Gerry Georgatos
The misappropriation of language and abuse of semantics in reference to ‘perceived people smugglers’ has to begin to change so we do not further erode compassion, and continue to skew the moral compass, bend and circumvent the rule of law- domestic and international.
People who are assisting people in their flight from persecution and in the right to asylum, in accordance to our laws, domestic and international, should be honoured as the heroes they are. The wait for this should not be a generation removed, as is generally the case in the unfolding of social justice and in the eliminating of racism and various abominable prejudices.
There is nothing more honourable than living the moral conviction of saving the lives of others. The 600 souls who have drowned since 2007 in their flight to our shores are the fault of the policies of the Australian government.
Winton Higgins in his book - Journey Into Darkness - describes a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Israel where a note from Australia rests. It is from the Evian Conference 1938 where 22 nations of the Western world convened to discuss the Jewish refugee ‘problem.’ Australia’s response, from T.W. White, is captured in 13 words alone on that note – “We don’t have a racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one.”
Contemporaneously, equivalent racism is mangling the Australian national consciousness. Many are arguing we don’t want to import the ‘Muslim faith’ when this should not even be a discussion point. What has this got to do with humanity? I have interviewed hundreds of Asylum Seekers and all they are seeking is a shot at life and liberty. Most of them don’t practice Islam, just like most Australians do not practice Christianity, it’s a moot point. It does not matter whether someone does practice a particular religion just as much as should not matter what the pigment of someone’s skin is. However to the biased and prejudiced it does matter.
Helping refugees is actually lawful, however magistrates are faced with mangled imposts upon their judgments generated from within the chambers of parliament, by political parties withdrawn from moral leadership and mongered by electoralism; a vicious cycle.
The tenuously political, and racist, mantra of “breaking the people smugglers’ business model” has caused unconscionable damage. I was stunned when a GetUP! Campaign against the Malaysian option quoted, “it is understandable that the Minister cannot offer a blanket exemption to any class of asylum seekers, for fear that the people smugglers will exploit it to their advantage.” Of the hundreds of Asylum Seekers I have interviewed each said to me there was no way to find safe passage from persecution and oppression and the prospect of death without the assistance of those demonised as people smugglers.
They are not people smugglers, they are heroes, whether a few make a quid out of this or not. No one is being smuggled to Australia, and rather people are being saved from the prospect of death or from being conscripted into for instance the Taliban. Australia has deported Asylum Seekers back to Afghanistan and Sri Lanka who were soon murdered.
These heroes are taking great risks and paying enormous amounts of money to officials, police and border controls, and various others, for them to turn a blind eye or to assist with the passage of desperate people, of families.
International human smuggling laws defines itself as human trafficking for prostitution and indentured labour, the forced removal of peoples across borders for “gain, slavery or exploitation.” So, why can’t our news media pick up our parliamentarians on this?
I do not question whether a very few have supposedly profiteered in assisting Asylum Seekers however is this a crime? Migration agents get paid for their services. Ali Jenabi did not profiteer.
If we want to buy into the misappropriated terminology and the myth of a business model then let us consider the words of the Director of Refugee and Asylum Law at the University of Michigan, James Hathaway, “Canada and other developed countries created the market on which smugglers depend by erecting migration walls around their territories. The more difficult it is to get across a border to safety on one's own, the more sensible it is to hire a smuggler to navigate the barriers to entry. Smugglers are thus the critical bridge to get at-risk people to safety. Which one of us, if confronted with a desperate need to flee but facing seemingly impossible barriers, would not seek out a smuggler to assist us?"
However we have to start having a good look at ourselves and what we have bought into - racism of course - when we label people as smugglers for merely saving lives, of families and children we have a real problem of identity and of morality.
Many perceived people smugglers were asylum seekers and refugees and they understand the predicament of their peoples, those persecuted and displaced. Iraqi Ali Jenabi's brother was killed by Saddam Hussein's forces. He arrived in Indonesia penniless and to earn passage for his family to Australia, and which included his mother, sisters, brothers and an uncle he worked for perceived people smugglers. His family finally arrived in 3 separate boats.
Ali Jenabi's humanity continued and he has since helped many others seek passage, including those with no money. He is a hero to the Iraqi communities of Australia however a perceived people smuggler to Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He could face ten years in prison.
Paragraphs 232 and 233 of the Migration Act support the right to Asylum and for Asylum Seekers to be assisted. A few years ago 27 legal experts explained to a Senate Estimates Inquiry that indeed there is nothing unlawful in assisting people with safe passage to foreign shores.
By 1938, about 150,000 German Jews, one in four, had already fled Germany. After Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, an additional 185,000 Jews were brought under Nazi rule. Many Jews were unable to find countries willing to take them in.
Many German and Austrian Jews tried to go to the United States however they could not obtain the visas - there were no "queues". Though news of the violent pogroms of November 1938 was widely reported, Americans remained reluctant to welcome Jewish refugees. In the midst of the Great Depression, many Americans believed that refugees would compete with them for jobs and overburden social programs to assist the needy.
In 1924 the US Congress had set up immigration quotas limiting the number of immigrants and discriminated against groups considered racially and ethnically undesirable. These quotas remained in place even after President Franklin D. Roosevelt, responding to mounting political pressure, called for an international conference to address the refugee problem - the Evian Conference, 1938.
In 2012, miniscule resettlement quotas blight the prospect of humanity and the coalescing of peoples - the concept of civil society is much pummelled by the Commonwealth government and its jurisdictions however it is not the lived experience. Because of the migration walls, people who should have been granted asylum will continue to be deported at higher rates than ever before - even when compared to the Howard/Ruddock years - many of the deportees will be cruelly persecuted and many will be murdered, as has already been the case with some. In protecting migration walls our governments will continue to rely on Kafkaesque principles - building brick by brick these migration walls with mortar that is the blood of those they keep out; who will die in transit, at sea, in detention centres and refugee camps, or languish destitute with no prospect of a helping hand. In an effort to wipe the blood from their hands governments will continue to deny their racism, their disconnection with humanity, and describe those who openly, and with great risk to themselves, assist refugees and displaced peoples in their flight to asylum, as people smugglers - and that they are 'evil scum'.
Gerry Georgatos
PhD researcher Australian Custodial Systems, Masters Social Justice Advocacy, Masters Human Rights Education, Refugee Advocate
0430 657 309
gerry_georgatos@yahoo.com.au
info@humanrightsalliance.org
Recent update (15.8.2012):
http://indymedia.org.au/2012/08/15/human-rights-alliance-media-release-d...
Human Rights Alliance media release:
After having read the report by the three stand alone members of the ‘Expert Panel’ we have found no grounds to suggest that any lives will be protected or saved from returning to the Pacific Solution, and in a form and manner which evidences policy more draconian than John Howard’s Pacific Solution.
Vietnamese, Cambodian and other Indo-Chinese refugees were resettled between 1979 to 1996 predominately through regional camps, such as Galang in Indonesia, and Hei Ling Chau in Hong Kong, amongst others, however there were protections in place which the Panel’s report lacks. Importantly, these camps were overseen by the UNHCR and other government and non-government organisations, and nations such as Australia minimised bureaucracy and resettled expeditiously, comparatively, and in terms of resettlement numbers did not maintain a premise of quota however ventured by a needs-basis.
The regional camps are harsher in conditions, and in the taking of lives, than the Australian Detention Centre network, which in the last two years has cost 7 lives, 6 of them of very young men, and which has led to thousands of people enduring trauma, multiple trauma – acute and chronic, breakdowns – physical and mental – multiple breakdowns, self harm and multiple self harm, languishment in depressions, the onset of various clinical disorders, suicide attempts, multiple suicide attempts, and suicides. Regional camps have higher suicide rates, higher death rates than Australian detention centres – hopelessness is matched by the endemic illnesses and host of diseases, some borne from malnourishment.
The Panel’s report appears heading in the direction of turning back the boats when the boats will nevertheless come, and in the numbers they have been coming, which is in effect nevertheless only a trickle of humanity and of negligible impact upon the Australian society.
Australia’s nearly ten billion dollars, not five billion, of expenditure on mishandling and maltreating Asylum Seekers can be averted by leaving alone domestic legislation in relation to the Migration Act, by accepting those who come to our shoes in pursuit of Asylum and by processing their applications through community within 60 days. The Australian Detention network should be dismantled, Australia should resettle no less than 30,000 people per year and preferably 50,000 each year and set an example to the rest of the world, and invest monies saved from the dismantling of the Australian Detention Centre network in resourcing and assisting regional camps that already exist and all round just help people and save lives.
People die waiting while Australia pontificates over our standards of living and a selfish economy and puts humanity and what’s right last. The debate should not be skewed by racism and seen for what it is really about – that we are small and selfish population and this is what we are trying to protect, and in do so we are trying to disconnect from humanity and the moral compass.
Gerry Georgatos
PhD Law researcher, Australian Custodial System and Deaths in Custody
Human Rights Alliance spokesperson
0430 657 309
gerry_georgatos@yahoo.com.au
info@humanrightsalliance.org
humanrightsalliance.org
LINKS:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/the-people-smuggler-as-human...
THE moral panic stirred up by the recent Four Corners story about Captain Emad, an alleged people-smuggler, was predictable.
A couple of weeks later, it was boatloads of Tamils floating towards Christmas Island that we were told we had to fear. Sadly, these are just the latest instalments in a national moral tragedy that has been running for two decades with no sign of a happy ending.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3625768.html
The "business model of migrant smuggling" was developed by me and a few colleagues at the Migration Research Unit at University College London during the mid 1990s.
So in some senses it has been gratifying to hear Prime Minister Gillard speak about "smashing the people smugglers' business model" including in her recent interview with CNN — academic research doesn't often make it into prime ministerial speaking points.
What is less gratifying is that the Prime Minister doesn't appear fully to understand the model, and thus her Government's efforts to "smash" it are unlikely to be effective.
http://www.6pr.com.au/blogs/6pr-perth-blog/smugglers-likened-to-wwii-her...
Refugee advocate Ian Rintoul has likened people smugglers to WWII hero Oskar Schindler. Mr Rintoul made the comments on 6PR's Drive program following revelations people smugglers have been granted visas and are running their illegal business in Australia.
http://rran.org/uwa/files/2012/02/people-smuggling-info-sheet-2.pdf
Who are ‘people smugglers’? Some so called ‘people smugglers’ are asylum seekers themselves or relatives of asylum seekers acting from compassion for no financial reward. Others are mpoverished Indonesian fishermen who have lost their livelihood to large scale industrial firms running factory ships which have depleted fish stocks in the area. Some do it for noble motives,
wanting to assist those in need; some are members of criminal syndicates after large profits. All kinds of people might engage in people smuggling for all kinds of reasons.
http://www.indymedia.org.au/2012/06/04/human-rights-alliance-media-relea...
Do not cast a pall of aspersions on everyone who sacrifices much to help people seek Asylum – would parliamentarians want a swathe of aspersions cast upon them all by the Australian people in response for the misdeeds and improprieties of several of their own?
http://indymedia.org.au/2012/07/01/let-us-remember-galang-and-hei-ling-c...
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.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/wa-minister-terry-red...
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/49655
Australia breaks Convention on the Rights of the Child
http://indymedia.org.au/2012/05/21/cultural-imperialism-jailed-indonesia...
Comments
Writer and former Abbott staffer Peter Van Onselen writes:
ATTEMPTS by both major parties to rationalise support for offshore processing of asylum-seekers on the grounds that they are saving people from drowning really is a hollow argument.
It takes a micro look at an undeniably macro problem - not the first time our political leaders have done so. It is the worst form of political opportunism I have been forced to witness.
Some commentators have taken great delight in the conversion of one-time advocates of onshore processing to the offshore way of life. To avoid any confusion let me spell out where I stand: I support onshore processing, convinced now more than ever before by the merits of such an approach.
Let's work our way through the various falsehoods used to try to hoodwink people into believing that offshore processing is the best policy approach for the government to take.
Offshore processing is based on a premise that it will stop the boats. We'll see about that. But even if it does "stop the boats", it's not as if asylum-seekers vanish into thin air. The plight of millions of displaced citizens continues, even if our policymakers pretend the problem is solved because it's geographically removed from Australia.
If they aren't coming to Australia by boat, they are making hazardous journeys to other parts of the world. Or sitting in squalor in refugee camps plagued by any number of socially unacceptable living conditions, including sickeningly low life expectancy rates.
Or they are sitting in jails in countries that have not signed on to the relevant UN refugee conventions. Women and children, not just men.
These are the best-case scenarios of what will happen to asylum-seekers who would have tried to come to Australia by boat if not for offshore processing. You rarely hear political leaders acknowledge these realities.
It is true that 4 per cent of asylum-seekers coming to Australia by boat are estimated to have drowned at sea since the Pacific Solution was stopped (with the support of the opposition immigration spokeswoman at the time). But if the boats do continue to come, in spite of offshore processing in Nauru and elsewhere, people will continue to drown at sea, just as they did during the Howard era as well as more recently.
For the 96 per cent who successfully make the often dangerous journey, they will be locked up in detention centres (let's just call them prisons) - women and children, not just men - for an indefinite period of time.
The fact that they will be locked up for years indefinitely is a key part of the policy the "expert committee" has settled on. That's what they deserve, apparently, for "queue jumping".
Anyone who thinks that there is an orderly queue for asylum-seekers wanting safe passage to Australia or anywhere else needs to do a bit more research. The whole definition of being a refugee is that you are displaced and seeking a safe haven. It's not an orderly process.
In other words, the people coming here by boat - whether supported by people-smugglers or not - have a right to do just that under international law.
One of the main arguments used to justify "stopping the boats" is that people should not selectively country hop from Indonesia to Australia when they have already secured safe passage out of their homeland.
That would be a fair point if Indonesia (the country they usually hop here from) had signed on to the UN conventions. But it has not, which means it is under no obligation to treat asylum-seekers appropriately, and it certainly does not. Equally, asylum-seekers are under no obligation to stay in a non-signatory nation which persecutes them. Who would?
Over the past decade, year on year, between 70 and 90 per cent of asylum-seekers coming to Australia by boat have been found to be genuine refugees. Those who are not are sent back, as they should be. Which means that most people locked up indefinitely in an offshore processing centre are going to be genuine refugees, with international legal rights to seek safe haven.
Rights trampled on by Australian politicians more concerned about votes than values.
Speaking of values, if there are cohorts within the major parties that should be especially condemned for supporting offshore processing it's the moderate wing of the Liberal Party (what's left of it), and the Labor Left faction.
My favourite falsehood used as a rationale for offshore processing is that the boats must be stopped because boatpeople are taking places away from innocent refugees suffering in camps in Africa, for example.
You would think it was the boatpeople who write government policy. John Howard changed asylum-seeker laws to couple our humanitarian intake quota with boat arrivals, which means that for every person coming here by boat, there is one less spot available in the quota. But that's a government policy decision. It used not to be that way and it doesn't have to be.
If policymakers are seriously concerned about taking places away from land-locked refugees sitting in camps rather than just using them as a political weapon, decouple the quota. Or don't, because only genuine refugees who come by boat (70-90 per cent of people who do) are ever granted safe haven anyway, so what's the difference?
Arguments to process asylum-seekers offshore have only recently shifted primarily to the virtuous claims of protecting people from the risk of drowning. It used to be primarily about penalising queue jumpers, stopping the hordes of arrivals and protecting Australian sovereignty. Never mind that by international standards arrival numbers are very low and Australian sovereignty has never been at risk.
Another argument used is that because Australia's courts provide asylum-seekers with extra rights of appeal beyond those granted internationally, policymakers need to process them offshore.
How embarrassing it is that Australian politicians hide from Australian law rather than change it. Herein lies the problem with our political class and how it has responded to boatpeople.
If it doesn't like the laws of the land that afford asylum-seekers appeal rights equal to those of Australians, change the laws. If it doesn't like the international responsibilities being a signatory to the UN conventions on refugees requires, rip up the agreement. Then our political leaders could do what they like without being in violation of the very laws they are elected to uphold. I might not agree with their approach - and would continue to argue against it - but I could at least respect it.
Peter van Onselen is a Winthrop professor at the University of Western Australia.
Better to leave than stay and face death
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/leaving-is-better-than-staying...
No evidence asylum deterrence works
http://theconversation.edu.au/theres-no-evidence-that-asylum-seeker-dete...
What someone said at Yongah Hill during the Convergence
One of the speeches from the Northam Convergence (Yongah Hill) about time spent in Christmas Island Detention Centre.
Hi everyone, my name is PRI 11, that’s what I used to be called in the detention, PRI 11. Being next to this detention centre just reminded me of how I was in the Christmas Island Detention. I don’t know which words should I use to describe that experience...should I use terrible? It was really - very, very bad - extremely bad. Being in somewhere you’ve never done anything wrong, and you’re locked up...and you run away from your country, from the place where is your family - looking for freedom – then – when you - the first time you put your step in Christmas island, you say hey, I am free now, like you know, almost now I am free, then unfortunately you are locked up for a year or something like this there. And...it’s like prison, it is a prison, it is not detention.
Everything – everything is like, the doors are locked, you can’t go through any door if you don’t have an officer next to you, even the medical area. The medical area should be like for if someone is sick or he needs just treatment and...that door...I just remember very well - it was that thick. It’s very, very bad to be there even afterwards – I never had any problem, mental problem - even in Christmas Island - but I had um somehow a sleeping problem, I couldn’t like sleeping more than two hours, like continuously. So two hours, wake up, then do something, then another two hours. Afterwards when I came to Australia – the mainland –and I am free - I shouldn’t have that problem because I don’t worry about anything but still I have that problem for a while for like the first 6 or first 7 months there.
The main issue there is you’re locked up and everyone is depressed, you just see your friends go, you make friend today - next day is gone. You don’t know, he’s just in the midnight, suddenly he is gone, he’s just like, next day you are looking for him then suddenly, you can’t find him because he has been transferred somewhere else.
Every week or every couple of days you will witness someone hang himself and that will like bring you down and already the detention is like kind of hell – you know I never been to hell – but it is hell. You know if you are somewhere in the hell and you want to climb up, you want to get out, but somehow, who runs that detention say, get down, that’s your place, it’s not up. It’s like every time you try to be better healthier, somewhere to do something good they say get down that’s your place, up is not your place.
Um personally, I witnessed three people, they commit suicide, you know one of them they uh, Sri Lankan guy, poor guy, he is died. He commit suicide by his bed- um – his bed sheets, um and he make like rope or something and he hang himself up, with somewhere very high. Just ask yourselves what kind of motivation he had to go all the way up just to hang himself and kill himself. And he was one of my friends, he had like problem like staying there for long time and depressed and he ended with, why am I here? Like what’s the end? Let’s just finish it, let’s kill myself and that’s it.
I never thought about these things in my life, but when I was in Christmas Island I thought about it once and thank god I didn’t do anything like this. But there are heaps of people who do it around you, all your friends think about it, all your friends are depressed, if you are trying your best to be like positive, you cannot because your friends who runs the detention, like total negative and racist. Totally racist...
I would say thankyou for every single man and woman who came here. I really, really, really appreciate it, appreciate it that you support my case and my friends case. And I just I talk you about one thing, I remember one of the time we did a protest at Christmas island and some people they did it in Sydney, we couldn’t see them because they are far away but we saw them, we saw some uh photos over the internet and we were so happy, we were so happy. Like okay, not all of them racist, there is some of them there, they like us, they want us and say okay okay, some of us say okay I’m going to like fight and stay healthy, maybe one day I get my visa.
And by the way, one of the first English words we have learned there is ‘racist’. Um so please, please, please show us if you are welcome us, show us. I swear to god you give us heaps of motivation to stay alive, we don’t hang ourselves, we don’t hang ourselves, we don’t commit suicide inside the detention. We say okay this country, the government don’t like us maybe, but the people like us. So and finally we will get in.
Speech during the Convergence at Yongah HIll
One of the speeches from the Northam Convergence about time spent in Christmas Island Detention Centre
Hi everyone, my name is PRI 11, that’s what I used to be called in the detention, PRI 11. Being next to this detention centre just reminded me of how I was in the Christmas Island Detention. I don’t know which words should I use to describe that experience...should I use terrible? It was really - very, very bad - extremely bad. Being in somewhere you’ve never done anything wrong, and you’re locked up...and you run away from your country, from the place where is your family - looking for freedom – then – when you - the first time you put your step in Christmas island, you say hey, I am free now, like you know, almost now I am free, then unfortunately you are locked up for a year or something like this there. And...it’s like prison, it is a prison, it is not detention.
Everything – everything is like, the doors are locked, you can’t go through any door if you don’t have an officer next to you, even the medical area. The medical area should be like for if someone is sick or he needs just treatment and...that door...I just remember very well - it was that thick. It’s very, very bad to be there even afterwards – I never had any problem, mental problem - even in Christmas Island - but I had um somehow a sleeping problem, I couldn’t like sleeping more than two hours, like continuously. So two hours, wake up, then do something, then another two hours. Afterwards when I came to Australia – the mainland –and I am free - I shouldn’t have that problem because I don’t worry about anything but still I have that problem for a while for like the first 6 or first 7 months there.
The main issue there is you’re locked up and everyone is depressed, you just see your friends go, you make friend today - next day is gone. You don’t know, he’s just in the midnight, suddenly he is gone, he’s just like, next day you are looking for him then suddenly, you can’t find him because he has been transferred somewhere else.
Every week or every couple of days you will witness someone hang himself and that will like bring you down and already the detention is like kind of hell – you know I never been to hell – but it is hell. You know if you are somewhere in the hell and you want to climb up, you want to get out, but somehow, who runs that detention say, get down, that’s your place, it’s not up. It’s like every time you try to be better healthier, somewhere to do something good they say get down that’s your place, up is not your place.
Um personally, I witnessed three people, they commit suicide, you know one of them they uh, Sri Lankan guy, poor guy, he is died. He commit suicide by his bed- um – his bed sheets, um and he make like rope or something and he hang himself up, with somewhere very high. Just ask yourselves what kind of motivation he had to go all the way up just to hang himself and kill himself. And he was one of my friends, he had like problem like staying there for long time and depressed and he ended with, why am I here? Like what’s the end? Let’s just finish it, let’s kill myself and that’s it.
I never thought about these things in my life, but when I was in Christmas Island I thought about it once and thank god I didn’t do anything like this. But there are heaps of people who do it around you, all your friends think about it, all your friends are depressed, if you are trying your best to be like positive, you cannot because your friends who runs the detention, like total negative and racist. Totally racist...
I would say thankyou for every single man and woman who came here. I really, really, really appreciate it, appreciate it that you support my case and my friends case. And I just I talk you about one thing, I remember one of the time we did a protest at Christmas island and some people they did it in Sydney, we couldn’t see them because they are far away but we saw them, we saw some uh photos over the internet and we were so happy, we were so happy. Like okay, not all of them racist, there is some of them there, they like us, they want us and say okay okay, some of us say okay I’m going to like fight and stay healthy, maybe one day I get my visa.
And by the way, one of the first English words we have learned there is ‘racist’. Um so please, please, please show us if you are welcome us, show us. I swear to god you give us heaps of motivation to stay alive, we don’t hang ourselves, we don’t hang ourselves, we don’t commit suicide inside the detention. We say okay this country, the government don’t like us maybe, but the people like us. So and finally we will get in.
Comments floating around the Australian Senate
http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/speeches/migration-legislat...
Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (13:50): As a number of my colleagues have remarked, it also gives me no pleasure whatsoever to rise and speak in opposition to the Migration Legislation Amendment (Regional Processing and Other Measures) Bill 2012. I will briefly reflect, as many of us have, on the circumstances that brought us here. In 2010, new Prime Minister Gillard delivered a speech on the question of boat arrivals and expressed the need to protect our way of life. Thereby, she bought entirely into this disingenuous conflation of two completely distinct issues, that of asylum seekers—refugees, people fleeing war, violence, ethnic cleansing in our region or other parts of the world—and border protection, as though these were somehow the same issue.
The conflation of those two issues was very effectively developed and deployed by a former Prime Minister, John Howard, and immigration minister Philip Ruddock. It has been extraordinary listening to contributions from the other side over the last 24 hours celebrating the fact that 'we are back; we were right and we are here again'. Prime Minister Gillard went on to say, 'I understand the anxiety in the community around boat arrivals' and it is on this foundation that the notion that refugees are a threat to our way of life, and that the anxiety around them is therefore justified, should even be talked up or encouraged. All subsequent Labor and coalition discussion on this policy has rested. The ALP has completely accepted the toxic and inaccurate premise of the debate set by the coalition. The premise goes virtually unchallenged within the public pronouncements of the major parties. It has been left to the Greens to make what seems to us so obvious to put that case into the public record.
The ethical thing for the new Prime Minister to have done would have been to show leadership on the issue. I think that is what former Prime Minister Rudd and his frontbench had attempted to do in the moves that they made when they came to power, to formally and legislatively reject the Pacific solution that was in place. Prime Minister Gillard could have continued down that course and she did not. By validating people's fear of this tsunami, as some coalition MPs have said, of illegal arrivals, this flood of people, the queue jumpers—and we heard that phrase again from the speaker before me—Labor have fallen into the trap predicated on an assumption that not only does the Australian public not know any better but also we cannot know any better. It preaches to a base and, I think, a completely wrong understanding of Australian culture and of the Australian tradition of the fair go. I think it sells us all short.
Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—
Senator LUDLAM: I am going to ignore you, Senator Macdonald, lest I say something that I will regret.
Senator Cash interjecting—
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Fawcett): Order! Senators on my left are reminded that senators have the right to be heard in silence.
Senator LUDLAM: The proclamations and the policies from the ALP and the coalition suggest that they believe a solution is something that frightens asylum seekers away from Australia. We have heard a great deal from both sides of the chamber on that premise in the last few days. The problems are that people flee their homelands, that the processes for application abroad are painfully and dangerously slow, if they exist at all, that other countries are ruthlessly cruel to refugees and that the heads of the smuggler rings take advantage of a ready supply of desperate people, to fleece them of their savings and offer them a cramped spot on a voyage that might kill them. Until the major parties publicly accept this entire picture and not just one convenient element of it, there will not be any solution.
We have always opposed Labor's Malaysia solution because it is a people-dumping proposal. Put quite simply, it is a live people trade of 800 asylum seekers—who are to be made an example of, to rot behind barbed wire, effectively forever, to other people who might be seeking to make a voyage—in exchange for 4,000 people, who had already been accepted as refugees, living freely but not particularly welcome in Malaysia. In August 2001, as senators know, that disastrous people-dumping scheme was rejected by the High Court in a case brought by David Mann of the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre. Mann is the grandson of refugees who fled the Nazis—with the help of people smugglers. To him, the notion that people could reach Australian waters to claim asylum and then be sent to a third country where the human rights, on the balance of the evidence, would put them in very serious danger was morally and legally repulsive, and fortunately the High Court agreed. The decision not only rendered the Malaysian people-dumping project illegal; it also cast doubt on the legality of all offshore processing, including on Nauru.
For that reason, the Greens opposed Mr Oakeshott's bill, which effectively just stripped out what little protections exist in the current law, and we therefore of course oppose this bill. To support either would have marked a 180-degree turn on very long-held principles and policies, and it would have been an offence to reason in decency and a betrayal not only of the people who are seeking refuge here in Australia but also of the many Australians who trusted us with their votes knowing where we stand.
A real regional solution would involve supporting human rights abroad not only in the countries from which people originally fled—some that we have recently invaded—but also in those countries through which people pass on their way to Australia. That means overhauling Australia's overseas asylum application system so that it is no longer prohibitively slow, and significantly increasing Australia's humanitarian intake. Some of these recommendations of course were taken up by the recent expert panel and some of these recommendations, we hope, will not be lost in the appalling furore that has erupted in this parliament over the last few days.
The UNHCR's annual budget in Indonesia is around $6 million. If the government and the opposition are serious about saving lives, why not support the UNHCR in providing a safe pathway to asylum for genuine refugees. Of course most of the people who do find a way here are genuine refugees—as everybody knows and I think most senators on both sides acknowledge this—and are seeking to escape the kind of violence that we would not subject ourselves or our families to were it occurring here.
The word 'queue' is thrown around to depict boat arrivals as sneaky and unjust—or even unchristian, one of the strangest contributions to the debate that I have heard so far. In Indonesia, the wait in the queue to be resettled from refugee camps is 76 years. An immediate increase in UNHCR funding of at least $10 million from Australia would at least increase the capacity to assess asylum applications. This of course was rejected by the major parties.
Early last year a Hazara refugee in the Leonora detention centre told a journalist this:
The people of Australia must understand we are not criminals, we are homeless. If peace in Afghanistan come back, we can’t stay (in Australia) because we love our country, we all want to help our nation. If Afghanistan have peace — no body come across a big ocean with 99 per cent chance of death for 1 per cent chance, in small boat come here and many Afghani died in Malaysia to Indonesia trip, this ocean … All Afghani people take risk and our life risk because they want to work here for peace … Their life in danger — because of this they cross the ocean to reach here and want protected in Australia.
That is something I think that has been so completely lost in this debate. How dangerous and how serious does your deterrent have to be? If you want to break the business model, so-called, of the people smugglers, you need to be scarier than drowning, war, ethnic cleansing and torture, and more of a deterrent than the things that these people are justifiably fleeing from. We all know that that simply will not happen.
These processes that are combined with the oppressive and dangerous conditions in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and other states from which people arrive here seeking refuge provide the customers for the so-called business model of the people smugglers. Instead of making the alternative more accessible so that people do not climb onto these vessels in the first place, the major parties' approach is to make the smugglers' path undesirable by making the destination scarier than war, ethnic cleansing, torture, systematic rape and violence that these people are fleeing. The major parties believe a successful policy is one that makes refugees believe that they are better off facing repression in Iran, violence in Afghanistan or persecution in Malaysia than they are by reaching Australia's waters by boat. We have reached a point where this is how Labor and the coalition define success and history I believe will see it differently.
Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (16:13): Prior to question time, I had been speaking on the Migration Legislation Amendment (Regional Processing and Other Measures) Bill 2012. In closing, I have some comments to add by way of context. We get so rapidly lost in this debate and it has been chased down into a dark corner. Once in a while it is worth pulling back to take a look at what is happening in the world that we are part of. In 2010, the number of asylum seekers arriving in Australian waters by boat was about 6½ thousand. But that very same year, the UNHCR estimates that there were 43.7 million forcibly displaced people in the world. That includes refugees but also internally displaced persons—those in camps or those on the move.
I repeat: 43.7 million people are forcibly displaced in the world. So 0.014 per cent of them came to Australia by boat. After visiting Australia this February, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, urged Australians to appreciate the scale of the humanitarian crisis that they are trying to contend with and the very small—not inconsequential but, on a global scale, small—nature of our role in it. Against the setting of 57,000 people reaching Malta and Italy by boat in 2011 and another 100,000 asylum seekers reaching Yemen by boat, Mr Guterres said:
It is very difficult for me as High Commissioner, who has to deal with the whole world, to be convinced that 6000 is a very important problem.
I understand that in the psychology of Australia, the collective psychology, this is an important problem … but you need to understand also the global perspective.
He called for moral leadership and he said the risk of a populist approach by politicians was that vastly exaggerated fears 'all too easily manifest into statements and acts of xenophobia against foreigners—be they refugees, migrants or others'. That sounds familiar, doesn't it?
It is not to say that for these 6,000 people the high commissioner referred we are not primarily responsible, once they start making their way here, to make sure that they are protected, to make sure that they are not risking their lives. And if they have set out on these voyages in unseaworthy vessels with crews who are not always competent to pilot the boats in the first place, it is a primary responsibility to make sure that they are not abandoned, that distress calls are relayed immediately to emergency services, in this case the naval personnel, both here and in international waters and the Indonesian authorities. That is our responsibility. We have put a number of propositions forward. Senators Milne and Hanson-Young have detailed exhaustively what we believe should happen now without recourse to this parliament, without even being involved in how degraded this debate has become, because these things do not require legislative effect to happen now and we can be providing much safer pathways for people who do make these voyages.
While the government jumps on implementing the findings of the Houston report, or the very narrow interpretation of what those findings were, I want to recall that six months ago the inquiry into the immigration detention system made a number of findings that have simply been ignored and set aside. Just in March this year, that inquiry recommended that asylum seekers be detained for no longer than 90 days. And a majority of the joint committee found that asylum seekers who pass initial health, character and security checks should immediately get a bridging visa or be moved into community detention. One of the reasons for those findings is that indefinite detention is damaging to mental health. People are killing themselves in our immigration detention system; they are self-harming; they are sewing their lips together. They have nowhere to go, they have no idea when they are going to be released, and it is making them mentally ill. This is now a very well understood, if we are concerned about saving lives. I will not throw accusations across the chamber that members on this side do not care. Everybody cares. Nobody wants to see people drowning. I think one of the things we should have done a long time to ago was to turn down the temperature in here. Nobody wants people to die, but nor do I think anybody in their right mind wants people to go out of their minds in indefinite detention behind barbed wire, for no crime, for undetermined periods of time—and it could be forever—as a deterrent effect for those left behind. It is not only morally bankrupt, but the logic is not there. It is not going to work.
The question that I will rest my contribution on is: what happens in six or eight months time when we have got people behind cages in Nauru, on Manus and around the region, and the boats keep coming? What is going to happen when the bumper sticker that Mr Abbott has been trading under falls off the bumper? We will then realise that we have been having the wrong debate. We must protect people who try and make these voyages. We must remember why they make them in the first place. Most of all, we have to lose this delusion that locking people up is going to be more of a deterrent than the things that they are fleeing.
This debate will have to be reopened, it will have to be resumed, if this bill does not fix anything. We have stumbled down a very dark rabbit hole on a false premise that border security is somehow related to how we treat desperate people fleeing desperate circumstances. It is not just about upholding international legal obligations, although of course that is very important. But if it is not going to work then why are we doing it? If it is just a headline for today or tomorrow then not only are we selling out and doing an enormous disservice to the people who come here but it is doing damage to how we perceive ourselves as a country. We are better than this. I will be voting against this bill when we put it to the vote later this afternoon.
They are seeking a chance to make more money
Most refugees from Sri Lanka are Tamil Tigers a terrorist group.They can go to India and be safe, their lives are not in threat in India but they would rather pay the people smugglers $2000 USD and risk their lives on the death boats for economic reasons they are seeking refugee status in Australia not to be safe but to have,I can understand why they do it but money is not what asylum seeking is about they are economic refugees and nothing more.
They come for life and liberty, not to get rich
They seek asylum and not to remain refugees. Look at the India and Australia and note 1.3 billion people compared to 23 million and not who is all about a selfish economy if we are to degenerate to talk of economic factors. They come to Australia for reasons of life and liberty and not to get rich. Would you go to India with your family and presumeyou could secure asylum. I am not talking about refugee status alone. The racket is the Australian selfish economy.
You want Terrorist groups on Australia?
If I was a Terrorist like a Tamil tiger I would feel guilty for wrecking my families life, and I would go to India because my Family would be safe there, and I would not risk my Children's life on those death boats.Do you think we should let Tamil Tigers into Australia? and remember they are Terrorists!
Gillard turning them back
In the past 3 days several Hazara asylum seekers on Bridging visas in
different states, have been given letters telling them among other
things to present airline tickets to go back to Afghanistan.
This is very distressing to these vulnerable men, many of whom have
spent 2 years in isolated detention centres and who were released on
Bridging visas.
Three weeks before the letters were issued, these men had their ASAS
support (equivalent to 89% of the lowest Centrelink payment) cut
without notice.
These men were already desperately looking for work. Their problem is
that most employers will not accept them because of the Bridging visa.
Employers say that they do not know how long someone will stay. As a
consequence many are now destitute, surviving on the goodwill and floors
of their friends.
These men are in the group who had their processing suspended for nine
months and so were in administrative detention for up to 12 months
without any
processing of their claims. They were assessed under the now
discontinued IMR (Independent Merits review) system. This proved so
unsatisfactory that it was
discontinued but those men whose cases were processed before March this
year have had no avenue for redress for what was an arbitrary assessment
often lacking in fairness.
And now they are told that they must go back to Afghanistan from which
they have fled. These men have not had a fair go.
Already one man became so distressed that he was admitted to a
Psychiatric hospital.
To add to this stress, another man who went in to renew his visa, was
immediately taken to a detention centre where he had "Voluntary" Removal
(DEPORTATION) documents put before him and urged to sign. He refused. He
is receiving legal advice.
It is important that that anyone returned to detention gets immediate
and urgent legal advice.
The men with letters are being given 2-3 months so far. They also need
support.
We are seeking clarification of this situation and will advise as soon
as possible.
Please share this information so that those supporting asylum seekers
can assist these men when they get the letters.
It seems cruel beyond belief to plan to deport Hazara asylum seekers in
a week where 17 Hazaras were beheaded for listening to music.
The Pakistani government is also deporting and expelling Hazaras. I can
only repeat the Hazara question "are we not human too?'
--
Pamela Curr
Campaign Coordinator
Julie Bishop reckons send the Tamils
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-02/coalition-wants-sri-lankan-asylum-...
The Coalition says the Federal Government should no longer grant refugee status to people from Sri Lanka because the country's civil war is over.
Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop says many Sri Lankan asylum seekers turn out to be economic migrants, not refugees.
She says Sri Lankan asylum seekers should be deported before they get access to Australia's legal system.
"Sri Lanka is already making a significant effort by preventing many boats from leaving their shores, however those who make it through should be the subject to an immediate arrangement to be transferred back to Sri Lanka without coming to Australia," Ms Bishop said.
"There is an extremely high rejection rate for Sri Lankan asylum seekers with the vast majority proving to be economic migrants.
"But once they are in Australia they can pursue their claims for asylum through our courts regardless of the merit."
Ms Bishop was speaking after it was revealed Indonesian police were holding around 50 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, including seven children, whose boat broke down on the way to Australia.
the facts on asylum seekers
myths and facts about asylum seekers
http://www.asrc.org.au/media/documents/myths-facts-solutions-info.pdf
High Court deportation dangers
HIGH COURT DECISION OPENS POSSIBILITY OF DEPORTATIONS TO DANGER
A High Court decision this morning (7 September) has dismissed an
application of behalf of five asylum seekers seeking to extend
judicial review to discretionary Ministerial decisions.
In a similar application (M61) in 2010, the High Court found that
asylum seekers were entitled to judicial review of appeal decisions.
The High Court judgement means that there is now no legal impediment
to the government moving to deport a large number of asylum seekers.
Around 180 asylum seekers were attached to the case, but the case will
also impact of the fate of perhaps another 100 asylum seekers in
detention centres or in community detention.
“We will now be trying to see if there are other possible legal
measures that can be taken. But are urging the government to see the
High Court decision as a green light to return people to dangerous
places like Sri Lanka or Afghanistan.
“The dangers of Sri Lanka have been made obvious in recent weeks,”
said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition. “A
recent report shows that there is a disappearance (mostly abductions)
in Sri Lanka are reported at a rate of as disappearances of more than
one every five days in post-war Sri Lanka. There have been 21
disappearances reported just by Sri Lanka’s English media in the 100
days between April 1st and July 9th 2012.
“Dayan Anthony a Tamil asylum seeker was questioned and intimidated by
Sri Lankan authorities after he was deported in July. Dayan and his
family, like the families of other asylum seekers in Australia, are
being watched by Sri Lankan CID.
“In June, this year, a British High Court stopped the removal of
Tamils because it was considered they were at risk of torture if they
were returned.
“Anyone who watched ‘Go BackTo From Where You Came From’ knows that
Kabul and Afghanistan are not safe places for asylum seekers. Many
Hazara asylum are victims of decisions that claimed Afghanistan is
safe - but conditions there have deteriorated, ” said Rintoul.
“In the light of this decision, refugee groups will be stepping up
their campaigns against deportations.
“The government introduced complementary protection legislation into
the Parliament in March this year. If the government is consistent
they will allow all the asylum seekers affected by the High Court
decision to make application for complementary protection. It would be
complete hypocrisy not to extent that protection to people who arrived
before March 2012.”
By comparison, a tiny number came here
Last year Australia received 13,750 refugees including those who came by boat. By comparison Germany took 571,685 and France 210,207. Switzerland, half the size of Australia, gave shelter to 50,00 fleeing people.
This is where the money goes and why they need to raise it
7 boats have sunk, the same INP member organised 7 boats.
This is nothing to do with smuggling, this is criminal expulsion of refugees whom we now intend to expel again.
Vikki Riley
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2012/09/16/from-the-sublime-to-the-s...
Hot off the tail of voting to traffic babies by force this is how an Australian citizen is treated so we can keep telling Indonesia to lock up babies for us.
Published in The Sunday Mail by Marilyn
"Trafficking in persons" shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. "
Gillard is going to force refugee applicants out of our country without permission, transport them to another country and pay that country and a foreign group to jail them in a grotesque abuse of power only to maintain the racist votes in the western suburbs and marginal seats.
it is time the media started stating the facts instead of claiming it is some unknown thing called "offshore processing". Offshore processig of visa applications happens mainly over the net and in our foreign embassies, trafficking people out of the country to avoid all process is simply illegally trading humans.
The Indonesians only supply vessels, food, housing, and mostly safe sea travel to safety but have been called the scum of the earth while Gillard is happy to trade and traffic widows, babies, children and young men, grand parents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews who have suffered unspeakable terrors off to malaria and rabies infested hell holes and call it humane.
Marilyn Shepherd
from a Curtin University report
To conclude, decisions made on where and how to process the refugee claims of asylum seekers who seek safe haven in Australia must draw on the experiences of those who bore the brunt of offshore processing last decade. Decisions must also address the reasons why asylum seekers get on boats in the first place, especially since between 70 and 97 per cent of people who have arrived to Australia by boat over the past fifteen years have eventually been found to be refugees.80 Alternative policies must be implemented to provide asylum seekers with real alternatives to getting on boats in Indonesia.
The Australian Government’s recent announcement that it will increase the number of humanitarian entrants to 20,000 in 2012-2013, as outlined in the Expert Panel on Asylum Seeker’s recent report, is a welcome start. It is also welcome that this increase will include an extra 400 refugees who are currently in Indonesia.81 However, this can only be considered a start – other policy responses are needed that further address the reasons why asylum seekers get on boats. Further options were detailed in many submissions to the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers.82
There are already asylum seekers in Australia who have been told they will be sent to Nauru for the duration of the processing of their refugee claims and until a resettlement place can be found for them. They were not provided with any alternatives to seeking asylum by boat. To punish them for taking boat journeys to Australia is morally repugnant. Until real alternatives are made available for asylum seekers to getting on a boat bound for Australia, offshore processing will continue to be a form of punishment for arriving by boat and inhumane.
Problems for Manus Island
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-21/manus-islanders-threaten-to-block-...
Marilyn points out; blood will never be removed from their hands
And the blood will not be ever removed from the hands of all the parliamentary spivs who forgot the law, human rights, legal rights and all manner of decency in their racist rush to pander to cowards because there is no difference between the two packs of criminal racists in our parliament.
Who gave Australia the right to be just like the murderous taliban or the criminal Sri Lankan government?
Who gave us the right to ignore the law, to ignore rights and commit murder and mayhem.
I sincerely hope all senators and MP's who backed this atrocity rot in hell.
But of course you want to save the fish and sheep.
Hallelujah- Meanwhikle Australia is threatening Tamil asylum seekers with deportation.
Sri Lankan asylum seekers removed from deportation flight at last minute after judge accepts there is risk of torture
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sri-lankan-asylum-seekers...
Here we give them a choice of permanent exile without ever seeing their families again or death at home.
WHO GAVE US THE RIGHT TO DO THIS? WHERE IN THE LAW AND CONVENTION DOES IT SAY WE ALONE IN THE WORLD CAN DO THIS?
Climate of Death
(via refugee council and pamela curr)
While eyes are fixed on the transportation of refugees* and asylum seekers to a tent camp on Nauru , the Immigration Minister's orders to deport Hazaras (Afghanistan) and Tamils (Sri Lanka)are underway. They are using the Sri Lanaka embassy in Canberra who have shown a consistently biased attitude to Tamils to secure the necessary travel documents. Unable to secure the collaboration of the Afghan Ambassador in issuing travel documents for these lambs to the slaughter, Canberra has secured the services of their man in Kabul to do the dirty work.
The test case for this deal is an Hazara man who presented at immigration to renew his visas in compliance with his Bridging Visa conditions and who was then seized and taken to the Maribyrnong Detention centre and told that he was to be deported on the 23rd September. Last night lawyers sought an injunction on his behalf.
This mans case was assessed under the now defunct Independent Merits Review system, an inferior system of refugee assessment devised for people who arrive by boat. In 2008/9 there was a 99% success rate but as the boats arrived and grew in number this went down to 30%. Nowhere has political pressure on an outcome been more transparently shown than in the area of boat arrivals as political announcements presaged positive and negative decisions. On top of this the Hazaras were further penalised by being left in detention limbo for 6 months as punishment.
The process of the refugee assessment of these men incarcerated in isolated detention camps is a scandal. Legal representation which amounted to a few minutes prior to the hearing, interpreters who were not comprehensible in many cases and the coup de grace was WIZARD PEOPLE contractors. These IMR reviewers were of such varied quality that some NEVER granted a visa, while others routinely granted one or two only out of each caseload. It was a luck of the draw as to who got the few decent, legally trained, fair minded reviewers. Asylum seekers wept when they were told the names of some reviewers.
Of 15 reviewers the range of reviews goes from 100% TO ONE REVIEWER WHO GAVE NO POSITIVE DECISIONS. These are the unlucky men who are being selected for deportation. They are the victims of this shonky system which no longer operates because it was inherently unfair.
These men are Tamil and Hazara, two groups that the Australian government know have well founded fear and strong cases and who they want to discourage from seeking asylum in Australia. They do this by blocking any avenue for a formal protection claim from off shore and then locking them up and demonising them when they come to the door and ask for protection.
do we disappear in Australia?
Late yesterday in the Melbourne Magistrates Court, an Hazara was granted
an injunction until 26 October against his scheduled removal today to Kabul.
This allows time for outstanding matters in his case to be heard. This
man had his refugee status assessment done through the now defunct IMR
system.
There are some curious circumstances around his detention, the details
of which are still to be uncovered. Apparently around 40 Afghan men on
Bridging visas were called to a building in Melbourne city by
immigration department staff - not the immigration building.
There they were taken in groups of 4/5 and given renewed visas for 3 and
6 months. EXCEPT one man who was taken into detention at MIDC. This man
was in his work clothes and had come directly from work and expected to
return. He is a tiler. When he did not return to the friends with whom
he is living, they started to ring around to find out what had happened.
Eventually it was revealed that he was detained. This quiet gentle man
speaks no English and has never been to school. He has worked since he
was 10 years old as he was working in Australia since his release from
an isolated detention centre- working to support his family. A good
decent man persecuted and driven from his country because of three
refugee convention grounds and refused by a shonky refugee determination
in Australia in the lottery that our refugee system has become.
THIS IS AUSTRALIA - not a country where we are normally disappeared.
ps Early yesterday morning the man was transferred away from his lawyers
and friends in Melbourne to Villawood where he is being held alone in a
high security unit isolated from other people in the detention centre.
Afghan woman 'beheaded for refusing prostitution'
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/15147758/afghan-woman-beheade...
The story of Mustafa
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/australian-identity/new-austral...
With the complicity of all those parents in parliament, we abuse, exploit, torture and torment children.