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

Mate, you are an encyclopaedia!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://sievx.com/

146 children ~ 142 women ~ 65 men

Australia's Shameful Response to a Boat in Distress

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

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

Gerry, you have been pivotal to much of what we know now and of what has been done for refugees and the Indonesian children, you never cease, may good come your way

Obviously your hand is in much as I read The Age today:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/indonesia-talks-sink-new...

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/free-54-from-your-jails-yud...

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/sby-calls-for-fas...

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/14115059/australia-pledges...

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1665400/Boost-to-Indon-work-and-holid...

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

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

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

Georgiou on offshore processing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moylan on offshore processing

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

THE HON JUDI MOYLAN MP (1.12 pm)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Bill removes or diminishes each of those rights.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/14136480/wed-let-navy-turn-boats...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The loyal deputy surely couldn’t forget them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/opinion/post/-/blog/14119294/indonesia-...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Australian Greens are calling on the Government to:

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

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/australia-spurned-boat-d...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HaLS-OfPAs

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

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/connect-asi...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-11/indonesian-man-acquitted-of-people...

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

http://www.theage.com.au/national/peoplesmuggling-case-against-indonesia...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/people-smug...

http://expertpanelonasylumseekers.dpmc.gov.au/

The ASRC submission is here
http://www.asrc.org.au/media/documents/asrc-submission-expert-panel.pdf

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

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

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

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

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

http://theconversation.edu.au/dont-blame-people-smugglers-bad-policy-lea...

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

URGENT—CALL FOR ACTION

Deportation of Sri Lankan Asylum Seeker with pending UN Torture Investigation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Refugee Survivors and Ex-detainees

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://m.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/indonesian-minors-claim-abuse...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/underage-smugglers-claim-jai...

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/07/20/minors-tell-abuse-australi...

Still more than thirty children trapped.

is it now a crime to seek asylum?

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/police-arrest-38-more-asylum-seekers...