Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue

  • Regional Settlement Agreement with Papua New Guinea – a post-script. John Menadue

    With the dust settling a little I thought it might be safe to return to this issue!

    I said in my blog of July 20 that I supported the general thrust of the RSA with PNG, although a lot remained to be sorted out and the implementation is already showing signs of problems. Without repeating myself too much, however, I emphasise the following.

    • We cannot ignore that close to 1,000 souls have been drowned at sea trying to get by boat to Australia. Surely the critics cannot ignore this.
    • Regional arrangements are the only way to go. It involves burden-sharing and cooperation, particularly now with PNG. We can’t fix the problem on our own as we found during the Indochina outflow of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
    • Active involvement by UNHCR in this arrangement is most important. Both Australia and PNG are signatories to the Refugee Convention with PNG recently withdrawing its reservation. The UNHCR is considering the arrangement.
    • Children cannot be exempted from the arrangement or the boats will fill up with children. Other arrangements are necessary to protect children.
    • For several years I have highlighted that asylum seekers arriving by air have exceeded boat arrivals by a significant margin and the politicians and the media ignored that fact. But now the facts have changed. Boat arrivals in the first six months of 2013 were about 14,000, a trebling compared with the 4,500 who arrived in the first six months of last year.If boat arrivals continued at this rate  the whole refugee/humanitarian program in 2013 of 20,000 persons  would have been taken over entirely by boat arrivals.That was clearly unacceptable. As John Maynard Keynes said, ‘when the facts change, I change my view’. The facts have changed in respect of boat arrivals.
    • The public hostility to boat arrivals, although quite irrational at times in my view, was threatening to prejudice the whole humanitarian and refugee program of our country. This program must be protected and expanded.
    • There is no ‘orderly queue’ for refugees but the fact is that with the trebling of asylum seekers arriving by boat in recent months it has a serious impact on those waiting in refugee camps in the region, Africa and the Middle East.
    • There has been some diversionary media coverage about the cost of the RSA with PNG. But the costs of existing arrangements are extremely high and look like increasing. The cost of offshore asylum seeker management by Department of Immigration and Citizenship is expected to be $2.9 billion this year; up $700 million on last year. The government has also allocated $1.4 billion to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. More money is spent by the Navy and some other agencies. By contrast, the foreign aid program to PNG will cost $517 million this year. If as the government hopes, boat arrivals slow there could be considerable savings. The government could also save money by abolishing mandatory detention.

    A lot remains to be done and implementation will be difficult as we are seeing already.

    • In the forthcoming regional conference of ministers that PM Rudd and President Yudhoyono agreed to, it must give emphasis to ‘upstream’ processing in Malaysia and Indonesia. This must be done in cooperation with UNHCR. Countries such as Australia must agree that they will cooperate on increased re-settlement places if regional countries are prepared to hold and process asylum seekers in their country.
    • We must redouble efforts to negotiate orderly departure arrangements with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. This is essential to provide a safe and orderly way for persons facing discrimination in those countries to come to Australia without being forced to take dangerous and irregular journeys. Many of the people in these three countries who are anxious to leave have relatives in Australia. In 1983 Australia established an ODA with Vietnam which enabled 100,000 Vietnamese to come to Australia in a safe and orderly way without risking their lives at sea.
    • We badly need better cooperation between the NGOs who are naturally concerned about the plight of asylum seekers and with the policy-makers, particularly in DIAC. That is why Arja Keski-Nummi and I proposed a ‘second-track dialogue’ – see blog of July 9. Many of these NGOs need to be more constructive. It is not particularly helpful when they find themselves frequently on the same side of the political debate as Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison, Paul Sheehan and the Daily Telegraph. We live in a difficult political environment. There is no way of avoiding it.

  • Japan: Where to now? Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

     Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won a resounding victory in last weekend’s Upper House election. It now has sufficient seats in both houses of parliament to dominate the important Diet committees and ensure passage of key legislation. The LDP, however, has fallen short of obtaining enough votes to push through constitutional change on its own.

     Amendments require the support of two-thirds of both houses of the Diet, before being put to a referendum. The LDP still does not command a two-thirds majority, even with the support of right-wing opposition parties that favour ditching the pacifist clauses that were inserted in the constitution by the Americans during the postwar occupation. The LDP would also need the backing of its coalition partner, the New Komeito, the political arm of the lay Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai. The New Komeito has traditionally supported Japan’s pacifist stance, and during the election campaign Prime Minister Shinzo Abe trod carefully so as not to overstrain the coalition relationship.

     Mr Abe undoubtedly has enhanced his power by the election win. The LDP’s position is as strong now as it was when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi led the party to a stunning electoral victory in 2005. Ironically, as Koizumi’s immediate successor, Abe was a conspicuous failure in the top job first time around. Since returning to office last December, however, a reinvigorated and self-assured Abe has swept all before him. The Democratic Party of Japan, which held power for three years, has been reduced to a rump, and its future existence is in doubt. The experiment in two-party politics Japan embarked upon two decades ago is over.

     But behind the appearance of LDP invincibility is a more complex reality.

     The first thing to note is that voter turnout for the Upper House election was a miserable 53 per cent – the lowest in 20 years. The party’s big win was built on a shaky basis of voter apathy or disillusionment. Secondly, Abe’s popularity is due largely to recent signs of economic revival: stock prices are up, industrial output is growing and consumer confidence has rebounded. But ‘Abenomics’ must start delivering higher wages and greater job security if it is to outlast the electoral cycle. The problem for the government is that, in order to retain the confidence of the money markets, it must attend to reform of state finances by pushing through an increase in the consumption tax next year. There is a risk that the tax hike could snuff out the flame of economic revival before tangible benefits reach the pay packets of Middle Japan. Navigating this unpopular reform will consume a significant portion of Abe’s political capital.

     Then there is the issue of Japan’s strained relations with China. The dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands hangs over the relationship like a monsoon front. The first time he was the head of government Abe showed an unexpected capacity for rebuilding Sino-Japanese relations after a stormy period (under Koizumi). This time, however, he has a direct stake in the issue at the heart of the problem. Again, in venturing forward, he must risk political capital. There is a pressing need – and feelers have already gone out – for a leaders’ summit between Abe and the Chinese President Xi Jinping. But can there be a summit without some form of compromise, or at least an understanding, on the territorial issue? Will Abe lose favour with the right wing of his party if, in order to gain a summit, he, for instance, foregoes a visit to Yasukuni Shrine next month on or around the anniversary of the end of the war? There is little prospect of an early rapprochement with Beijing should he make such a visit, and the absence of progress on that front could start to spook the financial markets.

     All of this suggests that constitutional change may have to take a back seat. If, however, Abe decides to concentrate his effort on this potent agenda item, by trying to persuade the New Komeito to lend support for amendments (starting perhaps with an amendment to make it easier to change the constitution), the government’s economic and foreign policy objectives could end up being sacrificed to an ideological battle of uncertain outcome. It is a delicate political judgment. Constitutional change has been a plank of LDP policy since the party was formed in 1955, and many in its ranks are keen to seize the opportunity to cast off the last vestige of Japan’s wartime defeat. The prize is just out of reach of a simple ‘grab and run’. In reaching out for the holy grail of his conservative forebears Abe’s real mettle as a politician and a leader may be tested to the limit.

     Walter Hamilton is a former ABC Tokyo correspondent and author of “Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story”.

  • Zimmerman – race or gender? Guest blogger: Marcus Einfeld

    Following their counterparts in the US, the attention of the international media has been attracted by the acquittal last Saturday by a Miami jury of 6 women of neighbourhood watch monitor George Zimmerman for shooting dead a young black teenager Trayvon Martin. My knowledge of the matter comes only from media reports but I have taken the trouble to seek out some of the more responsible outlets for these observations.

    There was no dispute that Zimmerman shot and killed Martin who was unarmed at the time. Zimmerman claimed that Martin attacked him and that he fired in self-defence. Even Trayvon’s mother, although unquestioningly loving of him, has not suggested that her son was an angel.

    Understandably having regard to the long repression of African Americans by the predominant white population, there has been an outcry of racism as the sole or main explanation for the jury’s unwillingness to convict Zimmerman of either murder or manslaughter. Black celebrities like Beyonce have appeared at demonstrations to attack the verdict. President Obama spoke of the possibility that he might once have been Trayvon. Unlike Australia and many other places including other states of the US, a conviction for manslaughter in Florida would apparently have brought a sentence of life imprisonment.

    It is well known that America has had serious problems of racism throughout its history, and there is no reason to believe that either Zimmerman or his jury was unaffected by this scourge, one way or the other. However, there was apparently no evidence at the trial that Zimmerman had any history of racist attitudes or views.

    Moreover, before this jury was selected, each of the original panel was allowed to be interrogated about their possible biases and other motivations. This process, not generally followed in Australia or the UK, is designed to and often does throw up serious prejudices on the part of potential jurors that might affect the fair judgment of the case. Nothing apparently emerged to suggest that any of the eventual six jurors had any views that militated against an unbiased verdict in this case.

    So allow me to put an entirely different possible explanation of his acquittal. In my long experience as an advocate and a Judge, there was one thread of consistency. Assuming he is not a thug with an actual or presumed history of criminality, or the central allegation is of violence against a woman whose account is credible, a young man is significantly less likely to be convicted by female jurors than by males. This phenomenon may arise because women, especially mothers, have an acute understanding of how young men and boys get into trouble, perhaps born of their experiences with their own sons. They are also very quick to defend their sons of allegations of miscreances. Men tend to be much less patient and tolerant of young men, perhaps knowing what they did as young men themselves.

    In an interview with CNN after the trial, one woman juror spoke of the evidence given at the trial by a young female friend of the victim, called by the prosecution, as being unhelpful and unconvincing, for which read untrue. My second piece of relevant experience, then, is that women are infinitely more judgmental of other women than men. Women can tell that another woman is lying much more perceptively than men who tend to be protective and understanding, even forgiving.

    Taking all this into account, it is certainly worth considering that the combination of these two peculiarly female factors is just as likely to have affected the verdict as racism.

  • Japanese whaling – bad faith, bad science. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

    Australia and Japan are at loggerheads before the International Court of Justice not because they disagree over whaling but because they disagree and are both members of the International Whaling Commission. What may at first seem a fussy distinction is fundamental and important. It is only because of their mutual commitments under an international convention that the whaling dispute can come before the court in The Hague. In response to Australia’s complaint that it has been acting in bad faith by cloaking ‘commercial whaling under the lab coat of science,’ Japan has cited its continuing membership of the IWC as proof of a good faith commitment to multilateralism and consensus building. The accusation of bad faith is one to which Japan has taken particular exception, not assuaged by assurances from Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus that the ICJ case need not harm bilateral relations. In oral arguments before the court, the Japanese legal team has taken aim at Australian bad faith in the presentation of selective and distorted testimony and comments by Mr Dreyfus that, irrespective of the court’s decision, the government would continue to oppose Japan’s whaling program by, among other things, accommodating the activities of the radical Sea Shepherd group.

     Australian media coverage of the ICJ case has been patchy, at best, given the amount of space and time devoted to the antics of Sea Shepherd. Methodical argument in a court of law is necessarily less accessible to superficial minds. But the to-and-fro in The Hague has been quite as lively by way of sarcasm, rhetorical flourishes and the cut and thrust of cross-examination. Both sides have employed an impressive array of advocates including, on the Japanese side, leading Iranian, Scottish and English barristers.

     But what is the court asked to decide? What is it empowered to decide?

     The ICJ is asked to determine whether Japan is meeting its obligations under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, specifically whether its program of ‘scientific whaling’ meets the requirements set out under Article 8. Japan argues that research data it has obtained through the killing of whales could not be obtained any other way and that it has fully met requirements to notify the IWC and respond to the input of its Scientific Committee. According to Japan, the court is not competent to distinguish good science from bad but must determine simply whether the whaling convention has been followed. While Australia argues that Japan’s research does not fulfill essential criteria for a scientific program – specificity and apparent usefulness, the formulation and testing of hypotheses, and peer review – the narrow scope of the court’s competency and jurisdiction would seem, on the evidence presented, to make a ruling against Japan unlikely. The outcome is expected before the end of the year.

     Australia took a costly, high-risk gamble by bringing the case to the International Court of Justice. If Japan’s ‘scientific whaling’ is endorsed by the court, anti-whaling groups that pay no heed to anything other than direct action will claim vindication. If the Australian government continues to agitate against Japan, having lost the legal argument, it may appear a bad loser whose opposition to whaling lacks logic or scientific basis and rests merely on a presumption of cultural superiority – the very thing Japan alleges. But, on the other side of the ledger, is the modern obligation on nations with shared interests and joined together under an international convention to seek and respect the judgment of their peers. Here is the inestimable value of the exercise.

     Which brings me back to the importance of the two countries’ membership of the IWC. While the commission is not worth much at present, being deeply divided between pro- and anti-whaling factions, the alternative is unilateralism of the Sea Shepherd sort. Australia has a distinguished record of participation in multilateral responses to world problems. Since 1945, so has Japan. A compromise on the whaling issue was within reach at the IWC a few years ago, until zealous prohibitionists gained sway within both Labor and Coalition circles. Unilateralism is not a sound policy for a country like Australia (leave that to the North Koreas of this world). If it does not like the decision coming from The Hague, Australia’s worst course of action would be to leave the IWC or surrender prosecution of the argument to demagogues and free agents. Some Australian media outlets have selectively reported Japan’s comments before the ICJ to suggest it is ready to pull out of the IWC if the decision goes against it. As already pointed out, to the contrary, Japan insists its continued membership is proof of its good faith. It would puncture that argument by leaving, and the same goes for Australia.

    Walter Hamilton was formerly Correspondent for the ABC in Japan.

  • The Regional Settlement Arrangement with Papua New Guinea. John Menadue

    With some reservations I support the general thrust of the RSA with PNG. I do that largely for the same reasons that I supported the earlier proposed agreement with Malaysia.

    The RSA is in PM Rudd’s words ‘a hard line’ but I see it as the least worst option given the present intractable political impasse and the 850 souls who have been drowned at sea. Where were their human rights?

    The arrangement does offer the prospect of slowing or stopping boat arrivals whereas the revamped Nauru policy did not. Nauru was never going to work a second time because even after the ‘no-advantage test’ and delays in processing, persons knew that in going to Nauru they would finally finish up in Australia or New Zealand. Now they will be resettled in PNG. Furthermore Nauru as an island state a long way to the east would never be part of a regional solution.

    I supported the Malaysian agreement because it offered at that time the best prospect of building a regional arrangement. This has always been and remains for me the only sensible way forward. Furthermore UNHCR was prepared to work with Malaysia and Australia on the agreement.  I had several reservations about the agreement, including the cap on numbers, penalties and the risks to children. It seems that these concerns have been addressed in the RSA with PNG.

    What is important is not where processing occurs, but is it humane, fair and efficient.

    In the submission that Arja Keski-Nummi (former First Assistant Secretary, Refugee, Humanitarian and International Division of the Immigration Department) and I made to the Expert Panel on asylum seekers in July 2012, we said.

    Offshore/Regional Processing

    While the High Court ruled against the agreement with Malaysia there remains a place for considering the regional processing of asylum seekers….   

    In 1998, UNHCR at its Executive Committee (ExCom) envisaged the possibility of transferring people from one state to another for processing and made the following conclusion:

     No.85 (XLIX) : stresses that, as regards the return to a third country of an asylum seeker whose claim has yet to be determined from the territory of the country where the claim has been submitted, including pursuant to bilateral or multilateral readmission agreements, it should be established that the third country will treat the asylum seeker(s) in accordance with accepted international standards, will ensure effective protection against refoulement, and will provide the asylum seekers with the possibility to seek and enjoy asylum.

     The High Court found the agreement with Malaysia could not be upheld because Malaysia:

     1. was not a signatory to the refugee convention,

    2. did not have in place a system of refugee status determination,

    3. did not have in law guarantees against non-refoulement, and

    4. did not give people some legal status while on their territory. 

     In short it could not be found to provide Effective Protection. 

     If new agreements in the region were to be considered the key issue to tackle would be the question of effective protection.   For example, it could be made explicit that a person has Effective Protection if: 

    • people were given a legal status while they are in a transit country  
    • people had access to other rights such as work – supporting  livelihoods, education for children etc.
    • people could access a refugee determination process either within the legal  jurisdiction of the state or by UNHCR
    •  were not detained  and
    • the principle of non-refoulement was honoured

    If a country is willing to enter into an agreement with these provisos then effective protection could be said to have been achieved. 

     However the complexities of such an agreement would need to be negotiated and would demand careful assessment of the legislation required to bring this into effect. …

     Bali ministers have endorsed the concept of states exploring such arrangements. These opportunities should be pursued, not to “stop the boats” although no doubt that is the desire of many, but if done well have the potential to start the process of building a durable protection system in the region – one in which the protection outcomes for all asylum seekers can be significant…

     New initiatives are always controversial.  The Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indo Chinese Refugees (CPA) while today seen as a model of regional cooperation at the time was not without its critics. Host governments’ commitments to providing a protection space in the region were tested, resettlement countries’ commitments were regularly questioned, UNHCR was moving into unchartered territories particularly in the way it was to engage with Vietnam and in redefining its mandate. NGOs and powerful lobby groups were not happy. 

     If we are ever to achieve a regional cooperation framework it will take a considerable time and we need to work with what is available now step by step, difficult as these may be. (The full submission can be found on my web site. See below. Click on refugees etc.)

    At the press conference following the announcement of the RSA, the Australian Attorney General said ‘This arrangement will be entirely in accordance with Australia’s international and domestic law obligations. PNG is of course a signatory to the Refugee Convention and, as has been indicated by both prime ministers, PNG is going to withdraw the reservation that it had to the Refugee Convention in respect of people who are to be transferred from Australia. What that means is that all people transferred to PNG will have the full benefit of the rights that come to them under the Refugee Convention.’ (end of quote)

    It is to be hoped that this serves to address the High Court’s concerns. The earlier decision by the High Court and the subsequent parliamentary impasse was in my view a major setback for regional cooperation.

    The RSA is a bilateral arrangement which must become part of a framework of other regional arrangements. PM Rudd said that the RSA will be ‘part of our broader approach on regional cooperation arrangements’. We can’t ‘fix’ these problems on our own. There has to be burden-sharing as the arrangement with PNG is. This arrangement follows the announcement a few days ago that Indonesia will deny visa-free entry to Indonesia for Iranians.

    The regional conference being called as a result of PM Rudd’s meeting with President Yudhoyono must urgently consider processing centres in other regional countries in association with UNHCR and on the understanding that resettlement countries such as Australia will increase their refugee intake.

    Australia has already increased its humanitarian intake from 13,000 to 20,000 p.a. At his Brisbane press conference PM Rudd said that if progress is made on further regional discussions Australia would lift its intake again. The Expert Panel recommended that the intake be lifted to 27,000 over five years. I think it should be at least 30,000.

    In his statement PM Rudd said that he had spoken with the UN Secretary General about the RSA with PNG. But he did not mention the UNHCR which must be a key player in the arrangement with PNG. It has the necessary experience and credibility.

    There are a lot of important issues that must be addressed. What will happen in regard to family reunion of asylum seekers sent to PNG who have family in Australia? Will asylum seekers sent to PNG have appeal rights? Will they have work rights in PNG? Will they be detained in prison-like conditions similar to Christmas Island?

    The Australian government must also urgently redouble its efforts to negotiate orderly departure programs with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

    The Greens have called the RSA ‘a day of shame’. But the real ‘day of shame’ was when the Greens voted in the Senate with Tony Abbott’s coalition to strike down the enabling legislation which would have allowed a renegotiated Malaysian Agreement to proceed. Since that time there has been chaos and failure of refugee policy in Australia. The Greens must bear heavy responsibility for this. As Gough Whitlam said in a different context ‘Only the impotent are pure’.

    The RSA has been obviously negotiated quickly. As PM Rudd said ‘many other steps lie ahead’. But this arrangement with PNG based on burden-sharing is a much more promising approach than the recent nonsense about amending the Refugee Convention and describing increasing number of refugees as really only ‘economic migrants’.

    A key test for the RSA must be – does it provide effective protection?

    The other key issue will be implementation.


     

  • Don’t race to the bottom on asylum seekers!

    Kevin Rudd, in your review of asylum seeker policy please don’t let Foreign Minister Carr lead you to a race to the bottom with Tony Abbott.

    The media is clearly being briefed that in a revision of asylum policy, the Government is considering tougher new country assessments by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It is suggested by the Foreign Minister that this is necessary to exclude persons who are really economic migrants.

    In my blog of July 5, I expressed concern that the Foreign Minister was implying that the Refugee Review Tribunal was too soft on refugee determination.

    In primary decisions on asylum seekers and according to UNHCR data, Australia is about in the mid-range in refugee determination in the first instance.  The rates for refugee determination that did not go to further review were as follows.

    Australia                             46%

    Canada                               42%

    Denmark                             46%

    Germany                             32%

    New Zealand                     28%

    Norway                               56%

    Sweden                               49%

    UK                                        37%

    It is difficult to compare final refugee determination rates as appeal processes differ greatly between countries. If there is reliable information available on country comparisons I would like to see it. We do know however that the final rate of refugee determination in Indonesia is 94%. This compares with final determination rates in Australia for the March quarter 2013 – 91% for boat arrivals and 65% for air arrivals.

    Frankly I would have much greater confidence in the RRT and its processes than the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In the primary process asylum seekers are likely to be disoriented and confused and dealing with a very alien situation. The RRT has the experience and professionalism to sort out the merits of asylum claims. Denis O’Brien who headed the RRT for five years asserted that ‘members of the RRT have to apply the definition … under the Refugee Convention. So I don’t see a lot of scope for tightening up without running foul of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees’.

    Today the Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Professor Gillian Triggs, said ‘There is no evidence to support the Government’s economic migrant claim … When we were assessing asylum seekers claims up until August 13 last year, approximately 90% of claims for refugee status were found to be valid. So I think that Senator Carr is making an assumption for which there is no evidence.’

    In the weighing of evidence, I would place great weight on organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in their assessments of human rights violations and persecution around the world. They are experienced in this field. They get their hands dirty in dealing with the everyday problems of persons facing persecution. By contrast, DFAT officers are relatively inexperienced and live in remote and privileged foreign enclaves. Furthermore DFAT is very keen to maintain good relations with foreign governments and their agencies. These are often the very same organisations that asylum seekers see as their persecutors. I would seriously discount the advice from the governments of Afghanistan, Iran and Sri Lanka and their brutal intelligence and security services. The government of Canada has said that it will not be attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in November in Colombo this year unless the human rights position in Sri Lanka improves.

    I have confidence in the independence and professionalism of the RRT to make just and considered final decisions.

    Tony Abbott sheds crocodile tears over asylum seekers drowned at sea. He and Scott Morrison have demonised asylum seekers for years as illegals; they bring disease and wads of cash. Coalition concern for asylum seekers is largely seen as a political opportunity. On the 10th December 2010 the Sydney Morning Herald reported from Wikileaks that a key Liberal Party strategist told a US diplomat in Canberra in November 2009 that the issue of asylum seekers was ‘fantastic’ for the Coalition and ‘the more boats that come the better’. Tony Abbott shows that that still remains the approach of the Coalition.

    As Malcolm Fraser said in a guest blog on July15 the plight of asylum seekers and deaths at sea is a world-wide problem that we cannot fix on our own.  He said the only solution is a regional agreement based on two key elements. The first is that regional countries that bear a much heavier burden than we do on asylum seekers and refugees are prepared to hold and process in their country those who claim refugee protection. This must be done in association with UNHCR. The second is that settlement countries such as Australia, Canada, US and NZ must provide finance to regional countries and promptly agree to the resettlement of those that are found to be refugees.

    Unilateralism will not work for anyone. The key is burden-sharing. The conference called by President Yudhoyono to build a regional framework must be pursued with urgency. It combines both good policy and good politics. It is to be hoped that the Government will not go down the track that Foreign Minister Carr is suggesting.

  • Joining the dots on Asia. John Menadue

    The advocates of stronger ties with Asia spend a great deal of time with seminars and press statements about the importance of the region to our future. They are correct but they refuse to join the dots and advocate the changes on the really important issues impeding our relations with our region. Some of those impediments are symbolic and some are real. They include:

    • How can we expect our region to take us seriously when we have an English Queen as our head of state? Many Asians that I have spoken to are polite but shake their head with bemusement that we have a foreign head of state living in London.
    • Many in Asia are sceptical about our dependence on the US and allowing our foreign affairs and defence policies to be determined very largely by our relationship with the US at the expense of relations with regional countries. They have not forgotten John Howard’s reference to Australia as being the US’s ‘deputy sheriff’ in the region. Regional countries do place importance on the continuing role of the US in our region, but not in the slavish way that we do.
    • We have a clubbish Anglo-Celtic business sector that espouses better relations with the region but closes its ranks against persons with serious Asian experience or competence in the language.
    • The continuous demonization of asylum seekers is a disingenuous re-run of White Australia – appealing to our fear of the foreigner which was the key driver of White Australia in the past. Malaysia is continually bashed by the Greens, the Coalition and NGOs when it offered the prospect of building a regional arrangement for asylum seekers.
    • Our media reflects our overwhelming ties to the UK and the US.  Just look at the inflated coverage of the Boston bombings compared with the civil war broken out in Iraq with thousands of bombing deaths. By our own involvement in the Iraq war we have contributed to this catastrophe. But three deaths in Boston is much easier and cheaper TV footage.
    • We give lip service to the importance of Asian languages, but we are not prepared to fund it.
    • Working holiday programs with countries in our region which provide opportunities for young Australians to live and work in the region have been largely stalled for the past twenty years.

    So much of the public debate about our relations with the region is froth and bubble. We avoid the hard issues. If we address them we would really show a genuine determination to build our future in our own region.

    John Menadue

  • Japanese language learning in Australia – declining and mainly for beginners. Guest blogger: Professor Chihiro Kinoshita Thomson

    Japanese has been Australia’s most studied foreign language in schools for a number of years. Japanese is neither a traditional school language subject such as French and Latin, nor a community language such as Italian and Greek. Japanese is distant from English linguistically and culturally. Thus it is remarkable that Australia is fourth place on the world map of the number of learners of Japanese by country, and in second place in terms of the ratio of learners in the total population. The 2009 Japan Foundation survey reveals one in 83 Australians were currently learning Japanese. Considering that this trend has been lasting for well over a decade, cumulative numbers of those who have at one point studied Japanese must be quite large.

    This picture of a large number of learners and past learners of Japanese however needs to be looked at closely to find two trends. The first is the decline in numbers. Two Japan Foundation surveys conducted in 2006 and 2009 on Japanese language education in Australia showed a 25% decline in overall learner population in the three years. The second is the concentration of learners at beginner proficiency level. Of the 280 thousand learners of Japanese in the country, 96% are in schools, which produce beginners or at highest, lower intermediate proficiency speakers of Japanese. Of the three percent of the learners who are located in universities, at most, only one third are estimated to achieve advanced professional proficiency. That is less than 1% of the total learner population.

    For a nation, foreign language education serves two major purposes. Firstly, learning a foreign language provides young learners with a different language system, new ways of thinking, links to foreign cultures and people, and as a result, broader and more critical perspectives of their own world and beyond, i.e., basic ingredients of becoming a global citizen. For this purpose, Japanese is perfect for young Australian learners, as it is vastly different from English. Secondly, foreign language education will produce those who are professionally proficient in target languages and who can contribute to nation building in government, business and other areas using the language. For this purpose, Japanese is critical for Australia, as Japan is Australia’s significant partner both economically and strategically.

    So far, Japanese language education in Australia has done very well, especially in the above-mentioned first purpose. One in ten Australian school children are currently learning Japanese. We need to stop the decline of the learner population and to maintain the good work of providing our youngsters with the basics to become global citizens. For the second purpose, we have not done enough in developing high proficiency speakers of Japanese. We need to provide both learning pathways and career pathways to young learners so that they can envisage their future Japanese speaking selves and work towards their vision.

    Chihiro Kinoshita Thomson
    Professor of Japanese Studies
    School of International Studies
    University of New South Wales.

  • Regional cooperation is the key. Guest blogger: Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser

    Australia’s problems with asylum seekers and refugees are not unique. We are not the only point of destination.  There are around 30,000 in Australia, over 160,000 in Canada, 51,000 in Austria, 22,000 in Belgium, 74,000 in Netherlands with a population much less than ours, nearly 150,000 in the United Kingdom and 589,000 in Germany.  There is a massive move of a similar kind to Europe.  We are not the only destination.  It is a worldwide problem which requires regional and international cooperation. We cannot ‘fix’ it on our own.

    Asylum seeker and refugee movements by their very nature involve at least two countries – the country of origin and the country of destination. It will also invariably involve transit countries. Almost all asylum seekers seeking entry to Australia come in transit through Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia.

    If we want to solve our problems, we must help other countries to solve their problems. There is no solution for Australia alone. Mandatory detention that we unilaterally introduced in 1992 is just not working to deter asylum seekers. The harsh deterrent measures introduced initially by Howard, but continued by the current government are cruel, horrendously expensive and are still unable to match the terror from which people flee. When the current government stopped assessing asylum seekers in October last year, over 90% of boat people from Sri Lanka were proven to be refugees.  When will we learn from our mistakes?

    There are two essential elements to regional cooperation and burden-sharing. The first element is that transit countries and particularly in our case, Indonesia, being prepared to hold and assist in the processing of asylum seekers. The second element is that resettlement countries must be prepared to promptly resettle people after they have been processed and found to be refugees.

    These two elements were the keys to what most people now regard as the successful management of the 1.3 million Indochinese who fled after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Building regional cooperation then was a slow and painstaking process. It was messy at times but it worked.

    Alongside those two essential elements, we need to keep several other factors in mind.

    • Transit countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia carry the heavy burden of about 800,000 people of concern to the UNHCR.
    • The US was a key player in leading the management of the Indochina outflow in the late 1970s and 1980s. It has now just joined the Bali process.
    • There were few regional signatories to the Refugee Convention in the 1970s and 1980s. That is still the case today. Our experience was that the participation of the UNHCR with its experience and credibility is essential in any regional processing and resettlement.
    • With our position on the Security Council, we should be working to gain greater UN support and to spearhead a campaign to get more countries to sign on to the principles of UNHCR.
    • Regional countries will need financial support to manage the processing of large numbers of asylum seekers whilst they are in their countries. Their own populations are likely to be disturbed by large numbers of asylum seekers. We are wasting huge sums through our policies of deterrence and detention, in places like Manus Island and Nauru.  It would be money better spent helping regional countries. Under the Comprehensive Plan of Action which developed during the Indochina outflow, Japan resettled few refugees, but it was a generous funder.
    • Alongside the US, Canada would need to be a key participant in an energised Bali process.
    • Australian governments up to this point have not pursued a truly regional solution involving sufficient countries, including some beyond the region, with sufficient energy.
    • Other resettlement countries should contribute according to their ability and means. For example in the Indochina resettlement program, Sweden took a large number of handicapped people. As a small country it was uniquely placed to help in this way.
    • Australia will need to lift its resettlement intake above the 20,000 p.a. at the moment.  This would assist in giving us creditability in persuading other people to participate.
    • In particular, we will need to take many more from Indonesia which so far we have not done.  This is critical to gain Indonesian cooperation which would be essential for a successful outcome.

     

    I am not sure that the meeting called by President Yudhoyono will provide a breakthrough. It could however be an important building block in the development of a robust regional arrangement based on burden-sharing with the two key elements I mentioned earlier.

    Only regional cooperation will work. We learned that the hard way during the Indochina outflow. Unilateral action and the posturing that goes with it will not succeed. What we need is good policy and less politics.  We need to restore the bipartisanship that had existed between the end of the 2nd War and the middle 1980s.  Good policy can only be built around regional cooperation.

     

  • Pope Francis blasts ‘globalisation of indifference’ for immigrants. Report from National Catholic Reporter

    The treatment of asylum seekers in Australia brings shame to all of us. Pope Francis called for an end to the ‘globalisation of indifference’. In his first visit outside the Vatican Pope Francis called for decency and humanity in the treatment of outsiders.  John Menadue

     

    Published on National Catholic Reporter (http://ncronline.org)

     

    Francis blasts ‘globalization of indifference’ for immigrants

    John L. Allen Jr.  |  Jul. 8, 2013 NCR Today
    At a time when Catholic leaders in the United States and other parts of the world are pressing for more compassionate immigration policies, Pope Francis on Monday devoted his first trip outside Rome to a strong appeal against the “globalization of indifference” toward suffering migrants.The pope on Monday morning visited the southern Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, a major point of arrival for impoverished immigrants, mostly from Africa and the Middle East, seeking to reach Europe.

    The pontiff tossed a wreath of yellow and white chrysanthemums into the sea to commemorate those who died making the passage, imploring host societies to ensure that the arrival of immigrants does not occasion “new and even heavier forms of slavery and humiliation.”

    Authorities estimate that as many as 20,000 migrants have died since the late 1990s attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea by boat en route to Europe, with survivors generally ending up in detention centers in settings such as Lampedusa.

    The pope insisted that with respect to such suffering, God asks everyone: “Where is your brother, the voice of whose blood reaches all the way to me?”

    Francis urged societies receiving immigrants to exhibit “maternal care,” noting that in many cases, migrants also fall victim to human trafficking.

    Approximately 10,000 people were on hand for a Mass celebrated by the pope on Lampedusa, including 50 recent immigrants currently housed at a center on the island in the front row.

    Roughly an hour before the pope arrived Monday morning, the latest boatload of 165 migrants was met by a ship of the Italian Coast Guard and its occupants taken to a processing center on the island.

    “Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters?” the pope asked, saying that too often, the answer is, “No one.”

    “We all answer, ‘It’s not me. I have nothing to do with it. It’s others, but certainly not me,’ ” the pope said.

    Francis extended a special greeting to the Muslims among the migrants, noting that the fast of Ramadan is beginning and wishing them “abundant spiritual fruits.”

    Amnesty International issued a statement shortly after the pope’s visit, saying the gesture will “favor respect for the human rights of immigrants, of asylum seekers and refugees.” …

    … Francis began his remarks Monday by saying he read recently of a tragedy in which migrants died while trying to make a boat crossing, and the thought of it was “like a splinter in the heart that causes suffering.”

    “I felt the duty to come here today to pray, to perform a gesture of closeness, but also to awaken our consciences to that what happened doesn’t repeat itself,” he said.

    Francis compared apathy in the face of the suffering of immigrants to the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan, in which a half-dead man lying in the street is ignored until the Samaritan finally stops to help.

    “So many of us, and I include myself, are disoriented,” the pope said. “We’re no longer attentive to the world in which we live. We don’t care about it; we don’t take care of what God created for all; and we’re no longer capable even of taking care of one another.”

    “When this disorientation takes on the dimensions of the world, it leads to tragedies such as what we’ve seen [here],” the pope said.

    Follow John Allen on Twitter: @JohnLAllenJr

  • Tony Abbott – one-liners won’t work. John Menadue

    Sorry if I keep repeating myself, but Tony Abbott keeps repeating his one-liners about stopping the boats. He provides little explanation about how or why his policies will work today.

    He tells us that John Howard’s policy stopped the boats and he will do the same. But John Howard’s approach was over a decade ago.  Since then the situation has dramatically changed.

    Certainly under John Howard the boats did largely stop, although asylum seekers continued to arrive by air at the rate of about 4,000 persons per annum. Furthermore if we look at the broader picture of asylum seekers around the world at that time we see that the number of asylum seekers fell between 2001 and 2004 as a result of a more peaceful Afghanistan and Iraq. Boat arrivals started arriving again from 2004, mainly because of the state of emergency declared in Sri Lanka and then the withdrawal of the Sri Lankan government from the cease-fire with the Tamil Tigers.

    But let us accept that the boats did stop for whatever reason.

    Tony Abbott’s one-liners have three elements.

    The first is to repeat the Pacific Solution and reopen Nauru and Manus. They were key parts of the Howard plan. Tony Abbott kept saying for a long time that the first thing he would do as PM would be to get on the phone to the President of Nauru and reopen the Nauru detention centre. There are many pitfalls in this one-liner about Nauru.

    • The secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship told the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee of the Senate in October 2010 that the meagre success of Nauru would not work in the future. He said ‘dramatic high profile efforts (Tampa) together with the processing that occurred on Nauru were very much unknown to people (at the time). The people who were subject to it and the people-smugglers who were organising it were not able to predict what would occur. A point that I have often made is that what was unknown prior to the events of 2001 because known in hindsight. It became a certainty (that they would finish up in Australia or New Zealand). The key point is that it (Nauru) could not be replicated.’ He went on to say ‘our view (in DIAC) is not simply that the Nauru option would not work (again) but that the combination of circumstances that existed at the end of 2001 could not be repeated with success. That is the view that we held for some time and it is of course not just a view of my department, it is the collective view of agencies in providing advice in this area.’ What underlay the DIAC view was that 97% of persons on Nauru who were found to be refugees finished up in Australia and New Zealand.
    • Following the Expert Panel report, then-Immigration Minister Bowen and the Government foolishly endorsed its implementation in full, which included the re-opening of Nauru and Manus. What DIAC had advised years before came true. The number of boat arrivals coming to Australian since the reopening of Nauru and Manus has increased dramatically from 1,622 in the December quarter 2012 to 7,464 in the March quarter 2013.
    •  As warned, Nauru has not worked to stop the boats a second time around.

    The second one-liner of Tony Abbott is to reintroduce Temporary Protection Visas as the Howard Government had done. Unfortunately for Tony Abbott this policy didn’t work at all for John Howard. More people got on boats after TPVs were introduced with over 6,000 coming in 2001. Further, TPVs which denied family reunion resulted in more women and children taking to the boats. That is why when SIEVX was lost at sea in 2001, 82% of the 353 passengers who were drowned at sea were women and children.

    Tony Abbott’s third one-liner is to turn boats back to Indonesia if it is safe to do so. President Yudhoyono warned last week about such unilateral acts. In November 2011 the serving head of the RAN Admiral Ray Griggs told the Senate that turning boats around at sea was highly risky and the Navy personnel were bound by the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea. In 1979 when a similar policy was proposed, Malcolm Fraser rejected it because it would make Australia a ‘pariah’ in our region. Threatened with turn-backs desperate people are likely to scuttle their boats. It is also dangerous for RAN personnel.

    The three one-liners which constitute Tony Abbott’s policy on boats – re-open Nauru, introduce TPVs and turn-backs at sea – will not work. Times have changed. He has not thought them through He relies on empty one liners.

    My criticism of the Coalition’s unscrupulous policies and rhetoric does not imply acceptance of the government’s asylum and refugee policies. It is very plain that successive ministers have failed. They have not energetically pursued the only policy that will work – a robust regional policy.

     

  • Tony Abbott looks badly shaken. John Menadue

    Tony Abbott is obviously shaken by Kevin Rudd’s return. The coalition had been expecting to win by default and chose quite deliberately to provide as small a target as possible and release few policies. What “policies” there were were usually reduced to one liners. Tony Abbott left the dead wood in his shadow cabinet. He refused three debates with Kevin Rudd, something which opposition leaders would normally seize with both hands. And he refused to debate the three issues on which he has been staking so much, deficits, boats and the carbon tax. Then there was Kevin Rudd’s intervention in the NSW ALP branch. Then there was the agreement with President Yudhoyono to host a regional conference on asylum seekers in Indonesia. And to top that off the Indonesian President gave Tony Abbott a backhander about taking “unilateral” action on turning boats back to Indonesia. Then there was Kevin Rudd’s proposal to commence democratic renewal in elections for the leader of the parliamentary ALP. Through all this the opinion polls are trending very much in Kevin Rudd’s favour. Much is promised but can Kevin Rudd follow up and deliver?. Implementation is always the hard part. But it has all clearly unsettled Tony Abbott.

    Kevin Rudd’s action on ALP reform is in my view the most important of all. In my blog of June 25 headed ‘Julia Gillard’s greatest failure’, I referred to her unwillingness to lead the reform of the sclerotic ALP structure.

    She had her chance at the ALP federal conference in 2011 with the report prepared by John Faulkner, Bob Carr and Steve Bracks on ALP party reform. The proposed reforms were quite modest but Julia Gillard didn’t provide the leadership needed to really start the reform process. That failure stemmed from her dependence on the ALP machine and the factions which chose her as leader in 2010. Kevin Rudd then blasted the ALP Federal Conference for failing to “take some giant leaps forward” He was criticized by the union heavies and faction bosses. They did not want democratic renewal

    Kevin Rudd is not dependent on those machine people and factions, and it is not surprising that one of the first things he did was to intervene in the parlous state of the NSW branch of the ALP. The Federal Executive has set out an eight-point plan for reform.  With an election only weeks or months away, the ALP could scarcely sack the whole NSW branch, although I hope that down the track it will do so. Kevin Rudd has followed this up with a proposal that ALP members as well as members of the Parliamentary Labor Party should choose the leader. I don’t think unions should have a role in this.

    But a key issue ahead will be the role of unions at party conferences. Obviously their influence must be reduced particularly as their membership has declined to only about 18% of the workforce today. Rodd Cavalier suggests union representation at federal and state conference should be reduced from 50% to 15%. I am not sure what the figure should be. The unions do provide stability for the ALP. They provide significant financial and hands-on support. They are the largest and most significant group in Australia committed to social justice. Their influence has prevented Australia going down the path of economic and social inequality that is so appalling now in the US. Working people in that country are paying a very heavy price for the neutering of the trade union movement. Unions may be annoying from time to time but if Australia faced a major crisis I would rather be in their corner than with any other group.

    As the reform process gets under way particularly after the federal election, the role of unions, the participation of the rank-and-file in conferences and the selection of the parliamentary leader will be critical.

    Julia Gillard wouldn’t start the process. Kevin Rudd is making encouraging progress.  Tony Abbott looks flat footed. He and his coalition colleagues expected a cake walk. They didn’t really prepare.  They now look ill at ease with a new and energised Rudd Government

  • Ending the policy paralysis on refugees. John Menadue

    In my blog of July 6, ‘Asylum seekers … good news at last’, I expressed concern that it had taken so long for the government to take action and really put effort into the development of a regional framework. It has been obvious for years that this was the path we had to take. We cannot solve this problem unilaterally. As a result our public discourse got diverted into a whole range of divisive and secondary issues.

    There are several reasons why the government failed so badly in driving a regional framework.

    • It was spooked by Tony Abbott’s willful exaggeration and fomenting of fear in a way that I have not seen in public life for a long time.
    • Ministers and departments were so continually in crisis mode over boat arrivals that they lost sight of the key long-term strategic issue that needed to be addressed-regional cooperation
    • Under the rubric of small government, the policy expertise of many departments has been eroded. A great deal of policy work is now passed to organizations such as the Productivity Commission or contracted out to consultants, universities and accounting firms that don’t have much policy expertise or institutional  memory.
    • The policy void in government departments has been filled by political and inexperienced officers in ministerial offices who are driven by the 24/7 news cycle. Policy continuity and expertise is something they know very little about.

    In the refugee field, Arja Keski-Nummi and I highlighted this major gap or paralysis on refugee discussion in our submission to the Expert Panel.

    The inter-governmental and multilateral dialogue on displacement and people smuggling has grown over recent years. The Bali Process has had a positive impact on this.  But a great deal remains to be done on regional cooperation following the agreement between President Yudhoyono and Prime Minister Rudd.

    Unfortunately little attention is given to engaging with civil society in Australia (including NGOs) and yet in many ways such engagement holds one of the keys to supporting the development of a stronger refugee protection framework.

    It is both timely and important to start the process of developing a framework that engages civil society as an important partner in the process. ASEAN has led the way in such engagement with the model it uses for the development of the ASEAN Human Rights Instrument.

    A successful model has been used in the security dialogue in Australia. It has adopted the concept of a “Track 2” approach. This involves both government and non-government players as equal partners, recognising the complementary strengths that each brings to the table.

    While building such a dialogue takes enormous effort and commitment the dividends can be many:

    • it can remove from public contention to a neutral space the discussion on  refugees, asylum seekers, people  smuggling and displacement,
    • it gives all players a stake in the partnership and responsibilities in addressing the issues,
    • it promotes a rational public discourse with facts and reason

    As a first step a local track 2 dialogue on refugees could be initiated in Australia bringing together the key experts from government, the region, international agencies and civil society to map out approaches and strategies for the future. This dialogue would be funded by the Government but would not be part of Government.  The Minister should appoint the chair.

    The modest government funding for this should be provided as a matter of urgency and could be channeled through a university as is done for the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) in the security dialogue or through an agency such as UNHCR or IOM that have strong  records in this type of work.

    This dialogue should be expanded into a regional approach sitting alongside or under the Bali Process.

    We need a much wider and better-informed dialogue on refugee issues than we have had in recent years. Because of the lack of an informed and robust discussion on refugee issues the government should not be surprised that it has made so many mistakes in this field. It badly needs to listen to a much wider range of informed advice. A ‘track two dialogue’ would be a great help.

     

     

     

  • Kevin Rudd – the anti-politician. John Menadue

    We often ponder why Kevin Rudd has remained so popular even through his three years in the wilderness.

    A blog ‘The Piping Strike’ explains to me the phenomenon better than others. It says ‘The uncomfortable answer is that Rudd is popular because he encapsulates the electorate’s distrust and even dislike of the political system’.

    The kid with the glasses in the library doesn’t seem like the normal politician. He is attractive because of that. This makes it hard for the political class, both politicians and journalists, when Kevin Rudd doesn’t play the game the same way as others. The more machine politicians and the media pile into Rudd, the more his anti-politician stance attracts people in the community.

    He was chosen as leader in 2007 not because the political machine liked him but because he seemed popular with the community. He made mistakes as PM but when he was seen as no longer any use to the machine – think Paul Howes and Bill Ludwig- acted to get rid of him. He wasn’t as easily controllable and predictable as they had hoped. Not surprisingly when he was chosen leader again, a few weeks ago one of the first things he did was to attack the control of the factional politicians and their minders in some of the big unions. Much remains to be done but quick action on the NSW ALP branch was entirely predictable. Kevin Rudd is not beholden to any party machine as Julia Gillard was. His strength as an anti-politician is in the community. And the community to date is clearly responding.

    Gough Whitlam bucked the party machine and survived because he was strong in the electorate. People outside the inner circle of politics loved what he was doing in confronting the factions and the party machine.

    Queenslanders, like Kevin Rudd have a particular reputation and earn respect by bucking the party system. Think Bob Katter and Pauline Hanson. Peter Beattie’s strength in Queensland was in part because he kept running against the ALP machine.

    Rudd’s non-party support is revealed not only in being mobbed in shopping centres, but also in the social media. He has 1.2 million twitter followers.  This is almost 10% of voters. Tony Abbott has 131,000 twitter followers and Malcolm Turnbull 170,000 followers. My grand-daughter tells me that these figures can be manipulated, but the scale of Rudd’s connection through social media is remarkable.

    Google searches in recent days reveal the same interest and enthusiasm for Kevin Rudd. Even talk-back radio listeners are showing interest.

    Kevin Rudd may not win the election but he has certainly thrown it wide open. His appeal is that he is a different sort of politician who is not beholden to the political system. The public so far seem to be responding. The machine politicians and the media don’t seem to understand. They look at politics through a different prism. The public distrusts the political system. So does Kevin Rudd or at least he doesn’t respect it the way that political insiders do. That is his appeal.

     

  • Asylum seekers – good news at last. John Menadue

    The joint communique issued yesterday by President Yudhoyono and PM Rudd is the best news that I have read on asylum seekers for many years. A regional framework is the only viable policy for the future. Individual countries cannot do it alone.

    The communique said

    ‘As co-chairs of the Bali Process, the two Leaders reaffirmed their commitment to continue to develop a regional solution, involving countries of origin, transit and destination which covers elements of prevention, early detection and protection to combatting trafficking in persons and people smuggling and other related transnational crimes. They stress the importance of avoiding unilateral actions which might jeopardise such a comprehensive regional approach and which might cause operational or other difficulties to any party. The Prime Minister of Australia welcomed Indonesia’s initiative to invite key origin, transit and destination countries to a conference to explore concrete operational and policy responses, including regional approaches and efforts to enhance border security, in addressing regular movement of persons.’

    President Yudhoyono added that ‘All countries in the region must share responsibility for asylum seekers and I have decided to host a ministerial meeting within a month to look at ways of dealing with the issue.’

    Together with others, and particularly Arja Keski-Nummi, I have been urging a regional response for several years. In August 2011, Arja Keski-Nummi, Kate Gauthier and I, in association with the Centre for Policy Development, issued a statement on ‘A new approach. Breaking the stalemate on refugees and asylum seekers’. This statement highlighted the importance of a regional response. The statement was endorsed by a wide range of prominent Australians.

    In our joint statement to the Expert Panel in July last year, Arja Keski-Nummi and I again emphasised the importance of a regional framework. There are also many articles on this subject on my website publish.pearlsandirritations.com.

    In my most recent blog of 1 July, I said ‘Regional cooperation was essential during the Indochina outflow … it is also true today. Australia should propose a regional conference on asylum seekers and displacement.’ I added that Australia should offer to host such a regional conference. Hosting by the Indonesians will be even better.

    My experience as Secretary of the Department of Immigration during the Indochina outflow convinced me that only regional burden-sharing can bring a lasting solution. That burden-sharing must not only be by the host countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, but also by resettlement countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the US. Importantly the US has just joined the ‘Bali Process’. US influence and clout is critical. It is also important to include Japan. During the Indochina outflow Japan, not surprisingly, did not take many Indochinese refugees. But it was a very generous funder.

    I keep asking myself why wasn’t this initiative taken years ago? We can only conclude a failure of ministerial and departmental leadership. Focused on boats, boats and more boats, ministers and departments retreated into crisis mode and were unable and perhaps unwilling to address the longer-term strategic issues.

    The meeting proposed by President Yudhoyono in a month’s time will build on the Bali Process. We need to be patient. But at last we are headed in the right direction.

    In the months ahead, Australia needs to keep several things in mind.

    • All this will take time and we must see it through. The Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) which flowed from the International Conference of 1979 concerning Indochinese refugees was the result of small steps over several years.  Australia did well as a contributor to the CPA but we didn’t have a particularly unblemished record. In 1995 Australia, together with other resettlement countries, terminated the CPA. We left regional countries with thousands of difficult cases. Many of them were handicapped people.  In Bali in 2002, we sought regional help with boatpeople. But when the boat arrivals fell away we lost interest. We revived the process again in 2009 when boat arrivals resumed. Regional countries could be forgiven for thinking that we have been fair-weather friends. We must not let that happen again.
    • The United National High Commissioner for Refugees must also be an active participant in building this regional framework. The UNHCR has expertise, experience and importantly, its good name will add to the credibility of the enterprise.
    • It is important at some stage to include civil society, mainly NGOs in the process. Along with governments, they are important players and have a wealth of experience. Their participation will also help depoliticise the building of a regional solution.

    The good news must now be followed by some hard work. But at last we are headed in the right direction and hopefully we can put behind us the toxic debate and futile policies of recent years.

  • Asylum seekers. Don’t let us be diverted from regional arrangements. John Menadue

    Foreign Minister Carr is focusing on whether some asylum seekers are refugees or economic migrants. This is symptomatic of a government that is continually in crisis mode over boat arrivals. It should focus on the strategic issues such as orderly departure arrangements in source countries like Afghanistan and regional agreements with Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

    In my blog of July 1 I expressed doubt about the arguments of Foreign Minister Carr that we needed to have a ‘tougher and more hard-edged assessment’ of asylum seekers. Understandably officials of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship don’t like their preliminary decisions on refugee status being overturned by the Refugee Review Tribunal.

    It is clear that preliminary assessments by Immigration officials are being significantly changed.

    Boat Arrivals – March quarter 2013
     

    Primary protection visa grant rate (%)

    Finally determined grant rate (%)
    Afghanistan

    83

    95
    Iran

    55

    86
    Iraq

    90

    91
    Pakistan

    81

    92
    Sri Lanka

    27

    75
    Stateless

    88

    97
    Total

    65

    91

     

    The figures from DIAC show that the primary protection visa grant rate in the March quarter 2013 was 65%, but on review, the RRT lifted the finally determined grant rate for all boat arrivals to 91%. For a couple of countries the overturn rate by the RRT was spectacular. The primary protection visa grant rate for Iranians was lifted from 55% to 86%. For Sri Lankans the change was even more remarkable from 27% at the primary stage to 75% as finally determined by the RRT.

    The Department seems to have a particular worry with Iranian and Sri Lankan asylum seekers. By all accounts the Iranian asylum seekers are middle class, professional, better-off and tough applicants. That should not prejudice their case. They are escaping a brutal theocracy. The civil war in Sri Lanka may have ended but the advice from several human rights agencies suggests that the persecution of Tamils is continuing. Three months ago Canada said that it will not attend the next Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting to be held in Sri Lanka in November this year unless the human rights situation improves.

    The Government has announced that it will commission a review of Australia’s refugee status determination system to ensure that acceptance outcomes for asylum seeker claims are consistent with our international obligations and with final acceptance rates for comparable cohorts in other countries. It is to be hoped that this review is not designed to produce what Foreign Minister Carr is hinting at.

    It should not be surprising that final decisions by the RRT will be more reliable than preliminary decisions by Immigration officials in the field. Newly arrived asylum seekers are likely to be confused and traumatised because of their escape and flight to safety. It is unlikely that they will have much helpful documentation. They are in an alien environment without much support. They will have to rely on an interpreter they do not know and who may not always be fully professional. The RRT does have the time and opportunity to more carefully and diligently review all the facts.

    Denis O’Brien, a leading lawyer who headed the RRT for five years dismissed Foreign Minister Carr’s claim and asserted ‘Members of the RRT have to apply the definition … under the Refugee Convention. So I don’t see a lot of scope for tightening up without running foul of the United Nations Commission for Refugees”. Several senior and experienced refugee rights lawyers have commented that Foreign Minister Carr’s contention will not work and will be subject to challenge in the courts.

    Comments by Foreign Minister Carr have diverted attention from the key issue, regional arrangements. This is where ministers and departments should be energetically applying their energies.

    A regional arrangement at the time of the Indochina outflow was successful. Only a similar type of arrangement will work in the future. The key will be burden-sharing – burden sharing by countries providing temporary accommodation for asylum seekers such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, and burden sharing by resettlement countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. Nothing else will work.

  • The dispute over the islands – leaving well alone. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

     

    Which of China or Japan has the stronger claim to the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea, the dispute that has driven their relations to the lowest point in 40 years?

    China’s case is that the islands, having been appropriated by imperial Japan, were forfeit when it surrendered to the Allies in 1945. Japan argues that China acquiesced in Tokyo’s annexation of the uninhabited islands in the 1890s and only changed its tune after oil and gas reserves were found nearby in the 1960s. From my reading of the facts neither argument can be sustained.

    The Potsdam Declaration of the surrender terms said “Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we [the Allies] determine.” The earlier Cairo Declaration – also cited by advocates of China’s case – was more polemical but less precise. The Allies’ war aim was to force Japan to give up territories “stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa and the Pescadores,” adding that it would be expelled “from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed.” Violence was not used to annex the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands (contrary to some accounts they were not acquired through the Sino-Japanese War) and greed is a shaky basis for apportioning blame in international affairs.

    When Japan accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration the surrender document signed in September 1945 set in train arrangements for the country’s demilitarization and occupation. It did not, however, place conditions on a future sovereign Japan – no more, say, than the surrender document General Percival signed in 1942 could be considered to bind the present government of Singapore.

    Some commentators treat the Potsdam Declaration as if it were a lodestone for determining the rights and wrongs of states’ actions in 2013. They argue that the Allies’ war aims were circumvented during and after the occupation by conservative forces in Washington and Tokyo and that that false outcome, frozen in time by the Cold War, can only now be put right as American power declines and China obtains the means to defend its interests. Since any argument mounted on the basis of the Potsdam Declaration also calls into question Japan’s sovereignty over the Okinawan islands, the fate of a few specks of land in the East China Sea may open a Pandora’s box.

    The international agreement more relevant to the case than either the Potsdam or Cairo documents is the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, which specifically addressed the scope of Japan’s postwar sovereignty. Under the treaty Japan renounced “right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores.” Some regard this provision as crucial because the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands traditionally were part of Formosa, or Taiwan. But early drafts of the treaty, which went into greater detail than the final document, did not treat the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands as part of Taiwan/China.

    Not only did the San Francisco Treaty fail to specify which state had sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Article 3 bestowed upon the United States trusteeship of territories south of 29 degrees north latitude including the Okinawan islands, as well as – in the view of Japanese and the American officials – the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Prior to the reversion of these territories to Japan in 1971, the PRC’s state-controlled media adopted the same perspective, notwithstanding that both China and Taiwan would challenge the legitimacy of the reversion (neither of the rival claimants to represent the government of China, communist or nationalist, had been invited to the peace conference).

    It is apparent that no existing international agreement clarifies the sovereignty question. The search for a solution, therefore, must focus back on how Japan and China managed the issue following the normalization of their relations in 1972 and why that modus operandi has broken down. In brief, the two countries preferred to let the issue rest in the background so they could get on with more important business. Now, for reasons to do with national pride, a shift in the regional power balance and the exigencies of internal politics, both find it useful to assert their claims and muscle up to each other. Claims of an imminent risk of military conflict, in my opinion, under-estimate the strategic patience of the two old rivals. There are inherent dangers in having patrol vessels shadowing each other in the disputed waters day after day but the situation currently seems to be under control.

    It is instructive, meanwhile, to look back at the preparations for the San Francisco peace conference and find that American officials identified “psychological disadvantages in seeming to fence Japan in” by imposing a continuous line around it. They felt that rigid territorial containment could prove provocative: an interesting perspective in light of the current debate on the best response to a resurgent China. The aspect I wish to stress is the value of ambiguity and flexibility as instruments of statecraft. They were once also the preferred tools of those charged with guiding Sino-Japanese relations. Diplomatic ambiguity, while much maligned, can derive from a commonsense refusal to second-guess the future; it can again serve the interests of all sides much better than the simplistic formulas of hardliners who dress up expediency as principle.

    Those who argue that the treaty planners of 1951 were irresponsible for failing to settle the territorial issue in definitive terms must believe nations will always act according to the prescriptions of previous generations. Patently this is not how the real world operates. China and Japan have changed dramatically since 1951; they have potent weapons, unimaginable back then, for future mutual support or mutual harm. It is beholden on responsible leaders to manage bilateral relations in the light of existing realities, not according to the dusted-off slogans and grievances of the past.

    Walter Hamilton reported from Japan for 11 years. His latest book is Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story

     

     

     

     

  • The ‘C’ Team vs. the Shadow Cabinet. John Menadue

    Tony Abbott has described the new Rudd Ministry as the ‘C’ team. He is very strong on one-liners, but is there much content behind them?

    Laura Tingle in the Australian Financial Review suggests that the new Rudd team could be a serious election contender because it focuses its strength on the likely key areas in the run-up to the next election. So let’s compare what Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott offer in ministerial talent.

    In Kevin Rudd’s team Anthony Albanese is a proven performer and will be much more effective than Stephen Conroy in making the case for the national broadband network.

    Tony Burke, who successfully negotiated the perilous waters of the Murray Darling Basin Agreement, even though two states still have to sign on. will be more politically savvy in Immigration than his predecessor Brendan O’Connor.

    Chris Bowen proved himself as the Minister for Finance, but his later administration of the Immigration portfolio was anything but successful. He replaces Wayne Swan as Treasurer.

    With the combination of good luck and good management, Wayne Swan can take credit for Australia being one of the most successful economies in the world, particularly through the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath. Yet he was unable to convey that success story to the Australian public. He did not handle the mining tax well and allowed his commitment to a budget surplus to over shadow the strong performance of the real economy. Despite the government’s achievements in economic management opinion polls consistently showed that the coalition was believed to be a better economic manager.

    Bill Shorten in the Education portfolio can use his undoubted communication skills to explain the government’s policies on improving opportunities for all Australian school children following the Gonski Report.

    Mark Butler, a possible future leader of the ALP takes over the important but politically tricky area of climate change and carbon pricing.

    The big loss to the ministry is Greg Combet.

    Some renovation of the ministry was necessary.  In addition to failure on explaining the case for the NBN Stephen Conroy  failed to get even modest media reform passed in the parliament, This was despite the fact that there was a clear majority in both houses for sensible media reform. Rupert Murdoch and News Limited had so antagonised many members of parliament that reform was not only necessary but possible. Stephen Conroy missed the opportunity.

    Brendan O’Connor made no progress in Immigration and his transfer out of that area was necessary.

    Jason Clare and Kate Lundy promised much on drug reform in sport, but didn’t deliver.

    Joe Ludwig, son of AWU powerbroker Bill Ludwig, has gone completely after the fiasco of the live cattle sales to Indonesia.

    As Laura Tingle suggests, the ministerial changes are explainable in both political and performance terms.

    But what of the shadow cabinet of Tony Abbott? Relying on winning government by default he does not seem to have given much attention to the quality of his team or policy development.

    Clearly Malcolm Turnbull is a very strong performer and the most publicly acceptable face of the Liberal Party. The ALP must be hoping that it is too late for the Liberals to also make a leadership change.

    Joe Hockey, the shadow Treasurer is showing recently a more positive approach.

    Eric Abetz who is Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has suggested that some asylum seekers should be treated the same way as paedophiles. He led the abortive attack on the OzCar affair and said that opposition to wood chipping was akin to treason.

    Scott Morrison the spokesperson on Immigration told us that asylum seekers are bringing disease and wads of cash. He spent the early part of his career promoting Australia as a wonderful tourist destination but now concentrates on telling people facing persecution what an awful country Australia really is as a safe haven. He dog whistles about the Muslim threat.

    Christopher Pyne the voluble spokesperson on education does not seem to have any policy on education funding.

    Greg Hunt, who is Shadow Minister for Climate Action offers us sketchy policies on direct action and ‘soil magic’ to reduce carbon pollution. Malcolm Turnbull described the party’s environmental platform as ‘crap’ that amounted to ‘an environmental fig leaf to cover a determination to do nothing’.

    Peter Dutton the Shadow Minister for Health is successfully keeping health policy a secret.

    Kevin Andrews in the Howard Government was responsible for the “Haneef affair” which cost Australia a lot in reputation and financial compensation.  He is shadow minister for families, housing and human services.

    Bronwyn Bishop who supported tobacco advertising has responsibility as shadow Special Minister for State and Minister for Seniors. She was suggested some years ago as a future Liberal Party leader along with John Elliott.

    Barnaby Joyce is the Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Water. He was criticised by the Governor of the Reserve Bank for suggesting debt default by his own country.

    Then we have Sophie Mirabella, with responsibility for industry, innovation and science. She got her position from Tony Abbott by opposing Malcolm Turnbull on climate change. In announcing his retirement, Tony Windsor said that she was the Member of Parliament he would not miss.

    And then there is George Brandis the shadow Attorney General

    Time will tell but the signs are that the renovated Rudd Cabinet will perform better than a “c” team.

  • What should Prime Minister Kevin Rudd do about boat arrivals? John Menadue

    The new government has indicated that it will be reviewing current policies on such issues as carbon reduction and boat arrivals. I have written extensively about asylum seekers and refugees. I suggest that in the short term, the PM should consider the following on boat arrivals.

    1. We need some perspective in the political debate. We should acknowledge that there is a political problem but there is no need to panic. We are a nation of immigrants and refugees. Our wealth is built on it. We had about 16,000 asylum seekers in 2012, although there has been a surge in recent months in boat arrivals (7,500 in the March quarter) compared with air arrivals (2,200 in the same quarter). In 2012 the US had 82,000 asylum claimants. In Germany it was 64,000, in France 55,000 and in Sweden 44,000. Our borders will never be completely secure but as an island continent and country we are much more secure than almost any other country and the number of asylum seekers coming to Australia is quite small compared with other countries. There is a world-wide problem of refugee flows eg Syria and we cannot isolate ourselves from the problem.
      Apart from our migration program of about 200,000 persons per annum, we have over 700,000 foreigners who can work in Australia under various temporary resident permits, e.g. 457, working holiday and student visas.
    2. Every new group that comes to Australia, whether migrants or refugees, has encountered opposition and sometimes hostility. There were problems but we worked through them. This opposition has included for example criticism of Germans, Jews, ‘Balts’, Italians and more recently, Vietnamese. But over time we came to accept and welcome their contribution to Australia. The same will be true of the current flow of asylum seekers to Australia. Migration and refugee intakes will always be work in progress with some bumps along the way .Our history tells us that we can be confident in overcoming the problems.
    3. Refugees are great settlers. They are highly motivated, initially for their own survival, but for their future in their new country together with their children. Without that motivation they would not have fled in the first place. I wrote about the success of refugees in my blog ‘Never underestimate a survivor’ on June 27.
    4. Initiate diplomatic action and open discussions with countries which are the source of refugee flows, e.g. Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.  With the cooperation of those governments, who are often glad to get rid of dissidents, we should aim to negotiate   orderly departure arrangements that would allow persons facing persecution to come to Australia as migrants, not as refugees. Many such persons in those countries would have family in Australia and will take to the boats if there is no alternative eg Hazaras in Afghanistan and Pakistan… Australia negotiated an Orderly Departure Program with the Vietnam Government in 1983 which enabled 100,000 Vietnamese to come to Australia in an orderly way and without risking their lives at sea.
    5. Renewed efforts must be made to build regional cooperation. Without that collaboration there will never be any long-term ‘solution’ to boat arrivals. That regional cooperation was essential during the Indochina outflow of the late 1970s and 1980s. It is also true today.  Australia should propose a regional conference on asylum seekers and displacement. Australia should offer to host such a regional conference. This action is designed to accelerate the ‘Bali process’. This process began many years ago by addressing regional concerns about crime, smuggling and trafficking in persons. It has now developed into a regional collaboration on refugee flows and human displacement as well as crime. It needs new impetus.Regional countries have major refugee burdens. Thailand has 600,000 people of concern to the UNHCR. Malaysia has more than 200,000 displaced persons within its country. Australia has a much lighter load, 30,000 refugees and 20,000 asylum seekers pending determination of their status.

      The concept of regional burden sharing is essential if there is to be long-term success. That burden-sharing must be not only by the host countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, but also by resettlement countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the US, which has just joined the Bali process.

      In urgently building on Bali, we should include in that collaboration the NGOs and other elements in civil society who have an interest and concern on asylum seekers and refugees. Their involvement will help create a less politicised environment in which to explore and develop long-term resettlement.

    6. As part of this regional framework, PM Rudd should propose to the Indonesian President that in collaboration with UNHCR a regional processing centre be established in Indonesia. Australia should offer to fund a substantial part of the centre as well as other costs that Indonesia bears as a temporary refuge for persons in transit through its country. It would be better value for money than the billions we spend/waste on mandatory detention. We should also offer to provide education, health and employment opportunities for persons in Indonesia who have been closely involved in the region from which boats embark for Christmas Island.
    7. The Gillard Government correctly decided to progressively release detainees into the community on bridging visas whilst their refugee status was being determined. The numbers of such released persons is imposing a heavy burden on NGOs, including the churches. These asylum seekers on bridging visas are also not allowed to work. The new government should change policy on this immediately and allow asylum seekers to work and contribute to the economy whilst their status is being determined. It is claimed that to allow them to work would provide an incentive for more asylum seekers to come. There is no evidence anywhere in the world that would support this contention. See my blog of March 8.

    All of the above should be seen as part of a package to address the divisive and futile issue of asylum seekers.

    It is to be hoped that PM Rudd will not try to take us down the morally dubious and factually unsupported track that Foreign Minister Bob Carr is suggesting – that most refugees are in fact economic migrants and presumably not deserving a humanitarian response. After review, the Refugee Review Tribunal has found that 90% of boat arrivals are genuine migrants. The RRT has more facts before it than the Department of Immigration and presumably ministers. It may be politically attractive to go down the track that Bob Carr proposes but there are no facts that I know of which would support his contention.

    The biggest mistakes of the previous government on these issues was to commission the Expert Panel and then to reverse its position and re-open Nauru and Manus. The government was told that Nauru and Manus would not work again, and that has turned out to be correct. The number of boat arrivals has kept increasing. The reversal of policy on Nauru and Manus also made the government look weak and indecisive.

    A regional response is the only viable way forward. It will not be a dead end as so much refugee “policy” is at present. But it will take time. We must put in the “hard yards” here but be patient at the same time. Don’t panic.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Stopping the boats decently – can it be done? Guest blogger: Frank Brennan SJ

    In this last financial year, “25,145 people have arrived on 394 boats – an average of over 70 people and more than a boat a day” as Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott’s Shadow Minister never tires of telling us.  Except for Sri Lankans, most of those arriving by boat come not directly from their country of persecution but via various countries with Indonesia being their penultimate stop.   There is an understandable bipartisan concern in the Australian parliament about the blowout of boat arrivals to 3,300 per month.  An arrival rate of that sort (40,000 pa) puts at risk the whole offshore humanitarian program and distorts the migration and family reunion program.

    Here are the contours for a better approach here in Australia – better than committing to forcibly turning around boats on the high seas, à la Abbott, and better than transporting people to Nauru and Manus Island for processing or to Malaysia to join an asylum queue of 100,000 or permitting people to reside in the Australian community but without work rights and with inadequate welfare provision under the rubric of a “no advantage” test, à la Gillard.  We must abandon the ill-defined, unworkable “no advantage test”.  It’s not a test at all; it’s not a principle; it’s not a policy; it’s a slogan as unhelpful as “Stop the boats”.

    The contours follow the letter and spirit of the Refugee Convention against a backdrop of our providing at least 20,000 humanitarian places a year in our migration program, 12,000 of those being for refugees.

    We need to ensure that those risking the perilous sea voyage are in direct flight from persecution being unable to avail themselves adequate protection or processing en route in Indonesia.  If they were able to avail themselves such services in Indonesia, the Australian government would be entitled to set up disincentives and to return them safely to Indonesia.  If that number were in direct flight from persecution, the Australian government would be justified in setting up measures providing only temporary protection and denying family reunion other than on terms enjoyed by other migrants.  But I don’t think that would be necessary.  It should be a matter not of taking the sugar off the table but of trying to put the sugar out of reach except to those in direct flight from persecution, and leaving the sugar available to those who manage to reach the table whether by plane or boat, with or without a visa. And that’s because there is always sugar on Australian tables no matter who is sitting with us.  And so it should remain.  I have never understood why the less than honest asylum seeker arriving by plane, having sought a visa not for asylum but for tourism or business, should be given preferential treatment over the honest asylum seeker arriving by boat who says, “I am here to seek asylum.”

    Boats carrying asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia could legally be indicted by Australian authorities within our contiguous zone (24 nautical miles offshore from land, including Christmas Island).  The passengers could be offloaded and taken to Christmas Island for a prompt assessment to ensure that none of them fit the profile of a person in direct flight from Indonesia fearing persecution by Indonesia.  Pursuant to a regional arrangement or bilateral agreement between Australia and Indonesia, Indonesia could guarantee not to refoule any person back to the frontiers of a country where they would face persecution nor to remove any person to a country unwilling to provide that guarantee.  Screened asylum seekers from Christmas Island could then be safely flown back to Indonesia for processing.

    With adequate resourcing, a real queue could be created for processing and resettlement.  Provided there had been an earlier, extensive advertising campaign, Indonesian authorities would then be justified in placing any returned boat people at the end of the queue.  Assured safe return by air together with placement at the end of the queue would provide the deterrent to persons no longer in direct flight from persecution risking life and fortune boarding a boat for Australia. In co-operation with UNHCR and IOM, Australia could provide the financial wherewithal to enhance the security and processing arrangements in Indonesia.  Both governments could negotiate with other countries in the region to arrange  more equitable burden sharing in the offering of resettlement places for those proved to be refugees.  Australian politicians would need to give the leadership to the community explaining why it would be necessary and decent for Australia then to receive more proven refugees from the region, including those who fled to our region fearing persecution in faraway places like Afghanistan.

    The safeguards negotiated in Indonesia and any other country in the region to which unprocessed asylum seekers were to be sent would need to comply with the minimum safeguards set by the Houston Expert Panel when they reviewed the Gillard Government’s proposed Malaysia Arrangement.  The Panel said:

    There are concerns that relate to the non-legally binding nature of the Arrangement, the scope of oversight and monitoring mechanisms, the adequacy of pre-transfer assessments, channels for appeal and access to independent legal advice, practical options for resettlement as well as issues of compliance with international law obligations and human rights standards (particularly in relation to non-refoulement, conditions in Malaysia, standards of treatment and unaccompanied minors).

    (This blog is an extract from Frank Brennan’s Reply to “Get back to where you once belonged!”, a presentation by Jeff Crisp, the Head of the Policy Division and Evaluation Service of UNHCR in Geneva, at this week’s National Asylum Summit at the Hawke Centre, University of South Australia)

  • Never underestimate a survivor. John Menadue

    It is surprising to see that the Foreign Minister Bob Carr suggests that we need to be much tougher in refugee determination as many claimants for refugee status are really economic refugees.

    Some claimants will undoubtedly be economic migrants posing as refugees. But the refugee determination process which we and others have developed over decades is designed to sort this out and reject those who claim our protection if they are not genuine refugees.

    The figures do not support Bob Carr’s proposition. After a thorough review by the Refugee Determination Tribunal, about 90% of boat arrivals are found to be genuine refugees. This figure of 90% is derived from the most recent DIAC statistics. For air arrivals who seek refugee protection, the ‘success rate’ is less than half the success rate for boat arrivals.

    Where is Bob Carr getting his figures from to justify his argument about economic migrants? The figures that I am familiar with just do not support his claim. The ‘problem’ will not go away by half-baked theories that cannot be sustained by the facts.

    In our discussion on asylum seekers and refugees, the major emphasis is on our generosity in giving a safe haven to persons who have been persecuted. That is the way it should be, but Australia has been a major beneficiary of refugee flows in the past.

    As responsible members of the human family, we have a strong moral case to provide protection for refugees who are the victims of persecution and violence.

    There is also a strong case in our own self-interest Refugees are almost by definition risk-takers and entrepreneurial. It can be argued that refugees are amongst the most highly motivated and determined in the Australian community.

    In desperate situations, refugees make a decision to flee. They abandon almost everything for the hope of freedom, security and opportunity elsewhere. In a sense they ‘select themselves’ better than a migration officer ever could. It is hard to assess the motivation and risk-taking of a migrant applicant. Refugees show it by doing.

    Since WWII, Australia has settled over 750,000 refugees from war-torn countries and societies wracked with violence and persecution. Settlement in Australia has not been trouble-free. It is always work in progress. But it has been a great success story in which Australians can be proud. The loss of constructive bi-partisanship threatens what we have done well in the past.

    Some well-known refugees have contributed to this success story – Judy Cassab, Anh Do, Mirka Mora, Wolfgang Sievers, Henry Szeps,  Tuong Quang Luu, Les Murray, Sir Gustav Nossal, Frank Lowy, Harry Seidler, and Bishop Vincent Van Nguyen.

    But more important than the well-known names are the hundreds of thousands of refugee families who have quietly gone about building their families, communities, acquiring skills, getting a job and educating their children. Early days are difficult for refugees. They come with little or no financial resources, their skills are probably not recognised and they will usually have language difficulties. These early difficulties are reflected in higher levels of unemployment and concentration in lowly paid jobs.

    But their situation steadily and rapidly improves. Professor Graeme Hugo, ARC Australian Professorial Fellow, in his study ‘Economic, Social and Civic Contributions of First and Second Generation Humanitarian Entrants’ of May 2011, describes their contribution.

    • Refugees are younger and have higher fertility levels than the Australian population as a whole.
    • They are increasingly settling in regional Australia.
    • They place a high store on education for their children. 48% of second generation people who are Australian born have post-school qualifications. For the total refugee groups, the percentage is much high at 59%, with some refugee groups showing remarkably high levels of post-school qualifications, e.g. Estonia 65%, Latvia 65%, Slovakia 65%, Sri Lanka 61%.
    • Refugees are more likely to demonstrate entrepreneurial and risk-taking attributes. They have a higher incidence of owning their own businesses than other migrant groups.
    • The second generation of refugee settlers have a much higher level of labour force engagement than the first generation and in many cases, the level is higher than for second generation Australians.

    Their commitment to Australia is also shown in their uptake of citizenship.  A study prepared for OECD by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (October 2010) reveals that the naturalisation rate by birthplace for all foreign-born is 80%. For significant refugee groups it is much higher – Croatia 97%, Poland 96% and Vietnam 97%. For New Zealand it is 45%, for the United Kingdom 71% and the United States 70%.

    Not surprisingly, refugees in their early years are ‘takers’ of Australian generosity. But year by year they increasingly become great contributors. They pay back many times the generosity they initially receive. They contribute to Australia out of all proportion to their number. It is a great success story for all Australians.

    In spite of Government timidity, coalition opportunism and media failure, we can draw inspiration from the very successful refugee programs of the past. Australian business and society generally have been great beneficiaries. It is in our self-interest, as well as for sound moral reasons that we need to break with the stalemate and toxic debate that surrounds refugees. Doing the right thing really pays off.

    John Menadue

     

  • Japanese Pacifist Constitution in Danger. Guest blogger: John Woodward

     

    The Japanese pacifist constitution prohibits Japan from waging war. This restriction will be removed if the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has his way. And he is likely to succeed come the 21 July national election for the Upper House of the Japanese Diet (parliament).

    Abe’s government is riding high in polls since his Liberal Democratic Party election win in late December 2012. His government now controls more than 2/3rds of the lower house. After 21 July elections he is likely to have 2/3rds support in the Upper House. On a 2/3rds majority vote in each house the constitution can be amended in the Diet. A majority vote of the Japanese people in a referendum is also required. But the crucial first step for Abe is amending the constitution in the Diet.

    Abe’s goal is to amend Article 9 of the constitution, the pacifist provision. Article 9 proclaims that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes”. Abe has avoided amendment specifics.

    Abe’s tactic is first to amend Article 96. It states “amendments to this constitution shall be initiated by the Diet, through a concurring vote of two-thirds or more of all the members of each house and shall thereupon be submitted to the people for ratification, which shall require the affirmative vote of a majority of all votes cast, at a referendum or at special election such as the diet shall specify”. Abe’s first step is to reduce Article 96 requirement to a simple majority in each house – to make it easy to amend the constitution in the Diet in the future.

    Abe can then take the next step to amend Article 9 in the Diet.  On Abe’s agenda is a proposed change to Article 9 to enable Japan to engage in “collective self defence”. Many high placed American defence and former government spokesmen have publicly urged Japan’s engagement in collective self defence. For obvious reasons, it is the United States self interests for Japan to join the US in its wars.

    Japan has resisted to-date based on Article 9. Abe has made reference to the UN when speaking about constitutional amendment. His position will be to argue a collective self defence amendment of Article 9 is in line with the UN charter, Article 51, which affirms the right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations. But is it a good reason to amend Article 9?

    Media polls are indicating support for constitutional amendment, but it’s far from clear what precise amendments are supported. If a poll question on collective self defence was put to the Japanese people, “Do you want your sons and daughters to fight for America in its wars”, one would expect a resounding no.

    With most media supporting constitutional change, and Abe’s constitutional amendments rammed through the Diet, how will the Japanese people vote? How will they become informed on the implications of amendments? These are the big questions facing the 21 July election and a referendum. At present, a lack of information and debate exists in Japan on these issues.

    John Woodward is an Australian lawyer resident in Japan

     

     

     

     

  • Back from the brink of disaster. John Menadue

     

    Many people and particularly women will be disappointed that our first female Prime Minister has been forced out. She has been most unfairly treated by the media. Things have been said about her by Tony Abbott and others that would not be said about a male Prime Minister.

    But my view is that a change to Kevin Rudd was desirable for several reasons.

    • Under Julia Gillard’s leadership the electoral prospects for the ALP were catastrophic. Tony Abbott’s majority could have been so large that it would take two and possibly three terms to turn it around.
    • The Australian public had stopped listening to Julia Gillard. Even excellent policy was not getting a hearing.
    • There will now be a real choice at the next election that will reassure many people who are genuinely concerned about the prospects of Tony Abbott as our next Prime Minister.
    • Kevin Rudd will be a much more effective opponent of Tony Abbott.

    I said in a blog recently that the ALP was increasingly looking like a suicide cult rather than the most successful political party in Australia’s history. The ALP has turned back from the brink. The ALP caucus has behaved rationally in forcing a change. The 11th hour changes will at least minimize the government’s losses at the next election.

    Kevin Rudd has certainly been a destabilizing influence since he was deposed three years ago by Julia Gillard and others. But it was a litany of her own political mistakes that in the end brought Julia Gillard down.

    • Getting rid of an elected Prime Minister in 2010 was certainly going to cost Julia Gillard a lot in public trust.
    • It was exaggerated, but she broke a promise given explicitly on the carbon tax, although she was not the first Prime Minister to break a promise. We all remember John Howard’s distinction between core and non-core promises. The media hammered her unmercifully over this issue.
    • Together with Wayne Swan she locked the government into an unnecessary commitment to a budget surplus this financial year.
    • She mishandled the announcement of the date of an election and there was confusion over ministerial resignations.
    • But the biggest political mistake in my view was her backing away from the reform of the ramshackle ALP organisational structure. She failed this test of leadership. The reform of the party machine still remains unfinished work.

    Her policy achievements have been considerable.

    • Despite the rage and angst of Tony Abbott, the “hung parliament” has been successful in passing key legislation and giving a voice to Independents and backbenchers. Tony Abbott has been the key figure in attempting to wreck the parliament. I wrote about this in my blog of June 2. In the hung parliament she proved herself a very good negotiator with the Independents.  The Independents were not impressed by Tony Abbott.
    • We have had six years of uninterrupted economic growth, even through the global financial crisis. Partly by good luck and partly by good management, we have one of the best performing economies in the world.
    • Economic growth is strong and inflation and unemployment are low.
    • Net government debt is lower at 12% of GDP than almost any other country. In Japan it is 134%, US 88%, France 84%, UK 83% and NZ 26%.
    • We are building a first class communication system in the NBN.
    • Superannuation is being progressively extended.
    • The National Disability Insurance Scheme and the Gonski Education Reforms will be historic achievements of the Gillard Government.

    The Gillard Government’s problems were overwhelmingly political and of its own making.

    We will have to wait a few days to see what Kevin Rudd does on some key policy issues, particularly on carbon pollution and asylum seekers.

    Hopefully on the latter, he can give us the leadership to move away from fear and xenophobia. It will not be easy with Tony Abbott intent on inciting fear and exaggerating the problem. But I believe Australians will respond to strong moral leadership.

    The key to improved policies for asylum seekers is first to take action in source countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan to provide alternatives for people facing persecution so they will not have to take dangerous voyages by boat. The second is action with Indonesia and Malaysia, in full and active cooperation with UNHCR, to provide a regional framework for the holding and processing of asylum seekers.

    But whatever we do, desperate people will not necessarily play by our rules. The desperate asylum seekers in Syria for example won’t wait for government policies. They will act to save the lives of themselves and their families.

    The number of refugees in the world is increasing significantly. We must be realistic about that and accept greater responsibility. We cannot retreat into our shell.

    The Gillard Government ran for cover on this issue. Hopefully the Rudd Government will give us humanitarian leadership, even if tinged by some political pragmatism.

  • Taiwan shows the way in health insurance. John Menadue

    I have spoken and written many times about the inefficiency and inequity of the taxpayer subsidy of $3.5 billion annually to the private health insurance funds in Australia. These funds favour the wealthy; enable some people to jump to the top of the hospital queue; they have administrative costs  three times those of Medicare; they weaken Medicare’s ability to control costs and through gap insurance they have facilitated the largest increase in specialists’ fees in a quarter of a century in Australia.

    They have not taken the pressure of public hospitals .In fact they have made it worse by helping private hospitals pay vastly higher salaries to bid specialists away from public hospitals.

    Yet the vested interests and private sector ideologues want to extend PHI and take us down the disastrous US path.

    Taiwan however has shown the best way to go. It is so confident and proud of what it has achieved that it has taken advertisements in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs. Taiwan is about the same size as Australia with a developed capitalist economy.

    The Taiwan Government has consolidated all health insurance into a single payer. The plan has improved the quality of health care with rising life expectancies and falling infant mortality rates. The public rates the success of the Taiwan Health Service at 80%.

    Like all health systems, Taiwan has faced rising costs with new technology, new drugs and ageing, but it has contained costs effectively. Total health expenditure in Taiwan is only 6.5% of GDP, much lower than the median for OECD countries and Australia at 9% of GDP.

    Based on the core principles of equity, quality and efficiency, Taiwan is showing that a single payer is the key to a top-class health service and is the best means to control costs. The worst course for Australia to take would be to encourage the proliferation of taxpayer subsidised PHI funds that fail on both efficiency and equity grounds. But if the PHI industry has its way Medicare will be under threat and we will start journeying down the US path of multiple private health insurance funds that are unable to control costs and ensure equity.

    John Menadue

  • Julia Gillard’s greatest failure. John Menadue

    The Prime Minister’s greatest failure is her refusal to lead the reform of the structure of the ALP.

    That structure is controlled by a handful of faction and union bosses like Paul Howes. In return for protecting their positions, they are now repaying their debt to her by shoring up her precarious position.

    The last ALP federal conference considered a report by Steve Bracks, John Faulkner and Bob Carr for modest party reform. Julia Gillard failed to provide leadership on these reforms and the ALP is now paying a very heavy price.

    The rank-and-file of ALP members are appalled and disillusioned. As John Faulkner put it the ALP is a small party now growing smaller and an old party growing older. In the present impasse the ALP is behaving more like a suicide cult than the most successful political party in Australian history.

    There is only one person who could have broken through the impasse imposed by the self-interested faction bosses. That person was the parliamentary leader of the Australian Labor Party. Only the parliamentary leader has the status and the authority to lead the ALP in structural reform. No-one else can do it.

    In the appalling situation that the ALP faced in the 1960s and the early 1970s, there was only one person who could cajole, persuade and force the ALP machine to act against its own selfish interests. It was Gough Whitlam who stared down the faceless and witless men and forced change. He put his own job on the line on several occasions to overcome the internal opposition. He got rid of the faceless men. He engineered the sacking of the Victorian branch of the ALP that was a dead weight in the ALP organization. A similar sacking of the NSW branch should have occurred in the last twelve months to start restoring the ALP’s parlous position in NSW. But Julia Gillard did not lead the process of structural reform.

    What would be the key elements of a reformed ALP structure? Some of these were canvassed by Bracks, Faulkner and Carr two years ago.

    • An electoral college composed of members of the parliamentary ALP and branch members of each federal electorate council of the ALP to choose the parliamentary leader.
    • Selection of ALP candidates by ALP supporters in each federal electorate registered with the Australian Electoral Commission. Care would need to be exercised to avoid abuse. The present situation is unacceptable whereby only about 100 to 200 ALP members select the federal candidate in each electorate.  There are probably about 40,000 ALP voters in each electorate but their choice is limited by the ability of a hand-full of party members, with the help of branch-stacking from time to time, to choose the candidate.
    • The federal conference of the ALP should consist of a delegate from each federal electorate council in Australia (about 150) plus a lesser number of federal union delegates. The power of the state branches that are controlled by a hand-full of state union officials must be broken. We need a national ALP. At the moment we have a confederation of six state parties

    The existing factional bosses will resist these changes because reform will reduce their power. These bosses are content with a shrinking constituency as long as their own power is retained and entrenched.

    The ramshackle and unreprestative structure of the ALP often reminds me of the Catholic Church. Both need leadership at the top to force change.

    Julia Gillard has failed to lead the reform process in the ALP. She is the only person who had the clout and the status to do so. She has not done so.

  • Beware the debt and deficit trap and the European mistake. John Menadue

     

    The Europeans may at last be breaking free of the debt and deficit trap that has caused so much social and economic damage across Europe. Even the IMF is at last challenging the austerity mindset that took hold in Europe. There is a lesson for Australia in this.

    The Australian Government has allowed itself to be manipulated into a debt and deficit trap set by the Coalition. To head off Coalition and media criticism, it foolishly decided that it must get the budget into surplus this financial year. It succumbed to this pressure despite the fact that Australia does not have a serious debt and deficit problem.

    There is a risk that if the Coalition becomes the Government in September we will have established a mindset that favours austerity. That same austerity mindset has got Europe into a terrible bind with unemployment across Europe at over 11%. Youth unemployment, for people under 25 years of age, is double that general rate. In some countries youth unemployment is appalling – Spain 56%, Portugal 38%, Italy 38% and Cyprus 32%. These levels of unemployment amongst young people not only bring great personal hardship but also present the possibility of major social and political upheaval. At this stage, most of that social and political resentment has been directed against foreign workers, Muslims and outsiders. We have seen it particularly in the UK in recent days with anti Muslim clashes.

    The austerity drive, bringing with it the disillusement of the young is undermining liberal democracy and spawning a whole range of populist, nationalist and neo fascist parties across Europe; the Golden Dawn in Greece, the anarchist Five Star movement in Italy, the anti Arab National Front in France and the europhobic United Kingdom Independence Party.

    A great deal of this push for austerity in Europe has been supported and underwritten by conservative economists.  Rogoff and Reinhart, American economists sold us a bill of goods that once debt exceeded 90% it would trigger major economic collapse. It turned out that Rogoff and Reinhart made some major errors in their methodology, but conservative economists supported them and indulged their political ideology to try and rebut the Keynesian thesis that the boom is the time for austerity and not recession.

    The right wing of the Republican Party in the US joined in the clamour for austerity. Their argument was supported by ideologues who asserted that booms encouraged moral laxity and that it was necessary to ‘purge the rottenness from the system’ as President Herbert Hoover was advised in the lead-up to the Great Depression in the US. That moral judgement is fine for people who have little to lose. But many people suffer badly..

    Tony Abbott and the Coalition have been continually telling us about the perils of debt and deficits. With the Australian economy weakening as the OECD has just warned there is a risk that the Coalition will seek to imitate the austerity drive of the Europeans. That austerity drive has not reduced deficits and it has caused untold personal and social harm.

    There is a clear lesson to be learned from Europe about obsessions with debt and deficits in times of recession or a weakening economy. Beware on the austerity mindset.

     

     

     

  • The Vatican appeals in vain for decency towards refugees. John Menadue

     

    On June 6, the Vatican emphasized that governments protect refugees. It said that the world’s governments must give ‘absolute priority’ to the fundamental rights of refugees.

    Cardinal Veglio who heads the Pontifical Council for Migrants said:

    ‘Protection must be guaranteed to all who live under conditions of forced migration, taking into account their specific means, which can vary from a residency permit for victims of human trafficking to the possibility of being granted citizenship for those who are stateless.’ He added that policies in this area must be ‘guided by the principle of the centrality and dignity of every human person’.

    He spoke with ‘dismay that governments have adopted policies that subject refugees to confined detention, internment in refugee camps and having their travel and their rights to work restricted’. Those comments were not directed specifically to Australia but they apply to almost everything we do to humiliate refugees whether in respect of detention, travel or work rights.

    He referred specifically to the 4 million people who have been driven from their homes by the fighting in Syria.

    Despite the Vatican pleas, Cardinal Pell and Tony Abbott, our Jesuit-trained leader of the coalition, have said nothing in response.

    In Australia we tie ourselves in political knots over 20,000 asylum seekers who come by boat. But countries bordering Syria have opened their borders, hearts and pockets to help desperate people fleeing Syria. The number of “registered” Syrian refugees now stands at 1.6 million. Lebanon has taken 520,000 refugees, Jordan 475,000, Turkey 376,000, Iraq 159,000 and Egypt 79,000. There are also an estimated additional 2 million unregistered refugees. About a quarter of the population of Lebanon are now refugees who have fled Syria.

    The generous hospitality of these relatively poor countries stands in stark contrast to our miserable and selfish hostility to the very small number of people who are in desperate need and come to our borders. Inevitably some of the people spilling out of Syria will come to our shores. On the basis of their rhetoric to date Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison will call them illegals and criminals.

    Last week the UNHCR and 124 other organizations launched the largest humanitarian appeal ever for $US2.9 billion to support Syrian refugees. What a reflection it is on us that in our latest federal budget the Australian government proposes to spend $A2.9 billion on refugee detention services! What a perverse and selfish country we have become!

    The government shows very little leadership on this unfolding human tragedy in Syria and elsewhere. It consults focus groups rather than its own conscience. The coalition sees it as a political opportunity to exploit fear.

    Shame on Australia.

  • What is powering Japan’s foreign policy? Guest blogger Walter Hamilton

     

    Could it be they are handing out “macho pills” at the Japanese Foreign Ministry? Has it become de rigueur for the country’s diplomats to browbeat international forums? Are internal divisions within the ministry about to break out into open policy warfare? 

    There are at present enough straws in the wind to invite these questions.

    The metaphoric “macho pills” might explain the extraordinary outburst by Japan’s Human Rights Ambassador (and former Ambassador to Australia), Hideaki Ueda, during a recent UN committee hearing. He was responding to an African delegate’s criticism of Japan for not allowing lawyers to be present during police interrogations of suspects. As Ueda attempted to explain how his country was among the “most advanced” in this field, there were audible sniggers from unidentified attendees. “Don’t laugh! Why are you laughing?” protested Ueda. “Shut up! Shut up!” (The rant is viewable on YouTube.) Although one may make allowances for the wear-and-tear of spending too much time at UN talkfests, this was an ugly face to bring to a discussion on human rights. It might be best if Mr. Ueda goes off the pills. 

    The “macho pills”, meanwhile, are being crunched like sembei crackers over at the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo. When a former head of the Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, Hitoshi Tanaka, aired his concern in the press about an apparent shift to the right in foreign policy, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave him a shellacking on Facebook. Tanaka, he said, was “not qualified” to talk about diplomacy because he had previously shown a gross lack of judgement when handling the delicate issue of Japanese kidnapped to North Korea. Abe did not hesitate to reveal details of government discussions to which had been privy. 

    Reports indicate Abe is about to elevate Akitaka Saiki to the position of Vice Foreign Minister (the ministry’s top bureaucratic role), replacing an appointee who has been in the job only a year. Saiki is another who is well known to Australian diplomats. His elevation will not have been hindered by his previous support for Abe’s tough line on North Korea, a policy area in which Saiki has particular expertise. He is also a former Ambassador to India – a relationship Japan wishes to foster as a counterweight to China. Some reports suggest he takes a hawkish position on the Senkaku/Diaoyu territorial dispute, although that would simply reflect current government policy. The same reports are foreshadowing a larger clean out of positions in the Foreign Ministry to better align policymaking with the views of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. With the vexed question of constitutional change very much in play under the LDP’s leadership, the party and the government will want a unified diplomatic offensive to explain its tampering with the constitution’s pacifist clauses.

    The appearance of a ministry undergoing internal ructions – and of some elements within and without resenting the political whip hand – is becoming more of a spectacle day by day.

     

    Walter Hamilton is a former Tokyo Correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the author of  “Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story”.

  • The personal, public and social costs of mistakes in health. John Menadue

    After examining more than 14,000 hospital admissions in NSW and SA, the national cost of harm from avoidable  adverse events (mistakes) in our hospitals was estimated at  just over$2 b pa in 1995/96. This study was undertaken by the Task Force on Quality of Australian Health Care which reported to Health Minister Carmen Lawrence.  51% of all  mistakes were estimated to be avoidable and would represent nearly 500,000 preventable hospital bed days per year. The task force commented that these mistakes “are a problem that overshadows all others in the health sector”

    Professor Richardson and Dr McKie from the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University in 2008 commented ‘preventable deaths … occur at a rate equivalent to a Bali bombing every three days’. Deaths, losses and costs are staggering.

    In 2011 Professor Richardson told the Melbourne Age that the issue of adverse events in the Australian health system should dominate all others. However it would be closer to the truth to describe it as Australia’s best kept secret”

    Ministers, clinicians and administrators all prefer to brush it under the carpet.

    If we take the $2 billion cost in 1995/96, project it forward, include non-hospital mistakes as well as the cost to families and individuals denied an income earner, or the effects of disability, the cost is close to $5 billion p.a. I think this is a very conservative estimate

    Despite tens of millions of dollars spent on inquiries and committees; no discernible progress has been made in improving quality and enhancing safety. COAG established the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care in 2006 but improvements are hard to find. “Insiders “are still in charge. Asking “insiders “to keep reviewing our health sector is a major reason for the lack of success in health reform. To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling “What do they know of health who only health know”? A lot could be learned about safety from other industries e.g. aviation.

    Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales  recently commented to me …”No one thinks that we are reducing the levels in rates  or absolute numbers of adverse events much at all despite much effort” Regular newspaper stories confirm the continuing problem. But there is little analysis of the system problems that are at the heart of the malaise. Some hospitals are not safe and should be closed. Others require role delineation to ensure a sufficient scale for efficient and safe operation. The lack of effective action by the Commonwealth and State Governments is scandalous.

    In many of our hospitals managerial governance and clinical governance run in parallel but not together. It is an absurd way to run often quite large enterprises. Some hospitals are run more like a cottage enterprise, with clinicians coming and going from their private practises. Mandatory disclosures and compulsory hospital accreditation, as well as transparency, are urgent requirements.

    Good people are caught up in a bad system. The aviation industry has shown that culture is a very important determinant of safety. In aviation, the question is asked ‘what went wrong and how do we find a systemic solution?’ Unfortunately in health, the question often is ‘what went wrong and who can we blame?’

    John Menadue

     

     

  • Are we serious about Asia? Guest blogger: Steve FitzGerald

    In my blog ‘On smoko’ of  2 April 2013 I again raised the issue of Australia’s continuing failure to equip itself for our future in Asia. I asked whether we would go on smoko again, as we had following the Garnaut Report of 1989. Professor Steve FitzGerald responded to this blog with some comments. I thought it would be useful to highlight again what he has said about the recently announced Asian Century Strategic Advisory Board. Incidentally, I was in touch with the Implementation Secretariat of the Asian Century Strategic Advisory Board on 5 April 2013. I asked how many of the Advisory Board can fluently speak an Asian language and their names. I am still waiting for a reply. Steve FitzGerald who was previously Australian Ambassador to China, wrote as follows:

    Smoko’s right! When you look at the recently announced Asian Century Strategic Advisory Board ( http://asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/about/board), you have to wonder if they even understand what they are talking about.

    Why is there no one from Asia on the Board? Peter Varghese’s ancestry is Asian, and we should be pleased he’s there because he’s very bright and also independent-minded, but he’s there because he’s ex officio as the Australian head of DFAT. There are dozens of people in Asia who know Australia and would like to see it truly engage with the region, who are prepared to cast a critical eye over our endeavours and to be very frank in close quarters discussion. Kishore Mahbubani or George Yeo in Singapore for example. Or Dewi Fortuna Anwar in indonesia. The composition of the Board reflects a sadly insular thinking. Its discussion and advice can only be like listening to your own voice. I don’t see how you can be dinkum about engaging with Asia if you don’t include people from Asia in the strategic body that’s supposed to guide the way you do the engagement. Did it simply not occur to them? And if that was beyond their ken, surely there ought to have been some Australian Asians, to reflect the contemporary Australian demographic and show genuineness in their intent.

    What about the Board Members who are there? Apart from Peter Drysdale, where are the other seasoned Asianists who have studied and have deep knowledge and experience of the region? Where are the intellectuals (if that’s not too dirty a word) who’ve spent years thinking about these issues? Where are the people who’ve been working on the frontline of education and understand why so many attempts to put Asian languages and studies into the mainstream of schools and universities have failed? Why not some of the people from Asialink who did studies on the state of Indonesian, Japanese and Chinese studies a few years ago? Or someone like Colin Mackerras, who’s been round this track so many times he could save them fifty meetings on the subject and as many information papers? I know it’s not all about languages and studies, but just as an engineer can’t design a bridge without basic training and all the knowledge that’s gone into that training, so also you can’t design a total strategy for Asia without the equivalent in training, skills and knowledge on the part of the designers. Or what about Hugh White, strategic and defence expert yet one who in 2011 came up with the most innovative proposal for Australia’s Asian language learning challenge we’ve seen in a generation? Why not a couple of our high-ranking recently retired diplomats, who know so much more about Asia and what the engagement demands of us than just how to count the money? And what about young people? For example from among young Asian specialists in academia, or one of those who has studied an Asian language and done all the right things and can’t get a job that uses their skills, or one of the young Asian Australians who see this all from a different perspective? These are the ones who will live through the Asian century and have to live with whatever we make of it now, or don’t.

    Smoko anyone? Let’s just roll our own.