shore processing to be presented in the first week of the
August parliament sitting.

i cannot believe the mountain out of a molehill, there's only less than 4,300 asylum seekers in indonesia and we can't sort this, that's unbelievable, really its says something bad about us

and if there's 90,000 at malaysia well that's less than all the refugees from the 70s and 80s and well if we work together regionally and with the usa and canada again we can resettle them easy enough, surely australia can take 30,000 from malaysia, and new zealand several thousand and countries in the region and in the americas likewise, surely we can sort out some of this, the numbers don't look too bad to me, and with the millions in pakistan and afghanistan and iraq we have to try and improve regionally the politics and instead of our governments making things worse for oil and gases

Step-by-step guide to finding an asylum solution

JULIAN BURNSIDE

The question of what to do about boat people flares up periodically: sometimes when they arrive here; more often when political parties need to scrape a few votes off the bottom of the barrel.

Hesitant though I am to contaminate the argument with commonsense, I suggest that we identify the problem before jumping to solutions. Problem solving depends on identifying the problem and marshalling the facts.

What do we know?
We know that boat people come here principally from Afghanistan, where the Hazaras are the target of Taliban genocide, and from Sri Lanka, where the Tamils are being persecuted in the wake of their failed liberation movement.

We know that Hazaras and Tamils are really desperate in their bid for freedom. You have to be desperate to take the risks they take.

We know that most boat people who arrive here alive end up being assessed as genuine refugees, entitled to our protection. About 90 per cent of them or more.

We know that when they get on small boats and try to get to Christmas Island (part of Australia) some of the boats sink and some of the refugees drown. The number who have drowned is not clear, but it looks like about 2-3 per cent of them since 2000.

We know that desperate people will take desperate measures. The experience of the Jews in the 1930s and the Vietnamese in the late 1970s tells us that.

We know that a person facing death or torture is not likely to be deterred by the prospect of being locked up in a detention centre, or even by the risk of drowning. Commonsense and ordinary experience tells us that.

Knowing what we do, what should we do?
Our political leaders have expressed concern about refugees drowning, and have condemned the callousness of people smugglers. They are looking for a Solution.

The problem for which they want a solution is the problem of people drowning. This is good: if refugees from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka are going to risk their lives on small boats, we can either look away or decide what we are going to do about it.

To be clear: Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard have said that they are concerned about deaths at sea. They have not said that they are concerned about refugees arriving here un-drowned, although Abbott equivocates on this. He calls each boat arrival a failure of border protection.

Given that about 6 million people enter Australia across our borders each year, it is hard to see 6,000 unauthorised arrivals in a year as a failure: it represents success in about 99.9 per cent of cases. If 99.9 per cent success is now a failure, you have to worry for the self-esteem of kids finishing year 12 exams.

What are our options?
So we have a miniscule leakage of boat people across our borders each year, and some people drown trying to reach safety. What should we do? That's the current debate, isn't it?

We can let them drown – our politicians say they don't want that to happen; most Australians would be shocked at that idea. It's not an option.

We can use "offshore processing". This is the new buzz-word, but unfortunately politics has given it a false meaning. As used by Gillard (and Abbott), "offshore processing" means sending people to Malaysia (or Nauru), and closing the door behind them. The 'processing' bit is hard to see, because as far as the two major parties are concerned, we don't care what the result of the processing is: we have solved the problem by giving it to someone else. But the major parties don't care about that: it's their way of 'stopping the boats', by which they mean stopping the refugees.

The big problem with this is that it only kicks in after the refugees have got on a boat, thus running the very risk Gillard and Abbott say they want to save them from. It's a strange thing that the Pacific Solution and the Malaysian Solution have this in common: they do not solve the problem they are designed to solve: they operate after the risk has passed.

In short, neither the Pacific Solution nor the Malaysian Solution is a solution at all, unless the politicians come clean and say: "We don't mind about people drowning, we just don't want the un-drowned ones who get here." But they are not saying that.

The other meaning of 'offshore processing' is for Australia to process their asylum claim offshore (i.e. in Indonesia, where they are before they get on a boat) and promise resettlement in a finite, specified time. This sort of offshore processing would in fact solve the problem. By processing refugee claims in Indonesia, and increasing our refugee intake, we would be able to create a queue for safe, orderly resettlement.

There are a couple of necessary caveats to this: the processing has to be fair; the increase in refugee places has to be sufficient to keep their waiting time in Indonesia to just two or three years; we would have to warn them about the risk of getting on a smuggler's boat; we would have to enlist Indonesia's cooperation so the refugees could live without harassment while they waited for resettlement.

This is genuine offshore processing. I think it would work: it would certainly stop the boats and the deaths; it would not stop the arrival of refugees. I wonder if Labor or the Coalition will embrace it? And if not, let's ask them why.

Julian Burnside AO QC is an Australian Barrister and an advocate for human rights and fair treatment of refugees.

Open borders the best bet against people smuggling

GREG BARNS

The vanity and ego of politicians is such that they think they can control overwhelming forces, be they driven by markets or basic human yearnings.

We saw this last week when all federal legislators, except a handful of principled Greens MPs perhaps recognising the folly of such vanity, sought to invent solutions to curtail or stop altogether people taking desperate measures to provide for themselves and their families a more secure economic and social future.

Proposals such as offshore processing in Malaysia or the Howard government's favourite client state Nauru will not achieve their aim. They will be as useful as the efforts of American politicians in the 1920s to rid that country of hard liquor, or the egregiously wasteful efforts of lawmakers and the justice system around the globe to end the movement of illicit drugs from one country to another.

People smugglers, the object of Canberra's ire, should not be condemned. They are simply reacting to the failure of the official channels to provide for the effective movement of people around the globe. Governments, both national and international through the UN, have a monopoly on people movement. They set quotas and targets. They establish fictional queues in which human beings are expected to wait patiently for decades while their application for asylum or refugee status is assessed.

People smugglers on the other hand provide an alternative to the official market. They set a price and there are takers of that price and service in the form of individuals who understandably don't face being killed or persecuted while they wait for the official government channels to assess their case.

In short people smugglers are a response to regulatory failure. The monopoly supplier of people movement, which includes the Australian government, hates people smugglers for that reason. They say people smugglers are evil, immoral and the devil incarnate, but what of their own detention regimes which cause mental and physical harm to those who come to our shores? Is this not also just as evil?

The drowning of people trying to reach Australia is appalling and no-one should pretend that people smuggling businesses are in the game for anything other than the money. But the answer is to provide a better service, not seek to do the impossible and wipe out the unofficial 'black' market.

Clive Palmer, the billionaire miner seems to understand this - not surprising given he deals in competitive markets every day of the week. His call on the weekend for the Australian Government to fly asylum seekers getting on leaky boats to our country and process them quickly is the most sensible suggestion of the past week. It beats the arrogant stupidity of politicians in Canberra. Offering a plane service will put people smugglers out of business because the transportation method is safer.

But if we don't show the world bared teeth and a determined jutting jaw asylum seekers will flock here says Canberra. And, as Andrew Willkie MP said, in an email exchange with me last week, Australians would not tolerate open borders. Philip Flood, a former senior Canberra mandarin, reacted with horror last Thursday on The World Today when I suggested that open borders was the only sustainable policy.

Philippe Legrain, economist and author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, notes the:

"case for free migration follows logically from that for free trade. Just as it's beneficial for goods and services to flow freely across borders, so, too, the people who produce them. Freer trade has made Americans much richer over the past 50 years; unfreezing labor flows could deliver vast gains over the next 50. According to some estimates, removing immigration controls could more than double the size of the world economy."

Substitute the US for Australia and the argument remains the same. Why not let people come into and out of Australia as they see fit? This does not mean that we should not screen individuals but once that has been done and boxes ticked, they ought to be allowed to settle in this country. And they will not flood to Australia as some suggest. This is a difficult and expensive country to get to and many will continue to do what they do now which is head to Europe and North America.

Further, market-driven migration is just that. When the labour market turns down the word will get out that Australia is not a destination for those seeking a better life. Interestingly in Europe this is exactly what happened in the past decade. Eastern Europeans went to the UK, Ireland and Spain which had booming economies. These countries happily soaked up the labour. Now the economic gloom has set in these migrants have headed home.

Australia's migration policy is immoral. It is driven by an old Soviet style numbers game. It leads to chronic labour shortages and it denies people their fundamental human right to seek freedom and security.

In answer to Messrs Wilkie, Flood and others who think open borders are unrealistic, I can only agree with Philippe Legrain:

"freedom of movement is a basic human right that should not be denied to people less fortunate than ourselves. Since migration is inevitable, far better that it be safe and legal. A pipe dream? That's what people once said about abolishing slavery."

Greg Barns is a Hobart based writer and former adviser to the Howard government.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/dont-blame-this-lot-former-...

THE disgrace and political blame for the failure of the government and the parliament to take action over the tragedy of asylum-seekers drowning at sea rests not with the futile, farcical and, at times, mawkish behaviour of MPs this week but in actions taken years ago.

The vain hopes and politically motivated actions in parliament this week have served only to frustrate and anger the public, which demanded action and got only talk, intransigence, yet another committee, a panel, and the promise of more talk when the politicians resume for the spring sitting.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/well-risk-death-but-not...

IN the asylum-seeker enclave of Cisarua, in the hills a couple of hours south of Jakarta, news of sinking boats and mass drownings hasn't dimmed the desire of those seeking a dangerous passage to Australia.

Hundreds of asylum-seekers live there, waiting for the money and the chance to take the boat journey south. They say the only thing that would deter them would be the Australian government slamming the door.

Afghan asylum-seeker Mohammad Ali, who knew people who lost their lives in the sinkings of the past week, told The Weekend Australian yesterday that he would buy clandestine passages to Australia for himself, his wife and his two young children if he had the money.

He said the growing stream of asylum-seekers - the latest three boats mean this month's arrival total of 1664 has eclipsed the previous record - would not slow until the Australian government started sending asylum-seekers offshore for processing.

"If Australia announced the door is closed, the people will stop going there," he said.

http://sievx.com/

146 children ~ 142 women ~ 65 men

Australia's Shameful Response to a Boat in Distress

It is a terrible irony that in the week of the tenth anniversary of the creation of this website, questions are being raised concerning Australian responsibility for the mass drowning of scores of asylum seekers that occurred en route to Christmas Island last week.

Have our policies in respect of asylum seeker vessels reverted to the 'Don't get suckered into a SOLAS' imperative of the Howard era?

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/asylum-seeker-boat-near-indone...

The wooden boat issued a distress call Wednesday morning and was believed to have up to 180 people on board, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.

Its initial location was 80 kilometers southwest of Panaitan, a small island off the western end of the main Java island, but by afternoon, it had drifted within 130 kilometers of Christmas Island, officials said.

Georgiou on offshore processing

by Petro Georgiou from August 2006 House of Reps debate on the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill.
Mr GEORGIOU (Kooyong) (11.58 am)

Thirty years ago, after a long and hazardous journey, a small group of Vietnamese refugees landed on a remote beach in Northern Australia. In today's parlance they were 'unauthorised arrivals'.

These Vietnamese inaugurated Australia’s modern era of boat people. There were shockwaves. The new arrivals were Asians and the White Australia policy had only recently been abandoned. The Fraser government decided that the refugees would be accepted and helped to settle successfully. But then, in 1992, the Keating government introduced a policy that the Fraser government had rejected—the mandatory detention of asylum seekers. Later, further stringent measures were implemented by the Howard government to prevent and deter asylum seekers from arriving here. Temporary protection replaced permanent protection, more punitive reception centre procedures were introduced and, in 2001, with the agreement of the opposition, parliament legislated to excise some Australian territory from the ambit of the Migration Act. Further excisions followed.

The rationales advanced for the harshness of these policies were that asylum seekers were being transported for profit by people smugglers—smugglers who were cruelly indifferent to the fate of their desperate passengers—that asylum seekers had passed through other countries and not sought protection en route to Australia, and that asylum seekers were not fleeing persecution but seeking economic benefit.

I do not disclaim responsibility for the measures adopted by the Howard government. Whatever my reservations at the time, I voted for them. The rationales for harshness, however, have been undermined in recent years. The overwhelming majority of asylum seekers have been found to be legitimate refugees. A combination of factors has led largely to unauthorised arrivals ceasing. The disturbing consequences of the mandatory detention regime became more apparent. It was recognised that vulnerable children, women and men had been harmed, that they had been physically and mentally damaged. It became transparent that people who had committed no crime were being detained for years with no certainty of them ever being released. The fact that the policy itself was open to abuse progressively became exposed. Revelations about the treatment of Cornelia Rau shocked us all. Other revelations have continued to shock us.

Public attitudes shifted. Australians who had once accepted the policy as being necessary came to see that it was cruel and wrong. These were not the usual suspects; these were the people who said: ‘I believed in the policy at the time. Now I know what the consequences are and I think it’s wrong.’ Fewer Australians felt threatened by or hostile towards the new arrivals. More Australians believed that we should treat asylum seekers with greater compassion. The government, to its credit, did respond. A year ago the Prime Minister announced a program of significant measures. He said:

The broad framework of the Government’s approach is unaltered. ... There can however be significant improvements which will mean that current policy is administered with greater flexibility, fairness and, above all, in a timely manner.

These changes were long overdue. Under the government’s broad framework, people who sought asylum on our mainland—and Tasmania—were all assessed under Australian law and granted protection in Australia if they needed it. There was no difference between an asylum seeker who arrived by boat or one who arrived by plane. Within that broad framework the improvements were, as the Prime Minister stated, significant. In fairness, the improvements did not go as far as some of us wanted, but the improvements were significant.

The most important reform was that families with children were no longer to be detained in detention centres while their applications for refugee status were considered. Instead, families with children would be permitted to live in the Australian community and conditions would be set to meet their individual circumstances. Where they were found to be refugees, they would be given protection visas in Australia. Our monitoring and supervision systems were strengthened. Those improvements which required legislation were promptly enacted by parliament in a spirit of bipartisan consensus.

The reforms have generally been successful and, I believe, welcomed by the community at large. Asylum seekers in Australia are now treated more humanely and efficiently than has been the case for years. This was exemplified in the fair and timely processing of the West Papuans who arrived in Australia in January. It is a matter of sadness that, within months of the most recent piece of reform legislation being enacted, parliament is now being asked to approve a new and severely regressive measure. Barely having overcome our fears and introduced a more decent system, we are asked to turn back.

The Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill is the most profoundly disturbing piece of legislation I have encountered since becoming a member of parliament. The bill proposes a radical change to the broad framework that the government committed to a year ago. If parliament agrees, the consequences will be draconic. The whole of Australia—and, in deference to you, Mr Deputy Speaker Quick, Tasmania—would be excised from the refugee protection regime afforded by the Migration Act for people seeking asylum who arrive on our mainland by boat. These asylum seekers will be sent to Nauru.

In a number of key respects the treatment of asylum seekers who come to Australia by boat will be unacceptably worse than at present. This remains the case despite a number of improvements the government has agreed to regarding the bill as initially introduced. I will focus on three issues. First, families with children will not live in ordinary community settings either while their claims are being processed or after they are found to be refugees. If Nauru agrees, the government will establish what it calls a village where women, children and families can live so that they are not in the processing centre. The village will have a fence around it. The government says that the fence will be a non-intrusive one to ensure the security of the refugees or the asylum seekers. In the evening, again for their safety we are told, the residents will be required to stay in their accommodation and the village will be patrolled by private security personnel. The residents may be confined to their homes for as many hours a day or days of the week as the Nauruan government determines at various times. The Australian government insists that this is not detention.

A second major difference between the current situation and that proposed under this bill is that asylum seekers on Nauru will not have available the protections that exist in Australia. For example, they will not have a right of appeal to an independent statutory body against decisions by departmental officers on the merit of their applications.

To understand the importance of this, one has to look at how many departmental decisions the Refugee Review Tribunal has overturned. In 2004-05, for example, the statutory Refugee Review Tribunal set aside 90 per cent of decisions on application from Afghanis, over 90 per cent relating to Iraqis and 33 per cent of all decisions. To dampen concerns about the absence of an independent review, the government says it will consider establishing a panel of non-departmental decision makers to review failed applications. But there is to be no statutory basis for this critical function. Panel members will be making decisions that could mean life or death for applicants without a legislated framework of accountability.

The third and most disquieting thing is that people found to be refugees may remain on Nauru indefinitely. This is not a fanciful prospect; look at the historical record. The excision of islands around Australia was introduced in order to deny protection in Australia to asylum seekers who landed on the islands. These asylum seekers were sent to places like Nauru. In the event, even though the refugees’ claims for asylum were sustained, few countries were willing to take them off Nauru, and we ended up resettling around 60 per cent in Australia. We resettled some of those after a number of years when we could no longer ignore a situation in which their health, their mental health and their ability to subsist and exist on Nauru were seriously being put at risk. Today there seems to be even less possibility of finding other countries prepared to take refugees whom Australia refuses to accept.

In evidence to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee’s inquiry into the bill, the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said:

I do not see any likely candidates. I think the countries who do accept resettlement of refugees ... would see this legislation in its current form as being a deflection of Australia’s responsibilities to provide solutions on its mainland, therefore adding to the resettlement burden of the other countries in the world.

The Australian government has said that it would consider taking people who would not be resettled otherwise, but even this vague, non-binding offer comes without a timetable. Would consideration start after a year, three years, 10 years? The majority report of the Legal and Constitution Legislation Committee recommended that the bill should provide an obligation on Australia to resettle refugees who could not be resettled elsewhere. But the government’s amendments provide only that the minister have a non-compellable, non-reviewable power to grant a visa if this would be in the public interest, a term which is not defined.

According to the Indonesian foreign minister, the Australian government has assured him that West Papuan refugees will not be allowed to settle here. So far as we members of parliament are concerned, the only certainty is uncertainty. If we approve the bill, we do so knowing that it will result in refugees who are transferred from Australia to Nauru remaining there for an indefinite period. This will apply to children as well as to women and men. It has been suggested that the government is simply asking parliament to rectify an incongruous situation which came to light when a group of unauthorised people landed on the mainland in January this year. The incongruity was that people landing on the mainland were being treated differently from people arriving on excised islands. In fact, the difference between the mainland and the islands is well known. The decision to have different asylum regimes applying to the mainland and to largely uninhabited islands was quite deliberate. The government’s primary concern, which was shared by others, was that people smugglers who might take the risk of landing their passengers on the islands would be reluctant to venture to the mainland where the risk of detection was greater. The possibility of unauthorised arrivals coming to the mainland was noted and discussed in the parliament, and the government rejected any proposition about excising the Australian mainland.

So why has this heretofore rejected policy become an important strengthening of Australia’s border control measures? There is no new threat from a criminal gang of people smugglers trying to penetrate our defences. Earlier this year, 43 West Papuans came directly, not through other countries, and they have been determined to be refugees fleeing persecution. They were only the second group of boat arrivals on the mainland since July 2003. One vessel with seven West Timorese arrived in November 2005, and that event did not cause the government to change its views about what was needed to protect us.

The Indonesian government has protested at Australia’s granting of refugee status to the Papuan asylum seekers. The Indonesian government’s complaint is understandable. Of course, it does not like being accused of persecuting its own citizens and, of course, Australia should be sensitive to the feelings of its neighbour. But we should not sacrifice Australian law. When Australians criticised Indonesian laws, our governments reminded us that we must respect Indonesia’s right to determine and apply its own system. That was right—as was the decision made on the 43 Papuans. The decisions were made properly by Australian officials acting properly in accordance with our law and policy and appropriately reviewed by the Refugee Review Tribunal. From what we know of the situation in West Papua, the decision was not perverse. There is substantial evidence to support claims of persecution which, under the Migration Act, entitle people to receive protection in Australia—take, for example, the US State Department’s report on the human rights situation in Indonesia.

The general human rights situation in Indonesia has improved in recent years, and I think we all welcome that. I am pleased that Australia is providing assistance to further that process, but, clearly, the problems have not all been resolved. As a supportive neighbour, we should make clear to the Indonesian government that we support its territorial integrity, that we do not support separatist movements and that if victims of persecution come to our door and ask for asylum we should not turn them away.

The act of taking in a stranger in need is an ancient and universal virtue. It was well captured in the acceptance speech of the UNHCR, when it was honoured with a Nobel Peace Prize in 1981.

Throughout the history of mankind people have been uprooted against their will. Time and time again, lives and values built from generation to generation have been shattered without warning. But throughout history mankind has also reacted to such upheavals and brought succour to the uprooted. Be it through individual gestures or concerted action and solidarity, those people have been offered help and shelter, and a chance to become dignified, free citizens again.
Through the ages, the giving of sanctuary has become one of the noblest traditions of human nature. Communities, institutions, cities and nations have generously opened their doors to refugees.

The ancient and universal tradition of providing sanctuary to those in danger is part of our refugee regime in Australia today, and it is demonstrated by the community at large when Australians respond generously to the suffering of others, both at home and abroad.

The Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 does not reflect this tradition. It does not uphold the deeply held Australian values of giving people a fair go, and of decency and compassion. I regret that I cannot commend this bill to the House and I will be voting against it.

Moylan on offshore processing

Judy Moylan speech from August 2006 from today's House of Reps debate on the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill.

THE HON JUDI MOYLAN MP (1.12 pm)

Mr Speaker this legislation amending the Migration Act is not a matter between conscience and patriotism.

For surely each one is worthless without the other and ethical principles should inform them both. The stranger that stumbles upon our shores has a claim on both our conscience and our patriotism when he/she arrives with credentials uncontaminated by smugglers and pleading a case that at very least, is worthy of a fair hearing. The qualities that constitute fairness are not those that visit unmitigated sequestration and inhumanity upon the stranger.

This is complex legislation because it places people seeking refuge on our shores out of reach of Australian domestic law and by our hand, places them within the borders of a country that is not a signatory to International Conventions protecting asylum seekers.

It is incongruous that unauthorised boat arrivals are treated any differently from unauthorised plane arrivals. People coming by boat unlike those arriving by plane will be forcibly removed to Nauru and denied access to a properly constituted Statutory Refugee Review Tribunal and to Australian Courts for judicial review – this in a system that unlawfully detained Ms Rau and Ms Solon.

Further, asylum seekers arriving by boat will be denied those standards of public scrutiny that have been recommended and implemented in Australian detention centres since the release of the Comrie and Palmer reports that arose from the Solon and Rau cases.

Church leaders, Non Government Organisation representatives and others including the fourth estate have been refused visas to visit refugees held in offshore processing centres.

The Memorandum of Understanding between Australia and Nauru in relation to this Bill is not publicly available so that we cannot access details about the future care of asylum seekers on Nauru or take any comfort that visas will be accessible in future.

How will we know what is being done, or not being done in our name?

We must therefore search our consciences and ask if these unduly harsh measures are warranted.

These amendments seek to broaden the scope of off-shore processing which means that families with children will once again be placed in fenced compounds under guard and will be out of range of Australian public scrutiny and support.

I may not have shared many of Chief Justice Sir Owen Dixon’s personal views but he was known for his strict adherence to legal principles and a view that the rule of law is the assumption on which the Australian Constitution rests.

The rule of law is a conservative principle. It is the foundation of democracy. It requires as a minimum access to judicial review of administrative action, the right to a fair trial, the right to private communications with a lawyer and access to the courts.

This Bill removes or diminishes each of those rights.

Who or what is to protect these people from processing errors of which there have, sadly, been many in recent times?

Future asylum seekers arriving by sea could be held offshore for indefinite periods of time. Despite the first Memorandum of Understanding with the Nauru Government aiming to remove people within six months and despite earlier assurances by the Minister for Immigration to that effect, many people remained on Nauru for long periods. Some spending four years on Nauru.

Detention without hope of release has been identified as the prime cause of the mental health problems in asylum seekers, including self harm and suicide. These long periods of uncertainty have clearly exacted an unacceptably high human cost.

Less than 200 unauthorised boat arrivals have reached Australian shores in recent times and amongst them 43 West Papuans fleeing political oppression and human rights abuses. They arrive in small canoes, not organised by smugglers and are unarmed. They do not proceed through interim countries but come directly to Australian shores.

The majority of fair minded Australians were relieved when 42 of the 43 West Papuans were given asylum. Since that time the 43rd West Papuan originally refused asylum had that decision overturned by the Refugee Review Tribunal. Such an appeal to a properly constituted Statutory Review Tribunal will be denied others under this legislation

Following the successful claims of the West Papuan’s for asylum and complaints by the Indonesian Government, including the withdrawal of their Ambassador, the government announced the introduction of this Amendment Bill to take effect retrospectively at the time of the Cabinet decision.

Following the decision to grant asylum to the West Papuans, the Minister for Immigration said, and I quote: “Australia has always made decisions in relation to protection claims on the basis of the merit of the claim and this has to be the case whether we’ll upset one or other of Australia’s friends and allies.” End of quote.

It stands to reason then that Australia should not fashion its refugee policy to assuage the Indonesian government.

Indonesia and its President may not have received nearly enough credit for the achievement of democratic institutions in a country so populous, so geographically complex and so variegated in its cultural affinities.

But given all that and given all the respect, that these aspirations and achievements rightfully engender that is the point beyond which our self respect must give us pause.

One can understand concerns by the Indonesian government about the possibility of civil unrest generated by an independence movement in West Papua. But our Government has been crystal clear in stating that it does not support an independence movement.

Yet, cleaving as we do to basic freedoms of worship, speech and political association, it is axiomatic that we cannot condone explicitly or tacitly the persecution of people because they express dissenting political views. In such cases where asylum is sought, we have obligations to hear the claims and make a dispassionate decision free from political interference.

Our relationship with Indonesia must proceed on the basis of mutual accommodation and consistency in our argument of the paramountcy of the sovereign rights and laws of each nation.

Most Australians are appalled by the release of Abu Bakar Bashir but understand that regardless of how repugnant that decision is, Indonesian law will almost certainly prevail.

Pressure Indonesia has brought to bear over the West Papuan asylum matter is offensive to our style of democratic government and to the rule of law which underpins it.

If we allow interference in the proper, legal processing of asylum seekers, no matter where they come from, then where is the end point?

We must ask the question: will there be further back-downs and compromises in the face of future threats by Indonesia?

Indonesia and Australia have worked cooperatively in building constructive dialogue, strong people to people links, in trade, regional security and border protection. The goodwill we have built up between our two countries is beneficial to the people of both nations and the region. Exercising our domestic and international legal obligations is insufficient reason for fracturing a mature relationship.

It is hoped that the Indonesian government recognises and addresses the issues underlying the current unrest referred to by Indonesian’s Defence Minister,
Mr. Sud-ar-sono in February this year when he said and I quote:

“I grant that there have been incidents of some brutality and torture and rape involving some of our troops, but there has been a tendency to blanket all of this into a notion that all of these efforts are systematic and institutional.” End of quote.

When these brutalities cease, then the desperation that drives people to risk their lives to cross the open sea in canoes will cease to exist and there will be no reason for Indonesia to ask Australia to choose between its good relations with Indonesia or the legal and just application of its own laws.

It is surely safe to assume that West Papuans share the same aspirations as people everywhere – for food, shelter, health, education and access to the common pool of prosperity – 40% of West Papuans survive on less than $6 per week. Given that Freeport is said to be the biggest earner of foreign currency in the country that should not be too difficult to achieve.

Speaking in international forums, our Attorney General the Hon Philip Ruddock has observed that the focus of western democratic states should be on helping to prevent refugee situations at source, so as to ease the burden on countries of first asylum.

Thus the primary hope is that West Papua should be a comfortable home for its citizens so they have no reason to seek refuge elsewhere.

The achievement of that goal remains solely within the prerogative of the Indonesian Government – but I would venture to say that there are many in this country (indeed in this House) willing, in the spirit of friendship and common humanity, to lend a hand – just as they have been all too willing in the recent past to lend a hand when our neighbour was beset on tragic occasions by natural disaster.

However much history and arduous exertion have given Indonesia the right to insist on its own standards and laws – these are no more or less by which we in Australia are entitled to do precisely the same.

Last year this Parliament unanimously endorsed important changes to the Migration Act.

For me there was no more important change than to release families with children from behind the barb wire and place them in community housing.

Australia is a big country. The Australian people have big hearts and I cannot believe that they will condone a Bill that is regressive. A Bill that sends people to a place that puts asylum seekers outside the reach of community support and outside the reach of domestic and international law.

In considering this legislation we need to ask the questions:
What value do we place on the rule of law?

How can we in all conscience legislate to consign people to a place where they are out of sight and ostensibly out of mind?

Do we assume that nothing culpable by way of mistakes and misdemeanours can possibly befall them?

Why is this legislation before the House today when the majority government member senate committee recommended that the legislation be scrapped or at least amended?

Mr. Speaker this is virtually a declaration of infallibility, which is absurd not to say dangerous. It flies in the face of that essential principal of democratic governance that there should be visible, credible checks and balances.

I cannot believe that the citizens of this sovereign country would ever cease to wonder – nor would they ever forgive – were we in this House to acquiesce in silence to pressure from a neighbour on a matter so much at the heart of our principles of justice. I for one cannot remain silent.

Asylum debate mustn't lose sight of human drama
Judi Moylan | View Archive July 6, 2012, 12:31 pm

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/opinion/post/-/blog/14153528/asylum-deb...

The opinion article by Paul Murray (Crocodile tears, June 30) was a deplorable diatribe aimed at committed MPs who seek a way through the impasse on asylum seekers.

Many people in the community express fears about the continuing arrival of unauthorised boats. Undoubtedly, perceptions of porous borders undermine public confidence in our migration program and our faith in multiculturalism.

Yet, it is not possible to ignore the United Nations Refugee Convention, as Murray would have us do. Its rules include that withdrawal by a member state requires one year’s notice to the Secretary-General of the UN.

Second, the suggestion that I or any of my parliamentary colleagues are “deluded” ignores the logic of our position, that this is a regional challenge requiring a regional solution. Australia alone cannot solve the age-old challenge to sovereign borders posed by the irregular movement of people fleeing war and/or persecution.

In the past we rejected the offshore processing of asylum seekers on Nauru because it was not then a signatory to the UN convention. Being detained on Nauru then removed asylum seekers from Australian territory and denied them legal rights.

During the current debate, I and other coalition members have worked with the Greens and independents to break the political impasse. We discussed increasing Australia’s refugee intake, establishing UN approved processing centres in the region, expediting asylum applications, limiting the time an asylum seeker could be kept in a place such as Nauru and finally the establishment of a formal multiparty parliamentary committee to find an acceptable and humane way forward.

Stepping up our diplomatic engagement in the Indian Ocean region including India and Sri Lanka is crucial. Information sharing and analysis of the drivers of people smuggling must be a major priority.

Yet in the end we must never lose sight of the drama of people fleeing war, genocide or the threat of imprisonment because of political or religious beliefs.

While Murray is entitled to his fulminations, he is wrong to characterise all asylum seekers in a way that suggests they are of one homogeneous religious cohort. This simply ignores the facts.

So far this year, Sri Lankan boat arrivals have been mostly Tamil or Sinhalese of Hindu or Buddhist beliefs. Afghans, the biggest group, are mostly moderate Hazara Muslims and Iranian and Iraqi asylum seekers have included Baha’is and Christians as well as Muslims.

Given the tragic loss of life, it is little wonder that the recent parliamentary session has been a confronting experience for all.

Nevertheless, we remain committed to a resolution worthy of our history in which successive waves of migration have played a crucial role in nation building.
Judi Moylan is a WA Federal Liberal backbencher

Let's have a committee to look at Rudd's return
Paul Murray | View Archive July 4, 2012, 2:10 pm

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/opinion/post/-/blog/14133816/lets-have-...

Maybe Julia Gillard had Kevin Rudd on her mind when she came up with the idea of a committee as a solution to her asylum seeker problems.

And why wouldn’t Kevin 12 be in her thoughts at the moment?

Those in Labor’s caucus who want to impose him on the nation again within months must have forgotten the character flaws and manic style of government that Ms Gillard and her senior ministers reminded us of in lurid detail when he challenged in February.

The loyal deputy surely couldn’t forget them.

But one of the failings they didn’t mention in that week of excoriation before the 71-31 caucus vote was that Mr Rudd in his first year as prime minister inflicted 47 committees, reviews and inquiries on the nation, many of which had not reported before he got rolled.

Maybe Ms Gillard was also thinking about Mr Rudd’s warning on the night she shafted him about a “lurch to the Right” on asylum seeker policy — shorthand for Labor picking up the most reviled part of the Howard government’s Pacific Solution, offshore processing.

Ms Gillard’s policy response at the July, 2010 election was to conjure up a processing centre on East Timor. And wasn’t that another splendid success?

Dredging up the squalid history of Ms Gillard’s failures on this issue is necessary because she blames Opposition Leader Tony Abbott for the current policy vacuum.

But the Prime Minister is the architect of her own destiny, even though she and others with conveniently short memories can’t seem to recall how she got there.

It should surprise no one that the ABC’s leading political commentator blames Mr Abbott for the failure of last week’s attempts to get consensus in response to the most recent deaths at sea.

Barrie Cassidy, once former prime minister Bob Hawke’s press secretary and now presenter of the ABC’s Insiders program, is a bit of a thought leader within his own organisation and the Canberra press gallery.

Casting aside the corporation’s charter obligations on bias, he wrote the following on The Drum website about apportioning blame for the failure of last week’s two-day parliamentary debate:

“For mine, the moral equivalence argument — that both sides were equally reprehensible; both as bad as one another — doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

“The public might see it as the Age front page headline attested — ‘Our Politicians Fail Again’ — but in the end, the Government gave more ground and went far closer to the policy of the other than the coalition did.”

What is missing from that equation is any measure of whether a bastardised policy that met both sides in the middle would have any chance of working.

What Cassidy obviously wants is a policy camel with a donkey at the front end and an ass at the back.

So Ms Gillard decided to fall back on the laziest of political weapons, the short-term committee designed only to deflect blame.

And she also remembered the Rudd tactic of stacking committees with people who assure the result.

The Prime Minister’s offered biographies of the three committee members is an exercise in obscurantism.

Academic Paris Aristotle is introduced as the Director of the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture Inc. What isn’t said is that he was an outspoken critic of the Pacific Solution.

“As a nation, we cannot contemplate the return to policies that have inflicted so much harm on people who came seeking our protection,” he said in a 2009 press release for the Refugee Council.

Even though Labor had been in power for two years and had dismantled the Pacific Solution, that press release urged the Opposition to abandon its call for a return to “the cruel and counterproductive temporary protection visa regime”.

In September, the Age reported: “The Government’s plan to revive the Malaysian people swap has won qualified support from Paris Aristotle, one of the nation’s most prominent voices on asylum seeker policy ...”

Professor Michael L’Estrange is introduced as the token conservative, having worked as a policy adviser to Liberal leaders from 1989 to 1994 and serving in the Howard government as Cabinet secretary and later as secretary to the Foreign Affairs Department.

But the Gillard Government has spent the past year telling us that asylum seeker policy is an issue for the Immigration Department, pushing its sidelined head, Andrew Metcalfe, as the nation’s prime expert.

The other member, Angus Houston, has notorious experience of the issue through his involvement in the Children Overboard affair but the Government’s biography paints no other suitability to the job for a former helicopter pilot.
To top it off, Ms Gillard will give no undertakings that she will do anything about their recommendations anyway.

http://adam-bandt.greensmps.org.au/content/petition/petition-we-need-wor...

We need to work together to save lives. The only way to prevent the
terrible loss of life of asylum seekers at sea is to stop people
getting on boats in the first place. So if we want to stop the boats
we need to give people an alternative to putting their lives in the
hands of people smugglers.

Only by giving people safer pathways to a secure life will we reduce
the incentive for people to take perilous journeys. There are
thousands of people languishing in camps in Indonesia who wish to seek
asylum, but in the ten months to April this year Australia only
granted 97 refugee visas out of Indonesia.

That is why the Australian Greens have proposed four immediate actions
that could be taken by the Prime Minister today to prevent more
drownings at sea:

1. Increase Australia's humanitarian intake from 13,750 to 20,000,
including additional places to be immediately allocated to targeted
resettlement of 1,000 people from Indonesia and 4,000 people from
Malaysia;

2. Immediately increase funding to the United Nations High Commission
for Refugees by $10 million to boost the capacity of Refugee Status
Determination assessments in Malaysia and Indonesia;

3. Enter urgent discussions between Australia and Indonesia to address
the critical need for cooperation and effectiveness of intelligence
sharing and resourcing between Australia and Indonesia in order to
save lives at sea;

4. Codify Australia's Safety of Life at Sea Convention 1974
obligations across all relevant government agencies and increase
Australia's rescue capacity in Australia's northern waters. We
recognise the importance of compromise in achieving a workable
long-term solution to protecting the lives of asylum seekers.

That is why the Greens want to sit down with the Government and the
Opposition to develop a real and effective regional solution, which is
underpinned by the Refugee Convention relating to the Status of
Refugees and the related 1967 Protocol. Labor and the Coalition’s
proposal to expel asylum seekers who come by boat will not save lives.
Under John Howard’s Pacific Solution, which expelled asylum seekers
to Nauru, boats continued to come and people continued to drown. Only
by creating safer pathways for refugees will we be able to stop the
boats and stop the drownings. You can find out more about this issue
here: http://greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/we-can-save-lives-today

See http://adam-bandt.greensmps.org.au/content/petition/petition-we-need-wor...

The Australian Greens are calling on the Government to:

increase Australia's humanitarian intake from 13,750 to 20,000,
including additional places to be immediately allocated to targeted
resettlement of 1,000 people from Indonesia and 4,000 people from
Malaysia;
Immediately increase funding to United Nations High Commission for
Refugees by $10 million to boost the capacity of Refugee Status
Determination assessments in Malaysia and Indonesia;
Enter urgent discussions between Australia and Indonesia to address
the critical need for cooperation and effectiveness of intelligence
sharing and resourcing between Australia and Indonesia in order to
save lives at sea;
Codify Australia's Safety of Life at Sea Convention 1974 obligations
across all relevant government agencies and increase Australia's
rescue capacity in Australia's northern waters.

Yes, only solutions that involve durable resettlement options and safe pathways to resettlement are any real solution.

The Malaysian solution as it stands only says to people "go risk you life trying to get somewhere else safe, don't try coming to Australia".

Oddly though, if we just kept the 'good half' of the Malaysian solution, that is increased resettlement of UNHCR refugees from Malaysia, and we left out the bit about sending people back there, then we'd be on the right track.

We are still being all weird and paternalistic while ignoring the tens of millions in danger in other places.
Peter Van Onselen nailed what it is really all about.

We do not get to decide what others do and we don't get to look at the tiny little picture of just 0.0002% of the world's refugees in a vacuum of law breaking.

Because if we break the law and the constitution for one small group we will then do it for others and others and others.

As Van Onselen says, it's truly pathetic.

But did you see the win in the Victorian supremee court last week for the Indonesian crews, and two more kids not charged today.

We in this country seem to think we have the right to dictate to the world about their borders - non-one has considered that Indonesian and AFP are having another set of round ups and deportations from Indonesia though which is what causes more to leave.

Clive Palmer got it right, just let them fly here.

We already do assessments in 36 different embassies but only as an excuse to do as little as possible for anyone.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/australian-politicians-are...

(excerpt)

Not that Labor has much to be proud of in this debate. The ALP railed against offshore processing during the Howard years. Julia Gillard was front and centre when they did, as shadow immigration spokeswoman no less.

When the immigration minister during Kevin Rudd's prime ministership, Chris Evans, dismantled the so-called Pacific Solution shortly after Labor was elected, he declared it the proudest moment of his political career.

I wonder how Evans feels now, as Labor argues for a Malaysian Solution which includes shipping women and children off to an under-developed country, where asylum seekers won't be under Australian control (as at least occurred in Nauru) and will be left to fend for themselves as second class citizens with limited access to basic human rights. It is undoubtedly a tougher policy than Nauru, in the present or in the past.

Then we have the Greens, who have long taken the moral high ground and preached to the major parties about the worth of onshore processing on humanitarian grounds. The humane treatment of asylum seekers has always been their mantra. Yet when faced with deaths at sea, in the hundreds no less, they are not prepared to even consider a short-term fix to stop boat arrivals and hence save lives at sea.

The Greens' failure to compromise disqualifies them from being regarded as a third force in Australian politics. While I for one admire (and agree with) their purity in philosophical terms, legislators sometimes need to be pragmatic, and this may be one of those times. Our entire parliamentary system is based on deal making.

A minor party unprepared to do deals is more suited to being a special interest group than a political party.

Contradictions and stalemates haven't been the only features of this week's asylum seeker debate. Hypocrisy and misrepresentation have long been at the forefront of it.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/smuggle-crews-score-win-...

By Michael Gordon

PROSECUTORS will have to prove that Indonesian crews on boats carrying asylum seekers to Christmas Island were aware their destination was part of Australia for them to be found guilty of people smuggling.

In a ruling that has implications for scores of cases, the Court of Appeal has rejected a submission by prosecutors that it is enough to establish that crew knew they were heading for somewhere within Australian territory, such as Christmas Island, even if they were unaware it was part of Australia.

Victoria's first people smuggling trials are due to begin on Monday week. The two accused Indonesian crew members, aged 24 and 42, were intercepted in Australian territorial waters in November 2010 and spent just over five months in detention before being charged and transferred to prison.

They are being held in the Metropolitan Remand Centre in Melbourne and are among 53 Indonesian boat crew awaiting trial in the County Court.
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Indonesian officials maintain that the overwhelming majority of the boat crews are poor and uneducated and, in many cases, were duped into taking jobs as crew members.

Those to be tried face mandatory jail terms of five years on charges of aggravated people smuggling if there were five or more asylum seekers on board. In a pre-trial hearing, prosecutors maintained they did not have to establish that crew knew the intended destination was part of Australia to be guilty.

After a trial judge upheld this submission, defence lawyers engaged by Victorian Legal Aid, went to the Court of Appeal, where Justices Maxwell, Redlich and Hansen allowed the appeal last Friday and ruled crew ''must be aware that Australia was the intended destination''. The appeal was launched on behalf of the crew member who challenged Australia's people-smuggling laws last year. The case is due to begin next month.

i thought i remembered the eighties well but i must have slept through all this, coz i don't remember any of it or maybe there was just no fuss about it!

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13618

In determining appropriate sentences I have kept very much in mind that the present offences are by no means in the most serious category of offences contrary to section 232A. In particular, these are not cases of people smuggling where it is intended to introduce non-citizens into this country secretly and with all the dangers of illegal entrants carrying diseases, plant or animal life, which could pose a serious risk to Australia's primary production.

There was no attempt here by the prisoners to hide from the authorities or disguise what they were doing. The offences, whilst serious are correctly described as people trafficking offences rather than people smuggling. Similarly it is significant that none of the prisoners is an organiser. Each played a small but vital role in bringing non-citizens here.

These are the words of sentencing judges as they sent destitute Indonesian fishermen to prison, not for any crime at all – these are sentencing notes that have been available for 10 years on the SIEVX.com website and have been presented to the senate in various enquiries over the past 8 years yet now we have the absurd circumstance of jailing Indonesian children as young as 13 in adult prisons with rapists, thieves and murderers for this non-crime.

In each case it was stated that it was not people smuggling but simply transporting the passengers directly to the authorities as requested by the passengers who had mostly fled Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan and most of whom had been tortured in Indonesia and Malaysia.

When are we going to learn to be kind to one another?

URGENT—CALL FOR ACTION

Deportation of Sri Lankan Asylum Seeker with pending UN Torture Investigation

This afternoon, a Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seeker with a pending investigation by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture informed RISE that he was suddenly moved from the community into Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre pending his forced removal from Australia.

In October 2011, a communication was sent on behalf of the asylum seeker (“Mr X”) to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The office of the Special Rapporteur took immediate interest in Mr X’s case, writing to the Australian government seeking urgent clarification and importantly stating:

I urge your Excellency's Government to take all necessary measures to guarantee that the rights and freedoms of Mr. X are respected and, in the event that your investigations support or suggest the above allegations [of torture] to be correct, the accountability of any person responsible for the alleged violations should be ensured. I also request that your Excellency’s Government adopt effective measures to prevent the recurrence of these acts.

The Australian government never responded to this urgent request. Instead, preparations were commenced for Mr X’s removal from Australia. Mr. X was informed that he would be assisted by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to voluntarily return to Sri Lanka. However, IOM has no protection mandate. Furthermore monitoring agencies with a protection mandate, such as the UNHCR, ICRC and the Sri Lankan Human rights commission, are prevented from accessing a number of detention centres in Sri Lanka.

Ramesh Fernandez says, “throughout the time that RISE has worked with Mr X he has continued to receive extensive medical treatment in relation to the psychological and physical effects of torture and trauma. Mr. X is being removed to Sri Lanka forcibly with the Department of Immigration’s full knowledge of his condition”. It should be noted that in September 2011 a report was published in the British Medical Journal saying that doctors in Sri Lanka are complicit in torture by failing to report the victims of torture.

At the UNCAT’s (UN committee against torture) 47th session in Geneva, in November 2011, during which there was an open session on the prevalence of torture and ill treatment in Sri Lanka, organisations such as UK freedom from torture and Amnesty International have provided evidence that Tamils continue to be at risk of torture, killings and arbitrary and indefinite detention under the prevention of terrorism act even after May 2009, when the Sri Lankan government declared victory over the Tamil militants. In May 2012, the British High court overturned removal orders of scores of Sri Lankans from the UK after evidence was presented before the court that those forcibly returned to Sri Lanka face arbitrary arrest and torture. RISE received reports from NGOs on the ground in Sri Lanka that the number of abductions and killings have increased this year in Sri Lanka.

The removal of Mr X in these circumstances constitutes a breach of the non-refoulement obligations under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It indicates a disturbing disregard for the lives of Sri Lankan asylum seekers, and a flagrant disrespect for ongoing processes under international law, on the part of the Australian government.

RISE urges all recipients and all those concerned regarding the fate of Sri Lankan asylum seekers to petition the Australian government, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, and the Department of Immigration to halt the forced removal in Mr X’s case.

We urgently ask you to contact the minister and ask him to stop the deportation.
Telephone: 02 6277 7860
Email: minister@immi.gov.au

Refugee Survivors and Ex-detainees

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-18/asylum-seekers-intercepted-with-mi...

One group of Indonesians jail refugees for us, another group helps them escape and yet another group arrests the refugees again to re-jail them.

And these are the thugs we pretend we have to co-operate with.

And the really sick part is we pay and support an prop. up all these groups of Indonesians in our deranged quest to avoid asylum seekers.

How many more times does this have to be exposed for what we have known it is for the past 12 years.

After all Human rights watch released a 94 page report into this way back in 2003 and
Andrew Metcalfe said in estimates 2 years ago but our lying pollies and ridiculous collective media ignore the facts and rabbit endlessly about non-existent stalemates.

So now these women and kids will have all their money stolen by yet another group of Indonesians bought and paid for by Australia while we continue to jail yet another group of poor Indonesian fishermen - the question is were this group going to be murdered as the 200 on the Barokah were?

And meanwhile we keep ranting to the world what racist cowards we are and gloating when Sri Lanka arrests and tortures another group of Tamils on their way to safety and our media are entirely complicit in this exercise of Indonesia and Australia using refugees as human ping pong balls.

Trouble for the media and lying politicians is that some of us have memories for more than a nano second.

From Perth's Refugees Rights Action Network

As part of the 20th year anniversary of mandatory detention, RRAN hosted a special forum examining the history of mandatory detention of refugees, the case against it and the role activism has played in challenging it. Guest speakers included activists who have been involved in the campaign for 20 years, who have seen the political and public landscape surrounding refugees transform into what it is today. The growth and change of the campaign against it was also examined.

For those who couldn't make it to Monday's forum, the footage of the presentation proper is now up at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56FSfub8Aq8 — keep an eye out for the Q&A session...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_eYYHrShRg&feature=related

Alex Pagliaro from Amnesty at the Curtin Detention Centre