Gerry Georgatos
Basarnas, the Indonesian search and rescue agency has for more than a decade informed the Australian Government that it does not have the boats, nor the quality of vessels, or the resources to manage ocean rescue, and Basarnas has long asked Australia for provision of quality vessels and resources in order to assist in search and rescue and in order to monitor its ports for boats departing.
Hundreds of human beings have lost their lives because of a vacuum of inhumanity, because of migration walls, because our Navy and Customs, hugely equipped with radar and various resources, are not in the zone that matters - from the Arafura Sea to north of Christmas Island to meet up with the coming vessels of Asylum Seekers and escort them safely to our shores.
Indonesia despite a rising economy is desperately impoverished - its Navy is miniscule compared to the thousands of islands that make up Indonesia.
Vice Marshal Daryatmo, the head of Basarnas, has long called for boats and resources from Australia to assist in search and rescue missions and to effectively monitor Indonesian and International waters for boats in distress.
Vice Marshal Daryatmo confirmed to Herald reporter Michael Bachelard that Basarnas "has only one small fibreglass-hulled rescue boat, based in Jakarta, to deploy in the ocean between Java and Christmas Island."
http://www.smh.com.au/national/indonesia-illequipped-to-rescue-asylum-bo...
Similarly, Basarnas Director of Operations, Marshal Sunarbowo Sandi said to Michael Bachelard that their ship "could not venture out in waves higher than two or three metres."
''What we have now in search and rescue … in Jakarta is not a big capability … it means there is a lot of restriction,'' he said.
Michael Bachelard reports that despite this, "for 44 hours last week the Australian Maritime Safety Authority left Basarnas in charge of the search and rescue operation for a leaking asylum seeker vessel making its way in heavy seas to Christmas Island."
"That boat eventually sank at the halfway mark of the passage, claiming an estimated 90 lives, without the Indonesians ever having located it."
The Australian rescue authority was in contact by phone with the ship but Mr Sandi said yesterday they had not passed the phone number to the Indonesians.
''We are blind. We are blinded by the … lack of information,'' Mr Sandi said yesterday.
The Herald reported that Indonesian sources said that Basarnas "held crisis talks on Monday with a delegation from Australian Customs and Border Protection. It is understood the Indonesians suggested that Australia should supply a 60-metre catamaran, suitable for the ocean, to help rescue sinking boats in the future. This would mirror the Howard government's gift in 2002 to the Indonesian police of five boats to help fight people smugglers."
Asked about the idea of Australia supplying boats to Indonesia, Mr Sandi said: ''We have to sit down, talk government to government about this, because it has happened many times and it should be taken seriously.''
Mr Daryatmo and Mr Sandi have confirmed there are no ships that are based on the southern coast of Java. This means they must all sail from the ports in the capital, Jakarta, several hours away on the north coast reported Michael Bachelard.
Mr Sandi said the search and rescue team should have at least four vessels on the south of the island of Java. The Indonesian Navy has confirmed that it sent two ships, at the request of Basarnas, to look for the sinking vessel last week, but gave up when they could not find it.
A spokesperson for the Australian Customs and Border Protection would not confirm Monday's meeting, saying only that representatives from the Australian embassy ''regularly meet with their counterparts in Indonesia, including those in Basarnas''.
The Australian Government has long known that Asylum Seekers are in great peril once at sea and the government and the opposition parties should not have the temerity to skew Maritime and humanitarian responsibilities to Indonesia - the Indonesian and International waters argument does not hold at all - the Australian Navy and Customs should be in our northern waters ready to assist vulnerable peoples in these unseaworthy boats safely to our shores in their rightful and lawful pursuit of Asylum.
The Australian newspaper reporter Debbie Guest is on Christmas Island and today spoke to Perth's 6PR station:
http://www.6pr.com.au/blogs/6pr-perth-blog/rescuers-race-to-survivors/20...
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/scramble-to-rescue-asylu...
More than 120 suspected asylum seekers have been rescued after their boat sank on their way to Australia but it is unclear how many may be unaccounted for, Prime Minister Julia Gillard says.
Authorities scrambled to avert a second disaster at sea after a boat believed to be carrying up to 133 Afghan asylum seekers capsized 107 nautical miles north of Christmas Island
The Prime Minister said to Parliament that the RAN 'raced' to lead to the search and rescue mission however they should have been in our northern waters. We also know that with the recent first capsizing tragedy distress calls were not answered when they should have been.
INTERVIEW ON ABC RADIO NATIONAL with Tony Kevin
On Radio National Breakfast, 25 June 2012, Reluctant Rescuers: New book on asylum seeker policy. From http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/reluctant-rescuer....
Fran Kelly (FK): With the search and rescue operation over, police have now began an investigation into last week’s asylum seeker boat disaster. Rescuers have pulled 110 survivors from the water, authorities believe 90 people are still missing, presumed drowned.
Yesterday, opposition leader Tony Abbott, refused to do any deal with the Federal Government on stopping the boats, saying it’s up to the Greens to break the political stalemate on offshore processing. Tony Kevin is a former diplomat turned author. He’s spent many years now researching our maritime protection system, and he says there is an entrenched ambiguity or moral confusion in the system’s chain of command.
Tony Kevin is the author of ‘A Certain Maritime Incident: The Sinking of SIEV X’ and this week he publishes a new book — it’s called ‘Reluctant Rescuers’. He joins us in our Canberra studios. Tony Kevin, welcome to breakfast.
Tony Kevin (TK): Good Morning Fran.
FK: Tony, you’ve looked back at a number of incidents like this one where sometimes, as in the case of SIEV X all those years ago, hundreds of lives have been lost in a single sinking. From what you know, how similar are the circumstances of this latest incident to those of the past decade and a half?
TK: The essential systemic similarity is that our border protection command, which is set up to manage Australia’s maritime security in our northern waters, explicitly takes no responsibility for the safety of life at sea of the people travelling on the boats that it’s trying to detect and intercept. This means that there is a contradiction, a moral sickness if you like, running through the whole system that really says these boats don’t exist in our intelligence-based detection and interception system until they’re here. Before that, they’re just theoretical possibilities, and we don’t have to take responsibility for them.
FK: And how have you come to this conclusion, this conclusion that within our system there is this seeming disinterest, or lack of responsibility for safety of lives at sea until they’re right in the very heart of our waters?
TK: Well, Fran, back in 2002 when I studied the tragedy of SIEV X, I was really only guessing. The evidence that was being put forward in the Senate Select Committee, under great pressure from senators like John Faulkner and Jacinta Collins, was shadowy and unclear. What’s happened now, particularly after the disaster at Christmas Island in 2010, a great deal of published evidence was presented in the Coroner’s inquiry in particular, and also to the Parliamentary committee, which now really reveals the system, the intelligence-based system that we use to detect and intercept boats, and some very damning admissions have been made by people like the head of Border Protection Command, and the senior Customs Executive to whom he reports, that really, I’ll just read out what the Coroner said:
“I accept the observation made by Rear Admiral Barrett to the effect that, from the point of view of Border Protection Command, from a border security perspective, the arrival of a Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel at Christmas Island, without being intercepted, would not be a matter of great concern. I also accept that Border Protection Command does not have any special responsibility to saving Suspected Irregular Entry Vessels that might place themselves in dangerous situations.”
FK: So, what you’re saying is that illustrates this, what you call it, moral ambiguity or I also think you describe it as a callousness towards life, and carelessness.
TK: Yes indeed, and it’s ironical that Senator Faulkner’s report back in 2002 explicitly recommended that Australia’s authorities put safety of life at sea at the centre of their processes of border security. That recommendation has been ignored, and we now have the paradox of people like Senator Brandis, who was defending the Howard Government at that time, now performing a very positive role in the recent Senate Estimates investigation of a boat that went missing in 2009. Senator Brandis is now uncovering that we still have a profound indifference, as a border protection system, to human life at sea.
FK: Yeah, again to quote from that inquiry, the SIEV 221 inquiry into that sinking of that boat off Christmas Island in 2010, Rear Admiral Tim Barrett from Border Patrol Command was asked, “Did BPC, Border Patrol, consider it had any responsibility to anticipate the arrival of an asylum seeker boat at Christmas Island in bad weather, and be ready to assist if it got into a danger”, and Rear Admiral Barrett replied, he knew of no agency that had such responsibility. Now that’s the problem, in your view, right there and then, that no one in all our system of Customs, surveillance, Border Protection sees it as their role to be ready to assist in case these boats get in danger, no matter where they are?
TK: Exactly, and we see it in the case of last week’s tragedy as well. The faxes from the Maritime Security Authority to BASARNAS which have been revealed by the ABC, a wonderful public service they’ve done in doing this, do show that for two days, we were simply, mechanically sending off messages based on our own intelligence or signals from the boat to the Maritime Safety Authority that the boat was in trouble, we simply shunted them off to BASARNAS, the Indonesian maritime safety authority, in full knowledge that BASARNAS would probably respond to them ineffectively and inefficiently, and we only took responsibility for the safety of life at sea emergency that we’d known about for two days when we actually saw, by Australian aircraft flying overhead, that the boat had overturned and people were drowning in the water. It was only then that the Australian border protection system and the maritime safety authority, working in harmony, unleashed the full Australian safety of life at sea response.
FK: So in your view, when should it have release that response, because according to AMSA’s version of events, the Maritime Safety Authority’s version of events, those messages you talked about there that they sent immediately to the Indonesian authorities, once they received those calls from people in distress, were sent to the Indonesians because the boat was still only, as I understand it, only 38 nautical miles off the Indonesian coastline. So, in theory, much more effective and efficient for the Indonesians to go to the assistance of that boat?
TK: No, the answer to that question, Fran, is very clear. The boat was heading from Indonesia to Australia, it had already left Indonesian territorial waters — it was in international waters. The Indonesian authorities basically don’t care about boats leaving their country — they’re rather pleased they’re going. On the other hand, we care a lot, from a national security perspective, about boats heading towards our country. Now, we have the intelligence that boats are coming, we have the technical resources to save them, and the minute we got a distress signal from that boat, 38 nautical miles away from Indonesia, in international waters, we should have responded with a safety of life at sea response. Instead, in a bizarre and cruel way, our Maritime Safety Authority basically said “go back to where you came from”. Our Maritime Safety Authority sent a message to the Indonesians saying please rescue this boat — it’s leaving your country, it’s in international waters but it’s heading our way, we don’t want it, you look after it.
FK: As you say after the SIEV X investigation, the emphasis within these organisations was meant to be putting safety of life at sea first. Do you think this latest incident might prove to be some kind of tipping point, because there’s a clamour now from MPs on all sides of politics for a bipartisan solution to the problem?
TK: I really urge MPs from all parties to read my book conscientiously. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and at the moment, a lot of people, good people like Oakeshott and Windsor, are falling into the trap of saying this means we’ve got to have offshore processing. Actually it doesn’t. It means we’ve got to put humanity back into our border protection system.
FK: But is offshore processing a better way to do that, to stop people making these voyages?
TK: No, the right way to do it is to have a proper regional system of cooperation to handle asylum seeker processing. To just shunt the problem offshore is a morally irresponsible position.
FK: Tony Kevin, thank’s very much for joining us.
TK: It’s a pleasure.
FK: Tony Kevin is a former diplomat and an author, and his new book is called ‘Reluctant Rescuers’. It’s available from his website, http://reluctantrescuers.com
A TEENAGE VIETNAMESE ASYLUM SEEKER HAS ACCUSED THE MINISTER OF NEGLECT
From http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-25/asylum-seeker-accuses-minister-of-...
A teenage Vietnamese asylum seeker has written to the Immigration Minister Chris Bowen accusing him of neglecting his duties as the guardian of children in detention.
The young woman says a group of Vietnamese asylum seekers held in the Darwin Airport Lodge facility feel they have been “forgotten” by Mr Bowen after 400 days in detention.
In her letter to Mr Bowen she asks how he is looking after 23 of the group who are children – including a six and seven-year-old – as their legal guardian.
She says they all feel “depressed and sad” and that their youth is being wasted because they are being denied release into community detention.
The woman says they have been offered counsellors, but do not want to talk any more.
A spokesman for Mr Bowen says the children are being kept in detention in Darwin out of concern for their welfare, and because there is a risk they may abscond.
But the girl who wrote the letter says the Minister is being unfair, penalising them because Vietnamese boys have escaped in the past.
Rohan Thwaites from the Darwin Asylum Seeker Support Network says the children should be released.
“I think its disgraceful that people are being detained essentially on their ethnicity,” he said.
“Arrangements could and should be made for her to live in the community in a safe and secure environment.”
The woman who penned the letter says after 400 days in detention, the group is being pressured to sign agreements to return to Vietnam.
TRAGEDY COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED, says Ian Rintoul
From the timeline of contacts between Australian authorities and the capsized asylum boat indicated by Home Affairs Ministers, Jason Clare, it seems that more timely action by the Australian rescue authorities could have averted the latest asylum boat tragedy.
“There is a need for a full inquiry into the information that all Australian authorities had about this boat,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition. “The lack of coordination between Indonesia and Australian rescue authorities is a serious issue hampering rescue operations. Prompt action early Wednesday morning could have saved lives.”
“AMSA was in touch with this boat since late Tuesday and was still in touch 36 hours later, when a plane flew over the boat only two hours before it was discovered capsized.
“It is absurd for AMSA authorities to simply advise an asylum boat in distress to turn back to Indonesia. AMSA has far greater capacity and resources to provide rescue support than Indonesia. Australia can have planes over Indonesian waters far quicker than Indonesia can mobilise patrol boats.”
“Australian policies are putting asylum seekers at risk. People on the boat know that if they are captured by Indonesian authorities they will detained perhaps indefinitely. I have been contacted by asylum seekers on boats in distress who have pleaded with me not to contact Indonesian authorities.”
“Some people have escaped Indonesia detention centres of jails to take their chance for freedom. Others have been waiting years, some already found to be refugees but with no hope of resettlement.
“If the Australian government was willing to process asylum seekers in Indonesia and guarantee that recognised refugees would be re-settled far fewer people would need to get on a boat to get protection. Australia took only 17 UNHCR refugees from Indonesia in the first three months of 2012.”
“Merak Tamils whose boat was turned back to Indonesia in October 2009, spent a year in detention, were found to be refugees, yet are still waiting for Australia to resettle them. Asylum seekers have to get boats if they are going to get protection.”
“Both Liberal and Labor parties are focussed on violating refugee rights by expelling them to Malaysia nor Nauru rather then putting refugees’ rights to safety and protection at the front of humanitarian policies. Policy change in Australia and Indonesia could save lives.”
LINKS:
http://sievx.com/ReadingGuide.shtml
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;orderBy=_...
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/170/4/351.short
Anxiety, depression and PTSD in asylum-seekers: assocations with pre-migration trauma and post-migration stressors
http://wopared.parl.net/Library/pubs/BN/sp/BoatArrivals.pdf
Boat arrivals in Australia since 1976
http://www.amsa.gov.au/
JOINT MEDIA STATEMENT
Australian Customs and Border Protection &
Australian Maritime Safety Authority
27 June 2012 5:00pm - Search and rescue operation
Rescue and recovery efforts are continuing mid-way between Christmas Island and Indonesia.
Initial reports are that up to 150 people may have been on board, including women and children.
Three merchant vessels responded to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s (AMSA) call for assistance and have rescued 125 people. Current reports are that one deceased person has been recovered.
Border Protection Command has also deployed its vessels and aircraft to assist with the operation.
HMAS Maitland, HMAS Leeuwin and a RAAF P3 Orion aircraft are currently on scene.
Initial reports are that today’s incident has occurred approximately 13 nautical miles (around 24 kilometres) east of the location where another vessel capsized last Thursday.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/political-news/australian-asylum...
Gagah Prakoso, the spokesman for Indonesian search and rescue organisation Basarnas, said it had received a fax at 11.45pm on Tuesday from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority warning of an asylum seeker vessel in distress
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/14056347/asylum-disaster-sparks-...
Comments
RAC Media Release: Oakeshott Bill is shabby political theatre
MEDIA RELEASE
OAKSHOTT ASYLUM BILL IS SHABBY POLITICAL THEATRE TO DENY REFUGEES
THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS
Refugee groups have condemned the Gillard government’s move to
introduce Rob Oakshott’s bill into Parliament this afternoon as being
a piece of shabby political theatre.
“Julia Gillard is trying to look like she is doing something about the
deaths of asylum seekers by pushing through a Bill that would expel
asylum seekers to limbo in Malaysia. Worse, she has even promised to
expel some to Nauru just for good measure, and review the
re-introduction of temporary protection visas – just to see if she can
sucker Coalition MP’s into voting for the Bill.
“The Coalition’s amendments are designed to ensure asylum seekers are
expelled to Nauru. There is a black irony to the spectacle of
Coalition MPs talking virtuously about upholding the Refugee
Convention, while maintaining they will turn boats around at sea,
refuse to process asylum seekers without documents and re-open Nauru.
“The hypocrisy of the parliamentary debate is astonishing. There is
nothing in this debate, in Rob Oakshott’s bill or the Coalition’s
amendments that has anything to do with saving the lives of asylum
seekers. Both parties are shamefully using the deaths of asylum
seekers for cheap political advantage. They have no respect for the
lives of asylum seekers lost in the hope of gaining their freedom and
their future.
"If this Bill or the Coalition's amendemnt is carried we could see
asylum seekers plucked from the sea and then dispatched to limbo in
Malaysia or Nauru.
“This unseemly debate will push even more people top get on boats more
quickly. Australia is the only country in the region that has the
resources and capacity to provide protection and security for asylum
seekers.
“Humanitarian policy cannot start with stopping the boats; it must
start with how can asylum seekers get to Australia safely. If the
Australian government was serious about the safety of asylum seekers,
it would increase its humanitarian quota, process asylum seekers in
Indonesia and guarantee timely resettlement in Australia. If it was
willing to do that, far fewer people would need to get on boats.
If they were truly interested in saving lives, asylum boats could even
be escorted – rather than waiting for them to get in distress before
providing assistance. Australian government policies are ultimately
responsible for making asylum seekers run the gauntlet of the boat
trip between Indonesia and Australia.
“We can only hope that both Oakshott’s bill and the Coalition’s
amendments fail. Maybe then more Parliamentarians will be willing to
put human rights at the forefront of refugee policy.”
For more information contact Ian Rintoul mob 0417 275 713.
Yeah Yeah It's our fault Again Gerry
That's it blame our Government! I would have blamed the Government of the countries that these people are running from!
We have geopolitical regional responsibilities
We have geopolitical regional responsibilities considering we all play a role in creating much of the conflict in the countries of others although Gerry would argue more so a humanitarian perspective
The only way to stop deaths at sea is to stop the boats
I support toe government position.
The only way to stop deaths at sea is to stop the boats from travelling the dangerous waters between Indonesia and our shores.
The most open border protection plan will not stop these dangerous journeys. At some point we have to ask ourselves, how many asylum seekers can we accommodate in any given year? Is it 15,000? 20,000 as has now been proposed by the Opposition and which the greens have grabbed at? Is it 50,000? If we support one of these policies, and on shore processing, will that satisfy the needs of refugees so that they will not be encouraged to risk their lives at sea?
The Government position has one purpose only. That is to save lives. If someone can engage with me and explain what policy will work to effectively dissuade people smugglers from risking the lives of refugees on unseaworthy vessels I would like to hear it.
The Greens position does not adequately address the issue. I agree with onshore processing. I agree with increasing our intake of refugees. Neither of these positions redresses the need to safeguard refugees from taking up the dangerous option of boarding an unseaworthy vessel to get to Australia. There are simply too many refugees, and not enough nations taking the necessary actions to relieve the situation.
This is not an Australian problem, it is an international problem that requires international solutions. Unfortunately those solutions simply do not exist.
So I support the Gillard Government option. The Greens have no way forward. They need to reappraise their position. It was Labor that threw out the Howard laws. We have seen the result. Lives are being lost. People are risking their lives in numbers not seen before. It is time to act.
Labor has a policy. It is not a perfect policy, but it is an effort to dissuade refugees that jumping the queue, jumping on leaky boats, is a option they ought to consider. There are international processes. We need to work on them. It is actually racist to claim that Malaysia is no place to send refugees. What a load of bollocks. 50,000 refugees sit in camps already in Malaysia and have nowhere to go, and no future hopes of going anywhere. Labor is providing for 4,000 of those people to be relocated to Australia, and this number could be increased with the good will of all involved.
The Liberal Opposition simply wants to play politics with the lives of these people. It has to stop. We can stop it, as a nation, but only as people of goodwill coming together to sort out this sorry state of affairs. Grandstanding, stating the obvious, that we simply wish it would all fix itself, is not the way forward. The Gillard Government is a brave government. It has brought on this debate. We should welcome it, and welcome a move from the Greens or the Opposition to help resolve this impasse, even if it is, as Wilkie has moved, for 12 months, to try to avert further disasters at sea.
"Don't die coming here, risk your life trying to go elsewhere"
Stopping the boats does not mean saving lives, it just means, "don't die coming here, risk your life trying to go somewhere else". Both the ALP and Coalition policies are about preventing people from coming here at all. Both have consistently tried to block safe pathways for applying for asylum in Australia. Try applying for asylum at one of Australia's foriegn embassies, you can't. Try getting a visa for Australia if you are from a country where statistics say that you have a higher than average chance of wanting to apply for asylum once here, you will find it hard. Australia is very careful not to grant visas to people who might apply for asylum. Both have consistently avoided resettling refugees, UNHCR refugees, from Malaysia and Indonesia. People get on boats because that's the best option that they have available to them. They know the risks, but they have lived lives where they take the risks that they have to take, to save thier lives and to try and achieve a livable future. The boat journey is just one more of these dangers that they have to overcome. Both the ALP and Coalition have made it more dangerous to get to Australian by boat by choking off the safest route, to Ashmore Islands , which is about half as far as Christmas Island.
Providing alternatives to getting on boats, that is real resettlement alternatives, is what will stop people risking thier lives at sea.
Survivor recalls horror
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/14058675/survivor-recalls-horror...
Almost 400 have drowned since the 2010 election
these are the recorded deaths, not including boats that we know left however have never counted in to the statistics
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/14058701/comment-drowning-...
The Greens are demonstrating a lack of leadership on this issue
The Greens are demonstrating a lack of leadership on this issue.
What has happened in the past week is that this issue has become a national crisis, that requires a national solution. The Opposition only wants to play politics with this issue. The more boats that go down off the shores of Christmas Island the better for them. They want the Government to fail. There is political advantage to the Opposition in the Government failing.
Therefore the Greens must show leadership at this time of national crisis in Australia. The greens are not the Government, although they do support the Government in order to enable it to govern. The Government has embraced the failing of the Oppositions polity, and also embraced the failings of their own policy, knowing that to do nothing simply ensures the crisis will continue unabated. Between them, the Government and the Opposition represent 87 percent of the Australian population. The Greens represent 13 percent. Therefore the Greens do not represent the majority position on this.
To demonstrate leadership the Greens need to allow the Government to govern. That is what real leadership is about. Government is not always about getting what you want. Leadership is not always about getting what you want. Sometimes you have to put your own ideals on the back burner, and compromise for the national good.
Certainly the Government ought to listen to the bargaining chips of the greens. But the Greens must also listen to the Government. Don't allow Tony Abbott to have a victory in this instance. He has only one purpose, and that is to bring on an early election. An election at this time would hurt labor and hurt the Greens, and empower the radical right to decide the future of this nation.
The greens can break this impasse, they can support the Government's position, and also ensure the type of outcomes they are pushing for. What rights do refugees have when they place themselves on dangerous boats to cross the seas from Indonesia to Australia? Their lives are already imperiled. They have no rights. And yet the Government is prepared to deal with the great majority of these people on shore. As a trade off, 800 of these refugees will be required to be taken to Malaysia. In exchange we will receive 4,000 refugees in nowhere camps in Malaysia. So the trade off for sending 800 people to Malaysia, in order to achieve the Government's policy, is the resettlement of 4,000 genuine refugees in Australia. This is a win for refugees.
The Greens are in danger of disenfranchising themselves from the mainstream of Australia. They are no longer running with the ball. It is reasonable that the opposition will play politics with this issue. It is not reasonable that the Greens will also do this.
We have to pull up our socks and do our bit to help others
This is a very interesting article with new information about what the situation really is like, I think we have to pull up our socks and do our bit in helping others without the whining and self interest, stick the nationalism where it should belong
Clive Palmer says let them fly in
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/let-asylum-seekers-fly-i...
Let asylum seekers fly in, says Palmer
June 30, 2012 - 12:28PM
Clive Palmer at the Liberal Party federal council meeting.
Clive Palmer at the Liberal Party federal council meeting. Photo: Ken Irwin KEN
The Australian government should allow asylum seekers to fly into Australia at one-tenth of the cost of coming on people smugglers' boats, says billionaire Clive Palmer.
Mr Palmer says the federal government's position on not issuing visas to asylum seekers fleeing Indonesia fuelled the people-smuggling trade.
Advertisement: Story continues below
The mining tycoon said the government should allow asylum seekers to pay their own plane fare into Australia.
"We can say, 'you can buy a ticket if you believe you're a refugee and you can come to Australia in normal transport at one tenth the cost'," he told journalists at the Federal Liberal party conference in Melbourne.
"The ones that get here, allow them to be processed; the ones that are not legitimate, send them back on the next flight."
Mr Palmer said Australians collectively bore the responsibility of asylum seekers drowning at sea.
"We can eliminate the people smugglers. We can eliminate the problem. We can eliminate the drownings. We can treat people as human beings."
Mr Palmer said he did not approve of the offshore processing supported by both major parties.
"What sort of a nation are we if we don't follow our international responsibilities and allow people to come here safely?" he said.
The council delegates unanimously passed a motion that condemned the federal government's policy of onshore processing of asylum seekers, and called on it to strengthen border protection policy.
AAP
Make a submission
Gerry you should make a submission to the expert panel, you make more sense than anyone I know
We just do closed borders and barbed wire detention centres
it's a tragedy all this, we are blaming Indonesians and they can't do much, we are the wealthy nation and we close not just our borders but our hearts, i didn't know any of this of how difficult it is for the indonesians to manage the problem but australia can fix it by a helping hand but instead just wants to close the borders and do barbed wire detention centres
Only one small Indonesian fibreglass-hulled rescue boat
Gerry Georgatos
Basarnas, the Indonesian search and rescue agency has for more than a decade informed the Australian Government that it does not have the boats, nor the quality of vessels, or the resources to manage ocean rescue, and Basarnas has long asked Australia for provision of quality vessels and resources in order to assist in search and rescue and in order to monitor its ports for boats departing.
Hundreds of human beings have lost their lives because of a vacuum of inhumanity, because of migration walls, because our Navy and Customs, hugely equipped with radar and various resources, are not in the zone that matters - from the Arafura Sea to north of Christmas Island to meet up with the coming vessels of Asylum Seekers and escort them safely to our shores.
Indonesia despite a rising economy is desperately impoverished - its Navy is miniscule compared to the thousands of islands that make up Indonesia.
Vice Marshal Daryatmo, the head of Basarnas, has long called for boats and http://jiujitsurevealed.blogspot.com/ resources from Australia to assist in search and rescue missions and to effectively monitor Indonesian and International waters for boats in distress.
Vice Marshal Daryatmo confirmed to Herald reporter Michael Bachelard that Basarnas "has only one small fibreglass-hulled rescue boat, based in Jakarta, to deploy in the ocean between Java and Christmas Island."
http://www.smh.com.au/national/indonesia-illequipped-to-rescue-asylum-bo...
Similarly, Basarnas Director of Operations, Marshal Sunarbowo Sandi said to Michael Bachelard that their ship "could not venture out in waves higher than two or three metres."
''What we have now in search and rescue … in Jakarta is not a big capability … it means there is a lot of restriction,'' he said.
Michael Bachelard reports that despite this, "for 44 hours last week the Australian Maritime Safety Authority left Basarnas in charge of the search and rescue operation for a leaking asylum seeker vessel making its way in heavy seas to Christmas Island."
"That boat eventually sank at the halfway mark of the passage, claiming an estimated 90 lives, without the Indonesians ever having located it."
The Australian rescue authority was in contact by phone with the ship but Mr Sandi said yesterday they had not passed the phone number to the Indonesians.
''We are blind. We are blinded by the … lack of information,'' Mr Sandi said yesterday.
The Herald reported that Indonesian sources said that Basarnas "held crisis talks on Monday with a delegation from Australian Customs and Border Protection. It is understood the Indonesians suggested that Australia should supply a 60-metre catamaran, suitable for the ocean, to help rescue sinking boats in the future. This would mirror the Howard government's gift in 2002 to the Indonesian police of five boats to help fight people smugglers."