Pearls and Irritations

Category: Immigration

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Offshore/Regional Processing

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

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

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

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

     1. was not a signatory to the refugee convention,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The other key issue will be implementation.


     

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

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

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

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

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

    Australia                             46%

    Canada                               42%

    Denmark                             46%

    Germany                             32%

    New Zealand                     28%

    Norway                               56%

    Sweden                               49%

    UK                                        37%

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

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

     

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

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

     

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

     

    Francis blasts ‘globalization of indifference’ for immigrants

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Follow John Allen on Twitter: @JohnLAllenJr

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

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

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

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

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

    Tony Abbott’s one-liners have three elements.

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

  • Ending the policy paralysis on refugees. John Menadue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

     

     

  • Asylum seekers – good news at last. John Menadue

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

    The communique said

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Boat Arrivals – March quarter 2013
     

    Primary protection visa grant rate (%)

    Finally determined grant rate (%)
    Afghanistan

    83

    95
    Iran

    55

    86
    Iraq

    90

    91
    Pakistan

    81

    92
    Sri Lanka

    27

    75
    Stateless

    88

    97
    Total

    65

    91

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Asylum seekers – a regional solution and Bob Carr’s nonsense. Guest blogger: Frank Brennan SJ

    This morning Frank Brennan was interviewed by Fran Kelly on ABC Breakfast. See link below to the interview. (John Menadue)

    http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2013/07/bst_20130702_0821.mp3

     

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

     

     

     

     

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Never underestimate a survivor. John Menadue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    John Menadue

     

  • Back from the brink of disaster. John Menadue

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Her policy achievements have been considerable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

    Cardinal Veglio who heads the Pontifical Council for Migrants said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shame on Australia.

  • Asylum policies leading nowhere. Joint blog: John Menadue and Arja Keski-Nummi

    This piece was published in Crikey 11 June 2013.

     

    The destructive and divisive debate about various asylum policies is designed to scare us. The most shameful manifestation of this in the past week has been the alleged “terrorist” in community detention.

     

    A person sought asylum in Australia. He was given an adverse security assessment . He was then held in community detention with his family. He was subject to reporting and monitoring. The authorities knew where he was at all times. Given these facts we were probably safer from him (if indeed he was a danger to the security of Australia) than the mindless violence that seems to happen on our streets with depressing regularity. We should not hide behind an ASIO assessment as a way to whip up community fear and insecurity, and in the process destroy a family.

     

    If we take on trust the policies on refugees and asylum seekers that the main parties are taking into the election campaign it makes for disturbing reading.

    Setting aside the hubris and posturing what do they really say they are going to do?

     

    The National and the Liberal Party say they will stop the boats. Further the Liberal party would tighten up the process for determining if a person is a refugee.  The Government, saddled by incumbency and actually having to have a policy would also tighten up the refugee determination process, keep mandatory detention, strengthen regional cooperation and try and stop the boats. .

     

    The reality is there are no magic answers to the question of asylum and why people get onto boats.  There is no one action that will make the “problem” go away, despite what Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard  say.

     

    Here is a quick summary of what the two main parties stand for.

     

    Regional cooperation is the hardest and most important area for action if there are to be any lasting solutions. The only way to avoid the tragedy that has played itself out again off Christmas Island is to have a genuine regional protection framework, where peope do not feel that their only way to safety is taking a dangerous journey by sea.  But this takes time. The ALP platform is pretty quiet, on this. The best clues as to their polices are found in the budget papers. In this they have committed additional funding for the Bali Process, for capacity building and enhanced screening and refugee resettlement. It will take time to work and 100 days will not cut it. The Opposition on the other hand have very little to say in their “weighty” policy document ‘Our Plan; Real Solutions for all Australians’. They will “rebuild relationships with our neighbours damaged by Labor’s mismanagement and failed border security policies” and that the first overseas trip that Tony Abbott makes as Prime Minister will be to Indonesia to renew cooperation against people smugglers. That is not a policy, let alone likely to bring any results.

     

    The real damage, fueled by the Greens and the Opposition, in our regional relations is the way we have continued to insult Indonesia and Malaysia and their treatment of asylum seekers while they continue to host much larger numbers of displaced people than Australia and where their policies are no more harsh than what the Australian government has progressively put in place.

     

    On asylum processing the government announced in the budget that it would commission a comprehensive review of Australia’s refugee determination system to “identify changes to improve the efficacy of the system and to ensure that acceptance outcomes for asylum seeker claims are consistent with our international obligations and with final acceptance rates for comparable cohorts in other countries”. There is no detail as to when or how this review will commence. The language used is ominous implying that somehow the system is broken but not much to back this up. Similarly the opposition makes wild assumptions about asylum seekers’ behaviors and a presumption that they do not need protection. This statement flies in the face of not just the Refugee Convention but also years of testing such assumptions in the courts of Australia. Presumably for the Opposition if they get into government it will be easier to blame the courts for a failure to deliver policies than to acknowledge that what they propose may not be possible to enact in law.

    Whatever the public debate has been on asylum seekers there was an encouraging all party agreement on the resettlement of refugees from overseas. The increase of the program to 20,000 with 12,000 for offshore resettlement had been a beacon of hope in an otherwise awful debate. It is regrettable the Opposition has now gone back on its promise to maintain that number and in its platform returns the program to the previous 13750, while reserving 11000 places for the offshore program.

    Boats and People Smuggling is what this hysteria has been all about.

    On paper the parties are all quite muted on boats. The ALP’s platform merely says we need to ensure we meet our safety of life at sea obligations. We all know what Tony Abbott will do …”a new order to the navy to tackle illegal boat arrivals and turn back the boats, when safe to do so”.

    The  Houston Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers however noted that these conditions do not currently exist and more appropriately focused on better regional and national codification of Search and Rescue protocols and the development of operational guidelines. If we truly want to prevent tragedies it is these arrangements and protocols that are much more important than the empty and ultimately unachievable rhetoric of “stop the boats.”

    In his rhetoric Tony Abbott proposes three things to stop the boats. None of them will work. He said he would reopen Nauru. The government has done this  but the boats have kept coming. He said he would re introduce Temporary Protection Visas but we know that when the Howard Government did this the number of asylum seekers increased and a large numbers of women and children were drowned. He keeps telling us that he would turn back the boats but both the Indonesian Government and our own RAN have cast doubt on the possibility of such an approach.

    On people smuggling both the Government and the Opposition are singing from the same songbook both wanting to toughen the penalties for people smuggling.

     

    This brief stroll through the official party polices tells us that there is not much to differentiate the Government and the Opposition and that irrespective of the outcomes of the elections we will have more of the same. The Opposition has the current luxury of very little policy. They are able to get away with the refrain “stop the boats”.  Incumbency is no advantage for the Government. Indeed it appears to be a disadvantage, as it must justify every policy with the dollars spent and the outcomes reached. They are accountable in a way the Opposition is not.

     

    So, in the pursuit of populist policies, the major parties are pursuing approaches that will take us nowhere.

     

    In any event the number of asylum seekers coming to Australia by both air and sea are very small in world terms.  Our “problem” is overwhelmingly a political one. Tony Abbott keeps appealing to our darker angels of fear and Julia Gillard keeps following his agenda.

     

    Where is the voice for decency amongst our political leaders and parties?

     

    John Menadue, former Secretary of Department of Immigration

    Arja Keski-Nummi, former senior refugee policy officer in Department of Immigration

  • Asylum seekers and refugees – political slogans or humanitarian policies? John Menadue

    Australia has a proud record in accepting 750,000 refugees since WWII. But the mood has now turned sour. It is so easy for unscrupulous politicians to exploit fear of the foreigner. It is paying off politically. We no longer ‘welcome the stranger’.

    The continually repeated slogan ‘stop the boats’ is with us almost every day. One line slogans don’t make up a coherent policy. We need to look at the facts behind the empty slogans.

    •  In 2012 the US had 82 000 asylum claimants. In Germany it was 64 000, in France 55 000, in Sweden 44 000 and in Australia 16 000. In the same year refugee numbers in major receiving countries were Pakistan 1.7m, Iran 890 000, Syria 755 000, Germany 577 000 and Kenya 566 000. In Australia we had 23 000. refugees.
    • Asylum and refugee flows are driven by “push” factors, persecution and war in such countries as Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Syria. Deterrent policies in receiving countries have little effect.
    • Over the last 10 years more than 70% of asylum seekers to Australia have come by air and not by boat. What is important is the total numbers of asylum seekers not their mode of arrival. But all the public debate is about boat arrivals. Perhaps it can appear scarier! We hardly lock up any asylum seekers that come by air. They live in the community and can usually work. They have a success rate in refugee determination of just over 40%.
    • Boat arrivals are locked up and subsequently, and very slowly, released into the community. They have a refugee determination success rate of over 90%, but the government will not allow them to work when released into the community. The Coalition will deny review rights in refugee determination to boat arrivals but not air arrivals.
    • The Coalition has demonised boat arrivals as “illegals”, when they are not, they bring disease, and they carry “wads of cash” and introduce crime into Australia.
    • The Coalition has ‘dog whistled’ that most refugees are Muslims. In fact, in 2010 and 2011 26% and 42% respectively were Muslim. In those same years Christians represented 51% and 34% of refugees accepted into Australia. The number of Christians fleeing the middle-east, particularly from Syria and Egypt, is likely to increase in the years ahead because of persecution and war.  The Middle East, the birth place of Christ is squeezing out its Christian populations.
    • The Coalition has said that it will re-introduce its Pacific Solution.  That ‘solution’ has three elements.
      • Re-open Nauru despite warnings by the Department of Immigration that Nauru would not work again.as asylum seekers had learned very clearly from the Howard years that even if they were sent to Nauru they would, after a delay, finish up in Australia or New Zealand. 97 % of persons on Nauru who were found to be refugees came to Australia and New Zealand. The Government foolishly adopted this Coalition policy.   Since August last year when the Nauru/Manus option and the no-advantage test were adopted, the number of boat arrivals to Australia has increased.  Nauru/Manus is not only cruel. It is not working to deter boat arrivals…
      • The re-introduction of Temporary Protection Visas. The evidence from the Howard years is that despite the introduction of TPVs, boat arrivals increased in the years following their introduction. More people got on boats after TPV’s were introduced with over 6000 coming in 2001 All but 3% of TPV holders obtained refugee status. Further, TPVs which denied family reunion resulted in more women and children coming by boat. That is why when SIEVX was lost at sea in 2001, 82% of the 353 people who drowned were women and children.
      • Turn-backs at sea. Both the Indonesian Government and the Royal Australian Navy have warned against this. In 1979 when a similar policy was proposed, Malcolm Fraser rejected it because it would make Australia a ‘pariah’ in our region. Threatened with turn-backs desperate people are likely to scuttle their vessels. It is also dangerous for RAN personnel. Furthermore, returning boat-people to Indonesia would be returning them to a country which has not signed the Refugee Convention.
      • The Coalition claims that its ‘Pacific Solution’ will work. The evidence is clear that it won’t. It will also be dangerous and cruel.

    What should be the key elements of a humanitarian policy?

    • Increase the humanitarian intake to 20,000 p.a. which the Government has announced. The Coalition has declined to do so.
    • Abolish mandatory detention except for processing purposes and to check safety and health. No country in the world has mandatory detention the way we do. It is not working and is ridiculously expensive. Next year the total cost of detention related services and off shore asylum seeker management will be $2.97b. Both the Government and the Coalition agree on mandatory detention. Fortunately the Government is cautiously releasing detained persons into the community on bridging visas whilst their refugee claims are being assessed. The Government seems ashamed even when its policies are on the right track because of fear of a populist backlash.
    • Minimising Nauru/Manus by urgently working with Indonesia and UNHCR to establish a UNHCR processing centre in Indonesia.
    • Re-negotiate with the Malaysian Government in cooperation with the UNHCR for the temporary protection and processing of asylum seekers in Malaysia. UNHCR will cooperate with us on Malaysia but not on Nauru/Manus. The Greens have cooperated with the Coalition to defeat legislation that would allow Malaysia to be an important building block in a regional framework. They continually trash Malaysia which is doing more to assist asylum seekers and refugees than we are
    • A regional framework is what we need most of all and Indonesia and Malaysia are the key countries.
    • Negotiate Orderly Departure Arrangements with Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Pakistan to process asylum seekers in their own countries, many of whom have family in Australia. This provides an alternative to risking their lives at sea. We negotiated an ODA with Vietnam in 1983. Over 100,000 Vietnamese came to Australia under this arrangement. They did not have to risk their lives at sea.

    The government has failed in many respects.

    • It has failed to outline and promote a principled and humanitarian case for asylum seekers and refugees. Unfortunately the Government listens to focus groups rather than its own conscience. Malcolm Fraser showed that it could be done with the 150 000 Indo Chinese refugees who were settled in Australia. Another 100 000 came in family reunion. To be fair Malcolm Fraser was lucky to have Gough Whitlam and Bill Hayden as Opposition leaders who both broadly supported the refugee programmes. Julia Gillard is not so lucky. She has Tony Abbott grabbing every opportunity to exploit xenophobia. He is following John Howard who started us down this slippery slope- Tampa, children overboard and Nauru.
    • It succumbed to the nonsense from the opposition in re-opening Nauru/Manus.
    • It has been slow to introduce ODAs and cooperate with Indonesia to establish a processing centre in that country.
    • It has excised the Australian mainland from our migration zone which surely must be a gross breach of the spirit if not the letter of the Refugee Convention. This action not only diminishes Australia physically, it diminishes us morally.
    • Refusing to let asylum seekers on bridging visas in the community the right to work. How can a Labor Government which had at its core the right to work do this to vulnerable people! They will be forced into the grey economy and even crime.

    There is a lot that governments can do to improve the plight of asylum seekers and refugee’s situation but we also need to be mature enough as a country to accept that desperate people will not always play by our rules. They will cut corners.  It will always be messy. We need to accept that good policies and our best intentions will not always succeed in stopping irregular flows. We need to grow up.

    Generosity does pay off. We have settled 750,000 refugees since WWII. It has not been trouble-free but we can look back with pride what these refugees and particularly their children have contributed to Australia. We acted generously in receiving them and it paid off for us. Immigration, refugees and multiculturalism have been Australia’s great success story. Let’s stop spoiling it as we are doing today.

    “And if a stranger dwells with you in your land you shall not mistreat him  … for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt” Leviticus 19, 33/34

    This not just a moral injunction. It also in our national interest.

  • We are a more generous people than the politicians think we are. John Menadue

    It is easy to be disappointed and depressed with the whole toxic debate about asylum seekers. The government is doing some things well, such as releasing more people from detention, but it is failing to provide political and moral leadership in this sensitive area. Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison do their best to demonise asylum seekers and create fear.

    But many people don’t want to be part of this.

    Last Friday night, with 500 other people, I attended a fund-raising and fancy-dress dinner for the Asylum Seekers Centre in Sydney. My wife and I dressed as best we could – French clowns. Perhaps that would not be hard you might say.

    What struck me most of all were the hundreds of young people who attended, many volunteers at the centre and all supporters of the cause to help asylum seekers and refugees. Seeing all the young people gives us ‘oldies’ encouragement.

    We had a moving and inspiring story from ‘Antoinette’, an asylum seeker who came from Uganda several years ago, having lost many of her family.  In Sydney she was homeless and friendless. The ASC ‘took me in’ she said. With that support she was slowly and steadily able to find her own feet. So many Australians helped her, some in small ways and others in big ways. She is now in employment, has a boyfriend and has become an Australian citizen. The speech was not a ‘tear jerker’ but a moving story of vulnerability and resilience. We should never underestimate a survivor.

    HG Nelson was the MC giving his time and talents freely for the 11th function in a row.

    I was at a table arranged by St Mary Magdalene Parish in Rose Bay. This parish has raised almost $100,000 for the Centre over the last few months.

    There is good news around despite the public debate.

    One issue stands out in my mind in the asylum seeker debate. The government is wisely releasing more asylum seekers from Immigration Detention Centres into the community. But very few of them are allowed to work. How can a Labor Government justify this denial of the dignity of people by insisting that they cannot work! The argument which the Minister for Immigration gives is that if they were allowed to work it would encourage more asylum seekers to come. There is no evidence in research anywhere in the world to support such a claim.

    Denying anyone a right to work, particularly for able bodied people in a desperate situation will inevitably result in some breaking the law and finding work. Can you then imagine what Scott Morrison and Eric Abetz will say?

    Confronted by a problem the Australian community is more generous and understanding than our politicians give us credit for. If only we had principled leadership we could do even better.

    John Menadue

  • Truth, Trust and the Media. John Menadue

    Our mainstream media is in a downward spiral. Its decline is driven by new technology and a growing sense by readers that we can no longer trust the media.  We have a lot of spin, but very little well-informed debate. Ken Henry has commented that he can’t recall a time when public debate was so bad.

     An Australian election study 1997/2010 rated trust in the following institutions as follows:

    • Armed forces – 91%
    • Universities – 80%
    • Police – 79%
    • Banks and financial institutions – 56%
    • Major Australian companies – 54%
    • Political system – 53%
    • Public service – 41%
    • Trade unions – 29%
    • Television and newspapers – 17%.

    The survey found that the least trusted in the media was talk-back radio.

    In June last year, Essential Research reported as follows.

    “The ABC retains its undisputed title as Australia’s most trusted media. Trust in ABC television news and current affairs grew two points to 74%, its fourth straight rise, and ABC radio lifted two points to 69%. … The Age (76%) and the SMH (69%) are the most trusted of the major newspapers. … The Australian suffered a 9% fall in trust, down to 60%. The Herald Sun in Melbourne fell to 51% as did the Courier Mail in Brisbane which fell 14 points to 51%. The Daily Telegraph is the least trusted at 59%.”

    Nothing surprising there.

    In March this year, Essential Research found that only 30% of Australians trust TV news and newspapers. The High Court, Reserve Bank and the ABC were trusted by over 60% of respondents.

    Reading our media this week about the budget, one could not possibly avoid the conclusion that we are on the verge of economic and financial collapse. Yet we have one of the best performing economies in the world – solid growth, low inflation, low unemployment, low debt and a AAA credit rating by the three world rating agencies. John Howard commented only a few days later that “our resilient economy is in better shape than most… We are still fortunate with our unemployment rate…and that the Australian economy was better than Japan, US and Europe”.

    The Australian Financial Review has become a barracker for business rather than a reporter about business.  The headlines on two successive days this week were ‘End Budget chaos – business’ and then ‘Labor, business at war’.

    Supported by business commentators, the BCA has been conducting an incoherent and partisan campaign against the government. If it tried it could not do more to damage business and consumer confidence. But perhaps as a proxy for Tony Abbott, damaged confidence is just inevitable collateral damage.

    Crikey reported Paddy Manning a business reporter on the AFR as saying that there was a “contract” between the AFR and business for “high level access in return for soft coverage” He was sacked for saying what many people  would regard as  obvious.

    The Minerals Council with the aid of business journalists helped corrupt the debate about a profit tax on large mining companies. How ironic it is that the Minerals Council with its obsession with the Labor Government didn’t keep its eye on the inefficient state mining royalties that have increased five-fold since the early 2000s. A real own-goal kicked by the Mining Council.

    The media and particularly News Corporation which lost its moral bearings long ago have been campaigning to get rid of the ‘hung parliament’. But the parliament will see out its three years and with a considerable legislative program to its credit.

    The media and again, particularly News Corporation, has been part of a misinformation campaign about asylum seekers. Obsessed with boats and pictures of boats, the media has continually misinformed us about the small number of asylum seekers coming to Australia compared with other countries and that more asylum seekers come to Australia by air than by boat. The Australian Press Council drew attention to the misinformation by News Corporation publications, over use of the term ‘illegals’ and its inflammatory language.

    The media, including notably the ABC facilitated the dog whistling over the miniscule problem of boat arrivals. The dog whistling in the run up to the next election will be about deficits and debt despite Australia having one of the lowest net debt ratios in the world. Where will the media be in ensuring an informed debate? I will not be holding my breath.

    With its whimpish attempts to curtail abuse of power by the media, the government was subject to an extraordinary tirade of abuse dressed up by the media as the public interest. Minister Conroy was depicted in News publications as a new Stalin or Pol Pot.

    Filled with revenge that he was not made Prime Minister after the 2010 election, Tony Abbott decided that if he couldn’t get his own way he would do his best to wreck everything. The media let him do it and in the case of News Corporation, encouraged him to do so.

    There is public concern about truth in public life as surveys show. The delicate fabric of our society depends on trust and telling the truth. Our society will break down without a general acceptance of what is honest, fair and reasonable.

    Truth is a bedrock issue and the media is not helping us to know the truth or is particularly trustworthy itself. No-one should be surprised that so many readers, viewers and listeners are losing trust in the “old media’ and going online.

    Truth is being eclipsed in public life. The media is a major contributor to that eclipse. It is getting quite dark.

  • Our better angels. Guest bloggers Brenda, Edith and Elizabeth

    Dear Elizabeth,

    At our church, Liverpool South Anglican Church, we have befriended some men from Sri Lanka who have been released from the Curtin Detention centre. They are setting up house in Sydney. We held a BBQ and cricket match on Anzac Day and about 30 men came along.

    Our Minister explained to them about Anzac Day and why it is important to Australians.

    Another minister preached the gospel message to them in Tamil.

    We heard from about 5 of the men about the story of their trip to Australia.
    They were very grateful. It was the first celebration they had been to in Australia.

    Then today 15 came to church and we provided lunch. But we have not got enough blankets to give them.

    Do you think that Wraps With Love might be happy to provide about 20 wraps?

    Regards
    Brenda and Edith

     

     

  • Tony Abbott keeps telling us that boat people are illegals and by inference, criminals. John Menadue

    Last week on radio Tony Abbott was at it again, repeatedly referring to illegals and illegal boats. It cannot be ignorance to keep calling asylum seekers illegals. He must know they are not illegals, but by using this language he inflates fear and hatred of people in distress.

    We cannot presume that boats are illegal because they are exercising passage through our territorial waters. The Law of the Sea makes that clear. And people seeking asylum are not illegals because of our commitments under Article 31 of the Refugee Convention.

    The Centre for Policy Development has just published ‘Refugee Facts’. It includes comments by the Australian Press Council to guide journalists about the use of terms such as ‘illegals’. It draws particular attention to some of the gross incitements to fear that New Limited publications have consistently used. See

    ”

    Ethical journalism on refugee issues

     The Australian Press   Council notes:

    “The legal status of people who have entered Australia by boat without a visa is complex and potentially confusing. Their entry is not legally authorised but is not a criminal offence. The Australian Government usually refers to such entrants as “unauthorised boat arrivals” or “irregular maritime arrivals” but they are also “unlawful non-citizens” under the Migration Act.”

    Read the complete guidelines here

    Journalists are advised to avoid describing people who arrived by boat without a visa in inaccurate terms. This can arise, for example, if the terms can reasonably be interpreted as implying criminality or other serious misbehaviour on the part of all or many people who arrive in this manner.

    Depending on the specific context, therefore, terms such as “illegal immigrants” or “illegals” may constitute a breach of the Council’s Standards of Practice on these grounds.

    Several recent adjudications by the Press Council have upheld complaints about the treatment of asylum seekers by media outlets.

    On 26 November 2011, The Daily Telegraph ran the following headline on its front page: ‘Open the Floodgates – Exclusive; Thousands of Boat People to Invade NSW’. The Press Council was asked to make an adjudication on this and concluded ‘that the use of the word “invade” was gravely inaccurate, unfair and offensive because of its clear connotations of forceful occupation’. It upheld the complaint for ‘an especially serious breach of its principles.’ The Council also concluded that use of the words “open the floodgates” and “deluge” were inaccurate and unfair.

    In adjudication number 1498 in June 2011, the Australian Press Council (APC) considered complaints about three opinion articles by Greg Sheridan that appeared in The Australian on 23 and 28 October 2010 and 5 March 2011.

    The APC upheld the complaint. The adjudication included the following comments on use of the term ‘illegals’:

    “The Press Council’s Guideline (No. 288) notes that the descriptor ‘illegal(s)’ is very often inaccurate and because it typically connotes criminality, it is unfair. It recommends that the use of the term ‘asylum seeker’ as a widely understood descriptor and generally a fair and a sufficiently accurate one. The Australian acknowledged that it was aware of this suggested usage. Indeed, the Council upheld a similar complaint against The Australian as recently as July 2009. Despite that, the disputed expression appeared in the three articles subject to this complaint. … The fact that some people may use what may be considered inaccurate terminology should not be used to justify inaccuracy or unfairness in reporting. The Council holds the view that opinion articles are no different to other articles in their need to ensure accuracy and to avoid unfairness and that these articles failed to do so. Accordingly this aspect of the complaint is upheld.”

    An article headlined ‘Boat people in our suburbs’ that appeared in the Herald Sun on 26 November 2011 was the subject of an adjudication in April 2012. The front page had a pointer to the article reading ‘Revealed; boat people to flood our suburbs’.

    The APC upheld this complaint. The Council concluded that “the words ‘flood the suburbs’ connoted an overwhelming, widespread and adverse impact on the general community. The implication was misleading and unfair, especially when made so boldly in the front page pointer and so prominently in the opening sentence of the article.”

     

    The APC guidelines are a vital point of reference for journalists and editors covering refugee and asylum seeker issues. As these recent adjudications make clear, the Council is inclined to take a dim view of sloppy and unethical reporting of asylum seeker issues, with a particular focus on terminology.

     

    Like Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott seems to have little concern for the “stranger” and the injury and injustice he inflicts on vulnerable people. I suggest that before he utters another word on asylum seekers and illegals, he reads

    The Refugee Convention Article 31 that makes clear that penalties should not be imposed on people who enter another country, seek asylum and do so expeditiously

    The APC guidelines and adjudications on the term “illegals”

    He might also look at Matthew 23 ‘I was a stranger and you took me in’.

    We are in for a very ugly political period…

    John Menadue

  • Reviving Malaysia. John Menadue

    As I pointed out in an earlier blog (27 March 2013), the Nauru/Manus ‘solution’ is not working to deter asylum seekers. The government foolishly adopted Tony Abbott’s proposal.

    With the failure of Nauru/Manus, the Minister for Immigration, Brendan O’Connor has spoken about the need to revive the earlier proposal on Malaysia. Last weekend the SMH published an editorial headed ‘Time to revisit the Malaysian plan’.

    Arja Keski-Nummi and I have consistently supported the Malaysian plan. We did not see it as perfect by any means, but it did provide a basis for developing a regional arrangement. We are glad to see that at last the merits of the Malaysian plan are being examined again.

    We wrote an article on 13 August 2012, entitled ‘Creating a safe place – Malaysia Mark II’. It was published in the Melbourne Age (see it on my website publish.pearlsandirritations.com, click on ‘refugees’ and go to article of 13 August 2012).

    The Government should urgently renew its efforts to negotiate an improved Malaysian arrangement and introduce legislation to implement it. Perhaps the Greens will think again. Their opposition to the Malaysian arrangement has delivered us the failed Nauru/Manus plan. The perfect became the enemy of the good.

    There are two important issues that we must keep in mind in dealing with the issue of asylum seekers. There is no one single ‘solution’. There must be a comprehensive package addressing the problems in source countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan and in transit countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

    The second is that UNHCR must be an important partner in what we undertake. The UNHCR said that it would not have a bar of Nauru/Manus, but it will cooperate on an improved Malaysian plan.

    John Menadue

  • More punishment for asylum seekers and refugees. John Menadue

    The Coalition has announced that in government, it would deny boat arrivals access to an independent review of their claims for refugee status.

    It is another way of punishing vulnerable people and winning political points.

    • There will be no change in appeal rights of asylum seekers who come by air. The punishment will only be for boat arrivals.
    • 82% of initial rejections for refugee status were overturned in 2011/12 by the Refugee Review Tribunal. This has been the pattern for several years. This suggests that there is some fundamental problem with the way primary decisions are made by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.
    • One of the recommendations of the Houston Report was that the Refugee Status Determination system should be reviewed. DIAC says that it is doing this. The figures on overturning of DIAC decisions suggest that this is an urgent problem.
    • Over 90% of asylum seekers who come by boat are found to be refugees. But only 44% of asylum seekers who come by air are found to be refugees. Thus the Opposition proposes to penalise the group that historically has had much stronger claims to refugee status.

    The announcement by the Coalition is consistent with its policy of highlighting only boat people and punishing them wherever possible. It is obviously a policy that is paying political dividends for the Coalition.

    There is also I suspect a mistaken belief that by denying appeal rights to boat arrivals, it will act as a deterrent for boat arrivals. This is despite the fact there is no evidence whatsoever that policies to deter asylum seekers by receiving countries has any effect. The persecution and tragedy which asylum seekers face and which force them to flee their country has far greater force than any ‘deterrent’ policy that we can throw at them.

    Only last month on February 5, the Australian Parliamentary Library reported on ‘factors affecting asylum seekers choice of destination country’. The report pointed to the failure of policies designed to deter asylum seekers. It said

    ‘It is clear from the existing literature that opportunities for governments to curb asylum flows through policies of deterrents are extremely limited. Asylum seekers are often simply unaware of policy measures aimed at discouraging their arrival. Where they are aware of such measures, they respond to them in complex and often unpredictable ways. This represents a considerable challenge for policy makers charged with stemming the flow of asylum seekers and appeasing a public which is increasingly demanding for various reasons that the government “stop the boats”.’ (p.12)

    Once again politics and demonization of asylum seekers is put ahead of fact-based policies and the dignity of very vulnerable people.

    John Menadue

  • Are most asylum seekers and refugees Muslims?

    Well, as a matter of fact, most asylum seekers and refugees are not Muslims.

    But I am sure that many commentators and a lot of the community believe that most are Muslim. The dog-whistlers like Scott Morrison feed on this assumption .According to Jane Cadzow in the Sun Herald he urged the Coalition parties “to ramp up its questioning … to capitalise on anti-Muslim sentiment”.

    Figures on this issue are extracted from the DIAC Settlement data base. One reason for the difficulty in analysing the figures is that a religious test is not applied to persons seeking refugee status, and neither should it. Ascertaining religious background often then depends on voluntary declarations.

    The Refugee Convention is blind to religion but the Convention recognises that religious persecution is a valid ground for claiming protection.

    But based on DIAC Settlement data the general picture becomes reasonably clear. For settlement purposes refugees are asked on a voluntary basis to declare their religion as it is likely to assist in settlement in the community.

    In the figures for the year from January 1 2010 there were 8,342 arrivals of refugees and other humanitarian entrants. The religious affiliations were as follows:

    • Christian 4,263 – 51%.
    • Muslim 2,223 – 26%
    • Hindu 1,125 – 13%
    • Other 731 – 10%
    • Total 8,342 – 100%

    In the period 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012, humanitarian arrivals including refugees were as follows.

    • Christian 5,523 – 34%
    • Muslim 6,732 – 42%
    • Buddhist 445 – 3%
    • Hindu 1,089 – 7%
    • Other 2,255 – 14%
    • Total 16,044 – 100%

    These figures give a fairly reliable guide to the religious background of humanitarian entrants in recent years. The increase in Muslim arrivals in the year to 31 March 2012 is largely due to the persecution of Hazaras both in their own country Afghanistan and more recently in Pakistan. This trend is continuing.

    The pattern will vary from year to year, depending on the religious composition of the country where the persecution is occurring, and if a particular religious group is being persecuted.

    I would expect that the number of Christians currently facing persecution in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt and Syria, is likely to increase. Christians represent about 10% of the population in both countries the highest in the Middle East. If the Assad regime in Syria falls both minority Alawite and Christian communities are likely to be in jeopardy. Over a million Syrians have already fled to neighbouring countries.

    Christians in the Middle East, the birthplace of Christianity, have fallen from 20% in the early 20th Century to about 5% today.

    The religious pattern of asylum seekers and refugees is hard to predict. What is clear is that it is nonsense to assume that most of them to date are Muslim.

    John Menadue

  • Hazaras in peril. John Menadue

    There are an estimated 50,000 persons of Hazara background living in Australia. Many of their relatives and friends are being intimidated and killed regularly in Pakistan. It is not surprising that they are fleeing and paying people smugglers to get to safety in Australia or elsewhere.

    The Hazara are a Shia group who have traditionally been persecuted in Afghanistan. Their physical appearance also makes them ‘different’.

    For decades, Hazaras have fled to Pakistan for safety and reside mainly in the Quetta area of NW Pakistan. That has now changed with the Hazara in Quetta being specifically targeted by militant Islamist groups.

    Ben Doherty in the SMH of 29 March 2013 reported that there has been ‘an alarming increase in the rate and severity of attacks on Hazara in Pakistan. In eight attacks (this year) 216 Hazara have been killed and more than 300 injured”.

    Given the peril that Hazaras face in Pakistan, it is ridiculous to suppose that any ‘deterrents’ that we can conjure up in Australia will have any affect.

    It is not surprising that in 2011-12, Afghan citizens accounted for more than 40% of boat arrivals who were granted refugee status in Australia. Most would be Hazara. With the increased targeting and killing of Hazara in Quetta recently, an even greater number will be seeking our protection.

    Action on our own borders will have only a marginal effect. That is why Arja Keski-Nummi and I proposed more than 12 months ago, that Australia establish an Orderly Departure Program with Afghanistan and Pakistan to provide alternatives and less-risky pathways for asylum seekers in peril in Afghanistan and Pakistan and particularly for the Hazara with family in Australia. It is clear that there will be security problems for Australian officials administering orderly departure programs in those two countries. But the risks are manageable. Further, the risks are small compared with the risks that the vulnerable Hazara are facing every day of their lives.

    In 1982 when I was Secretary of the Department of Immigration, with Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister and Ian Macphee as Minister we established an Orderly Departure Program with Vietnam, a former enemy. Foreign Affairs and Immigration officials negotiated the arrangement. Under this program, 100,000 Vietnamese came to Australia without having to pay people smugglers or risk their lives at sea.

    There is no single ‘solution’ to asylum seekers seeking protection in Australia or anywhere in the world… We need to act in source countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in transit countries like Indonesia and Malaysia. But whatever we do, people flows will always be messy. Some asylum seekers will continue to come irregularly to Australia. We need to grow up and live with the fact that in this world there are over 25 million asylum seekers, refugees and displaced persons. And the number is increasing as we live in comfort and security in Australia.

    We have a moral obligation to help people in peril. We also have a self-interest. The history of 750,000 refugees that have come to Australia since WWII is a success story. Highly motivated refugees worked hard and established families. In education particularly, their children show a clean pair of heels to the Australian-born.

    John Menadue

  • The Boat People Obsession. John Menadue

    The Australian Parliamentary Library has again pointed to our obsession with boat people.

    In its 11 February 2013 Research Paper”Asylum seekers and refugees, What are the facts”, it highlights (p.8) that despite increases in boat arrivals in recent years, the number of ‘Irregular arrivals by sea’ to Australia is quite small compared with other countries.

    The chart below shows this quite clearly.

    Irregular arrivals by sea, selected countries

    Parliamentary Library, data source: UNHCR, All in the same boat: the challenges of mixed migration, UNHCR website.

    The chart shows dramatically that boat or sea arrivals in Australia are quite small compared with other countries. For example, in one weekend in 2012, more boat people arrived in Italy from Libya than came to Australia in the whole year. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, but in 2011 it received over 100,000 boat people.

    We have lost any sense of proportion about boat arrivals in Australia.

    Despite all the evidence, the media has made no serious effort to counter the erroneous reporting that we are being ‘swamped by asylum seekers and boat people’. One-liners about the failure of ‘border protection’ are thrown around with little appreciation of the facts.

    The world is changing around us. Refugee numbers have increased dramatically from 1.5 million in 1951, to 15 million in 2011, with another 27 million people forcibly displaced from their homes. All borders are under pressure. We see this most dramatically today in people fleeing Syria and crossing the borders into neighbouring countries. Some will seek asylum in Australia probably coming by boat.

    But we have a phobia about boat people which is so easily exploited by opportunist political leaders and journalists who have little interest or knowledge of asylum issues and policies. Why is it that in the last ten years over 70% of asylum seekers to Australia have come by air, of whom about only 40% secure refugee status, but only 30% of asylum seekers have come by boat and with double the rate of successful refugee determination?

    I suggest there are several reasons for our phobia with boat people.

    • It is so easy for politicians to raise our fears of the ‘yellow peril’ when we see unkempt asylum seekers coming to Australia by leaky boat, whereas asylum seekers coming by air are more likely to be wearing suits, having made false declarations about their intentions in coming to Australia.
    • Lazy journalists find it much easier to tell their story with pictures of people on leaking boats than accessing airports and secure areas where asylum seekers come in dribs and drabs, all day, every day. The story is much harder to tell without pictures. Asylum seekers coming by air don’t provide easy photos.
    • The government has not seriously attempted to set the record straight by giving us a global picture of asylum seekers and the relatively small number that come to Australia. It has not tried to win the argument either based on fact or by appealing to our decency. I cannot recall Prime Minister Gillard ever putting a case for treating asylum seekers with dignity. She has responded to the prejudice that flows out of focus groups. She has left the field to the Alan Jones, Ray Hadleys and the Scott Morrisons of this world.

    Our obsession with boat people is out of all proportion to the problem we face, particularly if we consider the pressures on the countries set out in the chart above – Greece, Italy, Spain and Yemen

    The mode of arrival of asylum seekers is not important What is important is the total number. Countries with land borders will have asylum seekers coming on foot, by train, bus or car as in Syria today. Island countries like Australia will have asylum seekers coming by air or boat.

    John Menadue

  • The Pacific Solution has failed. John Menadue

    The Government fell for a dud Coalition “policy” that suggested that by re-opening Nauru/Manus the flow of asylum seekers by boat would be reduced or even cease. We recall that many times Tony Abbott said that on becoming Prime Minister, the first thing he would do would be to get on the phone to the President of Nauru to re-open the Nauru detention centre.

    Following the Houston Report and in a spirit of political compromise, the Government foolishly accepted the Coalition policy to re-open Nauru/Manus as deterrents to boat arrivals. It was part of a larger package.

    The figures are now clear that Nauru/Manus are not working as a deterrent and that great hardship is being inflicted on vulnerable people who are detained on Nauru /Manus.

    The Government announced the re-opening of Nauru/Manus in August last year with the associated ‘no advantage’ test. In the three months October, November and December 2012, the number of boat arrivals increased to 6,170 from2139 in the same months of the previous year. In the first three months of this year, boat arrivals have increased to 3028 compared with 1,802 in the same months of the previous year.

    The return of Sri Lankans does seem to be having an impact but that that has little to do with the so-called deterrents of Nauru/ Manus.

    The Secretary of DIAC told a Senate Committee in October 2011 that even the meagre benefits of Nauru processing in the past could not be repeated. He pointed out that Tampa and Nauru in 2001 did confuse people-smugglers for a period and boat arrivals largely stopped, although asylum continued to come by air. Importantly almost 1,600 of the 1,637 asylum seekers who were sent to Nauru and found to be refugees finished in Australia or New Zealand. The well-informed people-smugglers know quite clearly that even if asylum seekers are taken to Nauru/Manus they are very likely to end up in Australia.

    The Government foolishly decided to adopt Tony Abbott’s and Scott Morrison’s one-line rhetoric about Nauru/Manus despite the view that the Government had expressly many times before that Nauru/Manus would not work in the future.

    But where is the public debate now when the “policy” which Tony Abbott has so consistently proposed been shown to have failed so comprehensively.

    What a tragic mess it is. The cowboys win again at the expense of fact-based policies and vulnerable people. What a mistake it is to think that Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison have serious answers. One-liners – stop the boats, re-open Nauru – are not serious policies.

    The other parts of the Coalition’s Pacific policy are Temporary Protection Visas and turn-backs at sea. Evidence shows that when the Howard Government introduced Temporary Protection Visas, the number of boat arrivals increased and hundreds of women and children drowned at sea… We also know that the Royal Australian Navy and the Indonesian Government have very serious reservations about the risks and dangers of turn-backs at sea.

    Arja Keski-Nummi and I have outlined ways to minimize Nauru/Manus. See www.publish.pearlsandirritations.com, click on ‘refugees’ and go to paper of 31.8.2012 ‘Asylum Seekers, a way out of the present impasse’.

    John Menadue

  • The Flow of Asylum Seekers to Australia follows world trends. John Menadue

    The Australian Parliamentary Library has just released a Research Paper showing that the flow of asylum seekers to Australia since 1999 follows the trends of asylum flows to OECD countries generally.

    Reading the Australian media one would think that we have a problem with asylum seekers that no other country has.

    At the Centre for Policy Development, in a report we issued in April 2011, we pointed out that the trend of asylum seekers to OECD countries, including Australia, showed that civil unrest and persecution in source countries are the major influences in asylum movements around the world and far more influential than the deterrent policies of any one destination country  including countries like Australia.(p 32)

    That assessment has been confirmed by the Research Paper by the Australian Parliamentary Library dated 11 February 2013, ‘Asylum seekers and refugees. What are the Facts?’ The Canberra Press Gallery is so absorbed in polls and politics, it has yet to read this important document which is right under its nose.

    The APL report says ‘Although Australia’s global share of asylum applications is small compared to many other OECD countries, in terms of fluctuations in asylum applications, the trend since 1999 reflects similar patterns. (The figures are 1999-2011. 2012 figures are not yet available.)

    The chart below shows clearly that the pattern of flows is similar for Australia and OECD countries.

    Australian vs OECD asylum inflows

    APL has drawn data from OECD,International Migration Outlook 2012 and the OECD website, Inflows of Asylum Seekers

    The Coalition and Tony Abbott continue to cite the decline in boat people after the Howard Government introduced the ‘Pacific Solution’ in 2001. But what is important is the total number of asylum seekers coming to Australia and other countries and not their mode of arrival. Boat arrivals did largely stop after 2001, but air arrivals continued at about 4,000 p.a.

    What the chart shows is that the decline in overall asylum seeker numbers coming to Australia after 2001 was very similar to the decline elsewhere. The number of asylum seekers going to OECD countries roughtly halved from 2001 to 2006. In the same period the number of asylum seekers coming to Australia also roughly halved.

    The number of asylum seekers seeking refuge in all countries, including Australia, began to rise again in 2006. This was due to the state of emergency that was declared in Sri Lanka in 2005 and the US troop surge in Iraq in 2007. In 2008, the Sri Lankan Government withdrew from a ceasefire with the Tamil Tigers and in Afghanistan, the Taliban rejected peace talks. The figures in the APL chart show that in broad terms asylum seekers seeking refuge in OECD countries has been similar to the trends we have seen in Australia since 2006 .  It was not due to changes in refugee and asylum policies by the Rudd Government.

    Obviously in comparing trends there will be some differences in leads and lags. There will also be variations due to the location of the persecution and conflict. For example Australia is more likely to be affected by persecution in our region, eg in Sri Lanka or Myanmar, rather than events in the Middle East which are likely to affect Europe much more.

    The APL  Research Paper shows that the driver of asylum seeker numbers are the ‘push’ factors – war and persecution – and not the ‘deterrent’ policies such as the Pacific Solution that we mistakenly are told was responsible for the changes in numbers seeking asylum in Australia.

    The APL Research Report nails the propaganda which is carried by the media – that Australia has a particular problem with asylum seekers. The problems we face are similar to those of the OECD as a whole. Furthermore the number coming to Australia is small by comparison with many other countries.

    John Menadue

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Confusion and Contradiction on Asylum Seekers in the Community. John Menadue

    Arja Keski-Nummi and I have described the services and lack of them for the 12,000 asylum seekers living in the community as ‘Kafkaesque’. The policies and rules concerning these asylum seekers have no sense or logic.

    • Some are living in the community on bridging visas with work rights and some without work rights.
    • Boat arrivals between October 2012 and August 2013 and released into the community have work rights but boat arrivals after August 2013 have no work rights.
    • Some have access to Medicare, but many don’t.
    • Some are in detention because they came by boat, while those who come by air, the much larger number, live in the community from the beginning.
    • Some cases for refugee status are being processed, but under the ‘no advantage’ rule those who came by boat after August 2012 have no processing of their claims.
    • Those who came by air, continue to be processed.
    • Some have access to the Assistance for Asylum Seekers in Australia scheme (mainly financial) and the Community Assistance Support Program (for people with complex needs). Many don’t have access to either ASAS or CAS.

    It is a mess. The above are only examples and could be added to.

    We need an urgent review of support services for asylum seekers living in the community. An important first step while the review is being undertaken is to grant work rights.

    A good model for the review is the Galbally Review which reported to the Fraser Government in May 1978 on the services needed to support migrants and refugees in the community. That report highlighted the important principles that should underlie multiculturalism but it also proposed a range of programs to assist migrants and refugees in their settlement in Australia. High on the list was English language learning, the telephone interpreter service, employment advice and assistance for women in the home.

    That report laid the basis for the very successful settlement services that endure to this day. We need to build on what we have achieved and support asylum seekers both equitably and efficiently in settlement in Australia even while their claims are being processed. We know from experience how we can do this. But we need new programs that fit the needs of today.

    The present confusion of programs is a mess. We need a mini-Galbally quite urgently.

    It offends almost every principle of equity, efficiency and good administrative practices for the present Kafkaesque type arrangements to continue for another day.

    John Menadue

  • Asylum Seekers and Paedophiles. John Menadue

    In my blog of March 5 I spoke about the demonization of asylum seekers by Scott Morrison. He has variously alleged that they bring disease, wads of cash and jewellery. He has also called for the registration of asylum seekers moving into a residential area.

    But Senator Abetz has gone even further.

    He made it very clear that we should draw the inference that just as the public wanted paedophiles registered when they moved into a community, so there should be registration of asylum seekers.  He was not rebuked by Tony Abbott.

    Senator Abetz is a senior shadow cabinet Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. He is the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. Both he and Scott Morrison would be senior members of an Abbott cabinet. Throw in Christopher Pyne, Barnaby Joyce, Kevin Andrews and Bronwyn Bishop and it does not look very promising.

    As a migrant from Germany, Senator Abetz has no intention of extending the same hand of generosity that was extended to him as a “Stanger” when he came as a newcomer to Australia in 1961.

    He obviously finds it hard to accept that we have a particular responsibility to welcome and care for the stranger. It is closing off all possibility of empathy towards the stranger when he implies that they are a threat like paedophiles.

    Where are the churches in all these distasteful attacks on ‘the stranger’? The Catholic bishops are silent. The Anglican bishops are silent. The Lutheran Church which knew so much about the persecution of persons of German origin in Australia in WWI and WWII is also silent in the face of the new vilification. The Jewish community, which knows more about persecution than any other group on this earth, is silent. Perhaps this silence is due to a mistaken view that most of the asylum seekers are Muslims.

    When will significant religious groups in Australia stand up for ‘the stranger’. The tone of the debate is getting worse day by day in the lead-up to the next election.

    But despite the abdication of leadership by so many, hundreds of thousands of Australians are going out of their way to quietly welcome and help asylum seekers in small but important ways. Australians in the community are showing that we are a more decent country than our leaders suggest.

    John Menadue