Pearls and Irritations

Category: Immigration

  • Graham Freudenberg. Gough Whitlam Commemorative Oration.

     You will see below what I think is a remarkable speech by Graham Freudenberg about Gough Whitlam’s contemporary relevance.  This oration is much longer than I normally post on this blog, but it is an outstanding oration which I am sure you will enjoy.  The Whitlam Institute will also be publicising this oration.  John Menadue

    THE WHITLAM INSTITUTE

    GOUGH WHITLAM COMMEMORATIVE ORATION

    “Contemporary Relevance, comrade”:

    Gough Whitlam in the 21st century

    Graham Freudenberg

    St Kilda Town Hall, Melbourne, 4 March 2015

     

    Let me begin by doing what I did for the best part of my career, and re-cycle a speech by Gough Whitlam.  It was his first major speech in the House of Representatives on international affairs, in days when they actually debated foreign policy in the Australian Parliament – on 12 August 1954.  That was another world.  Yet this speech goes to the heart of my assertions about the contemporary relevance of Edward Gough Whitlam.  In style and substance, in his zest for the cut and thrust of parliamentary debate, for the sweep of its ideas, its challenge to prevailing orthodoxies – and for its optimism – it is quintessential Whitlam.  He made the speech soon after the Geneva Conference in 1954 had given the West a new chance for good sense over China and Vietnam; instead, alas, the lost opportunity of Geneva became a disastrous wrong turn for the United States and Australia. Whitlam had been a member of parliament for less than two years.  His star was just rising in the Labor Party, itself on the threshold of the Great Split.  I’ll quote just a few of his opening lines, to give the flavour:

    In the exciting and rapid movement of events during the last few months, the Minister for External Affairs [Mr Casey] has twice circumnavigated the globe in the steps of his model, Mr Eden, and his master, Mr Dulles [UK Foreign Secretary and US Secretary of State respectively].  Though the Minister saw fit to make statements to the newspapers in the United States of America and in other parts of the world, he did not say anything to the Australian press.  The only Minister who has seen fit to make any statement on international affairs has been, of all people, the Postmaster General (Mr Anthony)  [Doug Anthony’s father, that is], who three weeks ago addressed the annual conference of the Queensland branch of   the Australian Country Party.  In haranguing that rally of rustics, the Postmaster General declared that we Australians cannot live in peaceful co-existence with the Communists in this cold war.  That pronouncement, fortunately, was in direct contradiction of statements that had already been made by President Eisenhower, of the United States of America, and Sir Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister.  The declaration of the Postmaster General has been emphatically repudiated in this House by the Prime Minister [Mr Menzies] and the Leader of the Opposition [Dr Evatt].  As a consequence of that rash utterance, the Postmaster General, whose health in recent months was deemed to be rapidly qualifying him for a diplomatic post, has rendered himself persona non grata  to every head of State except President Syngman Rhee of the Republic of Korea, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Government [on Formosa].

    When, more than a decade later, I came to read all Whitlam’s early speeches with a professional eye, time and again I found myself thinking “I wish I could say things like that”.  So I did.

    But what could be the possible relevance of a speech made by a Labor backbencher more than 60 years ago, when Churchill was still Prime Minister of Britain and when Menzies still had more than eleven years to go as Prime Minister of Australia?  Well, this was the speech in which Whitlam first called for recognition of the People’s Republic of China, nineteen years before he achieved it.  In particular, he insisted that China’s sovereignty over Taiwan (Formosa) must never be allowed to become a cause for war with China, inevitably a third world war, inevitably a nuclear war.  Whitlam was daring to assert that the views and interests of Australia might not always be the same as those of the United States.  His propositions will be as relevant to our relations with China and the United States over the next 60 years as they were 60 years ago.  Further, he made an eloquent connection between hopes for democracy in our region, then in the throes of decolonisation, and the preservation and enhancement of parliamentary democracy in Australia – his life-long cause, from which all else flowed.  It was a speech marked by his special capacity to make connections between the wider world, the region around us, and Australia’s own standing and conduct.

    And this speech, not only in its content but in its approach, attitudes and insights, the breadth of vision enhanced by his attention to detail, provides a sub-theme for everything I say tonight:

    Gough Whitlam’s contemporary relevance lies not only, or even so much, in the actual policies and issues he placed on the Australian political and social agenda, but in the educative process, based on reason, relevance, knowledge and foresight, by which he reached them.  And perhaps most relevant of all to these times, for all of us as Australians, his challenge to conventional wisdom, the prejudices and fears of his times.

    And that included emphatically obsolences and obstructionism in Labor thinking.  I don’t pretend to be able to answer the question: “What would Whitlam do if he were the Labor leader today?”  I’m certainly not purporting to tell Bill Shorten and his colleagues: “This is how Gough would do it”.  But perhaps I can shed some light on what I believe would be his approach and attitudes to the very complex questions facing Australia and the Labor Party in today’s “rapid and exciting movement of events”.

    There is no place more fitting to do this than Melbourne.  I take the opportunity to make amends for an omission in my accounts of the life and times of Edward Gough Whitlam.  In my brief eulogy at the Sydney Town Hall on 5 November last year, for instance, I identified the central importance of his relationship with Werriwa, for 25 years his electorate in the outer Western suburbs of Sydney.  And he himself always acknowledged the impact of being a teenager in Canberra, as it struggled to grow into the national capital after the move from Melbourne in 1927.  But it should never be overlooked how much of Melbourne there was in Gough Whitlam.  It is not just the fact that he was born here – on 11 July 1916 – and spent the first five years of his life here.  The greatest single influence of his life was his father, Harry Ernest Frederick Whitlam, later Commonwealth Crown Solicitor; and Fred Whitlam was Melbourne through and through.  His influence on his son was steeped in the old Melbourne liberal/radical tradition.  Its strength, paradoxically, retarded the early growth of the Labor Party in Victoria. There was a remarkable revival of that tradition through the flourishing of the Fabian Society in the late fifties, sixties and beyond; and the Fabian relationship with the rise of Whitlam is an important part of the larger story.  “Among Australian Fabians, I am Fabius Maximus”, he said.  Though I myself believe the title properly belongs to Race Mathews.

    Gough returned to Melbourne, in thought, towards the very end.  When much in that mighty memory was fading, he would recall to his faithful visitors to his William Street, Sydney, office, like John Faulkner and John Menadue, that when he was 17 or 18 he took his grandmother to the new Shrine of Remembrance in St. Kilda Road and read out to her – she was nearly blind – the name of the battlefield in France where her son, his uncle, had died.

    Even at the time of Gough’s death, the comment was still being made that it was strange, with his background, he should have become a Labor leader.  There used to be Tories who regarded him as a class traitor.  The truth is, with his upbringing, with such a father and his values, Gough Whitlam could never have been any other than Labor, in the Australian context.

    In November 1973, in the glow of his first year in office, Whitlam delivered the Robert Garran Memorial Lecture in Canberra.  His father had delivered the inaugural Garran Lecture in 1959, one great public servant honouring another, who had been his Melbourne mentor.  Whitlam quoted his father, who was speaking of Australia’s role in the United Nations:

    The task before Australia is honourable, and its efficient discharge would make for a dynamic peace; to it, all the resources, skills and energy that Australia can command deserve to be committed.  The honourable task, however, could become majestic, and infinitely inspiring, and the peace could become creative, deep and rich, and enduring, if there be added what I have termed Excellence, Excellence in all its fullness.

    That is Gough Whitlam quoting his father.  But he might just as well have been quoting himself.  Perhaps, given the closeness of their relationship, he was.

    I acknowledge my own debt to Melbourne.  Melbourne made me.  I arrived here as a 20-year-old reporter for The Sun, via newspapers in Brisbane, Sydney and Mildura, in 1955 – the year of the Great Labor Split and the beginning of the Bolte era in Victoria.  Anyone who believes that the fifties were dull wasn’t there.  I missed the transformational event of the 1956 Olympic Games because I had taken myself off to London for a year.  It was a watershed year: Khrushchev’s not-so-secret speech in Moscow denouncing Stalin; Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal and the Suez crisis; the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

    The Suez crisis was my political Road to Damascus.  Returning to Melbourne in 1957, I immediately joined the East Melbourne branch of the Australian Labor Party.  Arthur Calwell, then Deputy Leader of the Opposition under Evatt, was the member for Melbourne.  In 1961, I was given the opportunity of a lifetime when, by a wonderful combination of friends and flukes, I became Press Secretary to Arthur Calwell, by now the Leader of the Opposition,  and in 1967, to his successor Gough Whitlam.  When Whitlam made his famous or notorious “The impotent are pure” speech before the jeering delegates to the Victorian Labor Conference at the Melbourne Trades Hall in June 1967, Calwell watched the performance from the gallery and said to me in the vestibule afterwards: “You won’t be working for your new boss long now”.

    “Throughout my public life”, Whitlam said on the 30th anniversary of the It’s Time election, “I have tried to apply an over-arching principle and a unifying theme to all my work.  It can be stated in two words: contemporary relevance.  It was the fundamental test I applied, in particular to the development of Labor policy in the years before 2 December 1972.  There is a case to be argued that my government faltered whenever we lost sight of the principle or allowed the rush of events to subsume them.”

    Among the many fine and true things said at the Sydney Town Hall, I want to focus on a point made by Tony Whitlam.  He said that his father believed deeply in a strong two-party system.  The whole thrust of Whitlam’s career was to further his determination that the Labor Party should remain one of the two dominant forces within our parliament, either in government or able to form government, in its own right.  He saw strong, effective parties as the mainstay of parliamentary democracy.  The future of the two-party system and Labor’s role within it is now the big political question facing Australia today, not just the Labor Party.

    May I say here how much encouragement we draw throughout Australia from the victory of Daniel Andrews and the Labor Party in Victoria, so soon after Gough Whitlam’s death.  Like Neville Wran’s victory in New South Wales six months after the Dismissal, it had a galvanising effect and renewed our sense of what is possible.  As to the Queensland result, well, it shows that anything is possible.

    In his first statement on becoming Leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party on 8 February 1967, Whitlam said:

    For the Labor Party, what is clearly at stake is its future role within the Australian parliamentary system …. Our actions in the next few years must determine whether it continues to survive as a truly effective parliamentary force capable of governing and actually governing.

    Nearly nine years later, almost on the eve of the Dismissal, in the middle of his tremendous battle against the Senate, the ultimate challenge to the very legitimacy of a reforming Labor Government, Whitlam delivered the Curtin Memorial Lecture at the ANU in Canberra (29 October 1975).  Speaking of his work before 1972, he said:

    I addressed myself to three principal tasks: to develop a coherent program of relevant reform; to convince a majority of Australians that those reforms were relevant to their needs and their lives; and to convince the Labor Movement as a whole that the parliamentary institutions were relevant in achieving worthwhile reform.

    “The great organisational battles between 1967 and 1970, particularly in Victoria”, he said, were essentially about that third task:  “It was the toughest of all”.

    Keeping bright the Whitlam legend does not require manufacturing myths about him.  The stakes in Victoria were high; and while both sides invoked high principles, in the end the resolution of the conflict involved number-crunching of the roughest kind.  Whitlam was not particularly adept at that game, but accepted its necessity.  He largely left it to others – Lance Barnard in his rise to the leadership; Rex Connor in his self-imposed contest for the leadership with Jim Cairns in April 1968; Clyde Cameron in the reconstruction of Victoria in 1970.

    So I want to emphasise that electoral and political calculations figured as largely with Whitlam as any other political leader.  It was not all altruism and crashing through.  To gloss over Whitlam as a practising, party politician, working the system with the best of them, is the surest way to make him irrelevant.

    Whitlam set out, from the first, to combat the defeatism which had settled on much of the Labor Party, particularly in Victoria.  Political necessity drove his defiant speech to the Victorian ALP Conference in June 1967:

    We construct a philosophy of failure which finds in defeat a form of justification and a proof of the purity of our principles.  Certainly, the impotent are pure ….. Let us have none of this nonsense that defeat is in some way more moral than victory ….. I did not seek and do not want the leadership of Australia’s largest pressure group.  I propose to follow the traditions of those of our leaders who have seen the role of our party as striving to achieve, and achieving, the national government of Australia.

    Whitlam was especially infuriated by the self-serving claim that the bosses of the Victorian Central Executive were the principled guardians of Labor’s opposition to Australian involvement in the war in Vietnam.  In his landmark speech of 4 May 1965, Calwell had explicitly acknowledged the unpopularity of Labor’s position, to be met, in what seemed on the day a devastating reply by Menzies, with the sneer “If I might end on a horribly political note, it is a good thing occasionally to be in the majority”.  This was the same speech in which Menzies’ total justification for the war was that it was “part of the downward thrust by China between the Indian and Pacific Oceans”.  By such simplicities did Menzies reign supreme.  After the debacle of the 1966 election, ostensibly because of Vietnam, but more because of the dire state of the Labor Party itself, Melbourne became the heart and soul of the Moratorium Movement under the memorable leadership of Jim Cairns.

    Whitlam, by contrast, antagonised the Labor Left by his dismissive attitude towards the Moratorium Movement.  He told that Victorian Conference in June 1967 that protests “would not save a single Australian life or shorten the war by a single day.  Our consciences should not be so easily salved.  The present government opposes all moves which might bring about negotiations, and is the first to applaud and endorse escalation of the war.  Therefore our aim must be to replace that government.”

    But Vietnam was not really the divisive issue for Labor.  The most potent source of division was far older – over a century old in fact.  It was the issue of State Aid for non-government schools, meaning, in practice, the Catholic parish school system.

    It must be hard for any Australian under 60 to grasp fully the sectarian bitterness and the political explosiveness surrounding this issue.  Even the phrase itself – “State aid” – barely registers today.  The Bishops and the Church, even with so powerful an advocate as Archbishop Mannix, had failed utterly to dent the bipartisan intransigence against State Aid – the Liberal Party still essentially a Protestant  party; the Labor Party, its traditional Catholic support notwithstanding.  The unravelling came after the Split when the breakaway DLP put a pro-State aid plank in its platform.  From then on and for the next decade, the Labor Left made opposition to State Aid the test of Labor orthodoxy.  This was the issue which was to provide Whitlam with a platform to secure representation for the parliamentary leadership on the Labor Party’s Conference and Executive, ending the “36 faceless men” controversy.    It produced Whitlam’s outburst against “the 12 witless men” of the ALP Federal Executive, and his near-expulsion from the party in 1966.  It produced his triumph at the 1969 Federal Conference in Melbourne which adopted his ground-breaking proposal for the Schools Commission, granting aid to all schools – government and non-government alike – on the basis of needs.  It produced the last ditch defiance of the old VCE, sabotaging Labor’s 1970 State campaign, and perversely giving Whitlam unmistakable grounds for Federal intervention; which in turn paved the way for Victoria’s decisive role in electing the Whitlam Government in 1972 and saving it in 1974.

    What were the qualities that rewarded Whitlam with such success after these long years of turmoil and confrontation?  Perseverance, of course.  Stamina, of course.  But there was something else – a characteristic approach to political problems, and his way of arguing them out.  “Only connect”, E. M. Forster wrote, and Whitlam was the master of making connections – from the particular to the general, linking the local with the regional, the regional with the national and the national with the international.  Or reversing the process, as when debating standards for education, health, housing or transport, he would start from the carefully crafted formula: “Countries with which we would choose to compare ourselves”.  Sometimes, this left only Canada.  In the case of State Aid, he comprehensively connected the whole education issue with party reform, policy reform and electoral success – “the party, the policy, the people” in John Menadue’s 1967 formula.

    I see this making of connections as the essence of the Whitlam approach and the key to his contemporary relevance.  Remarkable, too, was his melding of personal experience with public policy.  In her truly great biography, Jenny Hocking describes his learning curve on aborigines when he witnessed their treatment in Queensland and the Northern Territory during his wartime years in the RAAF.  I have already mentioned the connection between Whitlam, the member for Werriwa, and Whitlam’s policies on “Schools, hospitals, cities”, to use his shorthand for his Program, his deep understanding that Australia is a nation of immigrants, and all the opportunities and obligations which flow from that central fact, his passion for electoral reform, one-vote, one-value, and even the national sewerage program.  He himself dated his determination to modernise the Constitution from the failure of the 1944 referendum, broadening and deepening with his service on the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reform.  This seminal experience led him to focus on the connection between the Constitution and the Labor Platform.  He was exasperated by the way the Labor Party had allowed the High Court rejection of bank nationalisation under Section 92 in 1948 to become an excuse for policy stagnation.   He later put his attitude in this way:

    I was concerned by the way in which the Labor Party’s failure to move on, to look ahead, to attempt to find new ways towards reform, was short-changing the Australian people and short-changing the Party itself.  The Party became obsessed with the idea that rather than being about revival for the future, its purpose was to return to a more comfortable past – not renovation but mere restoration.  As a result, both the achievements of the past and the hopes for the future receded equally.  The Party stagnated and the Platform was stultified.

    There, in its most striking form, is Whitlam’s continuing challenge – to modernise the Party, to modernise the Platform, to modernise the Party’s place in a modernised Australia.  He wanted, of course, to modernise the Australian Constitution, and no Australian leader worked harder to achieve change by referendum.  Right to the end, he never gave up on this, despite the overwhelming evidence that change by the direct referendum route is almost always foredoomed in Australia.  Yet despite this, he achieved real change in the spirit of the Australian Constitution, in its interpretation and in the application of the Constitution as it exists to the implementation of Labor policy.  He never succeeded in altering the Constitution by a single line or letter, but he enlarged the Constitution like no other leader.  As in so much else, Whitlam was the Great Enlarger.

    He did it in three ways.

    First, by pointing the Labor Party to the parts of the Constitution which were relevant and achievable.  As he said in 1961, in his first Curtin Memorial Lecture:

    In our obsession with Section 92, which is held up as the      bulwark of private enterprise, we forget Section 96, which is     the charter of public enterprise.

    In that speech, too, he derided the most sacred of Labor’s cows, the socialist objective, as “weak, defensive and apologetic”.  At the same time, he was not apologetic about calling himself a socialist and was, in fact, the last Labor leader to do so.

    Second, in government, he widened the Constitution and its interpretation whenever his legislation was tested in the High Court, starting with the Hamer Government challenge to the Australian Assistance Plan in 1974.  He was justly proud of the fact that no Whitlam Government laws were ever held to be unconstitutional.

    Thirdly, most relevant of all, he enlarged the Australian Constitution by the use of the external power, and by enshrining key laws within covenants of the United Nations and the International Labor Organisation.  The Racial Discrimination Act is an outstanding example.

    And here I make the claim that the connections Whitlam made between what we do here and our standing in the world represents his distinctive expression of Australian patriotism – rational, authentic and deep patriotism.

    Let me give a specific example.  In two visits to Papua New Guinea in 1970 and 1971, as Opposition leader, he proclaimed independence for PNG by 1976.  In Government, he advanced the time-table by a year.  The independence ceremony in Port Moresby in September 1975 was the last time Sir John Kerr and Whitlam appeared in public together.  During the 1970 visit, his meetings with Michael Somare were tracked by ASIO.  After he addressed 10,000 Tolai at Rabaul, Prime Minister Gorton said he would have “blood on his hands” if there were any violence on the Gazelle Peninsula.  The Minister for Territories, CEB Barnes, thought PNG might be ready for independence in 25 to 100 years.  This was probably majority opinion in Australia.  Seven Australian Prime Ministers attended Whitlam’s Memorial on 4 November 2014 – with five Prime Ministers from PNG, including Michael Somare.

    How did Whitlam turn around Australia’s stance so completely, so quickly?  I remember vividly the day in Port Moresby in January 1971 when he dictated the thoughts which we worked up as the definitive statement on PNG independence:

    All Australians must now realize how damaging and    dangerous a reputation Australia’s present policies produce.  What the world sees about Australia is that we have an aboriginal population with the highest infant mortality on earth, that we have eagerly supported the most unpopular war    in modern times on the ground that Asia should be a      battleground for our freedom, that we support the sale of arms to South Africa, that the whole world believes that our immigration policy is based on colour and that we run one of the world’s last colonies.  We may profess our good intentions      and feel that we are victims of special circumstances but the combination of such policies leans heavily indeed on the world’s goodwill and on Australia’s credibility.

    The true patriot therefore will not seek to justify and   prolong these policies but will seek to change them.

    It is upon his determination to protect and advance Australia’s reputation and standing in the world that I stake my strongest claim for Whitlam’s contemporary relevance.  I deeply believe that if the Labor leadership had taken its stand clearly on Australia’s international reputation and international obligations on refugees from the beginning, in 2001, we would not have had fourteen years of this malignancy, eating away at our national self-respect.  Of course, Australians care about “who comes here and the circumstances in which they come”.  But, given leadership, they do care for Australia’s good name in the world.  How else were Whitlam and Don Dunstan, together with quite small public interest groups in the universities, churches and unions, able to persuade the Labor Party in 1965 to abandon its most cherished tradition and Australia’s deepest fears embodied in the White Australia Policy?

    So I stress the importance of making connections in Whitlam’s approach to policy.  But I am bound to acknowledge that there were disconnections when it came to implementing policy in government.  The connections were Whitlam at his most constructive; the disconnections the most damaging.  No appraisal of his contemporary relevance can omit the failures, and the lessons to be learned from them.

    In his book The Whitlam Government, Whitlam himself makes a significant admission.  The matter-of-fact way he puts it masks the pain it cost him to make it.  He wrote (p.195):  “The chief economic failure of my Government resulted from the wage explosion of 1974.  In part, our failure was a failure of communication, our failure to persuade the trade union movement to accept the central concept of Labor’s program.”

    He then spelt his definition of the meaning of equality in modern Australia: “That central concept was this: in modern communities, even the wealthiest family cannot provide its members with the best education, with the best medical treatment, the best environment, unaided by the community.  Increasingly, the basic services and opportunities which determine the real standard of life of a family or an individual can only be provided by the community and only to the extent to which the community is willing to provide them.  Either the community provides them or they will not be provided at all.  In the Australian context, this means that the community, through the national Government, must finance them or they     will not be financed at all.”

    That is the bed-rock of the Whitlam Program, with its over-arching theme of a more equal Australia.  Then comes his painful admission: “I have to acknowledge that this philosophy was never really accepted by the Labor movement of Australia at any time after the election of its own Labor Government.”

    In a generous review in The Age, Sir Paul Hasluck described the book as “the longest trumpet voluntary in political literature”. But it seems to have escaped Sir Paul that there could hardly be a more mortifying admission than that the very core of Labor support had not accepted the relevance of the Whitlam Program to its immediate concerns.  By contrast, the Hawke and Keating Governments succeeded in persuading the unions to accept the concept of a social wage, and, through the Accords, made it the basis of their transformation of the Australian economy.

    Whitlam notoriously said: “I don’t mind how many prima donnas there are in my Cabinet, as long as I’m prima donna assoluta”.  It was a throwaway line that actually highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of the Whitlam style of government: individual brilliance against collegial disarray.  There was a serious gap between the primacy he gave to Parliament, to parliamentary government on one hand, and the operation of its most distinctive feature, the Cabinet, the great engine of parliamentary government.  Cabinet embodies the two principles that make parliamentary democracy work effectively – Cabinet solidarity, and answerability to Parliament.  Cabinet is the grand committee of the nation.  Bob Hawke’s superb chairmanship skills made his Cabinet the most successful in our history.  A properly-run Cabinet would not have enmeshed the Whitlam Government in the toils of the loans affair.

    Nevertheless, while the orchestration was sometimes discordant, the Whitlam Government was not a one-man band, although Gough himself scarcely discouraged the notion.  “What would happen if you were run over by the proverbial bus”, Mike Willesee asked him in 1974.  “In the light of my government’s public transport reforms, that is highly improbable”.  But the free rein Whitlam gave his Ministers did become the basis for its record of achievement.  The one thing he expected was that they would act in the spirit of the Program, especially as set out in the It’s Time Policy Speech.  As Kim Beazley Snr said: “The Platform is the Old Testament; the policy speech is the New Testament”.  He was only half-joking.

    There will never be another Policy Speech like it.  At least I devoutly hope so, because I hope that the conditions which produced it will never be repeated.  That is, I hope fervently for the sake of Australian parliamentary democracy that the Australian Labor Party will never again be out for 23 years, or anything like 23 years.  We cannot fully understand the nature, content and purpose of the It’s Time  Policy Speech, unless we place it firmly in the context of those 23 years.  Nor, for that matter, can we fully understand the conduct and fate of the Whitlam Government without understanding the sense of urgency and expectation those lost 23 years produced.

    There were outstanding Ministers.  Think of Bill Hayden, who built Medibank – with its vital principle of universal access to health care – so strong that it defied seven attempts by the Fraser Government to dismantle it and enabled the Hawke Government to restore it as Medicare.  The attacks on its basic principles by the present Federal government are, of course, part of its current turmoil.  Contemporary relevance indeed!

    Again, Hayden had progressed far towards establishing a national superannuation scheme.  Keating accomplished it, and Labor’s role as the custodian of superannuation, and its true principles, remains, or should be, one of its greatest electoral assets.

    Think of Lionel Murphy, whose transformational law reforms constitute almost a parallel program.  His concerns about the accountability of the national security apparatus remain a question of fundamental relevance to Australian democracy.

    Or think of Al Grassby.  For dismantling White Australia (“Give me a shovel and I will bury it”, he said to a sceptical reporter in Manila); for establishing multicultural Australia, he paid a high political price.  He lost his seat in what Whitlam called Australia’s first overtly racist campaign in 1974.  We may think we have come a long way since 1974.  On the other hand, we may think that the story has deep contemporary relevance, certainly in terms of the need for unremitting vigilance in the work of building a more inclusive and tolerant Australia.

    I think, in particular, of Tom Uren, who breathed life into the most original and wide-ranging of all the Whitlam concepts, really the heart of the Whitlam project – national involvement in cities and regional centres.  The restoration of his Department of Urban Affairs is again urgent and relevant to the Australian people in almost every aspect of their daily lives.

    These examples remind us of a largely neglected, if not forgotten, aspect of the Whitlam project – how much, both in development and implementation, the Whitlam Program was a collective effort, how much he sought and welcomed the ideas and advice of others, inside and beyond the Labor Party.  Many years later, I suggested that he should acknowledge that “the Program did not spring, like Minerva, fully armed from Zeus’ brow”.  He agreed entirely, but insisted that he was not going down to posterity confusing the Greek and Roman gods.  Gough thought Zeus more appropriate than Jupiter, so Minerva had to give way to Athena.

    This aspect of the Whitlam project, as a cooperative and collaborative effort, will, I believe, become increasingly relevant to Labor’s mission, as Australia moves into a more complex era, with its communities more dissociated, its voters more volatile, its competing interests more vocal, its public discourse more discordant, if not debauched, its media ever more pervasive.

    More than a century ago, Alfred Deakin complained about the impossibility of governing “with a reporter at one’s elbow”.  We may speculate how Gough would have coped, in a world of instant response, endless spin, the ten second grab and the cacophony of self-appointed pundits.  I think I know the answer.  Brilliantly.  Three reasons: He was the master of the one-liner before the term was invented.  He would have dominated the mainstream media by open, long and frequent press conferences.  And, above all, he would have refused to relegate Parliament to its present humiliating role as an almost incidental channel of political communication.

    Almost our last collaboration, stretching across more than 40 years, was the Foreword to Troy Bramston’s splendid collection, The Whitlam Legacy.  Gough knew it would be his last serious word on Australian politics:

    May I make one valedictory point: never forget the primacy of Parliament as the great forum for developing, presenting and explaining policy.  This seems to me the best response we can make to the unprecedented demands now made on our leaders and representatives by the relentless news cycle, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  If we develop, define and defend our policies thoroughly before their implementation, we will be much less likely to be blown off course by the accidents and aberrations inseparable from modern political life.  And Parliament is by far the best place to achieve it.

    This was the precept and practice of a life time.

    Parliament is, or should be, a marvellous resource, and it has been the anchor of our national life longer than almost any country in the world and, by the standard of the suffrage – the right to vote – more democratic longer than any.  But if the Labor Party is to survive as the prime mover in the development and implementation of the public polity – the party of new ideas – its policy makers will need to draw on all the available resources, reaching out beyond its own resources and ranks.  This points to a future role for independent but dedicated resources like the Whitlam Institute itself.  This was Gough’s own deep hope as he watched the Institute grow during his rich and mellow autumnal years.

    Partly because of his long and active public life, there is a timelessness about Gough Whitlam’s legacy, extraordinary for a working politician who reached the heights of his achievement forty years ago and whose Prime Ministership lasted only three years.  But I always emphasise that Gough Whitlam was also very much a man of his time.  His vision of a more equal Australia, a more independent Australia, a more inclusive, generous and tolerant Australia, a more forward-looking and outward looking Australia, belongs to all time.  But the means by which he sought to advance Australia towards that vision reflected his own times, the influences, pre-occupations and demands of his time, the political, constitutional, social and economic opportunities and constraints of his time.  Hence his insistence on contemporary relevance.  Here in St. Kilda Town Hall, closing his great campaign in 1972, he invoked Ben Chifley’s “light on the hill”.  His program was not the light on the hill; but he shone a bright light along the path.

    Far be it from me to presume to put words into Gough Whitlam’s mouth, at least now that he cannot speak for himself.  But I do believe that his first advice to his successors – the Labor leadership, the members, supporters and well-wishers – as they pursue their tasks of shaping and re-shaping Labor policies, Australian policies, for the 21st century, in times and circumstances every bit as daunting and challenging as those he faced in his time – I believe that his watchword would be for them, as his instruction was so often to me:

    “Contemporary relevance, comrade”.

     

  • We should expect more.

    In this article in The Guardian, Richard Flanagan, the Booker Prize winner, refers to the increasing ugliness in Australian public life.  He says ‘Writing my novel “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” I came to conclude that great crimes like the Death Railway did not begin with the first beating or murder on that grim line of horror in 1943. They began decades before with politicians, public figures and journalists promoting the idea of some people being less than people’.  He makes the case that the brutality and cruelty we now see has been developing for years. I think it really began with the Howard Government in 1996. To read this article, see the link below.  John Menadue

    http://gu.com/p/4663q/sbl

  • John Menadue. Mother Merkel and 800,000 refugees

    In September last year I posted an article about the Heroism of Angela Merkel in her generous response to asylum seekers arriving in Germany.

    She is holding to her course but the difficulties are increasing. The attacks on women in Cologne by men who were reported to be of Arab or North African decent on New Year’s Eve coloured attitudes. This unfortunate event and growing concern has resulted in Angela Merkel’s approval rating dropping from a high of 75% almost a year ago to 46% now.

    It was always going to be difficult and leadership in this area will always be politically fraught. It is so easy for the unscrupulous to appeal to the fear of foreigners, the outsider and the person who is different.

    The arrival of newcomers in any country is probably the greatest test of leadership.

    Ben Chifley made a courageous decision that Australia should accept large numbers of Jewish people following the disastrous events of WWII in Europe. He didn’t do any public polling or focus groups. If he had and was influenced by it, we would not have accepted Jewish refugees.

    In the 1970s, Malcolm Fraser didn’t wait for political polling to decide if we should accept refugees from Indochina. I am sure that if he had commissioned any polling, it would have told him to be careful.

    In Australia every group of new arrivals, whether migrants or refugees, has encountered opposition. but we have got through these difficulties and as a community we now look back with pride with what we have done in accepting people from Germany, the Baltic countries, Italy, Turkey, and Indochina.

    The opposition to Angela Merkel is nothing new. It will need courage and skill to see off those who resent her country helping vulnerable people.  Perhaps like Australians in receiving newcomers, the Germans will also get satisfaction out of knowing that they responded well and that not only the newcomers, but the German people were beneficiaries.

    Repost from September 2015

    With its sometimes dark history, Germany is facing a great test with the unprecedented arrival of asylum seekers .There are conflicting signs of great generosity, disappointment, anger, hope, mistrust and honesty. A great drama is being played out.

    With the support of her political opponents in the Social Democratic Party, Angela Merkel of the Conservative Christian Democratic Union is grappling with courage and determination a trial for the heart of Germany. She warned ‘If Europe fails on the question of refugees, its close connection with universal civil rights will be destroyed’. 

    In an article in Spiegel Online on 31 August, staff correspondents wrote of the ‘Dark Germany and the Bright Germany.  Which side will prevail under the strain of refugees.’

    They said

    How long will the alliance of reason hold up? … As many as 800,000 refugees and migrants may arrive in Germany this year. … and even if we don’t really know how things will develop in coming years, one thing is certain;  the numbers aren’t likely to drop appreciably … it is also certain that the newcomers will change our country. Germans have only recently become used to the idea that they live in a country of immigration and now, the next illusion is being destroyed;  that there is such a thing as controlled immigration. It isn’t just the best minds that are coming to us; it is people fleeing Assad’s barrel bombs and Islamic State brutality. They are running for their lives, whether they are illustrious or illiterate.

    The good news is that most Germans don’t have a problem with this. Sixty percent are of the opinion that the country can absorb the huge numbers of refugees currently arriving. And a new form of civility is developing, one that isn’t just being driven by pricks of conscience and the weight of the past. Rather, it is fuelled by the joy of doing good. But how long will it last?

    Mother Merkel as many refugees now call her, is showing courage and leadership, something we lack in Australia. She is finding the road rocky and hilly, but she offers great hope. She is appealing to the better angels of the German people        John Menadue

    For a full account of the Spiegel article, see link below:  http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/spiegel-cover-story-the-new-germany-a-1050406.html

  • Tessa Morris-Suzuki. Tony Abbott, What have you done for peace?

    On 23 February, Prime Minister Tony Abbott in a major national security speech, chided Muslim leaders for showing insufficiently sincere commitment to peace. “I’ve often heard western leaders describe Islam as a ‘religion of peace’. I wish more Muslim leaders would say that more often, and mean it”, he said. Abbott also called on immigrants to Australia to “be as tolerant of others as we are of them”.

    The vast majority of Australians are appalled by the cruel and ultimately self-destructive violence of groups like ISIS, and by the crimes of the clearly deranged Martin Place gunman. They rightly applaud when leading Muslim figures speak up for peace, as the Grand Mufti of Australia and the Australian National Imam’s Council did in unequivocally condemning the Martin Place violence, and as the head of the Paris Mosque and other French Muslim leaders did in denouncing the “odious crimes” of the Charlie Hebdo attackers.

    But let us turn the question around: Tony Abbott, what have you done to bring peace to our community? At a time of rising Islamophobia and widespread ignorance in the Australian community about the history and teachings of Islam, better education promoting ethnic and religious harmony and mutual understanding is desperately needed. Where is the Abbott government’s leadership on this? Peace cannot be imposed simply by tightening security laws. It requires long-term sustained and serious commitment to building the foundations for social harmony. What plans or policies have Abbott or his ministers put in place to create a more tolerant and harmonious Australian society?

    Last September, in a speech to the National Press Club, Abbott said ‘I’ve shifted from being a critic to a supporter of multiculturalism, because it eventually dawned on me that migrants were coming to Australia not to change us but to join us.’ But multicultural harmony does not just happen by itself. It requires hard work to sustain it. Where are the signs of the Abbott government’s hard work? Where is the evidence that our prime minister means it when he speaks of multiculturalism?

    I live in Canberra, a city with the highest standard of living and the highest education levels in the Australia, and I supervise a substantial number of Asian postgraduate students who come to this country to study, and some of whom go on be become Australian citizens. Many Asian students I have supervised has spoken to me of encountering racist abuse on the streets of our capital city. Incidents (including being insulted and spat at by complete strangers) have left some of them shocked and deeply shaken. Is this what Abbott means when he asks immigrants to Australia to “be as tolerant of others as we are of them”?

    The fact that this sort of abuse still occurs unchecked in our national capital is an alarming indication of the failure of government, educators and media to show leadership in creating a peaceful multicultural society. By ignoring these profound issues, while making ignorant and ill-conceived public criticisms of “immigrants” and “Muslims” for their lack of commitment to tolerance and peace, the Abbott government is damaging the social cohesion of our society and contributing to social problems that are likely to haunt Australia for decades to come.

    Australia needs leaders who mean it when they speak of peace, harmony and multiculturalism. If our current leaders cannot do this, then they are unfit to lead, and it is time for others to step forward and show that they can fill the political and moral vacuum.

    Tessa Morris-Suzuki is an ANU College of Asia and the Pacific Japanese history professor and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow.

     

  • Brian Johnstone. The forgotten children. The ethical dimension.

    Professor Gillian Triggs, president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, has found that by reason of its policy of the continued retention of children of asylum seekers, Australia has been and remains in breach of its international obligations. This applies to both major political parties. The legal argument is clear and has not been refuted. The best the Prime Minister could offer was bluster, condemning the report as a “transparent stitch-up.” Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson conceded that retaining children in detention was not in anyone’s interest, but provided no justification for continuing the detention.

    The Report of the Commission argues that asylum seeker families and children have been left “. . . [i]n a legal black hole in which their rights and dignity have been denied.” This ethical claim needs supporting argument.

    Contemporary philosophers and lawyers have been working to clarify the notion of dignity. A leading exponent is Charles Foster, Fellow of Green Templeton College, and University of Oxford in Human Dignity in Bioethics and Law (2011).

    Foster cites Christopher McCrudden’s summary of the basic, minimal agreed content of the notion of dignity drawn from international human rights texts; there are three points. The first is that “Every human being possesses an intrinsic worth merely by being human.” The second is that “This intrinsic worth should be recognised and respected by others;” it follows that some ways of treating others are inconsistent with this dignity or required by this dignity. The third is that the state exists for the sake of the individual person and not vice versa.   The first point is ‘ontological;’ it refers to the being of the person. The second is relational; it concerns ways in which persons connect with each other. The third is political; it expresses the basic priorities that should govern political judgments and activities.

    Foster begins his account with a question: “What makes humans thrive?” This was expressed in traditional philosophy drawing on Aristotle as “flourishing.” We can clarify what dignity requires and what violates dignity by asking what enables people to thrive. It is important for Foster’s argument that we can meaningfully ask this question not only of mature individuals, who we may presume are fully rational and free, but of the youngest children and of the most disabled. Foster argues that to make sound ethical and legal decisions we have to inquire empirically what is good for us.

    We can connect Foster’s arguments with the present debates in Australia. As cited by Kim Oates in his recent contribution, the Australian Government’s own Early Years Learning Framework describes three foundations as the basis for healthy childhood growth and progress for pre-schoolers: “Belonging, being and becoming.” We can adopt the same three points to develop an account of dignity that is more specifically related to the present Australian situation.

    To thrive, a human person needs to belong, that is to be part of a human community; this is the relational aspect of dignity. This community will normally be a family, but it could also be, of course, another group that takes over the role of the family. A family gives to its members and in particular to children what they need to thrive; food, clothing, affection, education. Children need to form relationships so as to establish a secure sense of themselves. Children characteristically achieve this by play-based behaviour. Learning to be themselves corresponds to the ‘ontological’ element of dignity.

    They are enabled to become more fully themselves by engaging their capacities to learn and develop. Becoming is another word for thriving. The adults who are responsible for the children themselves thrive by engaging in these processes on behalf of children.

    Thriving is the basis of dignity. But dignity entails more than this; it requires recognition. A parent or responsible adult recognizes the child as one who has inherent worth and enables a child to thrive. But the parent or adult who acts in such a way receives recognition also, recognition as a person of dignity.

    Dignity is always a two-way notion; when one person recognises the dignity of another, the other accepts that recognition and in so doing recognises the dignity of the first. When the first receives that recognition she can then recognise her own dignity.   I cannot recognise dignity in myself while I act in such a way as to refuse to recognise the dignity of the other.

    Dignity in one important aspect entails recognition of self, of one’s own inherent worth. But the individual cannot recognise her or his own worth, without recognising the worth of those others with whom they are engaged. An adult who denies to a child for whom she or he is responsible what the child needs to thrive is denying to himself what that adult needs to thrive, namely recognition of his own inherent worth. A community of persons who recognize their own inherent worth or dignity will want to protect others whose dignity they recognize, especially when that dignity is being violated. Such protection is a requirement of justice which is the basis of rights.

    Finally, the third element of the generally accepted notion of dignity also applies: the state exists for the sake of persons; persons may not be used as means for the benefit of the state and much less for keeping a political party in power.

    We can now return to the empirical investigation that Charles Foster requires. The report of the Australian Human Rights Commission on Children in Detention, “The Forgotten Children” clearly provides ample empirical evidence that the children in detention are not being adequately provided with the support that would enable them to thrive. Rather, the contrary is the case: they are being treated in ways that seriously damage their thriving.

    The case against the present policy of the Australian government regarding the detention of children can be summed up as follows:

    • The government is in violation of its international treaty obligations.
    • It is using the children as means to support its policies on refugees so as to remain in power, thus violating the due relationships between the state and individual persons.
    • Finally, those who support and implement these policies are violating the dignity of the children. In so doing they are denying their own dignity.   They make it impossible for themselves to recognise their own dignity. They also make it impossible for us, the citizens of Australia, to recognise their dignity.

  • Peter Day. Life is sacred, but ….

    The “other” is no longer a brother or sister to be loved, but simply someone who disturbs my life and my comfort … In this globalized world, we have fallen into globalized indifference.  We have become used to the suffering of others: it doesn’t affect me; it doesn’t concern me; it’s none of my business!      (Pope Francis)

    I had the misfortune recently of watching the Four Corners investigation into live-baiting in the greyhound industry – trainers were filmed using live rabbits, piglets and possums to instil the blood lust in dogs in order to improve their chasing/racing skills.

    I imagine there will be – it’s already started – an almighty avalanche of anger directed towards those who pursue cruelty in order to benefit financially – and justifiably so.

    Life is sacred – even the lives of rabbits, possums, and piglets.

    Similarly, there is an almighty howl of protest concerning the pending executions of drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran – and justifiably so.

    Life is sacred – even the lives of drug traffickers.

    And, what of those forgotten children in Australian immigration detention centres: again, much angst and chest beating – and justifiably so.

    Life is sacred – even the lives of ‘illegals’ and strangers and ‘queue jumpers’.

    Perhaps one day the mainstream media and the public might dare to pursue, also with moral courage, the plight of the unborn; tens of thousands of whom disappear without trace each year – I’m especially concerned for those victims of late-term abortions (i.e. 16 weeks and beyond).

    Life is sacred – even the lives of the tiny and ‘unseen’.

    In regards to the latter, a notoriously emotive and neuralgic issue, it is vital that we do not allow the bullying of religious nutters and moralists to justify a “we cannot afford to go there” approach – to justify shutting down debate.

    Indeed, is it not the case that in order to counter this rigid and unattractive polemic, and to ensure I am not seen to be in their camp; we have, as a collective, tended to gravitate towards the more comfortable and acceptable narrative of the so called ‘social progressives’; the one that espouses tolerance and individual freedom; the one that encourages a polite acquiescence – but at what price and at whose expense?

    Surely, in a world where whales and rabbits and old trees and heritage buildings are treated as precious, as of significant value – and rightly so, there is room for a mainstream and adult conversation about those other forgotten children.

    I am not in any way suggesting yet another unseemly finger-pointing exercise, nor am I advocating criminalisation. Indeed, compassion compels one to want to walk alongside a woman confronting such a choice, even to cry with her.

    Further, this issue cannot be reduced to simplistic labelling – i.e.  you’re either pro-abortion or anti-abortion, pro-life or pro-choice – left v right etc. It’s far more complex and layered than that.

    What I am advocating is a robust and reasoned, if sometimes heated, public conversation like those we have around those other conservation issues alluded to above.

    Perhaps such a conversation might begin with a question: “What does it mean to be human?”

    For now, at least, we seem to be mired in more of that globalised indifference which insists upon silence.

    Peter Day is a Catholic parish priest in Canberra.

     

     

  • The Forgotten Children.

     

  • Kim Oates.  The Forgotten Children

    I have just read the report of the Australian Human Rights Commission on Children in Detention “The Forgotten Children”.

    It is clear, factual and unemotional.  It is supported by evidence and is non-partisan. It is not on the side of any political party. It is on the side of children.

    It made me ashamed about what is being done to these children. It made me sad that our nation can be so cruel. It made me angry about the way the two main political parties responded on the release of the report. The Labour Party was largely silent, although much of what is documented in the report occurred on their watch. The Liberal/National party was belligerent, ignoring the seriousness of the message, blaming others while simultaneously congratulating themselves and trying to shoot the highly respected messenger, Professor Gillian Triggs.

    I have not visited a detention centre.  But I am a paediatrician and have wide experience in child protection and with disadvantaged children. I know the devastating effects of abuse and deprivation in childhood, effects which often continue throughout life.

    I know the paediatricians who gave evidence to the inquiry. They are highly regarded in the medical community. They are not political people, they don’t exaggerate. They care about children.

    The inquiry was established to investigate how life in immigration detention may affect the health and development of children. It interviewed 112 children and their families about the health impacts of detention, using a standardised questionnaire. It held five public hearings and received 239 submissions.

    One of its aims was to see if Australia met its international human rights obligations, such as:  appropriateness of facilities where children are detained; measures to ensure their safety and provision of education, recreation and health services.

    Having pointed out that mandatory immigration detention, especially of children, is contrary to Australia’s international obligations, the report states “It is troubling that members of the Government and Parliament and Departmental officials are either uninformed, or choose to ignore, the human rights treaties to which Australia is a party”.

    The report noted that our leaders, while talking about the value of detention as a deterrent, do not believe this themselves: “As the medical evidence has mounted over the last eight months of the Inquiry, it has become increasingly difficult to understand the policy of both Labor and Coalition Governments. Both the Hon Chris Bowen MP, as a former Minister for Immigration, and the Hon Scott Morrison MP, the current Minister for Immigration, agreed on oath before the Inquiry that holding children in detention does not deter either asylum seekers or people smugglers. No satisfactory rationale for the prolonged detention of children seeking asylum in Australia has been offered”

    The Australian Government’s own Early Years Learning Framework describes three foundations as the basis for healthy childhood growth and progress for pre-schoolers: ‘Belonging, Being and Becoming.’

    The first foundation, “Belonging” points out that pre-schoolers need to belong to a family and a community if they are to establish secure relationships and a healthy sense of self.

    However the report says “All evidence to this Inquiry indicates that the institutionalised structure and routine of detention disrupts family functioning and the relationships between parents and children. Children do not have access to a private family home where it would be expected families would spend time away from other people sharing meals, engaging in shared activities, and having rest-time on their own.”

    The second foundation, “Being” emphasises  play-based learning because play provides the most appropriate stimulus for brain development,  that childhood is a special time in life where children need time to play, try new things and have fun.

    There was little evidence of this need being met for children in detention. 

    “My youngest child has no toys. He only pushes a chair around” said one mother.

    The third foundation ‘Becoming’, is about the learning and development that young children experience. But the most common concern of parents was that their children had little opportunity to learn socialisation skills. Many reported that their pre-schooler was unable to get along with other children.

    These three foundations, established by our government for healthy child development are denied children in detention, children who are under the guardianship of the Minister.

    The inquiry clearly showed that detention was bad for the mental health and wellbeing of children. Almost all children and their parents spoke about their worry, restlessness, anxiety and difficulties eating and sleeping. Thirty four percent of children had mental health disorders that, if they were not in detention with limited health services, would require referral to a specialist child mental health service for psychiatric treatment.  This compares with less than two percent of children in the Australian population.

    Children were reported to experience tearfulness, anxiety, delayed or absent speech, regression in behaviour and nightmares. Observers noted tantrums, sleep disturbance, poor concentration, frustration and agitation. One mother told the enquiry:

    “My daughter is 2 years old. Five months ago she started behaving abnormally. She wakes up screaming and crying in the middle of the night. She always hits us; she pulls my hair and scratches our faces. She has tantrums every day. She broke my glasses. She gets upset without any reason”. 

    The Royal Australasian College of Physicians submitted their concern about ‘the long-term impact of detention on children, noting that the ‘psychological distress resulting from detention can persist for years after release’.

    The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists stated  “… detention of children is detrimental to children’s development and mental health and has the potential to cause long-term damage to social and emotional functioning.”

    This report needs to be taken seriously. It should not be used as an opportunity to blame.  It is an opportunity to right a wrong. It is about protecting children.

    Kim Oates is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the Sydney University Medical School. He was formerly Chief Executive of the Sydney Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

     

     

     

  • Marie Coleman. Human Rights Commission and the forgotten children.

    In February 2015 the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse found that Cardinal George Pell, the former Archbishop of Sydney, had placed the church’s financial interests above his obligation to a victim of childhood sexual abuse.

    In February 2015 the Prime Minister of Australia, supported by his Ministers, has launched a blistering attack on a distinguished legal scholar and President of the independent statutory Australian Rights Commission, for a report which has found that both the Labor and Coalition Governments have failed to protect children in mandatory detention from abuse and mental and physical harm.

    Professor Gillian Triggs has found that Australia has been and remains in breach of its international obligations- under both parties. Among other straightforward and completely nonpartisan recommendations she has recommended that “An independent guardian be appointed for unaccompanied children seeking asylum in Australia” rather than the current position of the Minister for Immigration being both the guardian of such children, and the Minister responsible for their mandatory detention.

    The Royal Commission has been investigating historic instances of abuse, exploring the approaches which institutions responsible for such abuse have responded to reports of individual cases, as well as options for reparations.

    The thrust of the AHRC Report, The Forgotten Children, is to explore and document what have been the outcomes for children placed in mandatory detention, and to develop future policies and legislation which will prevent such dreadful outcomes ever again being visited on children.

    The Minister for Immigration, Peter Dutton MP, has asserted that the AHRC Report is irrelevant because any instances of maltreatment of children have been historical. The second leg of the Government’s response to the AHRC report seems to be that because Labor did it, then the Coalition’s actions, if harm has been done, are justifiable.

    The Opposition has essentially mumbled.

    The unpalatable situation is that neither Labor nor the Coalition has any way to escape from the fact that one outcome of their policies on immigration and refugees (stopping the boats) has been to put children through hell, and put Australia in breach of its obligations under international law.

    No equivocations about whether for an adolescent girl to go mad and cut herself on Nauru is better than drowning at sea, no claiming that this wouldn’t have happened if the Coalition had allowed Labor to send refugees to Malaysia, will alter the fact that neither Labor nor the Coalition has been able to articulate an acceptable , transparent and  legal method of dealing with the inevitable pressures from populations moving from political anarchy, oppression, assassinations and starvation in home countries.

    The cost of current off shore detention of refugees in 2014-15 was estimated by an Immigration Department official as $1 billion. Running the detention centre on Manus Island has cost taxpayers $632.3 million, and the operational cost of Nauru was $582.4 million, a Senate estimates hearing was told. That’s a billion dollars a year for the foreseeable future…without giving thought to the ultimate health costs for the treatment of health and psychological damages to the refugees. It doesn’t include other costs such as the role of the Australian Navy and Customs in ‘on water’ activities.

    Surely it isn’t beyond the capacity of this nation’s leaders to develop alternative strategies?

    Former NSW Premier Nick Greiner described as “awful” the fact that Australia was the only nation in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that indefinitely detained children in mandatory detention.

    “The principle that Australia … finds it necessary to be virtually the only civilised nation that does this, I think is just abhorrent,” he said….”we now ought to look at the humanity of what we do”, he said.

    Last month NSW Premier Baird called on Mr Abbott, a close friend, to do more to accept refugees. Asked if children should be released from immigration detention, Mr Baird said “that’s something I’ve supported for a long time”.

    In an interview with 3AW, Mr Abbott said the commission should be ashamed of itself and that its report was a “blatantly partisan” and political exercise.

    He said the commission should acknowledge the government for stopping the flow of asylum seeker boats and dramatically reducing the number of children in detention.

    “I reckon the human rights commission ought to be sending a note of congratulations to Scott Morrison saying well done, mate,” Mr Abbott said, referring to the former immigration minister.

    Asked if he felt any guilt about the remaining 200 children still in detention, Mr Abbott was blunt: “None whatsoever.”

    “The most compassionate thing you can do is stop the boats,” he said.

    He said the only way to ensure there were no children in detention was to ensure there were no boats arriving.

    Numbers of children in immigration detention peaked at nearly 2000 in mid-2013 under Labor. There are now only about 200 children still detained.

    The Australian Human Rights Commission report wants actions taken to prevent such a situation ever developing again.

    “The human rights commission ought to be ashamed of itself,” Mr Abbott said, when asked about the report.

    So that’s all right. The Prime Minister thinks his policy is tops. A great policy in fact.

    As the distinguished PUP Senator for Queensland, Glenn Lazarus might put it ‘you can polish a turd, but it’s still a turd’.

    Marie Coleman AO PSM is a former senior Commonwealth Public Servant with a background in social policy.

  • Peter Day. The Lucky Country

    Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,

     We’ll toil with hearts and hands
    To make this Commonwealth of ours
    Renowned of all the lands.
    For those who’ve come across the seas,
    We’ve boundless plains to share.

    With courage let us all combine
    To advance Australia fair.     

                  (Our National Anthem, Verse 2)

    The nature of politics these past few years, especially that practiced by the two main parties, reminds one of a bitter marriage struggle – one destined for the courts. So consumed have ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ been by their anger, by their need for revenge, and by their need to win at all costs, they’ve forgotten the ‘children’.

    This toxic process, and breakdown of civility, leaves little room for those who cannot compete. So the children get pushed aside as the bickering gets louder, as pettiness replaces depth, and as power and fear leave love and compassion in their wake.

    This appears particularly pertinent in regard to those seeking asylum – especially children. Too often their voices are drowned-out by the self-centered tantrums and fear-mongering of our political parents.

    Such leadership is disappointing because it undermines sensible and reasoned public discourse. We become wedged by emotive opposites: It’s left versus right, bleeding hearts v cold hearts, queue-jumpers versus the desperate, “stop the boats” v ”let them come”.

    Beneath this canopy of emotion and fear, people tend to become more tribal than usual – more susceptible to propaganda as well. Thus, when we are told that our borders and lifestyle are threatened; our natural response is to build a wall to keep the ‘enemy’ out. Before we know it, we find ourselves living in a sort of gated community: one that covets security, prosperity and the status quo.  And anyone who threatens this way of life, “this tribe of mine”, is either refused entry or banished. 

    A Parable

        There was a Lucky Country that enjoyed freedom and prosperity, and lived in luxury every day.  At its doorstep arrived a fearful beggar; hungry and frightened after a long journey; covered with sores, and longing to eat what fell from the Lucky Country’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

        The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The Lucky Country also lost its life and was buried.

        In its torment, it looked up and saw Abraham far away with the beggar by his side. The Lucky Country called out to Abraham, ‘Father, have pity on me and send the beggar to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this torment.’

        But Abraham replied, ‘Remember, in your lifetime you received many good things: freedom, prosperity, comfort; while this poor beggar received bad things: political oppression, poverty, abandonment. Now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 

        ‘And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

        The Lucky Country answered, ‘Then I beg you, Abraham, send the beggar to my family, for I have 22 million brothers and sisters. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

        Abraham replied, ‘They hear the stories, they hear the cries, they even hear the Word; let them listen to these.’

        ‘No, father Abraham,’ said the Lucky Country, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will change their minds and hearts.’

        Abraham said to the Lucky Country, ‘If they do not listen to all that is before them, they will not be convinced even if their Christ, who has Risen from the dead, speaks to them.’

    (Adapted from Luke 16:19-31)

    Of course, as a nation, we cannot simply say, “Everyone welcome, no matter what.” We do need an orderly migration process. We do have a moral responsibility to bankrupt the people-smuggling trade. We do need to make some tough calls. But we also need to ensure that the response to the ‘Lazaruses’ at our feet is not shaped by silly slogans and a kind of small-minded nationalism.

    And, while some have tried, none of us is in a position to take the moral high ground either. This is too complex an issue to be hijacked by the self-righteous.

    We are mostly a generous nation. We are mostly a fair nation. We are a Lucky nation. It behoves us, then, to reflect deeply, and humbly, about our obligations to the ‘beggars’ at our feet.

    It prompts the question: Can I forgo a little personal comfort in order to comfort someone else?

    Fr Peter Day is the Parish Priest, Corpus Christi, Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn.

     

  • John Menadue. Fairness, Opportunity and Security – Filling the policy vacuum

    I sense that there is great public concern that both the government and opposition keep playing the political and personal game at the expense of informed public discussion of important policy issues.

    We have become concerned about the trustworthiness of our political, business and media elite. Insiders and vested interests are undermining the public interest. Money is unduly influencing political decisions. There is gridlock on important issues like climate change and taxation.

    After a near death experience Tony Abbott has said the he is open to new thinking and ways of governing. ‘Good government begins today’  Time will tell. Bill Shorten has said that 2015 will be the year of ideas. I hope so.

    In this blog over the next few months I will be posting a series of articles on important policy issues. I posted a three parter on health policy on January 27, 28 and 29.

    There will be range of contributors.Some  have contributed in the past to this blog

    Each of the policy articles will be about 2000 words. They will not be “pie in the sky’ but realistic, given our political and financial constraints.

    It is planned that these policy articles will be published in a book by ATF Press in October/November this year

    Policy areas to be canvassed

    Economic policy

    Fixing the budget

    Taxation

    Federalism

    Productivity

    Job creation and participation

    Foreign policy

    Security, both military and soft power.

    Health

     Development of our human capital in the fields of education, science, research and development and innovation.

    Transport and infrastructure

    Population/migration/refugees

    Welfare priorities

    Retirement incomes

    Indigenous affairs

    Communications and the Arts

    Environment and climate change

    Inequality

    Role of government including tackling corruption and bad behaviour

    Democratic renewal – the lack of trust in government and the hollowing out of our political parties.

    Terrorism and internal security whilst protecting of our freedoms

     

  • Melanie Noden. The Forgotten Children.

    Earlier this week, a damning report by the Australian Human Rights Commission into children in detention was tabled, alleging extensive human rights violations. The Report clearly spells out the negative physical and psychological impact that policies of indefinite detention have on children and brings to light the concerns that many people already have about the treatment of asylum seeker children in Australia’s care.

    The Report recommends that a royal commission needs to be established to  examine the breach of the Commonwealth’s duty of care, focussing in particular on the use of force against children in detention, and allegations of sexual assault.

    Gillian Triggs, President of the Australian Human Rights Commission said,“It is troubling that members of the Government and Parliament and Departmental officials are either uninformed, or choose to ignore, the human rights treaties to which Australia is a party”.  

    The Report was issued after 1,129 children in detention were interviewed. It shows there were 233 recorded assaults involving children and 33 incidents of reported sexual assaults.

    The Report alleges human rights violations and says that children being detained indefinitely on Nauru are “suffering from extreme levels of physical, emotional, psychological and developmental distress“.

    Recommendations of the report are as follows:

    • all children to be released from Australian mainland detention and from detention centres on Nauru
    • laws be introduced to make sure children are not detained beyond health, identity and security checks
    • laws be introduced to give effect to the Convention on the Rights of the Child
    • No child to be sent offshore for processing unless it is clear that their human rights will be respected
    • An independent guardian be appointed for unaccompanied children on Christmas Island

    It is Gillian Triggs’ hope that the Report will, “…prompt fair-minded Australians, Members of Parliament and the Federal Government to reconsider our asylum seeker policies and to release all children and their families immediately”

    She also stated that, “It is imperative that Australian governments never again use the lives of children to achieve political or strategic advantage. The aims of stopping people smugglers and deaths at sea do not justify the cruel and illegal means adopted. Australia is better than this.”

    I and my colleagues in the sector welcome the recommendation to establish a royal commission to investigate what has been happening behind the closed gates of the detention centres to ensure clear parameters are established for future policy.

    To this effect, The Asylum Seekers Centre has joined the Refugee Council of Australia and other agencies in signing a joint statement calling for legislative change to ensure that children are not subject to immigration detention in the future.

    Melanie Noden is the CEO of the Asylum Seekers Centre, Sydney.

    The report can be found here:https://humanrights.gov.au/publications/forgotten-children-national-inquiry-children-immigration-detention-2014

     

  • Feathers ruffled in the Department of Immigration nest.

    In the e-magazine, The Mandarin, Stephen Easton has reported that ‘highly experienced bureaucrats have vacated the Department of Immigration and Border Protection since its amalgamation with Customs began last year. … There are signs confidence in the Department is low among Immigration bureaucrats, including some of Australia’s most committed and experienced experts. Deputy secretaries Liz Cosson, Wendy Southern and Mark Cormack have all handed in their resignations. … At least two First Assistant Secretaries have also jumped ship.’ This story can be found by clicking on the link below.

    http://www.themandarin.com.au/21226-feathers-ruffled-hawks-take-immigration-nest/

  • Michael Sainsbury. FIRB credibility shot with execution of Chinese gangster.

    Liu Han, the Chinese criminal whose billion dollar bid for Australian mining company Sundance Resources sailed through the Foreign Investment Review Board with barely the bat of an eyelid has been executed along with his brother, Liu Wei once one of China’s ten most wanted murderers.

    So endeth one of the most embarrassing episodes in recent Australian corporate history that exposed the incompetence not just of FIRB but of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as well.

    It was very clear by stories published in the media and in publicly available information that Liu was a very questionable character, almost certainly a gangster. Much of this information was available using simple Internet searches. The directors of Sundance also appear to have wilfully ignored evidence relating to Liu Han’s company Hanlong and his own background, it seems they did little if any due diligence in their unseemly rush to unload the company. Shareholders and Australian citizens deserve better.

    In the aftermath of the deal, five executives of Hanlong were caught insider trading by ASIC. It’s a crime committed with obvious and monotonous regularity on the Australian Securities Exchange, yet so very rarely does ASIC move. So ham-fisted were the efforts of the Hanlong crew that even plodding ASIC officials were forced to take action. But when they did they inexplicably allowed one of the accused, Stephen Xiao, to return to Hong Kong to seek medical treatment, Australia’s world renowned doctors apparently, were not good enough. To absolutely no one’s surprise, Xiao reneged on his promise to come back. Would any reasonable person?

    But he was unlucky enough to be the victim of some rare karma when he was returned by Chinese police, clearly as part of the deal with he Australian Federal Police to help them track down Chinese officials shoveling ill-gotten gains and escaping the clutches of the ongoing anti –corruption purge inside the ruling Chinese Communist Party into Australia, via the previous Labor administration’s questionable $5 million buy-a-citizenship visa program and its Abbott government successor

    It was this same campaign that swept up Liu Han. Only a few years earlier Liu had managed, perhaps corruptly, to obtain foreign investment approval from China’s National Development and Reform Commission, the top economic ministry which is now under heavy scrutiny from anti-corruption investigators. Already a number of its senior officials have gone down. It is to be hoped that FIRB has learned some lessons and is keeping a very close eye on these developments.

    The AFP’s deal with Chinese authorities raises serious moral and ethical questions about whether Australia should be complicit in returning people to possible death by state execution a la the Liu brothers. The heavily Christian Abbott Cabinet – Julie Bishop is the only senior member who does not claim to be a practicing Christian – should take a good hard look in the mirror when such deals are done on their watch.

    As Chinese investment in Australia continues apace, particularly by private individuals and companies, it remains unclear whether FIRB has learnt to use Google or are any better equipped to investigate Chinese  – or for that matter any other foreigners investing in Australia. The AFP is already under a cloud for its role in delivering the Bali Nine into the hands of Indonesian authorities and, in the case of at least two of that group, imminent death by firing squad. Perhaps Australians won’t care so much when a corrupt Chinese businessperson and perhaps his or her spouse are caught in Australia and returned to China, only to be executed by the government – but they should – it would mean Australia condones and is complicit in murder.

    The Australian government, and its agencies needs to sharply, lift its game in understanding both foreign companies who want to invest in Australia as well as in  clarifying its position on sending people – Australians or foreign nationals – into situations where they could face state sanctioned murder.

    Michael Sainsbury is a journalist who works out of Bangkok. This article was first published in his China blog on 9 February 2015. 

  • Rosemary Breen- Living water in Myanmar

     I listened to Rosemary Breen  from  Inverell speak at my local church about the work she is doing in Myanmar to help poor villagers get access to clean water.  She was inspiring and challenging. We all know that polluted water is a cause of dysentery, diarrhoea, infant mortality and early deaths across all age groups. Rosemary Breen decided she would do something about it. 

    If you could help financially you could greatly improve the health of many young people and reduce the death rate. My own parish contributed well over $20 000 in a Christmas appeal. As each tank costs about $US 2 000 that gift will bring clean drinking water to over 10 villages.

    Rosemary Breen gives her time freely and pays for her own travel expenses.

    Can you help?       John Menadue. 

    Rosemary tells her story below.

    I began going to Myanmar in 2004, having been asked by some sisters of an international religious community to research the possibility of their starting a community there.  Eventually this happened and I would return to stay with the sisters in Yangon and help with a teacher-training course.

    About four years ago, I worked with a young woman, Maw Maw, who was trying to get a scholarship to train in early education in the USA.  This didn’t eventuate and she finally got her training in Manila.  On her return, she told me of the great need for clean water in what is known as the Dry Zone in Central Myanmar where she was going to be living and where, eventually she hoped to open a small school .Her teacher was Saya Toe, who became the organiser of the water-tank project which grew out of this tiny seed which Maw Maw had planted in my mind and heart.

    Screen Shot 2014-11-26 at 1.58.46 pm

    I had been involved in a small way in water projects in Africa and felt strongly that clean drinking water was one of our basic rights and I had already financed the building of a water-tank in the southern part of Myanmar after a cyclone had hit that part of the country.  And so it started!

    Various friends donated generously to this project. I spoke at meetings and groups and then received a very generous donation from a Trust in the UK.  So what began as a very modest idea began to grow bigger and bigger and last January I visited the forty villages and schools which now have tanks, some 3000- 5000 gallons, depending on requirements.  The cost of each tank is about $US2000…  When I returned in December 2014, the 74th water-tank was being built, much to the delight of the villagers and the little local school.  A special joy was being accompanied by a young woman who had come to Australia as a refugee with literally nothing in the early 1980s and was sponsored by our local refugee resettlement group.  Her family has already financed four water-tanks and Hieu-Duc is already planning another fund-raiser.  What an asset to Australia and to the world are these refugees that we provide protection for.

    The building of the tanks is quite simple – there is a dedicated team which goes round the villages. This means these men now have a regular income. Guttering is put on the roofs, pipes affixed and the tank is built on site, using metal mesh, bamboo and cement.  When the monsoon rains come, the tanks quickly fill up.  The local people in the villages help by getting the gravel, stones and water.

    Their labour has been estimated at 17% of the cost.

    At my last visit, a number of school principals and village headmen came to ask if they too could have a water tank. There is still great need.  As one headman said simply, “Please help us – we are so thirsty!”  Last season there was less than usual rainfall. Some tanks were empty but for as little as $20, it was possible to hire a driver and bullock-cart to refill the tanks by making numerous journeys to a well.

    One very great need that I discovered is for a second-hand 4WD. The roads are mostly sandy tracks and often the taxis I had hired could not get through. We had to get out and walk or go by bullock-cart which tested my aged bones!

    Saya Toe has organised all this without any remuneration. He visits each village four times, to discuss the proposition and educate the people who will be responsible for the tank’s maintenance. It has been a mammoth task for him.

    Since last May, the project has come under the auspices of the Global Development Group which looks after sending receipts to donors and getting the money to Saya Toe in Myanmar which previously was quite a problem.  Another advantage is that it is now tax-deductible.

    So to date, 74 villages now have clean drinking water, thanks to donors all round Australia, in the USA and recently the UK.  I pass on to you all the gratitude of so many who have seen clean water as a luxury beyond their reach which we just take for granted.  I still get really moved seeing the school children drinking clean water and know it is thanks to so many who have been inspired to help.

     

    (Living Water Myanmar is an approved project (J812N) with Global Development Group – issuing tax deductible receipts for gifts over $2.   Donate at: www.gdg.org.au/GiveToJ812N)

     

     

    Rosemary Breen can be contacted at lrbreen@nsw.chariot.net.au

  • Tony Smith. Baird’s risk on asylum seekers

    When New South Wales Premier Michael Baird told an Australia Day luncheon that we should be more accepting of asylum seekers, he was taking quite a risk. Baird’s federal Liberal Party colleagues have espoused the hard policy of stopping the boats which the Abbott Government declares is its greatest achievement. It is not unknown for NSW Liberals to openly state their doubts about party policy. During the Howard Government’s campaign against asylum seekers, which used inaccurate phrases such as ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘queue jumpers’ and even ‘sleeper terrorists’, several backbenchers took principled stands against the more extreme aspects of government policy.

    Even those observers who cannot bring themselves to vote Liberal should give credit where it is due. Although not in his electorate, I emailed Bruce Baird when he dissented over refugee policy during the Howard years to congratulate him and thank him. Such principled actions by MPs have the potential to restore our jaded expectations of the political process. Objections to Government policy by Labor MPs can seem like opposition for its own sake, and all too often such objections fail to suggest any decent alternatives.

    More recently, in April 2014, I wrote to then Premier Barry O’Farrell to thank him for expressing concern about Abbott Government plans to amend Racial Discrimination legislation. Mr O’Farrell had sought advice about the possible consequences of softening laws against racial vilification, allegedly in the name of freedom of speech. These plans were roundly condemned by a broad cross-section of Australians and greeted as a sop to bigots.

    It was barely a week after this correspondence that Mr O’Farrell resigned as premier. During hearings at the Independent Commission Against Corruption, O’Farrell apparently answered a question inaccurately. O’Farrell maintained that he did not remember receiving a gift of some rare and expensive wine, a Penfolds Grange Hermitage. When his error was pointed out to him, O’Farrell said that for the sake of the integrity of the office, he would resign.

    Many political observers remain puzzled by O’Farrell’s resignation, thinking that there must be more to the story. Surely, his misleading answer was neither intentional nor serious. Some observers think that more would have emerged about that particular bottle of wine and/or its donor. They think that O’Farrell resigned to protect either himself or associates from further allegations, questioning and exposure. No-one though, raised the possibility of a link between O’Farrell’s stance against the proposed amendments to the RDA and his subsequent embarrassment before ICAC. Perhaps few observers are as cynical as I about the lack of ethics within political parties. Perhaps I am prone to accept conspiracy theories too readily. But one day, we will almost certainly learn more about the situation surrounding the demise of a premier who seemed to be both genuine and compassionate and whose popularity, mid-term, was as high as could be expected.

    On the Labor side of politics, John Robertson’s resignation as parliamentary leader seems as premature as O’Farrell’s departure. Robertson admitted that he had written in support of the perpetrator of the Martin Place hostage situation. However, the man was a constituent and MPs write such letters as a matter of form. Before public reaction could be tested, Robertson said that he had lost the support of unnamed ‘senior colleagues’. It appears that these senior colleagues must have – as the jargon has it – ‘tapped him on the shoulder’. What is clear is that senior colleagues would be those first in line for the top job.

    What also seems evident to anyone not involved in the party’s internal power shuffles is that the need to find a lower house seat for the new Labor leader created a milieu in which local party members must feel that they have been treated shabbily. Voters who became disenchanted with Labor when a number of Ministers seemed to lack a spirit of public service have been reminded of the bad old days. While Robertson might not have been an inspiring leader, under his leadership the party seemed to be regaining the discipline which made it electable during the Carr period from 1995 to the early 2000s.

    Left leaning Liberals like Michael Baird embarrass the party’s Right because they are evidence of how real ‘liberals’ should behave. He must have his fingers crossed that Liberal Party power brokers think they need him too much to ditch him now with an election looming in March. The fact that Baird’s stance on asylum seekers and refugees carries a certain amount of risk makes it all the more admirable.

  • John Menadue. Stopping the boats and turn-backs at sea

    In the Saturday Paper of January 24 this year, in an article by Mike Seccombe, two refugee advocates were quoted as saying:

    ‘Things like offshore processing and TPVs, mandatory detention – these sorts of measures don’t stop the boats.  It’s turnbacks that stop the boats.  It’s when you start dragging people back to Indonesia. That’s what we saw in 2002-03. That’s what we’ve seen again now.’

    and

    ‘The one thing that stops people is sending them back.  If you look back, the way they stopped the outflow from China in 1994, it was by interdiction. The same from Haiti to the US.  Deterrent measures don’t work. Even Nauru, et cetera, by themselves, are not deterrent enough.’

    The facts tell a very different story as I pointed out in an earlier blog of 8 December 2014 “Tony Abbott did not stop the boats ‘which is reposted below. In short, that blog contended

    • It was the decision of the Rudd Government on 19 July 2013 that in future any persons coming by boat and found to be refugees would not be resettled in Australia. People arriving by boat fell dramatically from 4,145 in July 2014 to 837 in September when the change of government occurred. The number continued to fall thereafter. There are obviously lags following a government announcement but the trend after July 2013 is clear. (This downward trend was also helped by two other actions by the Rudd Government. The first was getting Indonesia to impose a visa requirement on Iranians, thereby denying them a visa transit point to Australian territory. The second was ‘enhanced screening’ of Sri Lankans that resulted in high rejection rates and fast return to Sri Lanka).
    • The effects of Operation Sovereign Borders and turn-backs of boats to Indonesia where minor by comparison. In any event OSB would have been impossible if boats had continued to arrive at 47 per month as they had in July 2013.
    • The game changer was Kevin Rudd and offshore processing and denial of resettlement in Australia and not OSB and turn backs.

    John Howard was similarly successful in stopping the boats. In 1999-2000 there were 75 boat arrivals. It fell in subsequent years to 54, 19, 0 and 3.  It worked in the short term but it was undone by two factors.

    • As the concern about long-term detention of asylum seekers in Nauru grew, the Howard Government relaxed its policy and many of the asylum seekers in Nauru were resettled in New Zealand and Australia. It became clear to people smugglers and asylum seekers that even the horrors of Nauru were acceptable if they knew that after some delay they were likely to be resettled in Australia. Andrew Metcalfe, the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, told the parliament that the Pacific policies of John Howard could not be repeated because asylum seekers knew that at the end of the day they were likely to be resettled in Australia or New Zealand if they were found to be refugees.
    • The Rudd Government abandoned the Pacific policies of the Howard Government and boat arrivals steadily grew. They increased from 3 in 2007-08 to 23, 117, 89, 110 and 403 by 2012-13. Asylum seekers coming by boat were confident that even if intercepted, they would eventually be settled in Australia if they were found to be refugees.

    There is a good deal that refugee advocates can do to advance the cause of asylum seekers and refugees rather than put a gloss on the facts about offshore processing and denial of resettlement in Australia.

    • Advocate a speed-up in the processing of the 30,000 asylum seekers in Australia whose status and future is still to be determined.
    • Increase the humanitarian quota to 25,000 p.a.
    • Abolish mandatory detention that punishes, does not deter and is very expensive.
    • Negotiate orderly departure arrangements with Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

    Advocacy in these areas is likely to be more productive than continuing an argument which we as refugee advocates have lost. Offshore processing, which the Rudd Government introduced was the game changer. We may not like it but the issue of boat arrivals is really concluded for the foreseeable future. It has been decided by agreement by all the major parties.

    Refugee advocates like me have reluctantly concluded that offshore processing, coupled with denial of any resettlement in Australia did largely stop the boats. That is a fact and claiming that the turn-backs to Indonesia did the job is just not supported by the evidence.

    I concluded some time ago that offshore processing is acceptable provided it is humane, just and efficient – and supported by the UNHCR. None of that is occurring on Manus or Nauru.

     

    Repost:  Tony Abbott did not stop the boats (8 December 2014)

    The data just does not support the never-ending claims by Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison that they stopped the boats. The under-resourced and uncritical media accepts the Coalition’s line.

    I will come to the recent data, but first the evidence is clear that action by the Coalition along with the Greens in the Senate to prevent amendments to the Migration Act greatly assisted people-smugglers and boat arrivals from 2011 onwards.

    The rejection of the arrangement with Malaysia by the High Court started the rot. The High Court decision may have been sound in law, but it had powerful consequences for boat arrivals. The arrangement with Malaysia needed improvement but it did provide guarantees that Malaysia had never provided before. The UNHCR was prepared to actively cooperate. When the High Court rejected the Malaysian arrangement in August 2011, irregular maritime arrivals were running at less than 300 per month. That number increased to 1200 by May 2012, and kept on rising.

    The Labor Government attempted to amend the Migration Act to address the problems identified by the High Court but the Coalition together with the Greens blocked the amending legislation. They bashed Malaysia at every opportunity. The failure of the Malaysian arrangement sent a very clear message to people smugglers that boat arrivals would succeed. Boat arrivals were running at over 4,000 per month in July 2013.

    The action by Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison in association with the Greens triggered this dramatic increase in boat arrivals. Both Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison made it abundantly clear that they did not want to stop the boats with an arrangement such as that with Malaysia. They wanted to stop Labor stopping the boats. Their political intentions were revealed by WikiLeaks that reported that ‘a key Liberal Party strategist told the US embassy in 2009 that the more boats that come the better’. (SMH 10 December 2010). Scott Morrison became Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship in December 2009.

    Action by the Coalition in the Senate triggered a large increase in boat arrivals in 2012 and into 2013.

    But did Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison really stop the boats when they came to power?

    The data shows that the downward trend in boat arrivals occurred from July 2013, two months before the Coalition came to power. See data below.

    2013 Boat people arrivals(excluding crew) Boats
    January 2013 471 10
    February 925 16
    March 2455 37
    April 3396 47
    May 3315 47
    June 2715 41
    July 4145 47
    Aug 1591 25
    September 837 15
    October 339 5
    November 207 5
    December 355 7

    Source: Department of Immigration and Border Protection, and Australian Parliamentary Library.

    What largely stopped the boats, although not completely, was the announcement by Kevin Rudd on the 19th July 2013 that in future any persons coming by boat and found to be a  refugee would not be settled in Australia. We may argue about the wisdom of that policy, but it effectively crippled the business case of the people-smugglers.

    In the data above, there are undoubtedly some leads and lags and seasonal factors, but the data shows that the Rudd announcement of 19 July 2013 dramatically cut the number of boats and people arriving by boat. The major turnaround occurred between July and August, before the Coalition came to power.

    As the Abbott Government was not sworn in until 18 September 2013, its policy on boats would also have had only marginal effect on September arrivals.

    So between July and September, people arriving by boat fell from 4,145 to 837 and the number of boats fell from 47 to 15. The trend largely continued after that time.

    Peter Hughes a former deputy secretary in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship put it this way in an article in the Canberra Times in late 2013. ‘The arrival of 546 asylum seekers in October and November 2013 represents only 14% of the number of arrivals for the corresponding months in 2012. This is a dramatic reduction … The announcement of long-term resettlement of refugees in Papua New Guinea and Nauru by the previous government has likely been decisive in changing the decision to travel to Australia on the part of those asylum seekers who have not yet handed over their money to a smuggler. ‘

    The game-changer was Kevin Rudd’s announcement of 19 July 2013 on no resettlement in Australia for boat arrivals. It is also likely that tighter visa procedures on Indonesia’s part would have helped reduce the number of boat arrivals.  In effect the Rudd Government slammed the door although the boat turn a rounds pushed the final bolt home. In other words, if there was any doubt in the minds of people smugglers and asylum seekers trying to come by boat those doubts were removed.

    The Abbott Government capitalised on a trend which the Rudd Government clearly started in July 2013.

    Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison have wrung every political advantage they could from boat arrivals. But the evidence is clear that they helped accelerate the numbers before they came to power and it was the action of the Rudd Government, before they came to power in September 2013 that put boat arrivals on a downward track

    Operation Sovereign Borders has really been quite marginal and would not have been ‘successful’ without the July 2013 decision. Navy and Customs were able to turn a few boats around. This would have been impossible if boats had continued to arrive at 47 a month as they were in July 2013. OSB has been very high profile and very expensive – and offensive to Indonesia. But OSB has not been the main game.

    The game-changer was Kevin Rudd’s announcement in July 2013.

     

  • John Menadue. Tony Abbott at the National Press Club

    In his speech today, Tony Abbott recycled many of his one-liners that we heard at the last election. Let’s examine several of them.

    First, he said that his government was a low-taxing government and that it would reduce the budget deficit by reducing spending, rather than increasing taxes. But the most recent mid-year economic forecast shows that tax receipts are increasing substantially as a result of allowing budget creep as people move into higher income tax brackets. Government receipts/taxation are projected to increase by 2% from 22.8% of GDP in 2012-13 to 24.8% in 2017-18. Further the coalition said it would reduce debt. At the end of 2013 actual net debt was $178 b. The Department of Finance tell us that at the end of 2014  the net debt was $239 b, an increase of $61 b or 35%

    Tony Abbott said that he would stop the boats. But despite being told about the success of this ‘signature policy’ and the uncritical response of the media, the facts are that Tony Abbott did not stop the boats. What started the reduction in boat arrivals  was the announcement by Kevin Rudd on 19 July 2013, two months before the last election, that any new boat arrivals would be processed offshore and if found to be refugees, would not be settled in Australia. That was the real game changer, not Operation Sovereign Borders and the turn backs of a few boats to Indonesia.The number of people arriving by boat in July 2013 was 4,145. It fell substantially to 837 by the time the Abbott Government took power. The downward trend began in July 2013, two months before Tony Abbott came to power.

    As part of a dishonest and exaggerated scare campaign, Tony Abbott said that he would abolish the carbon tax. He did. But now without a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme, we have no credible policy in place to address the growing threat of climate change. If Malcolm Turnbull comes back as leader an emissions trading scheme will be quickly back on the agenda.

    Tony Abbott said that he would abolish the mining tax. And he did – and Australia is much worse off as a result. Giant international mining companies like Glencore are paying very little company tax at all. Is that good economic management and is it fair?

    In his press club speech, Tony Abbott said that his government was on track in the building of roads. But many of the roads he claims to be building are really recycled projects from the previous government which Anthony Albanese had announced. In any event, we don’t need more roads for the reasons I have written about in this blog. We need to invest in new public urban rail systems.

    In his press club address, Tony Abbott complained about the Senate. Certainly the Senate has refused to pass some key government budget items, but that has been because the Senate came to the view, which I generally agree with, that many of the government’s budget proposals were unfair. Furthermore, Tony Abbott now prefers that we forget that at the last election he said that he would not hesitate to take the parliament to a double-dissolution if it was necessary to tame the Senate and the ALP. We have heard nothing more about this threat if the senate continues to misbehave. The media has completely forgotten this threat or was it a promise.

    One liners may be effective in opposition and at election time but they don’t usually make for good policy.

  • High Court decision on Tamil asylum seekers

    The majority decided that the detention from 1 to 27 July 2014 was lawful at all times and thus there was no claim to damages for the detention.

    (more…)

  • Wendy Sharpe – Asylum seeker portraits and stories

    The Asylum Seekers Centre is presenting an art exhibition – ‘Seeking Humanity’ – by renowned Australian artist, Wendy Sharpe. It opens in Ultimo, Sydney, on 17 February, for four weeks, before moving to Canberra on 20 March, and then Penrith.

    It is not about politics, but puts a human face to those who have fled situations of great danger in their home country in search of safety and freedom in Australia. The video has been very successful, with over 500 people viewing it within the first 24 hours.

    A previous Archibald winner and 2014 finalist, Wendy has drawn portraits of 39 asylum seekers and refugees. Through her art, she shares their lives with us to show that underneath all the troubles and politics around the issue, we are all the same. That we all have the same hopes and dreams.

    More info – http://asylumseekerscentre.org.au/seeking-humanity

  • John Menadue. If I were a Muslim…

    The brutality and assasination of the editors and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo must be condemned. Those responsible must face and perhaps have faced the full consequences.

    But if I were a Muslim, I would have been offended by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. They were not a critique of Islam but gratuitous insults. I expect my Christian faith to be respected. Religious tolerance requires respect for other people’s beliefs.  The cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo did not do that.

    We live in a fragile and pluralistic world and we must be aware of the consequences of what we do and say. Surely that is what fraternity and solidarity is about – respecting the rights and beliefs of others.

    Both the New York Times and The Guardian have refused to publish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. I believe that shows mature judgement.

    Charles Walton of the the University of Warwick sets out in the link below the problem when free speech becomes a kind of fundamentalism. This article was published in The Conversation on 9 January.

    http://theconversation.com/when-free-speech-becomes-a-kind-of-fundamentalism-36039

    Extremism in any religion is a major concern. We need to consciously build relations with moderate Islam so that the extremists can be isolated. Building relations with Islam goes far beyond anti terrorism action. It involves economic, social and political action so that young Muslims in particular are not isolated in frustration and urban ghettoes.

    The west has exploited the Middle East and antagonised Islam from the time of the Christian Crusades. The Middle East has been attacked, colonised and its resources exploited. That inevitably leaves a legacy of hostility.  That hostility must be addressed on a range of fronts.

    Andrew MacLeod in The New Daily writes about the need for the West to undertake a wide range of activities that will encourage and support moderate Muslims and at the same time isolate extremists. The link to this article is below.

    http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2015/01/09/must-rethink-islam/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The+New+Daily+Saturday+10115&utm_content=The+New+Daily+Saturday+10115+CID_c2ce349d983fb49cc7796b4c588d8994&utm_source=&utm_term=Why+a+heavy+handed+approach+to+Islamic+extremism+will+not+work#.VLGlodSO5uc.gmail

  • John Tulloh. The flight of Christians from the Middle East.

    If there is one region which Christians increasingly want to abandon, it is the biblical heartland of their faith: the Middle East. They are fleeing in greater numbers than ever before. They are fearful of the growing turmoil in places like Syria and Iraq, the spread of radical Islam and, of course, now the presence of Islamic State (IS) and its dire warning to non-believers that ‘there is nothing to give (you) but the sword’. The exodus has alarmed Pope Francis who said: ‘We will not resign ourselves to imagining a Middle East without Christianity’.

    That is unlikely to happen, but there won’t be much of it left. According to Time, if the Middle East’s current demographic trends continue, the region’s 12 million Christians will be halved as soon as 2020. It has been a steady decline which has been gathering pace in recent years. A century ago the last Ottoman census revealed that Christians comprised 25% of the region’s population. Today it is said to be less than 5%.

    It was St Thomas the Evangelist who introduced Christianity to Egypt in the first century and it was the dominant faith until the arrival of Islam. What is Syria today was associated with the apostles St Peter and St Paul. St Thomas extended it to ancient Mesopotamia which is today’s Iraq. Islam came into being in the 7th century and spread rapidly.

    Ironically, in recent decades it was Arab despots who gave Christians the greatest feeling of security. Saddam Hussein made sure Iraq’s came to no harm just as the Assad dynasty had done in Syria until recently and Hosni Mubarak did during his 29 years of governing Egypt. In fact, Saddam’s long-time foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, was a Christian who used to startle guests by singing Onward Christian Soldiers in Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

    But when Saddam was toppled by the US-led invasion in 2003, Iraqi Christians panicked and it was reported that nearly a million of them fled the country, fearful of the alternative. The upheaval in Syria has caused a mass flight from there as well – 1 in 4 of the country’s Christians. In the last census 20 years ago they comprised 8% of the population.

    Egypt has the biggest Christian community – about 8 million of mostly Copts. Many were alarmed when Mubarak was ousted in 2011 and the following year replaced by a democratically-elected Moslem Brotherhood government which proposed an Islamist-based constitution. Nearly 100,000 of them cleared out of the country. But those who remained were relieved and indeed cheered when the Brotherhood was overthrown last year and replaced by a government led by another military strongman, Field Marshal Abdel al-Sisi, who has no time for Islamic extremism.

    If it hadn’t happened, there would have been a mass exodus, according to Egypt’s richest man, Naguib Sawiris, himself a Christian. He was quoted as saying that majority rule in the Arab world leaves minorities at risk. So it was better to support a secular-leaning coup-maker than risk annihilation by Islamists.

    But Michael Wahid Hanna, a Middle East analyst at the Century Foundation, a US think tank, is not so sure. He is quoted in Time as saying: ‘Christians in the region are forced into these Faustian bargains in which they end up supporting authoritarian regimes for fear of what the alternative would look like. But the price is that it can aggravate underlying sectarian tensions and create further animosities and bigotry’.

    The Christians have resettled in the Americas, Europe and Australia. As has been the case in recent weeks, others have been driven into exile by the depredations of IS. Prince Hassan of Jordan, who takes a close interest in regional humanitarian matters, says there are now more Jerusalem Christians living in Sydney than in Jerusalem itself.

    Their flight leaves the Arab world depleted culturally. The Lebanese historian, Professor Kamal Salibi, is quoted as saying: ‘Each time a Christian goes, no other Christian comes to fill his place and that is a very bad thing for the Arab world. It is the Christian Arabs who keep the Arab world “Arab” rather than “Moslem”.’

    Even if the exodus ceases, the ratio of the Christian population will continue to decline simply because the birthrate among Moslem families is so much higher. ‘The Christian era in the Middle East is over,’ says the Italian author and journalist, Giulio Meotti, who specialises in the Holy Land. He notes that Bethlehem was 80% Christian in 1948 and today they are ‘near extinction’. Nearby Ramallah was 90% Christian and now it is an Islamic city.

    Despite Christianity being their dominant faith, Western countries have showed little interest in the plight of their co-religionists in the Middle East. An exception was the recent case of the obscure Yazidis in Iraq, an ancient part Christian sect who were being threatened with starvation by marauding IS followers. Their desperate situation not only prompted a humanitarian airlift, including by the RAAF, but also helped galvanise the current US-led aerial campaign to crush IS.

    There is no doubt the Middle East politically as well as demographically is more Islamist than ever. This makes Christians and other minorities feel more isolated and nervous than ever about their future. If anything, we are now entering the Islamic era in the Middle East.

    John Tulloh had 40-year career in foreign news.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The former Archbishop of Canterbury

  • Kerry Murphy. Intra-religious conflict.

    Most violent deaths of Muslims in the world are due to others claiming to be Muslims.  The conflicts in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are all predominantly conflicts within the Islamic community.  This is strongly felt within the communities but not usually reported in the mainstream media.

    This week in Peshawar in north western Pakistan, more than 140 mainly Muslim children are killed by men who claim to follow a version of Islam that requires them to chant ‘God is Great’ whilst they execute unarmed school children.  They claim this is because the military in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has attacked yet another group of people where other civilians are killed.  “We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females,” said Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani.  “We want them to feel our pain.”

    Attacks on school children are only too common in Pakistan.  Only a short time before, Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and she continues her campaign to support the education of children.  She has her own experience of violence against women seeking education. Her response was not to give up, but to continue her work and support for education to build a better Pakistan.

    Our own Christmas preparations are confronted in Sydney by an angry, disturbed man with a gun.  He has a history of violence, possibly also mental health issues, but he has a gun.   He was claiming a link to a murderous sect committing war crimes in Syria and Iraq and takes hostages in a Sydney café the week before Christmas.  He has been rejected by his own community for abandoning Shia Islam for the extremist Sunni Salafists of ISIS. Three people are killed; two families will have a very sad Christmas.  Christmas is normally a time when gifts are given, families congregate and a birth is celebrated, not usually a time for reflecting on death.

    How do we respond to this violence and death, confronting us in the week before Christmas?  Do we respond with violence and vengeance, as is likely in Pakistan?  Or is there a lesson in the outpouring of support and reflection that can be seen in Martin Place, Sydney.  Possibly thousands have walked along to offer condolences to people they never knew, and leave flowers which are now filling up parts of the usually busy mall.  Australians and visitors from many diverse backgrounds can be seen looking and reflecting on the violent outburst in our busy commercial centre.

    It lead me to reflect more on how we respond to death, and how different communities commemorate their families and friends. Recently my wife and I, not being Muslims, were invited to attend the memorial ceremony for the death of a respected elder in the Hazara community in Sydney.  Hazaras are ethnically and religiously distinctive in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  We did not see anyone in the large group who was not Hazara, and there were many people there.  We attended the Shia Mosque in Sydney and were welcomed by the Hazara community as we paid our respects during the recitation of the Fatihe – the initial verses of the Quran, commonly recited when someone dies.

    Outside, we met up with many Hazara friends, who we first met in detention and are now Australians with their families helping to contribute to our multicultural society.  I saw a man who was my first Hazara client, back in 1998.  We met in Port Hedland detention centre and have maintained irregular contact since then.  We reflected on the recent changes for new Hazara refugees coming to Australia and how their community is at risk in both Afghanistan and Pakistan by those claiming adherence to the Taliban and their Wahhabist supporters simply because they are Shia. Reports of attacks on Hazaras are all too common.

    We can feel the pain of others, even those we never met, but unlike the Taliban or ISIS, we do not need to respond by inflicting more pain in revenge or retaliation.  Destroying is easy. Building up takes a long time and maybe reflecting on creating, not destroying will be a more uplifting mindset for the Christmas and New Year period.  Is it too much to hope that in 2015 more people will work towards building and creating rather than destroying?  We can but hope for without hope what do we have?

    Kerry Murphy is a Sydney solicitor who specialises in refugee law.

     

  • Tilly Gunning. Children in detention.

    The ‘We’re Better Than This’ campaign was launched on the 26th of November 2014, it’s aim is to end the Australian Government’s indeterminate detention of over 700 refugee children. Lots of influential Australians have come together to support the cause by participating in a choir song, the proceeds will go to charity. To listen to the song and view the video of support, click here. Visit the We’re Better Than This website to discover figures regarding children in detention, and contribute to the organisation, and make a change.
    Tilly Gunning is John Menadue’s 14 year old grand-daughter.

  • John Menadue. Temporary Protection Visas and the Senate cross-bench.

    I wish that the Rudd, Gillard and Abbott Governments had done things very differently on refugee policies. But faced with the impasse at the present time, I welcome the compromise arrangement which the government has negotiated with the senate cross benches – two senators from the Palmer Group, Nick Xenophon, Ricky Muir, Bob Day and David Leyonhjelm. But like the curate’s egg it is good and bad in parts.

    As a result a negotiated package has been achieved that will enable the government to get the refugee processing system moving again to assess the claims of over 30,000 asylum seekers who are in detention or in the community with very restricted rights. The package includes

    • The introduction of Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) which will grant three year residency for those found to have a legitimate refugee claim. At the end of that period they will not be guaranteed a permanent visa, but may re apply.
    • The introduction of Safe Haven Enterprise Visas (SHEVs) for five years if the asylum seeker spends that time either working or studying in a designated regional area whilst their claim is being processed.
    • There will be an increase in the humanitarian intake of 7,500 places over several years.
    • Asylum seekers on bridging visas will have the right to work.
    • All children in detention, except those on Nauru, will be released into the community.
    • Medicare will be made more readily available.

    This cannot be the end of the process, but I have no doubt that worthwhile progress has been made. The blockage in the system has been removed and processing will start. This is very important.

    It will be important to hold the government to account for this increase in the humanitarian intake to ensure ‘changed circumstances ‘does not result in a failure to implement the increase.

    In the past I have opposed TPVs for maritime arrivals because they leave the claimants in limbo about their future, they denied family reunion and did not deter asylum seekers as successive governments have suggested. But with 30,000 people already in limbo, some progress through TPVs would materially help their position. In a different political landscape, both in Australia and in countries from which asylum seekers have fled, it is not unreasonable to expect that over 80% of asylum seekers issued with TPVs will become permanent residents or citizens within the next ten years.

    Even with rights to work and some Medicare support, the large number of asylum seekers who will be moving into the community will present a major challenge for NGOs, churches and asylum seeker centres who generously support asylum seekers in their need. The government will need to urgently address this financial burden.

    There are other significant problems which will have to be addressed; the increased powers for defence and customs personnel; refoulment; compatibility with the Refugee Convention and judicial oversight.

    To cover its own failure, the ALP has said that the government was using children in detention as pawns in the negotiations. I understand that view and it is true that the government could have released these children at any time as also the last ALP government could have but didn’t.  But as part of a package the release of children is an excellent outcome, whatever the antecedents or background.

    The purists will not like this package. As a friend of mine said, he would not want to have these purists advocating on his behalf. ‘If I were starving, I expect I would die because these purists would deny me access to bread and water while fighting for my entitlement to a three-course meal’.

    I am surprised that the ALP didn’t take the opportunity to negotiate hard over the package. Instead it ceded asylum policy negotiations to the senate cross benches. What a sad abrogation of responsibility by the ALP to leave the outcome to Ricky Muir and others.

    I have written before about the abject failure of the Greens on both climate policy and refugees. On climate policy the Greens voted with the coalition in the Senate in 2009 to vote down Kevin Rudd’s Climate Pollution Reduction Scheme. Always the purists, the Greens wanted more than was on the table. Legislation was defeated in the Senate and we have gone backwards on climate policy ever since. The policy purity of the Greens and their incessant posturing has caused great damage to Australia on climate change.

    And the same is true on asylum seekers and refugees. Here again the Greens sided with the coalition in theSenate over two years ago to vote down theArrangement with Malaysia which the UNHCR said it could work with. The failure of the Senate to pass the enabling legislation after the High Court decision in 2011 meant that the Malaysian Arrangement failed. That triggered the enormous increase in boat arrivals in 2013. This led to Manus and Nauru. For this the Greens must bear a heavy responsibility. But they still continue to wash their hands of responsibility and parade their policy purity. Their posturing has delivered awful consequences for asylum seekers and refugees.

    It is also time both the ALP and the Greens showed some tactical nous. For the present, they have dealt themselves out of effective participation and negotiation on a very difficult but critical issue – the plight of 30,000 asylum seekers whose claims are waiting assessment.

    These amendments to the Migration Act must be seen as work in progress. There are many important issues that will hopefully be corrected with a change of government. There many important things that need to be done

    • Increase the humanitarian intake to at least 25 000 pa
    • Abolish mandatory detention which is cruel, expensive and does not deter.
    • Establish Orderly Departure Arrangements with Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan
    • Open more migration pathways, like 457 visas for persons who may be borderline refugees
    • De militarise our refugee policies and programs.

    A lot more must be done. But breaking the deadlock on the 30,000 forgotten people in detention or on bridging visas is an important step.

    As refugee advocates we have some hard thinking ahead.  To date we have failed comprehensively   to win improvements for people in great need. The perfect has become the enemy of the good. Needy asylum seekers are the losers.

    Sometimes harm minimisation is the best course, a course that the ALP and the Greens chose not to take on the Migration Act amendments.

    Aren’t 30,000 strangers in our land in need of help today, not in one or two years’ time!

  • Jock Collins. Australia’s shift from settler to temporary migration nation.

    Immigration is a political hot potato. On the day the OECD published its latest annual survey of global migration, Swiss voters rejected a referendum to reduce annual migration numbers.

    A few days earlier, yet another UN committee criticised Australia’s asylum seeker policies. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to reduce annual immigration from 260,000 to below 100,000 per year in response to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) securing its second parliamentary seat. And on November 20, US President Barack Obama announced his intention to permit millions of resident undocumented migrants’ access to permanent residence.

    The 2014 International Migration Outlook report reveals that there are 115 million first-generation migrants in OECD countries today, accounting for 10% of the OECD population. Another 5% of people in OECD countries are second-generation migrants.

    Both permanent and temporary migration numbers are down on the pre-global financial crisis record levels of 2007-08. This is in line with the trend of international migration to synchronise with the economic rhythms of globalisation.

    The report revealed that highly educated immigrants accounted for 45% of the increase in the foreign-born population of OECD countries in the last decade. Political conflict also drives international mobility: the report noted that flows of migrants seeking asylum increased by 20% in 2013.

    The OECD report presents data that confirms Australia’s place as one of the highest western immigration nations in per capita terms: 27.3% of all Australians today are born overseas. That is higher than countries in North America (Canada 19.8%, US 13%), Europe (UK 11.9%) or neighbour New Zealand (24.1%). Only Switzerland (27.7%) has more immigrants than Australia in relative terms among OECD countries.

    Click to enlarge

    There are a number of major drivers to international migration. One is economic. Globalisation has increased international labour migration as most countries seek to attract professional and highly skilled immigrants to fill labour shortages in areas such as health and informational technology, as well as other immigrants with trades in shortage in the labour market of the host country. In Australia, accountants, chefs, nurses, engineers and software developers top the skills-in-demand list for recent immigrants.

    Another major driver of international migration is global inequality. As scholars such as Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz have pointed out, globalisation has not delivered on its promise to reduce global inequality. Inequality drives international mobility for those who can turns dreams into reality.

    Another related driver of immigration is political. The expansion of the European Union, for example, enables people from the new member states (Romania joined in 2007 and Croatia in 2013) to move to other countries within the EU to seek employment.

    At the same time, political conflict such as that seen recently in countries in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe unleashes the movement of many millions of people within and beyond national borders to seek refuge and protection. Estimates put the number of refugees at 16.7 million, asylum seekers at 1.2 million and internally displaced people at 33.3 million for a total of 51.2 million people. As The Guardian recently put it:

    If displaced people had their own country it would be the 24th most populous in the world.

    Countries of settler immigration – who wanted immigrants and their families and subsequent generations to stay and become part of nation building – have been the exception and not the rule. Australia, the US, Canada and New Zealand are most prominent in this regard.

    However, trends in Australian immigration in the past two decades strongly suggest that Australian can no longer be regarded as a settler immigration nation. 2012-13 immigration data shows that 190,000 arrived under the permanent immigration program (or 192,599 when Trans-Tasman migrants are included).

    Click to enlarge

    But in the same year, 725,043 – or 766,273 including Trans-Tasman migrants – migrants arrived on temporary immigration visas. This included 258,248 on working holiday visas, 259,278 on international student visas and 126,350 on temporary work (skilled) visas.

    This shift of Australia from a settler immigration nation to a temporary migrant nation has been the biggest change in nearly seven decades of post-war immigration history. Yet, remarkably, there has been virtually no debate about it other than understandable concerns about abuses of workers under the temporary 457 visa and of some working holiday makers by unscrupulous employers or agents.

    The available oxygen for Australian immigration debates today has been captured almost exclusively by the “boat people” debate. However, the 15,827 humanitarian entrants to Australia in 2012-13 comprised only 8.3% of entrants under the permanent immigration program and 1.9% of the total (permanent plus temporary) program in that year.

    The OECD report concluded that immigration had strong public support in Australia. It found:

    … a high level of support in 2012 for all immigration categories in Australia, with the public most favourable towards skilled migrants.

    Unfortunately, this flattering conclusion cannot be extended to humanitarian immigration and boat arrivals. It is an aspect of Australia’s remarkable immigration history that should bring shame to the country and its political leadership.

    Jock Collins is Professor of Social Economics, UTS Business School at University of Technology, Sydney.

    This article was first published in The Conversation, 2 December 2014.

  • John Menadue. Tony Abbott did not stop the boats.

    The data just does not support the never-ending claims by Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison that they stopped the boats. The under-resourced and uncritical media accepts the Coalition’s line.

    I will come to the recent data, but first the evidence is clear that action by the Coalition along with the Greens in the Senate to prevent amendments to the Migration Act greatly assisted people-smugglers and boat arrivals from 2011 onwards.

    The rejection of the arrangement with Malaysia by the High Court started the rot. The High Court decision may have been sound in law, but it had powerful consequences for boat arrivals. The arrangement with Malaysia needed improvement but it did provide guarantees that Malaysia had never provided before. The UNHCR was prepared to actively cooperate. When the High Court rejected the Malaysian arrangement in August 2011, irregular maritime arrivals were running at less than 300 per month. That number increased to 1200 by May 2012, and kept on rising.

    The Labor  Government  attempted to amend the Migration Act to address the problems identified by the High Court but the Coalition together with the Greens blocked the amending legislation. They bashed Malaysia at every opportunity. The failure of the Malaysian arrangement sent a very clear message to people smugglers that boat arrivals would succeed. Boat arrivals were running at over 4,000 per month in July 2013.

    The action by Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison in association with the Greens triggered this dramatic increase in boat arrivals. Both Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison made it abundantly clear that they did not want to stop the boats with an arrangement such as that with Malaysia. They wanted to stop Labor stopping the boats. Their political intentions were revealed by WikiLeaks that reported that ‘a key Liberal Party strategist told the US embassy in 2009 that the more boats that come the better’. (SMH 10 December 2010). Scott Morrison became Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship in December 2009.

    Action by the Coalition in the Senate triggered a large increase in boat arrivals in 2012 and into 2013.

    But did Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison really stop the boats when they came to power?

    The data shows that the downward trend in boat arrivals occurred from July 2013, two months before the Coalition came to power. See data below.

    2013 Boat people arrivals(excluding crew) Boats
    January 2013 471 10
    February 925 16
    March 2455 37
    April 3396 47
    May 3315 47
    June 2715 41
    July 4145 47
    Aug 1591 25
    September 837 15
    October 339 5
    November 207 5
    December 355 7

    Source: Department of Immigration and Border Protection, and Australian Parliamentary Library.

    What largely stopped the boats, although not completely, was the announcement by Kevin Rudd on the 19th July 2013 that in future any persons coming by boat and found to be a  refugee would not be settled in Australia. We may argue about the wisdom of that policy, but it effectively crippled the business case of the people-smugglers.

    In the data above, there are undoubtedly some leads and lags and seasonal factors, but the data shows that the Rudd announcement of 19 July 2013 dramatically cut the number of boats and people arriving by boat. The major turnaround occurred between July and August, before the Coalition came to power.

    As the Abbott Government was not sworn in until 18 September 2013, its policy on boats would also have had only marginal effect on September arrivals.

    So between July and September, people arriving by boat fell from 4,145 to 837 and the number of boats fell from 47 to 15. The trend largely continued after that time.

    Peter Hughes a former deputy secretary in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship put it this way in an article in the Canberra Times in late 2013. ‘The arrival of 546 asylum seekers in October and November 2013 represents only 14% of the number of arrivals for the corresponding months in 2012. This is a dramatic reduction … The announcement of long-term resettlement of refugees in Papua New Guinea and Nauru by the previous government has likely been decisive in changing the decision to travel to Australia on the part of those asylum seekers who have not yet handed over their money to a smuggler. ‘

    The game-changer was Kevin Rudd’s announcement of 19 July 2013 on no resettlement in Australia for boat arrivals. It is also likely that tighter visa procedures on Indonesia’s part would have helped reduce the number of boat arrivals.  In effect the Rudd Government slammed the door although the boat turn a rounds pushed the final bolt home. In other words, if there was any doubt in the minds of people smugglers and asylum seekers trying to come by boat those doubts were removed.

    The Abbott Government capitalised on a trend which the Rudd Government clearly started in July 2013.

    Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison have wrung every political advantage they could from boat arrivals. But the evidence is clear that they helped accelerate the numbers before they came to power and it was the action of the Rudd Government, before they came to power in September 2013 that put boat arrivals on a downward track

    Operation Sovereign Borders has really been quite marginal and would not have been ‘successful’ without the July 2013 decision. Navy and Customs were able to turn a few boats around. This would have been impossible if boats had continued to arrive at 47 a month as they were in July 2013. OSB has been very high profile and very expensive – and offensive to Indonesia. But OSB has not been the main game.

    The game-changer was Kevin Rudd’s announcement in July 2013.

  • Refugees – some middle ground is opening up.

    See below a speech made in the Senate on 4 December by Senator Xenophon. The Senator was one of six cross-bench senators who negotiated with the government for a compromise on the contentious Migration Bill.

    Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (12:17): Australia’s migration policies have always had a long and vexed history. They have been, and rightfully so, open to significant scrutiny from international and domestic courts, independent experts, interest groups and the electorate. It has and will continue to be a passionate debate about a wicked and vexed issue. For me it is always important, always, to remember that we are dealing with legislation that relates to people, our fellow human beings. They are not numbers; they are not the myriad of labels that have been applied to them by all sides of the debate; and they are not political inconveniences, punching bags or props. They are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends, neighbours and acquaintances. They are, in short, people just like you and me who have found themselves in extraordinarily difficult circumstances—some, unimaginable circumstances. So I would like to approach this debate with respect, with compassion and with dignity.

    This has not been an easy process for me. On one side this bill does contain a number of measures that I am not comfortable with. But on the other side, if we do not act, the 30,000 people currently awaiting processing will continue to be left in limbo. If this bill does not pass there is also the real risk that the government will use a nonstatutory process instead, which will not result in any better outcomes for the people who are currently in Australia. This problem is a true Hobson’s choice: we are left to decide between two potentially negative outcomes.

    Back in 2012 the former government put up a number of proposals, the so-called Malaysia solution, which was rejected by the then opposition and the Australian Greens. I remember at the time—I remember well—I was in hospital and I asked for my vote to be recorded. There is a saying: ‘Not to have the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.’ As imperfect as the former government’s solution was, it was preferable to doing nothing. We saw more and more drownings, more and more people pass away, and more and more people fall victim to people smugglers and the awful consequences of that.

    What is being proposed by the government here is by no means perfect—in fact, it is quite imperfect—but the consequences of not supporting it will mean that asylum seekers will be in a worse position, in my view. It also has to be noted what the immigration minister said a few moments ago. He has agreed, as part of a process of constructive engagement with crossbenchers, to increase the humanitarian intake by 7,500 people—a significant increase. My view is that we should double the humanitarian intake or more. We are a big country with a big heart. But I am trying to deal with the actual political realities here. We have an opportunity to increase significantly the humanitarian and refugee intake by 7,500 people on top of the 13,750 per annum. We have an opportunity to have something like 25,000 people on bridging visas have work rights for the first time. We have an opportunity to significantly improve the lot of those individuals who have been left in limbo. The reality is that under the former government border control, immigration policy, was out of control, and that is something we need to take into account.

    I have met with many interest groups and representatives, including Amnesty International and also Paris Aristotle of Foundation House and the former government’s expert panel. My view on this issue changed when I saw what Angus Houston, what Paris Aristotle, and what Michael L’Estrange said in that expert panel. I congratulate former Prime Minister Gillard for having the foresight to set up that panel—to actually have a circuit breaker to try to look at this in a different way, because to me it meant that we needed to consider the awful moral dilemmas that we had to deal with. I thought the panel headed by Angus Houston came up with a number of sensible proposals.

    In that context, I have approached the government to request changes to the bill and to migration policy to improve the conditions for the men, women and children who are awaiting processing. That doesn’t mean that we cannot still advocate for a significant increase in the humanitarian intake. It does not mean that we stop being critical of the government’s policies, but if we do nothing, if we do not support this bill, then I believe fervently that what will happen is that asylum seekers will be worse off if this bill is not passed, as imperfect as this bill is.

    That is the moral dilemma; that is the wicked problem.

    I want to make it clear that my vote for this bill is conditional on these changes and those circulated by the Palmer United Party. The government has taken my concerns into account and, I understand, will be circulating amendments to that effect. As such, I will not speak to those amendments in detail, but I would like to take this opportunity to outline the changes that I have proposed. I also want to make it very clear that these proposals do not necessarily represent my ideal outcomes. They do not, but they do make important steps forward—and I do not believe they should be rejected because they are only ‘good’ rather than ‘perfect’.

    Firstly, I have proposed changes to allow people holding TPVs or SHEVs to travel outside Australia where the minister is satisfied there are compassionate or compelling circumstances and the minister has approved that travel. That has never occurred before, either under this government or under the previous government, and I think that is an important concession. This would cover circumstances where a TPV or SHEV holder wants to travel to visit family in circumstances such as significant family illness or death. While I would prefer to allow family reunification on these visas, I believe this is an important step in granting these visa holders rights that go some way towards acknowledging the importance of family.

    Secondly, I have proposed changes to ensure that, through the use of a disallowable instrument, the fast-track process only applies to the legacy caseload. This will make sure that the use of this fast-track process will be subject to the scrutiny of the Senate. Thirdly, I have proposed changes to the definition of ‘manifestly unfair’ in relation to the rejection of claims so that it more accurately reflects language used by the UNHCR—and that is important. I think that is a benchmark that we need to look at very carefully.

    Fourthly, I have proposed some changes to the fast-track review process to ensure that it is not only efficient and quick but must meet the natural justice provisions already included in the Migration Act. This will help to ensure that decisions take natural justice into account within the confines of the act and so are more balanced and fair. I have also proposed changes to the requirement for the review to take new information into account. My specific intention in this case is to ensure that information that was not provided for personal reasons, including mental health reasons, can be taken into account. One example that has been put to me are the many cases of sexual or other assault, where the victim may not volunteer that information in the first instance. I think all of us can appreciate the reasons behind not sharing that information—the shame and the trauma that may prevent someone from speaking out. My proposal to the government was that this type of information and these circumstances must be taken into account, and I believe these changes will improve the review process in that regard.

    Fifthly, I have raised concerns relating to the non-refoulement provisions and how we can be sure that a person being returned to a country is not facing persecution. In this case the government has agreed to use phrasing similar to that of the UNHCR to define both when a person is considered to be part of a particular social group and what effective protection measures should be taken into account when considering if that person should be returned. I believe these definitions will bring Australia more in line with UNHCR best practice in terms of defining and applying these clauses.

    Further, I have advocated, as have others, for an increase in Australia’s humanitarian intake and to extend work rights to people on bridging visas. I have always been a strong advocate of increasing our humanitarian intake. I believe the government could go further, but I do acknowledge the increase they have proposed will make a real difference—7½ thousand people. That is 7½ thousand people who can be taken in through that humanitarian and refugee intake and who can be part of our community. I do not want to throw that away. That does not mean that my colleagues in the Australian Greens or the opposition cannot say that we should double it—I think we should—or that we should have a much bigger humanitarian intake, a much bigger refugee intake. It could be an issue at the next election. I do not have an issue with that—it ought to be. But I do not want to throw away this opportunity to have 7½ thousand more people come in to this country through that humanitarian and refugee intake process.

    Extending work rights to those on bridging visas is also vitally important. Participating in the workforce, even in a small way, makes people a part of our community and society. It gives them, quite simply, a reason to get up in the morning—to feel valued and that they are making a contribution. I do not want to pretend that any of these measures is an ideal outcome or that they represent what I would see happen in the perfect world. But they will make a true difference to the people who are here right now, who are in detention right now, who are waiting to be processed right now. This may not be perfect, but it is good. It is also important to remember that this is not the end of the debate. These measures do not mean that I, as many others, will stop pushing for improvements. They are merely the next step, not the final one, and I would urge my colleagues to support this bill.

     

  • Peter Hughes. Reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas -Time to Negotiate

    In the last few days of the 2014 Parliament, the controversial Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014 remains to be considered.

    The Bill contains a wide range of proposed changes to the asylum system reflecting, amongst other things, concern by the government that the current system is too heavily weighted towards approving asylum claims – a concern shared, but not acted on, by the previous government before losing office.

    It is unlikely that all of this complex mix of changes will get through the Senate.

    The most hotly contested part of the Bill, which has been on the government’s agenda since taking office, is the reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas for maritime asylum seekers.

    Temporary Protection Visas are opposed by the opposition parties in the Senate and refugee advocates on the grounds of the uncertainty they create for the future of those found to be refugees, the need for a further assessment of refugee status, the personal stress and mental health effects, inability of refugees to achieve family reunion and the lesser scale of benefits compared to giving permanent residence to refugees.

    These criticisms are undoubtedly justified.

    More broadly, there is no evidence that the existence of Temporary Protection Visas acts in any way to deter asylum seekers from undertaking boat journeys. In public policy terms, Temporary Protection Visas only make sense where there are good reasons to suggest that a particular cohort of refugees might be able to go home relatively soon because of improvements expected in the situation in the country of origin. This does not apply to the main maritime asylum seeker nationalities in Australia.

    On the other hand, there can be no doubt that reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas would place the 30,000 maritime asylum seekers in Australia in a much better position than they are now.

    As long as the impasse persists, the government will keep maritime asylum seekers in detention, on bridging visas without work rights, on Temporary Humanitarian Concern Visas and often without formal decisions on their refugee status.

    It will take years to make decisions on this very large group of people whatever system of case-by-case decision-making is adopted. If Temporary Protection Visas are reintroduced, the system will at least start to move again – asylum seekers will get a formal refugee status determination, refugees will get temporary visas with work rights and a suite of benefits. This will open the way to resolution of the future of this very large group of people. For those found to be refugees, one can expect that some years down the track, when the first Temporary Protection Visas are approaching expiry, in a different political landscape, the question of permanent status will be revisited in a more positive way.

    There is clearly scope for opposition parties to negotiate with the government to seek changes that would improve the operation of the Temporary Protection Visa system set out in the Bill. They should be doing it now.

    There is no reason why they could not agree to the reintroduction under protest, but on the basis that they have achieved some improvements to the working of the system.

    The work of the Palmer United Party in negotiating a commitment to the Safe Haven Enterprise Visa, although at the margins, highlights the possibilities. There are undoubtedly many areas of process and outcome related to Temporary Protection Visas, short of permanent residence, that the government would be willing to consider.

    Defeating the reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas will be a pyrrhic victory. The main losers will be the asylum seekers. Maritime refugees will be no closer to permanent residence, but a year will have passed by with no improvement in their situation and there will be no prospect of any further movement for many months.

    Time to negotiate.

    Peter Hughes is Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU. He was formerly Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

     

     

  • John Menadue. Our ‘best friend’ in Asia is in trouble.

    Japan now faces its fourth recession since 2008. The Japanese economy has contracted in 13 of the last 27 quarters. In effect, there has been no growth for six years. The Japanese economy has been moribund for two decade.

    So far Abenomics is not delivering as Prime Minister Abe had hoped. His attempt at money-creation on a vast scale to monetise Japan’s enormous public debt is not working.

    Facing failure of his economic policies, Prime Minister Abe has done what many politicians do when they are not sure of their position. He has called an election for next month. He will probably win that election despite the drubbing he received in a bi election a few days ago in Okinawa over US military bases on the island. He will win the December election, not because of any policy success he has had but because of the abject failure of the major opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan.

    Abenomics had three arrows.

    The first was printing of money on an enormous scale by the Bank of Japan. It was designed to stimulate the economy, particularly consumption and promote inflation which would help monetise the debt and encourage consumers to spend now rather than wait for prices to fall. But the economy has stalled again and prices are not rising.

    The second arrow was budget reform to repair Japan’s enormous government debt. Japan’s gross government debt as a percentage of GDP stands at 238%, the highest in the world. By contrast the Australian figure is 27%, although when we listen to Tony Abbott or Joe Hockey we would think that we face an emergency.

    Prime Minister Abe attempted to address the government debt problem by increasing the GST from 5% to 8% in April, but it stopped consumption in its tracks. Prime Minister Abe has now said he will delay the next increase in the GST from 8% to 10% which was scheduled for October 2015. So budget reform has been put on the back burner. The second arrow has also missed its mark.

    The third arrow involved structural reform which necessarily takes longer to achieve. This third arrow had several features. It is not having much effect.

    • Boosting the role of women in the workforce, but there is no sign yet of any upward trend in participation by women in such a male dominated society.
    • Reform of industries including, importantly, agriculture. But farmers are solid supporters of Prime Minister Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and he is reluctant to upset them.
    • Immigration to address Japan’s pending democratic disaster. Japan’s population is currently about 127 million. It is projected to fall to about 100 million by 2050. By then the population will have aged dramatically. For decades Japan has talked about migration, but little is done because Japan is culturally apprehensive about foreigners, ‘gaijin’. There are over 500,000 ethnic Koreans in Japan, the descendants of people who were brought to Japan as workers when Korea was part of the Japanese empire (1910-1945). Those Koreans are still ‘outsiders’ in Japan and presently subject to a hate campaign by right-wing nationalists who are attracted to Prime Minister Abe’s policies in such areas as visits to Yasukuni Shrine, denial on comfort women and the Tianjin massacre. There have been a few Asian women who have migrated to Japan to marry farmers who have found it difficult to find a partner. With a culturally exclusive attitude to all foreigners and with Japanese women reticent about marriage and families, Japan is unlikely to break free of its population decline.

    Our ‘best friend in our region’ is in serious trouble.

    In July last year, we signed a much hyped Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan which Andrew Robb said would ‘turbo-charge’ our trade with Japan by reducing tariffs and other restrictions on our goods and services into Japan.

    But twelve months later it is clear that two factors will slow down the alleged benefits of the EPA. The first is clearly Japan’s sluggish economy which is again in recession.

    The second is the depreciation of the Japanese yen which is the direct and intended result of Japanese policy-makers. Since we signed the EPA with Japan in July, the Japanese yen has depreciated over 7% against the Australian dollar, making imports into Japan more expensive. This will reduce the benefits of the tariff reductions that we have negotiated. And Japanese policy-makers are determined to depreciate the Japanese yen even further. The Yen has depreciated 20% in recent months against the US dollar.

    By 2050 China will have a population of about 1.4 billion and Indian 1.6 billion compared with Japan of 100 million. A large population does not necessarily result in economic success and influence. But we are seeing amazing growth in China. Watch this space for India.

    China and India are likely to be increasingly important to Australia’s economic future. Tony Abbott should be more careful about the language he uses about ‘our best friend in Asia’. By 2050 we may have a very different view about who is most important to us in our region.