As the detention centre on Christmas Island reaches capacity, and Kevin Rudd dashes to Indonesia, you’d be forgiven for thinking some things never change. Reading over a piece from Amnesty International’s Claire Mallinson in The Punch, it would appear that the misinformation and the badly framed debating points characteristic of the Howard era are still around, Rudd government or no Rudd government:
Amnesty International welcomes greater regional engagement on the issue of asylum seekers, but only if such cooperation results in durable solutions for vulnerable people fleeing persecution. It should be remembered that neither Indonesia nor Malaysia are signatories to the Refugee Convention, and that those countries do not provide adequate protection for refugees. If Australia is going to cooperate with our regional neighbours, our government needs to ensure that it urges protection for those in need and that it does not become complicit in the turning back of people to countries where they face serious risks of persecution.
The current figure being bandied around is that 10,000 people could potentially seek asylum by boat in Australia each year. This figure is purely speculative and it is Amnesty International’s firm belief that such speculation is dangerous. It is dangerous because it is based on conjecture rather than fact. It is dangerous because it serves to inflame a debate that is already highly charged, both politically and emotionally. And it is dangerous because the only thing it contributes to this important issue is misinformation.
The issues about diversion of asylum seekers to Indonesia remain the same. It’s still a ‘Pacific Solution’ of sorts, even if Kevin Rudd can bat questions away by invoking the spectre of Philip Ruddock.
And it remains the case that most asylum seekers still arrive in this country by plane, and that those on boats are almost always the most desperate and the most exploited:
Sensationalist reporting and speculative commentary detracts attention from the human dimension of the asylum-seeker issue. Such reporting and commentary fails to acknowledge the severe risks that people take when they embark on dangerous boat journeys in order to escape persecution and human rights abuses in their home countries.
It is the lack of durable solutions and protection available in other parts of our region that forces people to make onward journeys to Australia and other Western countries that do offer such protection. Asylum-seekers are human beings who have been forced to take real risks in their search for safety and security, and they do not take lightly the decision to undertake perilous journeys to Australia.
Rather than arguing over numbers, our leaders should be focusing on finding real and lasting solutions for those in need of protection, and ensuring that all people seeking asylum in Australia are treated equally and humanely – regardless of their method of arrival.
Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett.
Update: Eva Cox.
Update: Guy Rundle.
Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett.
Just how evil is this overboard Ruddock.
as I said on another thread it was John Howard who injected this filth into the Australian psyche, and some of the white trash in the Turnbull opposition, eg Ruddock, Sharon Stone, are still peddling it. Turnbull of course is meekly going along with it, which probaly says more about the moral turpitude within the Liberal Party than anything else. Guess the idea that one no longer had to be ashamed to be an Aussie has a use-by date.
Couldn’t agree more, Mark. It’s a frigging shame Labor are indulging the stupid games that Libs did about this issue, though I did LOVE Rudd’s pithy put-down of Ruddock. Still the argument that “we’re better than the other lot, therefore good” is a bit piss weak to me. Where the eff did compassion go?
Was it my imagination or was Ruddock intorduced on ABC news last night as John Howard’s minister for immigration? (Might have been my imagination…I have the flu. Otherwise the media narrative of Howard’s government in exile is still continuing.)
It’s also a shame that Their ABC is one of the main transmitters of ‘this filth’.
After one of the political correspondents described the environment as a ’boutique issue’, they seem to regard asylum-seekers as a red-hot mainstream issue to be exploited for all it’s worth.
Really I’m beginning to resent my 8c a day going to these cretins masquerading as journalists.
PS Just read the comments thread at The Punch. SCARY. Christ, I forget how many frightened, ignorant, selfish, fascists there are in Australia sometimes.
Just left a suitably incendiary comment on the Punch. I definitely agree with the sentiments of the posters here. However I would rather pick a fight with these low grade morons, get a few punches in if you like (and I do mean a real fight). Maybe it comes from growing up in Cronulla.
You should listen to Commercial Radio 6PR with all the presenters leading with it mentioning it or invoking Ruddock and Stone and giving soft interviews.
You think the Punch is bad have a read of the Perth Now web site and the comments on that,including the Blackface ones as well.
Who said Racism is dead
I agree with Amnesty international’s sentiments. We need more compassion.
What about putting ourselves into the shoes of asylum seekers and deciding on the basis of this how much more needs to be done?
Australia is a big country. There’s room for more.
Gotta do something about the media in this country.
Update: Eva Cox.
Update: Guy Rundle.
Thanks Mark. Great article by Rundle. Rest assured you’ll never see anything like it published in the MSM, but I hope I am proven wrong.
Wow – that Rundle article was good wasn’t it.
Yep!
I have always wondered at the damage Howard did to the Australian psyche.
I know he didn’t start the policy of immigration detention, but the way he played on it really got to me. “The politics of fear have failed, we must make them work again.” That was his attitude.
Fear is a terrible thing for a leader to indulge in.
The consequences are still reverberating through our national discourse. Its fear that drives the concern about dealing with climate change, for example.
Contrasting that with the courage it takes to cross the straits into Australia, and then thinking about our response to people with that sort of courage … it just makes me ashamed. Leadership is about setting an example, and the example Howard set was one of cowardice in the face of challenges that require a courageous response.
Thats not even considering his other character flaws.
Australians will only cop an immigration programme as extensive as uors if they believe it to be well run.
Every asylum seeker admitted through a direct entry is one less taken via the resettlement. I would argue it is more moral to take those who cannot afford a smuggler, and have already been recognised as refugees by the UNHCR, than to allow for massive on shore processing.
I also have 2 concerns which are seldom adressed by refugee supporters.
A: The return of the single male: Most of the asylum seekers being sent are being used as “anchors” to facilitate the arrival of a family group, so to mindlessly disregaurd Ruddocks 10,000 figure without taking this into account just because you hate the bloke is a little silly.
B: Missing documentation: There is no reason for an asylum seeker to destroy thier identity documents unless they show something the person doesnt wish known. I have seen a few Afghan asylum seekers who kept their documents, and they were among the quickest processed and released I ever saw. I think refugee advocates should be mindful that if seeking asylum has a 90% success rate if you lob on shore with no documents, it will attract frauds seeking to use the same route/method.
A 90%+ success rate is nearly unheard of globaly when it comes to granting asylum, yet many advocates use that figure as an unjust one because its not 100%.
Bravo, Guy Rundle.
Wait, how do you bring your family into Australia if you haven’t been granted residency/refugee status?
So you’re begrudging people who actually make it through the legal hoops? Or are you speculating about all those women & children who may or may not be planning to get into boats to come here? (Not that the ‘border hawks’ don’t love speculating about humans in vessels outside Australian waters.)
(And is it even worth me pointing out that ten thousand people arriving formally in Oz is bugger all compared to what the US or Europeans get every year informally?)
First she orally pleasures Bill Clinton, now she attacks boat people. Shameless.
Just pointing out that many of the asylum seekers decisions (ie who they send) is done rationaly rather than desperately. If your non-documented family member has a 90plus% chance of being accepted then youve answered your own question. The TPV was designed with the aim of preventing this type of migration. It worked. Evans removed the TPV and the same pattern started again.
Second the sending of the male while leaving the rest of the family behind can have terrible consequnces, I hope LP will indulge me if I “copy paste” an example.
We had a chap arrive from Syria, along with the usual influx from a boatload which arrived in Broome. He didnt stand out in any great way, but I knew from conversations with his friends (he never got the hang of English much) he had a family back home, and as was usual would send for them when he gained refugee status.
However his inital application was unsuccessful, and he quickly became despondent. Then i was told he had borrowed the money for the trip from a well known criminal organisation back home and they were pressuring him to start paying them back. As he still had to wait about 6 months for the review of his case (this was when the department went from dealing with less than 100 a year to nearly 8000) he was in no position to pay anything.
I cant comment on the decision made to deny his inital application, as I wasnt privy to the case officers file.
The poor bloke became extremely depressed and began to cause real problems for staff and other detainees, breaking windows, fighting and throwing food.
Then he applied to cease his application for refugee status and return to Syria, asking to be sent back immediately. this was extremely unusual and as far as I can recall he was the only person ever to do this out of the thousands that passed through the centre.
However (and this is where the nightmarish bit starts) Syria refused to accept him back. This shattered him, he bacame even worse as he had no way of going anywhere. He refused calls from his family and Syria afterwars as well, another first.
He was front row centre in one of our biggest riots shortly after and was placed in seperation with the other participants. He ended up that clinicly depressed he was admitted to the greylands mental hospitay in perth and given (apparently) electroshock treatment.
While he was in perth I was told by one of the other detainees why he had lost the plot so badly. The criminals who he had borrowed the money from had got his wife to ring and tell him that they were going to be pimped out as prostitutes (Kids as well) if he didn’t pay up. That was when he applied to return to Syria and was refused. It was about 4 months after that he went to greylands. So this poor sod had months of time when his wife would ring begging for him to help.
We didnt get him back at Port hedland, he became ill while in the Perth facility and tests revealed possible cancer, during surgery he died on the operating table.
So how would people here deal with this case?
Just grant the guys application and let him stay, get him to work as soon as possible and bring his family out as soon as possible if his wife and kids are at risk of being prostituted.
Thats what I’d do. And if there was any legal or other power I had to effect the people who loaned him money I’d possibly do that too. But get him to work as soon as possible, he probably should pay his debts.
And why don’t we get refugees into the community as soon as possible?
One thing I wouldn’t do is pay money to fucking wakenhut to lock people up on my behalf. It boils my blood that my tax dollars have gone to that pile of filth.
jules
The bloke ddnt hve a legitimate claim to asylum, congratulations your morality just cost at least 4 places which would have been assigned to offshore genuine refugees.
Im not critisizing your natrual instincts to do the best by this one bloke, but he wasnt in danger until he borrowed money to make the trip.
Refugee issues are extroadinarily difficult, Im just tired of people on boh sides who think its easy in any way.
I do see your point, honestly, but … I don’t know he was in no danger till he borrowed money to leave. Do you? Really? (You may, I dunno. If you ar that sure, fine, I don’t know enough about his assessment process to really trust it.)
I don’t work in that field, and I don’t know if I could. I accept that people are only working within the limits they have had set for them by the policy, and the people who made it. I don’t think I could do that without seriously losing it. No doubt the decisions I would make don’t stand up to your criticism. I can see how when there is an artificial scarcity of places you want to see them go to the people who really really really need them.
Its the artificial scarcity I object to.
And I don’t think it would be easy for anyone in the position of dealing with the policies. I dunno how I feel about all of them, I specifically dunno how I feel about people who work at detention centres, especially for whatever they call themselves these days. Its a bit of a conflict, I’d be happier if everyone were working for the Australian government directly.
“rationaly rather than desperately”
I fail to see why one can’t think rationally in a desperate situation. In fact it’s probably more likely that you will given the wrong choice may lead to a catastrophic outcome. One more example of the anti-asylum-seeker brigade disengaging their brains from their fingers.
“The bloke ddnt hve a legitimate claim to asylum, congratulations your morality just cost at least 4 places which would have been assigned to offshore genuine refugees.”
Mole, I expect you’ve had some experience as a guard or some type of jailer. These positions are usually not privy to all the details of a case, legal or medical details for example. You insights are those of a slightly closer spectator but you are hardly an active player in the asylum seeking process, you are a jailer. So I doubt that statements like:
“The bloke ddnt hve a legitimate claim to asylum, congratulations your morality just cost at least 4 places which would have been assigned to offshore genuine refugees.”
are little more than an opinion.
The fact that you can’t connect the “poor chap’s” deteriorating mental health and his sudden change of mind with the threats to his family and the uncertainty created by the Howard govts. asylum regime says a lot about you level of engagement. Oh and was it you who impugned the reputations of all female sympathisers in a long piece of hearsay and speculation on Skeptic Lawyer? I could be mistaken.
My blood is boiling after listening to reports of Kevin Andrews talking about the opposition adopting a new TPV, to be called an “Unlawful entry visa” or similar. the old Temporary Protection Visa was harsh enough, but now the Liberals are recommending not only bringing it back, but giving it a more stigmatising name. Way to go fellas.
And the Government is just as bad – I’d expect that kind of ignorance from the Libs but the oh so educated K Rudd doesn’t appear to realise, either, that the word “Unlawful” doesn’t apply here. Under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, of which we are a signatory, Article 14 states that: ”everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution’.
.
PatrickB
If by eyewitness testimont, seen on multiple occasions then yes.
And how am I not connecting the blokes mental state withthe threats to his family?? I recognise its nice to jump on a moral high horse at the first signs of a chance to “white knight”, but the reality is difficult.
What you are saying is in effect “If you borrow money from a criminal group, and they threaten you, you can claim asylum”.
Thats a fairly loose version of the definition of refugee, and the sort of ruling that would destroy any semblance of a managed system.
You have no idea just how much time Ive spent talking to refugees about their cases, it may be nice to imagine the detainees and the guards as bitter enemies, but the fact is we spent more time with individual refugees than any person involved in their case making.
As I said in the skepticlawyer piece, there were those who were found not to be refugees I would have let out in a minute, as they were good people, and there were some granted visas who were, and will be on the outside, thugs.
It all just smacks of Liberal desperation in the wake of poor polling. Press the fear of invasion button (the old standby), chuck a match on bushfire reconstruction matters and then organise for a weekend personal attack on some poor sod, by Milne, to lead next weeks news cycle.
Then wait for the excitement engendered, in sucky media, when Labor drops back 3 points in the next Newspoll.
Ruddock’s sponsorship of hysterical racism is as despicable as it is irrational. We agree on that. There is also general agreement on the way that Howard et al manipulated the fear factor for their own political purposes. We can argue the rights and wrongs of the refugee entry at a rational level until we are blue in the face without making the slightest change in the mind state of those living in fear of difference/otherness or whatever it might be. The question therefore is how are we to respond to the deeply irrational fear that people experience at so called “illegal” entry on boats?
My own view is that we need a much more psychodynamically informed understanding of the way that racism operates as trauma within Australian history. I believe that Howard was both traumatised and a traumatiser. Ruddock the same.
So far it appears that targetting people smugglers as criminals is a reasonably cunning political response. It doesn’t criminalise refugees and it positions them as the victims of criminal activity. At the same time it allows Rudd to speak tough about “border defence” which appears to be necessary to prevent the rise of further and highly irrational trauma responses among the Stan and Amy Parkers who constitute a significant conservative bloc among our fellow citizens.
Political cunning. We need to accord the sort of respect to the traumatised consciousness of a very large number of Australians that one accords to a red belly black snake when flushing it out of the long grass ’round the dunny. In such an exercise you do not use rational argument to urge the snake to where you can despatch it. You have to think like a snake.
Red bellied black snakes are fine. I once saw my cat curled up asleep in the sun next to a red bellied black snake that was also curled up asleep in the sun. There was about 6 inches of dirt between them. My cat and that snake shared the yard for years till the cane toads got here.
You don’t dispatch Red Bellied Black snakes unless you want to deal with more aggressive snakes in their place. Different snakes think differently.
Apart from that I completely agree.
The use of rational argument to counter an emotional one is foolish. Its like trying to mow a lawn with an eggbeater. I often notice that with the left and the right… The right is far better at dealing with emotional arguments than the left, and it appeals to them all the time cos it knows its on solid ground. You can’t have a successful rational debate about emotional issues unless you first engage the emotional issues and show some sort of empathy with them.
These emotions are often based in fear, and people don’t like having their fears ignored, it makes them feel threatened on some level. If you acknowledge peoples fears and then work with them to overcome them, or at least to act in spite of their fears you can be a lot more effective. People need to be inspired to act with courage, to act in spite of their fears, and thats what good leadership does.
Thats why I appreciated the Rundle article so much. It seems to be attempting to address that dynamic.
I think Rundle’s faith in Rudd is a little misguided tho. Pressure on him to live up to the ideals he has expressed in the past may be all he needs to justify Rundls faith, but that pressure can only really from ordinary Australians constantly reminding him of what he reckons he stands for. (We are all ordinary Australians, even Rudd and Ruddock.)
Interesting Anthony!
This is not an original observation, but re your first paragraph, some people have pointed out in the past how the Fraser govt provided leadership with the Vietnamese “boat people” some decades ago without whipping up the frenzy (with a nod and a wink to Hanson and her supporters) that the Howard /Rudd government did in the early Noughties.
The right is far better at dealing with emotional arguments than the left, and it appeals to them all the time cos it knows its on solid ground. You can’t have a successful rational debate about emotional issues unless you first engage the emotional issues and show some sort of empathy with them.
Jules: I don’t understand what you mean. I always interpreted “X is far better at dealing with Y” implies that X has the emotional maturity to deal with subject Y without losing their head. You really think the “right” has more emotional maturity that the “left”? Because I suggest you check the comments pages of your local Murdoch news site – especially any crime-related story.
Given that a large part of the recent upsurge is due to Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka, why is the Australian govt not pressuring Sri Lanka to cease the abuse of Tamils in that country since the recent put down of the Tamil independence group. If a class of people were ever at risk of persecution it must be Sri Lankan Tamils at the present time. Instead, our govt is treating the Tamils as terrorists. The 200 odd Tamils stuck on a boat in Indonesia are really in limbo. There is no way they could safely return to Sri Lanka, they will not be welcome in Indonesia and Rudd has said they can’t come here. What is their future?
I also agree with Helen’s comments re Kevin Andrews. As a former Minister of Immigration and a lawyer, he must know that there is nothing unlawful about coming to Australia and making a claim for refugee status. In fact the right to do that is enshrined in Australian and international law.
I’m losing track of who is who. The “Right” want to let in anybody who’ll come, coz that’ll mean a flood of cheap labour, and the “Left” want to keep everybody out, coz newcomers will take Ozzi jobs and drive down wages. Right?
DaOoSG – The right isn’t emotionally mature. If it was it would be concerned about encouraging the best in people not the worst.
The right does have a better grasp on how peoples emotions motivate their behaviour than the left. I dunno if this is a reasoned understanding or an intuitive instinctual one. I suspect its the latter.
It understands how emotional immaturity works, and uses this to its advantage. It promotes emotional immaturity in the electorate to make its manipulation easier too. The entire focus of its debate is centred on promoting emotional immaturity. It uses memes, in the original sense of the word …
I’m just blabbing on.
The right plays off fear. The left doesn’t know how to deal with that fear.
It tries to give rational reasons for why fear is invalid. This will never work. Fear is a primal thing, its based in endocrine responses not neurotransmitters, and thats how the body changes in relation to it, primarily.
The words the left uses rarely seem to address this emotional need. This need for the words to generate meaning in the endocrine system, not just the CNS. Obama generated so much momentum cos he understood this, thats what his appeal to our better angels was all about. It was a direct challenge to the emotional manipulation of the Rethugs.
(I know the use of words like endocrine and neurotransmitter might make this comment sound like pseudoscientific babble, but it isn’t.)
A few comments.
Mole -
I don’t mean this in any sort of nasty way, so I hope you’ll take it in good spirit when I urge you to look around for some of the research and articles on the basic pyschological impact of people who are terrorised / traumatised. I’ve talked to many refugees who have been accepted into Australia’s resettlement program. Many, many of those dumped their documentation; many also did not declare close relations so that they are listed on their visa to Australia. The reasons they did related mainly to absolute terror of those they were fleeing and their ability to identify them or their family; and a completely shattered trust when it comes to people in government / positions of authority. What is ‘rational’ or ‘irrational’ in such circumstances and after experiencing appalling psychological and often physical trauma is complex. For example:
It is entirely rational to dump your identifying documentation when fleeing a far-reaching brutal regime that has made it clear that you and yours will be tortured and killed if they can identify you.
It is equally entirely irrational to dump such paperwork when you know it might help you and yours escape or be recognised as refugees and accepted for resettlement.
What this should tell you is that the ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ terror play into each other creating situations where what is helpful for surviving in the first instance is terribly and tragically unhelpful after that initial survival when seeking a long-term solution. Perhaps as a simple first step you need to have a think about what it might be like to have your trust in authorities completely destroyed to the point that you damn your own chances of being reunited with your family in a safe place.
then there are the commonplace banal problems of:
a constant stream of apocryphal and misleading rumours about what’s the best way / what you have to do to get accepted as a refugee or into a resettlement program
and
the corruption that if typically rife in refugee camps in many parts of the world that can see your documentation taken from you and sold to someone else to use.
Choosing to send a single male from the family as a vanguard to find safety is both rational and an act of desperation. For many Afghani families it means losing the one piece of protection (a male head of household) they have in incredibly dangerous places such as the border camps in Pakistan where extremists run rife. Sending a woman for many cultures would be unthinkable, and would probably be signing her death warrant without a male escort. I find it hard to fault refugees for the decisions they make in this area. I don’t think any of us would do any different in the same circumstances.
I would argue that rather than making out it’s some immoral tactic on their part – sending single men first who then try and sponsor their family out – we should be asking why our humanitarian visa streams are set up such that there is no guarantee of at the very least immediate family reunion with far less difficulty than the hoops and limited places people currently have to deal with.
Rossco – I completely agree that the Aus. Government could be and should be doing more to pressure the Sri Lankans – as should the international community full stop. However I disagree that the gov’t is treating Tamil asylum seekers as terrorists. Many have already been granted permanent residency under our humanitarian visa program. I don’t agree with the recent call to turn back the large boat; equally I think it needs to be acknolwedeged that the situation is a very difficult one.
Not specifically to anyone, but on this issue of the 10,000 people in the pipleline bullshit. I understand why government ministers and refugee advocates try and downplay this number and say it is nonsense – and it is – but the truth is rather the other way around (you can’t trust the media to deal with it though).
What I’m getting at is as just one example, there are an estimated 2 million Burmese refugees in Thailand right now, most of them unregistered with the UNHCR. I’ve forgotten how many thousands of known refugees are currently in Indonesia in limbo at the moment, but it’s far more than 10,000.
You get the picture. The issue isn’t 10,000 ready and waiting, the issue is that in our region that are literally millions of completely displaced people who could at any time choose to try and reach Australia. That they aren’t in any great numbers actually speaks of how effective (we can discuss morality separately) the meausres used by our SE Asian neighbours, with our support, are at ensuring the much-vaunted ‘flood’ has never materialised.
So the government is entirely correct when it says the push factors are much, much mroe relevant than the pull factors.
anthony nolan – great post, completely agree. I don’t know what it is about desparate people in leaky boats that makes Australians so afraid & hateful, but it needs addressing.
Well said, Guy Rundle – he really is good when he wants to be.
I even heard the ABC – not 2GB – call this a “flood”. I don’t regard under 1,800 people this year as a flood. As Father Brennan said, the US gets more cross its Mexican border before breakfast each day.
Ruddock could hardly hide his glee at this spectacle of human suffering (which his government is partly responsible for by neglecting Afghanistan for the folly of Iraq, thus allowing the Taliban to return and terrorize the population). Ruddock’s deathly pallor reminds me of Darth Vador’s boss – who was the bloke on the death star who shot those laser-thingies out of his fingers at Luke Skywalker?
This should, though it is hardly needed, disabuse all of the notion that there is any longer such a thing as a moderate Liberal. “Socially progressive” Malcolm Turnbull sounds a lot like John Howard. Ruddock’s from the moderate wing, too.
“anthony nolan – great post, completely agree. I don’t know what it is about desparate people in leaky boats that makes Australians so afraid & hateful, but it needs addressing.”
I wonder how much it has to with the the unconscious recognition that when “we” (modern australia) did that look what happened to the people who were already here.
I’m not sure that unconscious recognition is 100% responsible or just somewhere over 66%.
…..try to maintain some contact with reality, Steve at the Pub. 1,800 people couldn’t drive down the wages in my local suburb.
P.S. I notice that Colin Barnett had his ten cents on the news. This is a warning to all progressives in other states: you might not like Bligh or Rees, but if you think you’re being clever by voting only for the Greens (and bugger preferencing the ALP) you hand a big megaphone to the xenophobes and hysterical fear-mongers (otherwise known as the Liberal Party).
Don’t say you haven’t been warned. And don’t think you’re not personally responsible.
Ginja, it’s interesting how many people are starting to notice Ruddock’s resemblance to Emperor Palpatine – my children pointed it out to me, and now it’s quite compelling. He’s certainly gone to the dark side.
Hopefully it will become a meme.
DI(NR) – I think Ratzi’s a better fit.
Ruddock is more in the Nosferatu vein for mine.
Yeah FDB, Nosferatu works as well. Interchangable really, depending on mood.
Dunno that I agree about Ratzi, though. For a pope, he seems almost human.
Dodgy people looking like Palpatine is a meme these days isn’t it?
I don’t think it just applies to one person.
Ratzi’s a pretty awesome example tho. He was the first.
Protecting the Vatican’s paedophiles, the Rottweiler with an updated Crimen Sollicitationis for 20 some years.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23369148-pope-led-cover-up-of-child-abuse-by-priests.do
Little wonder; the common look with Ruddock, the pallor: the self knowledge of people who have sold out humanity in one form or another, for power and/or self preservation.
eeeeeeeeeeeeek!
http://images.starwarscostumes.com/mask_emperor_palpatine_delu.jpg
The difference between 2001 and now (aside from the atmosphere surrounding Sept. 11) is that the Libs no longer control the legislative agenda. Their devious little minds can’t use every parliamentary gimmick in the book to wedge Labor and whip up hysteria.
Simply controlling the parliamentary agenda – taking it out of the hands of an utterly unscrupulous party – is one of the precious gifts of incumbency.
excellent article from this morning’s Age about the plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Plainly our government could be doing a great deal more to stem the flow by putting pressure on the SL government to treat the Tamils humanely etc.
Ginja, the worrying thing is the recent Lowy Institute poll showing that 76% of Australians feel threatened / worried by boat arrivals as a major foreing policy issue.
And btw @ 41 – the states don’t control border protection or foreign policy so to suggest that Greens and others shouldn’t look seriously at ways to deal themselves into a balance of power or other situations to address the generally appalling level of governance at state level by the ALP is bullshit.
Jules @ 39:”I wonder how much it has to with the the unconscious recognition that when “we” (modern australia) did that look what happened to the people who were already here.” I think this is correct. There is something specific about people arriving in boats that sets off, as you note @ 36, an endocrine response rather than thought. How exactly this operates at the metta level of a national psyche is a complex issue. Language appears to be the key – yesterday’s Oz had a feature article in which the author referred to this year’s boat arrivals by the current pop-military phrase as a ‘surge’. Thanks for that pal.
You are also correct about snakes: a red belly is better than a king brown.
My favourite footage of Howard is of him shouting his refusal to apologise to indigenous Australians. They stand with their backs to him. Howard, with responds with clenched fists, contorted face, rage and fear coursing through him in alternative waves. Totally undignified for Howard. An abject failure of stature and statesmanship. I saw a man whose response to a challenge to his authority was to stand and shout. At that moment Howard was a man in ‘reversal’ which is the precise moment when the memory of one’s traumatiser comes alive and reinvigorates the memory of trauma not, however, in memory but as real time enactment of precisely the same oppression that the victim suffered. Except in reversal the victim becomes persecutor. At that moment we were probably Howard’s dad at the dinner table. Howard, affronted by people who he sees as akin to children (ie, Aborigines) becomes his dad.
Howard’s trauma, broadcast right into your own little family home. Big dad shouting. Big dad saying there are boogey men coming in boats to get us in the night. Dark ones with unpronounceable names. Sea borne bunyips.
And yeah, Ruddock as a blood sucker. The pallor, the heartlessness. No appeal to that corner. Scary mob.
Cheers
I would like to be sympathetic to these boat arrivals but here are the reasons that I cannot. I have made these points on plenty of other blogs and never got sensible replies. Perhaps LP will be the first.
Point 1: Northern Sri-Lanka is 100km from Tamil Naidu in India. A real refugee would flee to the first safe haven. They may be leaving Sri-Lanka for good reasons but they are choosing Australia by economic preference. Please do not quote the UN definition of refugee and their rights to do this, that or the other. I am talking about the plain English meaning of refugee and how they can expect to be reasonably treated. If a battered woman from next door appears on my front doorstep I will give her refuge. If she arrives by taxi from Sydney I will not.
Point 2: They are middle class – rich enough to get on a plane in Colombo and fly to KL or Jakarta. They are not the ones starving in camps. I am prepared to take the ones in the camps and even pay for their flight.
Point 3: They “lose” their passports. I know this because I know an official working on Xmas island. Not a passport in sight. The purpose is to conceal their identity. The purpose of concealing identity can only be that they SELF-ASSESS as non-refugees. In contrast, people who arrive by plane in Australia have identifying papers.
Point 4: They try to destroy their own boats to force rescue. This is well documented over many years and many jurisdictions. It is galling because it turns our compassion into a weapon to be used against us. It is indeed an ultimatum founded upon violence (to themselves and their peers). It is also a criminal offense (obviously).
Point 5: The humanitarian quota per year is about 13000 and has not changed much in a decade. (Actually I believe only about half are refugees). It is a zero sum game and the game is way over-subscribed – there are at least a million genuine refugees around the world. And if you let in Ahmed this year then someone else has to wait until next year or later. In this sense the process IS a queue – not an orderly queue but it is a queue in the above respects. It is in this general sense that boat arrivals without passports are queue jumpers – they are trying to get into Australia in front of and at the expense of others. To put it more plainly, 2000 boat arrivals will probably gain entry this year. This means that 2000 poor bastards in African camps will not get in. They are denied any chance of entry thanks to LP soft-headedness. Do you still feel morally superior?
Point 6: Advocates often boast that 90% of boat arrivals have been found to be refugees. No, they haven’t. They have merely been assessed according to UN conventions which place the onus of proof on immigration to prove they are not refugees. I honestly believe that those who “lose” their passports – that is all of them – are not refugees and are just tricking their way to the front of the queue. Yes, they are refugees according to onerous UN rules. No, they are not refugees in the ordinary meaning of the word.
What would I do? LPers probably don’t care but I will say it anyway since it is not enough to knock down your arguments without offering a solution. (1) Formally withdraw from the 1951 convention, (2) increase the refugee quota to 20000, (3) start properly assessing who is the most worthy based on our own undisclosed but common sense rules, not rules thought up by the UN or Julian Burnside and not rules that are widely known so that they can be exploited. We would end up with 20000 really genuine refugees. But apparently nobody actually cares about that. They only care about sounding good to their AI mates.
I’d like to congratulate the Coatiion on thier win. Judging by the headlines the Coalition can now do the following.
1. Claim that Rudd caved to their demands thus feeding the “government in exile narrative.”
2 Regain the tough on illegals tag.
3. And most important. They must ask the left wing over and over and over and over “Why did you vote for Rudd? He’s just the same as Howard really.”
Result. A gain to the Coalition due to Libs returning to the fold and Rudd supporters dropping off.
David Marr had a great piece on the Triple J’s hack on Christmas island. Good thing the mass media aren’t interested.
“What you are saying is in effect “If you borrow money from a criminal group, and they threaten you, you can claim asylum”.”
Am I? What you are saying that you are ignoring the chap’s motivations for borrowing the money in the first place. Don’t you even consider the possibility that he be in such a position of peril that borrowing from gangsters is his only option? You show a definite lack of ability to think beyond your prejudices. And as I said before these are not “eye witness testimony”. You are relying on accounts of the man in question given by people who may not be well acquainted with his situation and who may also be inclined to tell you what you want to hear given that you were their jailer.
The fact is that most of the people you guarded were eventually assessed to be refugees as may have been the case with this chap had he been able to sit out assessment process given that his family may have been in peril.
StudenT,
I’ll post in two bits as for some reason my linke keeps crashing.
point 1 – India is not a signatory to the International Refugee Convention. This means that Tamils fleeing to India do not have their basic human rights honoured. In particular India does not honour the international law in regard to “nonrefoulement“ – which states that countries should not force the return people to a situation they know to be perilous in the country from which they fled. For example every year India forces thousands of Burmese refugees to return to Burma where they face appalling persecution, including labour death camps. What you’re suggesting is that Tamils try and flee to a country that will push them back in their boats, let local officials beat or extort them and otherwise not honour their asylum claims. Having said that I expect any families who feel they can flee there and hide will be.
There is absolutely no evidence Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka are choosing Australia. In fact Australia is receiving far smaller numbers of Tamil asylum seekers than Europe, Canada and the USA.
response 2 – basis of financial status. The accepted international definition of a refugee, to which Australia is bound by being party to the UN Treaty is anyone who,:
“owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country or return there because there is a fear of persecution…”
Clearly the Tamils are claiming asylum based on a well-founded fear of persecution based on their ethnicity. And clearly you need to read a whole lot more about what is happening in Sri Lanka right now. Red Cross has been locked out. Reputable human rights organisations such as Amnesty have documented that there are an estimated 300,000 Tamils being held in detention camps in Sri Lanka, without access to clean water or regular food, without proper shelter or sanitation, and facing beatings, torture and summary executions. Any sane person would try and flee that. Any sane person with funds would use them to flee. Having funds to flee is in no way relevant to a persons’ status as a refugee.
point 3 – Many Tamils did not ever receive passports because of systemtic discrimination against them in Sri Lanka. Many are from poor backgrounds and would never have had any wherewithal or reason to seek a passport. Those who did have passports may well have lost them in the civil war that recently waged where whole villages and towns were bombed without warning. Those who managed to have them and salvage them may well have intentionally lost documentation because having it can be more dangerous than not. If you have no ID you may have some chance of not being explicity identified as a refugee by countries that are non-signatories to the Refugee Convention and then getting locked up indefinitely or forced back out to sea in unsafe vessels, of being subject to refoulement.
Studet T to address the remainder of your points -
point 4- Obviously you’re not capable of imagining what it’s like to be so desperate and afraid that you will try anything to try and get countries like Australia to heed your plight. In fact you apparently don’t understand that Australia as a signatory to international maritime law is obligated to provide rescue to people in unsafe vessels. This is why what happened at TAMPA was a gross violation of our laws.
point 5 – Incorrect. 6,500 places approx are reserved for people taken directly from camps. The remaining places are under the Special Humanitarian Program which has a slightly softer definition of violation of human rights and doesn’t require anyone to be listed as a refugee with the UNHCR. The reality is due to the overwhelming demand that the vast majority of those places are filled by registered refugees who have some relative in Australia who has been previously accepted through our humanitarian resettlement program. The government just raised the quote to 13,750, the first rise in many years. In the meantime the number of displaced people in the world facing protracted refugee situations has increased. Australia has not increased its quota to match the reality.
There is no queue. Under international law anyone has the right to apply for asylum and that law exists explicity in recognition of the fact that situations that require people to flee do not result in the ability for people to ‘queue’ in any meaningful sense. In some parts of the world – and this applies to Sri Lanka at the moment – the UNHCR has been denied the right to enter and set up formal refugee camps and resettlement processing places. Accusing Sri Lankan Tamils and others facing almost certain death of queue jumping in such circumstance makes a mockery of your claim to some sort of higher moral ground. The appalling numbers of refugees in the world needing assistance is absolutely no justification for denying an asylum seeker their right to seek asylum. It simply highlights that Australia like all the wealthy developed nations should be and could be doing much more to both offer more places and assist to end protracted conflicts and refugee situations.
point 6 – Well then you have no understanding of international law or Australia’s assessment processes for determining the legitimacy of claims, which are very rigorous indeed. There is no ‘ordinary’ definition of the word refugee. There is the legal definition and our international legal obligations to it. The 90% plus positive assessment of asylum seekers who arrived seeking asylum in Australian is proof of that no matter how you try and twist it.
and regarding what you think – given your general ignorance on this subject, no your opinion doesn’t cut much ice.
Student T: I’ll try to address some of your concerns, though it’s doubtful if my answer will satisfy you.
Firstly, have you read the whole of this thread. If you have, you should realise that boat people are only a tiny percentage of those arriving or overstaying unlawfully. I hesitate to use the term ‘illegal’ in this sense because it has been shown repeatedly that such action is not illegal. If there was a genuine concern about this matter the majority of cases would be looked at, not just the ones that make the evening news and are fodder for the rabid politicians.
Secondly, considering the number of displaced persons around the world, Australia only gets a trickle compared with North America or Europe. Are you saying that even this is too many?
” (3) start properly assessing who is the most worthy based on our own undisclosed but common sense rules, not rules thought up by the UN or Julian Burnside and not rules that are widely known so that they can be exploited”
Short of totalitarian countries, no country in the world could afford to have unstated rules – it is part of the rule of law. Not to have such rules would invite both tyranny and corruption. I am not saying the Liberals reached that level, but they went horribly close at one point when agents were able to exploit donations to the Liberal party to get visas over the line.
I’m not sure why you’d want to exclude Julian Burnside or the UNHCR, but as a QC whom I’ve heard address public meetings on these matters I’d suggest that Burnside’s knowledge of the law is better than yours or mine. He doesn’t make this up as he goes along.
Most of all, I want suggest that we’re talking about a political issue, the way its been handled, not a border protection or security concern. Nobody can convince me that Nauru, Woomera and Baxter were not all attempts to exploit the politics of fear, and punish the people that dared to come here that way, in the hope that if it didn’t deter them it would at least satisfy our needs to kick somebody.
May I take a moment to spruik part of the LDP Immigration policy (because, after all, LP is crawling with people desperate to vote LDP if only given a good enough excuse…) Simply to sell migration visas to those who can afford them. (Which we presume will include all those paying people smugglers to put them in leaky boats and risk all to get locked up and so forth). While maintaining the humanitarian refugee program. So, no “queue-jumping” and no detention centres. And the immigration program becomes user pays, so one less thing for the zenophobes to complain about. Though obviously not so attractive to the socialists amongst us.
There is also a bit about bilateral free immigration agreements, similar to what we have with New Zealand, but not really relevant to this thread.
I see that the Awfulstralian has given Kevin Andrews some oxygen today by allowing him to conjure a column on how Rudd’s immigration policy is a disaster and it was so much stricter when Andrews was in charge. What a deadbeat.
I am sick at heart that we’re going through all this again. Why on earth doesn’t K.rudd go on national TV and make an address to the nation reminding us all that once before this nation’s mind and soul was poisoned by that dispicable little runt John Winston Howard, we were once a decent people. We had our faults, but basically we were a decent people.Why doesn’t Rudd do what Fraser did with the Vietnamese “boat people”? Appeal to the better side of our nature and ask us to let these poor Tamils in. I’m sure most people would listen and consent. After all, we did kick Howard out and if the opinion polls are right we’re not going to want his scabrous little party back in again for a very long time, until they too have become decent people like the majority of us.
I didn’t realise that this site was so supportive of priveliged rich people who buy their way to the front of the refugee queue.
Desperately poor there may be among the Tamils, however those with the wherewithall to pay USD $15,000 in a country such as Sri Lanka are waaaay above the average.
I would suggest that a quick whip around of regulars here would reveal a majority unable to raise USD $15,000 in cash if they had to get out of town before sundown.
These aren’t poor little waifs, these are the priveliged class, not prepared to wait along with the ordinary people.
Let ‘em in. Let ‘em go to work. I’ll happily trade 10 to 1 for people here who are too precious to work.
I meant poor in regard to the siuation there in SATP. They stay in Sri Lanka they’ll be murdered.
“A real refugee would flee to the first safe haven.”
Student T, you plead with us to give you sensible answers to your concerns and yet you start with a statement like that. When I read that I move on as it appears that you have made up your mind that the people attempting to gain asylum are not real refugees unless they conform to some standard of your own devising, it is not really an objective standard and thus not the basis around which a debate can be had. In future I suggest that you leave your assumptions about what constitutes a “real” refugee at home. Hope that helps.
Steve at the Pub: so now you’re against rich people buying their way to the front of the queue? Isn’t that Liberal Party policy for everything? After all, what was the Libs’ private health rebate if not queue-jumping for the well-off. Did you ever hear of Howard’s full fee paying uni places? That would have to be the very definition of queue jumping! For some reason, wealthy private schools also had to be at the front of the queue when it came to federal funding.
The whole immigration program was changed under Howard to favour better-off migrants. Look at the Indian student issue (created under Howard) – what is that if not encouraging the well-off to effectively buy their way into the country?
The Liberal Party really should be called the Queue Jumpers’ Party,
The Right basically believes that money should talk for everything – so what are you, some kind of closet commie? I think it’s you who is being inconsistent.
Ginja, you’re only on the fringes of coherency, even for this site. You are asking questions of me that you can find the answers to in my most recent above comment.
I did express surprise that the mindset of this site is in favour of people buying their way to the front of the queue, a position that seems to inconsistent with this site’s mindest on other matters. I’m surprised, but that’s all.
Questions for the Liberal Party I suggest you direct to the Liberal Party. If you want to have an irrelevant anti-Liberal Party rant go ahead, it won’t get you anywhere, they aren’t in government.
You suggest I maintain contact with reality? Your statement does not match any comment I made. Besides, I am more in touch with reality than most every regular on this site. I know inferiors when I see them.
REPLIES TO DON WIGAN IN UPPER CASE – NOT TO BE INTERPRETED AS SHOULTING.
point 1 –What you’re suggesting is that Tamils try and flee to a country that will push them back in their boats. NO-ONE HAS SUGGESTED THAT INDIA WILL SEND THEM BACK. IS THAT YOUR POSITION? YOU ARE SAYING THAT IN INDIA WILL NOT ACCEPT ETHNIC INDIANS WHO ARE FLEEING A CIVIL WAR. PLEASE PROVIDE A LINK.
There is absolutely no evidence Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka are choosing Australia. THE ONES ARRIVING HERE HAVE CHOSEN AUSTRALIA, RATHER THAN INDIA OR MALAYSIA.
response 2 – basis of financial status. The accepted international definition of a refugee… HOW IS THIS RELEVANT? MY POINT IS THAT THEY ARE NOT NEARLY AS DESERVING AS THOSE WHO CANNOT AFFORD THE FLIGHT.
point 3 – Many Tamils did not ever receive passports because of systemtic discrimination against them in Sri Lanka. WRONG. THEY ARRIVE IN KL BY PLANE. THEY HAVE PASSPORTS.
point 4- Obviously you’re not capable of imagining what it’s like to be so desperate…TO FLY TO JAKARTA, DESTROY YOUR PASSPORT, PAY K$15 AND THEN SINK YOUR OWN BOAT. THIS IS NOT DESPERATION. IT IS TRYING TO FORCE ENTRY. YOU ACTUALLY JUSTIFY SUCH BEHAVIOUR …. In fact you apparently don’t understand that Australia as a signatory to international maritime law is obligated to provide rescue to people in unsafe vessels……MADE UNSAFE BECAUSE THEY SINK THEM THEMSELVES. AND WE CAN THEN RETURN THEM TO THE CLOSEST PORT. IN THE CASE OF TAMPA THEY THREATENED THE CAPTAIN AND FORCE HIM TO GO TO OZ. CAN’T YOU SEE THEY ARE CYNICALYL EXPLOTING MARITIME LAW BY SINKING THEIR OWN BOATS?
point 5 – Incorrect. 6,500 places approx are reserved for people taken directly from camps. YES. I KNEW THAT. I DIDN’T WANT TO MUDDY THE WATERS. ACTUALLY A SMALLER INTAKE MAKES MY POINT STRONGER – THEY ARE TAKING LIMITED SPOTS FROM OTHERS MORE DESERVING – THANKS……. The government just raised the quota to 13,750, the first rise in many years. In the meantime the number of displaced people in the world facing protracted refugee situations has increased. Australia has not increased its quota to match the reality. I STATED I WAS IN FAVOUR OR RAISING THE QUOTA, IF THE REFUGEES ARE GENUINE.
There is no queue. DID YOU READ MY POINT 5? IT HAS THE REQUISITE PROPERTIES OF A QUEUE. THERE IS LIMIT ON FLOW AND IF I GET IN THEN SOMEONE ELSE DOES NOT. IT DOES NOT NEED OT BE AN ORDERLY QUEUE FOR THE MAIN POINT TO HOLD. The appalling numbers of refugees in the world needing assistance is absolutely no justification for denying an asylum seeker their right to seek asylum. THEY CAN SEEK BUT IF THEY ARE TRYING TO PLAY THE SYSTEM THEY SHOULD FAIL.
Have you read the whole of this thread. If you have, you should realise that boat people are only a tiny percentage of those arriving or overstaying unlawfully. IF THEY ARE OVER-STAYERS THEY ARE EVENTUALLY DEPORTED AND DO NOT STOP OTHERS ENTERING. ANYWAY, I AM AGAINST UNLAWFUL OVERSTAYERS AS WELL.
Secondly, considering the number of displaced persons around the world, Australia only gets a trickle compared with North America or Europe. Are you saying that even this is too many?…ER. I SAID WE SHOULD INCREASE THE QUOTA TO 20,000. WHICH OF US DOES NOT READ THINGS PROPERLY?
Short of totalitarian countries, no country in the world could afford to have unstated rules – it is part of the rule of law. IT SHOULD NOT BE. THE MORE EXPLICIT AND TIGH THE RULES THE MORE THEY ARE RORTED.
Burnside’s knowledge of the law is better than yours or mine. He doesn’t make this up as he goes along. HE BASES HIS OPINIONS ON UN CONVENTIONS, SIGNED IN 1951. THESE ARE NOT LAWS PASSED BY REPRESENTATIVES WHO I VOTED FOR. HOW ABOUT WE PUT THESE CONVENTIONS TO A PLEBISCITE?
Nobody can convince me that Nauru, Woomera and Baxter ….I WON’T TRY THEN. YOUR MIND IS OBVIOUSLY CLOSED.
I’m sorry you find it necessary to resort to bold case, Student T. Despite your plea not to interpret as shouting, it is hard to take any other inference.
Actually I wasn’t able to vote back in the days when the UN conventions were passed in 1951 either, but I have little difficulty in accepting them. There were a few things like WWII, the Holocaust and the displaced and stateless people following the war that led to those decisions. Up until your posts I hadn’t seen anyone seriously challenge the humanitarian nature of those conventions.
You claim I haven’t read you properly. I could lay the same charge against you in regard to my post. Your opening rant is about the Tamils. I checked my post again. I made no reference at all to the Tamils. I made no reference anywhere to the attitude or otherwise of ethnic Indians and Tamils.
I did say at the start that you’d probably not like my response, and you’ve confirmed that. You did answer my bit about your idea of having unstated rules, but only with another opinion. You havn’t explained how that system would avoid tyranny and corruption.
I’m glad you’ve given up trying to convince my so-called closed mind. If yours is also closed, I guess there is no meeting point. It’s not worth asking you the humanitarian benefits of Nauru, Woomera and Baxter.
“I made no reference anywhere to the attitude or otherwise of ethnic Indians and Tamils”
Bloody hell! I should hope not.
Steve, being on the Left, I don’t regard anyone as my inferior – even those who refuse to debate arguments on their merits.
And, c’mon, you’re a Coaliton supporter.
I fail to see what is incoherent in pointing out that the Right believes those with the cash have the right to push their way to the front of the queue – with medical services, university places, immigration places.
The Right loves queue jumping when it suits them – in fact it’s central to the Right’s worldview – but suddenly, when there seems a few votes in it, they start using the language of the Left and become concerned with fairness.
Ginja, try to get in touch with reality. I see it written often on the internet that “the left” is delusional. Stating that being left means nobody is your inferior rather proves the point, perhaps I should take more notice of such things I read on the internet?
I have bumped into many self-assessed “lefties” & “righties” in my life, and to generalise; the “righties” tend to be unpredictable and difficult warm to, the “lefties” are perpetually unhappy whingers strong on talk, light on action. I prefer normal people to either group.
I couldn’t care less if your life is so worry free that you see the whole world as some sort of left/right divide. But reading for comprehension ain’t your strong point:
With all due respect for your opinions, what on earth is the basis for your statement that I support any particular political party?
“With all due respect for your opinions, what on earth is the basis for your statement that I support any particular political party?”
errr …. your opinions?
REPLIES TO DON WIGAN IN UPPER CASE – NOT TO BE INTERPRETED AS SHOUTING.
Point 1 –What you’re suggesting is that Tamils try and flee to a country that will push them back in their boats. NO-ONE HAS SUGGESTED THAT INDIA WILL SEND THEM BACK. IS THAT YOUR POSITION? YOU ARE SAYING THAT IN INDIA WILL NOT ACCEPT ETHNIC INDIANS WHO ARE FLEEING A CIVIL WAR. PLEASE PROVIDE A LINK. There is absolutely no evidence Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka are choosing Australia. THE ONES ARRIVING HERE HAVE CHOSEN AUSTRALIA, RATHER THAN INDIA OR MALAYSIA.
response 2 – basis of financial status. The accepted international definition of a refugee… HOW IS THIS RELEVANT? MY POINT IS THAT THEY ARE NOT NEARLY AS DESERVING AS THOSE WHO CANNOT AFFORD THE FLIGHT.
point 3 – Many Tamils did not ever receive passports because of systematic discrimination against them in Sri Lanka. WRONG. THEY ARRIVE IN KL BY PLANE. THEY HAVE PASSPORTS.
point 4- Obviously you’re not capable of imagining what it’s like to be so desperate…TO FLY TO JAKARTA, DESTROY YOUR PASSPORT, PAY K$15 AND THEN SINK YOUR OWN BOAT. THIS IS NOT DESPERATION. IT IS TRYING TO FORCE ENTRY. YOU ACTUALLY JUSTIFY SUCH BEHAVIOUR …. In fact you apparently don’t understand that Australia as a signatory to international maritime law is obligated to provide rescue to people in unsafe vessels……MADE UNSAFE BECAUSE THEY SINK THEM THEMSELVES. AND WE CAN THEN RETURN THEM TO THE CLOSEST PORT. IN THE CASE OF TAMPA THEY THREATENED THE CAPTAIN AND FORCE HIM TO GO TO OZ. CAN’T YOU SEE THEY ARE CYNICALYL EXPLOTING MARITIME LAW BY SINKING THEIR OWN BOATS?
point 5 – Incorrect. 6,500 places approx are reserved for people taken directly from camps. YES. I KNEW THAT. I DIDN’T WANT TO MUDDY THE WATERS. ACTUALLY A SMALLER INTAKE MAKES MY POINT STRONGER – THEY ARE TAKING LIMITED SPOTS FROM OTHERS MORE DESERVING – THANKS……. The government just raised the quota to 13,750, the first rise in many years. In the meantime the number of displaced people in the world facing protracted refugee situations has increased. Australia has not increased its quota to match the reality. I STATED I WAS IN FAVOUR OR RAISING THE QUOTA, IF THE REFUGEES ARE GENUINE.
…There is no queue. DID YOU READ MY POINT 5? IT HAS THE REQUISITE PROPERTIES OF A QUEUE. THERE IS LIMIT ON FLOW AND IF I GET IN THEN SOMEONE ELSE DOES NOT. IT DOES NOT NEED OT BE AN ORDERLY QUEUE FOR THE MAIN POINT TO HOLD. The appalling numbers of refugees in the world needing assistance is absolutely no justification for denying an asylum seeker their right to seek asylum. THEY CAN SEEK BUT IF THEY ARE TRYING TO PLAY THE SYSTEM THEY SHOULD FAIL.
Have you read the whole of this thread? If you have, you should realise that boat people are only a tiny percentage of those arriving or overstaying unlawfully. IF THEY ARE OVER-STAYERS THEY ARE EVENTUALLY DEPORTED AND DO NOT STOP OTHERS ENTERING. ANYWAY, I AM AGAINST UNLAWFUL OVERSTAYERS AS WELL.
Secondly, considering the number of displaced persons around the world, Australia only gets a trickle compared with North America or Europe. Are you saying that even this is too many?…ER. I SAID WE SHOULD INCREASE THE QUOTA TO 20,000. WHICH OF US DOES NOT READ THINGS PROPERLY?
Short of totalitarian countries, no country in the world could afford to have unstated rules – it is part of the rule of law. IT SHOULD NOT BE. THE MORE EXPLICIT THE RULES THE MORE THEY ARE RORTED. APPLYING FOR A VISA IS NOT LIKE BEING TRIED FOR MURDER. THERE IS NO NEED TO PLACE HUGE RESTRICTIONS ON THE STATE OR IMPOSE THE BURDEN OF PROOF. Burnside’s knowledge of the law is better than yours or mine. He doesn’t make this up as he goes along. HE BASES HIS OPINIONS ON UN CONVENTIONS, SIGNED IN 1951. THESE ARE NOT LAWS PASSED BY REPRESENTATIVES WHO I VOTED FOR. HOW ABOUT WE PUT THESE CONVENTIONS TO A PLEBISCITE? COME ON LPerS! I DARE YOU.
Nobody can convince me that Nauru, Woomera and Baxter ….I WON’T TRY THEN. YOUR MIND IS OBVIOUSLY CLOSED.
Patrick B, another who don’t read much of what is on the screen in front of them. If you had, you wouldn’t drop yourself into the ditz basket quite so readily, by typing first, without any idea what you are saying.
Student T, it might be news to you, but the entire point of fleeing is to get as far away as possible from the danger. Australia recommends itself rather highly on that scale.
If my grandparents in Vienna 1939 had followed followed Student T’s admonition to join the queue, wait their turn, and escape only to the nearest safe harbour, they’d have been exterminated, along with the millions of their countrymen who meekly went along with the ‘rules’: rules that say “you die”.
Whether you’re fleeing the Nazis in the 1930s or a vengeful Sri Lankan army in 2009, you don’t stop across a narrow strip of water. You put as many miles between them and you as you possibly can.
It’s nice that Student T has never been in mortal fear of his life, but a little thought-experiment shouldn’t be too much to ask a Student to perform.
My grandparents did everything that Student T reckons should deprive them of the right of entry to Australia. They used money and social connections to get themselves and their family out of danger, while thousands of poor, socially isolated or just “invisible” victims of the Nazis languished and eventually died in camps.
My grandparents deliberately chose a place that was the furthest imaginable point on the globe from the danger. That’s what fleeing means.
A similar story applies to tens of thousands of people living in Sydney and Melbourne today. Most of us are descended from people who used their money and social connections to flee as far as possible from danger, all the way to distant Australia. Does anyone have a problem with that?
I work with refugees and migrants and enjoy my job. I do always find it amusing though to read comments from people who swear all those coming to Australia are genuine refugees, and all will settle contribute well to the community if only we would “open our hearts. These comments are usually from white middle class Australians who have little to do with migrants or refugees. Many refugees have been through horrible stuff. But that does not mean that all those who come are refugees. Just last week a friend of mine told me of a refugee who had been accepted after intensive training in a false story. The white middle class need to realise that this happens. Let’s be honest. This happens.
It also needs to realise that migration in large numbers of many troubled people to low socio economic areas in Australia is a recipe for disaster. Again, the white middle class have no idea about the suburbs where many refugees are settled. They are too busy at university and in their careers to understand. They have no concept of the entrenched welfare dependency or the anti social behaviour in these suburbs. It does not make sense to settle traumatised people in large numbers in poor areas with gangs. I work with refugees and migrants. I see these issues. Let’s be honest and realise that policy that encourages ghettos full of troubled youth is not working. Indeed it is failing. I support the refugee program but also support assimilation into the wider community.
Merc,
The incorrect use of analogies from WW2 is an offence which many folks on the intertubes commit, and I am one of the worst offenders myself. Nonetheless, I have no option but to pronounce you guilty of this crime, based on your last comment, and sentence you to write on the blackboard 100 times, “THIS IS NOT 1939 ANY MORE.”
That “narrow strip of water”, as you call it, happens to include the maritime boundary of India, and if the Sri Lankan armed forces were to violate it, boy, would they regret it. In military terms, the Sri Lankans are a minnow to India’s whale. Tamil refugees are as safe in India as anywhere on the globe.
I’m not, by the way, necessarily associating myself with Student T’s point of view — just against the misuse of history.
“…I have no option but to pronounce you guilty of this crime..”
Empathy is a crime these days?
Go figure.
No, FB, the “crime” of which I jokingly accuse Merc is that of misusing analogies from WW2, not of having empathy.
Try reading for comprehension in future.
Well you read it as misusing an analogy, I read it as empathy re what it means to seek ‘refuge’.
Try allowing people their own interpretations in future, snark-man.
@74
Then I’m afraid you won’t find much amusement in these pages, Spana. Unless you’re wilfully misinterpreting what people here have actually said.
Thank you, Captain Obvious.
What happens? Hearsay anecdotes about unknown people are cited on the intertubes as evidence of the speaker’s argument? Yes, you’re right Spana, that does indeed happen. Incredibly often. I believe that even the white middle class are aware of it.
Now, since as you work with migrants and refugees, you’d also be well aware that some of the people whose claims are rejected and who are sent back whence they came wind up dead at the hands of the very people they claimed were persecuting them. The xenophobes need to realise that this, too, happens. A Tanzanian boy with whom I used to correspond, phone and occasionally assist has disappeared off the face of the earth after being returned to the tender mercies of the local mafia that controlled the docks from which he boarded a ship in 1999. It’s a wonderfully uplifting tale of a 19 year old boy who taught himself English getting shafted by the bloodless Howard minions. Makes me proud to think of the Aussie ‘Fair Go’ I keep hearing so much about.
Then why do you write as though the two are mutually exclusive? I teach English language for a living, bucko. I teach newly arrived people how to make their way in Australia. I’ve done more to support assimilation and to help refugees than all the gibbering proudly ‘Aussie’ xenophobes put together. So I won’t be lectured by you about who ‘understands’ these issues, thank you so very much.
BTW, just what is your problem with the ‘white middle class’? Are you trying to stick it to Teh Man, is it just a touch of self-hatred? We all got to be some colour, brother.
Hi Mercurius,
I also teach and assist in settling refugees and migrants into the community. Maybe our paths will cross. I also have a healthy sceptism of migration and believe that there are very serious issues in settlement. My issue with the white middle class (yes I am white too) is perhaps with the more politically correct crowd who feel that migrants can do no wrong and that questioning the logic of some of our policies makes you racist. They generally live in white suburbs and have no idea of the horrible areas where newly arrived refugees are often settled. They don’t have the issues of ethnic gangs in their suburbs so they think all is well. When the communities that do experience the negative issues from migration raise them they are labelled racist by whites in fancy all white suburbs. Lets be honest again. Ethnic gangs are an issue because of lack of assimilation.
Where I work is a low socio economic area with gangs, crime, welfare dependency, aggression… I teach Sudanese, Samoans Burundians, Karen, Chin, Congolese and a few others as well. Many are lovely. Many will make great citizens. Some of the migrants cope well and move on. Some are the cause of these problems. When you have intimidating young men hanging out in racially defined groups in poor areas with no work and welfare dependency than this is a recipe for disaster. Let’s not make excuses for it. There should be no tolerance of migrants who come here and use violence against the community. Other migrants are unfairly tarnished by those who do. Migrants need to be spread out across the country as a condition of settlement. I feel terrible for the gentle migrants who are settled in ghettoes and whose kids have to attend revolting schools with gang issues and low achievement. There needs to be a polict where migrants are actively discouraged from forming ghettoes and encouraged to spread their networks beyond their ethnic group.
As for the issue of false stories, this is important because people who use corruption and lies and pretend to be refugees are not the ones we should be accepting. There are too many others with genuine needs out there. Instead of the line that all those who come are genuine, lets accept that there are people who wil use and manipulate the system for their own gain. When they do this others miss out. Those escaping torture deserve asylum, not those who lie about it and come for economic reasons ae the ones we should welcome.
All I am saying is lets abandon the view that migration is great because white people get to go to new restaurants and feel cultured. There is good and bad like in any community. We need more honesty and less feel good open heartedness that in the end see gentle migrants settled in revolting areas and set up for failure.
Spana, point taken that not everybody is a bona fide refugee. It’s bound to occur that some people just don’t fit in for a number of reasons, not least the traumas they have been through. Very likely there are others that are not genuine and/or seek to exploit the system. Despite the majority of posters here empathising with the plight of refugees. I don’t think you will find many here having a blinkered view of the real situation.
The question for a civilised government is how to balance it all. I can’t see any justification for adding traumas to an already (at least potentially) traumatised people, as very clearly occurred in the heyday of the Pacific Solution. There ought to be better ways of handling it.
Paulus, I also at least indirectly raised that issue, but my defence is that I was trying to explain the relevance of UN conventions on refugees to Student T on the assumption that he was not a RWDB troll. (That assumption is probably wrong, judging by his repetition of his earlier post, complete with capitals to show how strongly he felt. Bold case has never worked in place of reasoned argument with me.
Besides, as furious balancing makes clear, a direct family connection makes a pretty strong case for empathy. Merc ought to be given a pass.
Hey Paulus, I just finished writing that out, and boy are my arms tired.
The fact that it’s not now 1939 makes it it all the more shocking to me that some people, with the full dread knowledge of history to inform them, today will insist on stipulations for what constitutes an ‘acceptable’ refugee that would exclude many of the people who’ve been accepted here in the past.
To repeat, here is the ‘Cronulla Manifesto’ of who is an acceptable reffo:
1. They must have made no unauthorised border crossings on their journey to Australia.
2. They must have paid nobody to assist their transit.
3. They must have identified themselves to every authority with whom they came into contact along the way.
4. They must stop moving in the first country that’s out of gunshot range.
5. They must have languished in a camp somewhere for years.
6. They must be poor, broken in spirit and utterly helpless and able to say in reasonably clear English ‘thank you sir for being so good as to let me into your country long enough to escape certain death’.
7. It would make us all feel better if they’ve stood in a queue somewhere, at some point. Queues are A Good Thing. Queues are what separates us Civilised folk from the Barbarians.
If you applied those stipulations to my grandparents and most of the people in my community, we’d all be dead. It’s hardly an analogy, Paulus. It’s not even figurative. It’s a direct bloody comparison of like situations.
The trouble with the xenophobes’ thinking is that, if you wait around long enough for good evidence that genocide is taking place, your refugee problem has tended to, errr, solve itself. Sometimes I think that suits the xenophobes just fine.
Steve: you have about the same anonymity here as in the polling booth – there’s no need for silliness. You’re a Tory. I’m a Leftie.
And you seem to have a pretty worry-free life yourself if all you’ve got to do is leave the company of normal people to drop in on a left-leaning blog and add your ten cents.
And as most people on this sight can probably attest, far from being unhappy, this Leftie is pretty happy at the moment. I’m continually reminding people what good policies are being introduced by the Rudd Government – getting rid of Work Choices, social housing, extricating ourselves from Iraq, paid parental leave, a stimulus that has allowed us so far to avoid mass unemployment.
What’s to whinge about? This boat people issue is a bit of a worry, but broadly I’m proud of my country and the direction it’s moving in.
Ginja, my Oxford defines “tory” as a dispossed Irish turned outlaw. This is even sillier than saying I am a Liberal Party voter.
It wouldn’t surprise me that you’ve never met the working left. (Real lefties) This site is more or less pigs learning to walk on hind legs.
Good one, SATP, that showed us.
Now bugger off back to the pub, you boar (sic)
There’s no doubt Tamil Sri Lankans are fleeing in great numbers now – for obvious reasons. Thats the explanation for increased arrivals – as it ALWAYS is. Government policy settings run an extremely distant 2nd.
The evidence for this was plain under Howard: despite his “tough” policies, we never received MORE onshore refugees that on his watch. Why? Because it has almost nothing to do with government policy: Iraq and Afghanistan were producing record numbers of refugees.
While the Pacific solution was merely an expensive detour and flop (they ALL came here in the end) the TPV policy was in a special category: it actually managed to INCREASE the number of boat arrivals by barring family reunion. As such, instead of men making the dangerous boat voyages, as had always been the case previously, women and children had to come too, or they’d never be united. Thats how hopeless Ruddock was at ‘deterrence’! He upped the numbers.
The only thing that ever worked was, in order of importance a. our natural sea borders, which reduce flows here to about 3% of Europe’s; b. simply waiting for those refugeee flows to stop, and c. cooperating with Indo authorities to disrupt smuggling at source.
Let’s be clear: As a so-called “deterrence” framework, the Howard raft of policies were a COMPLETE FAILURE. Rudd and the ALP should start question the basic premise of opposition attacks, instead of pretending to play along. The fact is Howard’s policies were either irrelevant, or dunder-headedly managed to attract more refugees by boat.
As always, they were big on the domestic politics of ‘border protection’, but completely useless on actual policy.
Ginja, you are a lefty???? And you support Rudd???? And you support the stimulus package??? Stimulus meant spending taxpayers money to prop up big business, spending taxpayers money to get people to spend it in a materialistic consumer binge, using taxpayers money to prop up big banks. Left? I think not. The stimulus was all about propping up the capitalist system with taxpayers’ money. Rudd could be in the Liberal party. The ALP is not a party of the left.
Ginja, you are not up to date with many things, including plenty on this site.
Rudd is a right winger (it ain’t for nothin’ he’s called “Howard Lite”) Claiming to be “left” & supporting Rudd should get you plenty of ..er.. robust exchange of ideas from some here.
Mercurius #85, it would seem you tried on the shoe & it fitted?
I’m sure the questions about immigrants and boat people are difficult policy matters. How many? Which ones? How do we help ‘em to fit in? Etc, etc.
But what worries me is that these complex matters should be such a political football. We’re talking a few hundred or maybe thousand people. In a country of 20 million! I don’t get what this inconsequential shit is doing on the front page. But then, I’ve never understood how a program with the soporific title of ‘Border Security’ can attract an audience. Or who it is that shoots up road signs. or who it was that voted for Ratty all those years. Lot of strange people in this country.
“Unlike Mr Rudd, I did see the pleas of the little girl on the boat in Indonesia and it was heart-breaking.”
Win for Turnbull there.
If you think the government are too harsh vote for Turnbull.
If you think the government are too soft vote for Turnbull.
Double win soundbite wise.
Unfortunately tssk, both your scenarios play out to a “vote for Turnbull”. I’m sure you see the problem.
Mercurius says: Most of us are descended from people who used their money and social connections to flee as far as possible from danger, all the way to distant Australia. Does anyone have a problem with that?
Yes, Mercurius I have a problem as do 80% of the Australian population. Did your grandparents get a boat to Australia and arrive without any papers? I reckon not. Did you grandparents have the nation of Israel only 100km away by sea? (Like the Tamil’s have Tamil Naidu). Again not.
Mercurius says: Hearsay anecdotes about unknown people are cited on the intertubes as evidence of the speaker’s argument?
But the immigration department will not give any details at all. Talking to the media by department employees is a sacking offense. I have a personal friend working on Christmas island assessing applications, Himself a refugee. He is hamstrung by the assessment rules imposed on him, and does not believe most of the stories he hears. On the rare occasions he refuses an application it is overturned on appeal. Sorry – just another worthless anecdote on a blog.
Mercurius says: The xenophobes need to realise that this, too, happens.
Now start the abusive labels. Notice how I didn’t call anyone here naive chardonnay sipping leftists?
Spano says: As for the issue of false stories, this is important because people who use corruption and lies and pretend to be refugees are not the ones we should be accepting.
Well said. This is no way to start off supposed commitment to contribute to this nations, with lies and cynical threats of self harm.
FDB. Yeah I know. The challenge for me is how to make my vote count letting Rudd know I’m unhappy with his handling of this without handing my vote to the Coalition.
I think the Coalition has a real opportunity here.
“I think the Coalition has a real opportunity here.”
I fail to see it. They had the opportunity to move from the opportunistic and cruel position they held in the Howard years. Instead, in a last ditched effort to secure improved polling they jumped on this issue, that should be beyond politics, to goad the government to return to their style of special heartlessness. All on the basis of complete misrepresentation of the facts regarding these asylumn seeker numbers.
Turnbull may get a little bounce from the fear and panic he has created in Newspoll but he and his backup ghouls have reminded eveyone exactly why they sent the Coalition packing a few years back.
Incidentally, tssk your comments@90 are ill-informed and silly just on the test of timing. When Rudd was asked about the little girl he had not actually seen her plea. That is all.
To suggest the Turnbull somehow had a win from later being the first to see it and make a sympathetic comment(or that Rudd made a point of not seeing it) is just plain wrong. I acknowledge that was the ugly spin Mal loaded it with.
I think Turnbull is winning the soundbite war in the way he put it and the way it has been played.
It’s quite interesting when you look at what he said.
“Let me just say this about the asylum seekers and the situation at the moment. Unlike Mr Rudd I did see the pleas of the little girl on the boat in Indonesia and it was heart-breaking. Every Australian who saw those people would have been deeply moved by it.
But the tragedy is that she and her parents were invited on to that boat by a people smuggler, by someone who believed that because Mr Rudd had softened our border protection policies they would be able to promise to those unfortunate passengers a certain passage to Australia.”
Due to the media five second rule this tends to get split into one of two sound bites.
Narrative sound bite one. Rudd is too harsh with boat people. “Let me just say this about the asylum seekers and the situation at the moment. Unlike Mr Rudd I did see the pleas of the little girl on the boat in Indonesia and it was heart-breaking.”
Narrative sound bite two. Rudd is too soft on border protection. “But the tragedy is that she and her parents were invited on to that boat by a people smuggler, by someone who believed that because Mr Rudd had softened our border protection policies they would be able to promise to those unfortunate passengers a certain passage to Australia”
The media could be asking “So what’s the Coalition position? Arn’t they having a bet each way?”
Instead it’s been “Look how harsh and mean Rudd is. Almost as bad as Howard. And he’s caused this by being too soft.”
Reminds me of the double think days of the Howard government.
I can see what Rudd is trying to do but I think he stands to loose support from his core rather than picking up ex-Coalition voters.
“As for the issue of false stories, this is important because people who use corruption and lies and pretend to be refugees are not the ones we should be accepting.”
What confuses me is: why all the hoo-ha about the arrivals by boat as opposed to the far greater numbers that arrive on planes? I mean, what does accepting people by boat for processing by immigration have to do with their status as refugees?
The way I understand it, if they’re found to not have legitimate status as refugees, then they’re deported to their country of origin. Exactly the same as if they arrived by plane or helicopter or dirigible or balloon or hovercraft.
Is it some kind of fear of penetration thing?
I hate to say this Jobby but I think it’s because most of those that arrive by air are white from the UK or the US. Or at least that’s the perception. (Am I wrong on this?)
I think that tssk was saying a similar thing about Utegate, and we all know how that turned out. Wonder how the AFP’s investigation’s going?
Can’t blame me for being negative after close to a decade of Howard. I still worry sometimes that he’s only on a Menzies style break. I was just thinking about Utegate hte other day actually. I can’t imagine the ALP getting away that scot free if the shoe had been on the other foot.
Adrian I thought the next episode of Utegate was to be staged in the Senate. And yes I think tssk was running a similar line on that, before the ute backfired.
I think Jobby might be onto something with unconscious sexual motivations working behind the scene here. The Coalition are always accusing Rudd of being “soft”. Beats me why Labor doesn’t remind everybody of the Turnbull form in going off early.
The trouble with those airplanes bringing in visa overstayers is that they are, indeed, predominantly English and Americans mixed with tourists and returning locals.
Otherwise we could call out the R.A.A.F. to guide them on to New Zealand or Papua.
Student T:
I wasn’t addressing the ‘xenophobe’ label to you Student T, nor was it intended as a term of abuse. It’s not all about you. Still, it’s funny that you interpreted it that way. Maybe I touched a nerve.
But in any case, do you really think the term ‘xenophobe’ is abusive? I can understand how it might be used in a pejorative sense, but it also happens to be an accurate term to describe many of the loudest boosters of the ‘hardline’ policies. I’m going to need a better thesaurus to work out what word better fits the attitude of reflexive hostility to outsiders that is so evident in much of the hardline rhetoric.
Fact is, people arriving here in boats makes a lot of Australians feel uncomfortable. Many Australians are viscerally, fight-or-flight anxious about it. Some are more prepared to admit it than others, but the underlying sentiment is evident and almost pre-verbal in its intensity and lack of rationality. You can attempt to rationalise this base instinct on their behalf if you like, but if it walks like a xenophobic duck and quacks like a xenophobic duck, what else should I call it?
How magnanimous of you. I’m eternally in your debt that you so considerately surpressed the urge to insult me. Congratulations, you’re at least one rung above Steve At The Pub on the scale of human sociability. I should be grateful to you? I should expect to be insulted at every turn, and treat it as nice holiday when I meet someone so munificent as yourself, who generously refrains from insulting me? In that case, I’d also like to thank my last dinner guests for not widdling on the floor or trashing the furniture.
God it must be frustrating when you whip up all that fear of “penetration” and it goes nowhere. It looks like the coalition is just not believable anymore even with the help of concerted media hysteria.
Mercurius, maybe the punters are not as big suckers as you imagine. I must say I thought Labor polling would have gone a little wayward after the last weeks of manufactured drama.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/10/20/newspoll-59-41-6/
“He is hamstrung by the assessment rules imposed on him, and does not believe most of the stories he hears. On the rare occasions he refuses an application it is overturned on appeal.”
Happens in in most aspects of public life, Student T. I used to be in the CES here we encountered a few dole bludgers (though a much smaller percentage of the unemployed than most believe), some of whom rorted the system to take advantage of travel assistance for job interviews for jobs they wouldn’t accept if one was offered. On one occasion we had one smartie bang to rights for declining a job offer, but it was overturned on review (didn’t even get to appeal). We were disappointed, but the reality was the decision to breach would probably have been overturned at appeal. There is enough scope in matters of justice to allow the individual the benefit of any doubt, however small. You get a similar situation in workcover claims.
The trouble is that if we were able to design a net wide enough to catch all the abusers, we’d exclude most of those with genuine need and hardship. In a fair system we cannot afford to do that.
Oh, and like a cheap horror movie where you think the monster/zombie/evil person is dead, and then the decaying hand shoots up through the cemetery earth…BWAHAHA!… John Pasquarelli and the spirit, if not the body, of One Nation pops up in the Opposition Organ.
No wonder the zombie trope is so popular at the moment.
Back in the 80s maribyrnong Detention Centre was a migrantt hostel.
No guards, no fences, and anyone from the hostel could leave whenever they wanted.
Anyone not from the hospital could enter the place whenever they wanted.
A bunch of us all 13 to 15 years of age, aome migrants some not, used to go up to the hostel and pick up as many of the young kids as we could and herd them down to a park on the river,, where we would all play cricket. The kids from the hostel rarely knew much about cricket when they started, but often, after a month or so they loved it.
I dunno what started us doing that, it was spontaneous and certainly wasn’t part of our teenage plan to ease the assimilation of refos into Australia.
Looking back tho, I imagine it actually did wonders for those kids from the hostel, the people who invited them down had all sorts of ethnic origins, we had skips, and even Tamils from Sri Lanka – all sorts of ethnicities, playing together, giving each other shit, and support, during a game of cricket. The one thing I remember from that was that on about 2 occasions (out of at least 20) there was some aggro, between 2 boys of different ethnicites, and what was it over? Well chics of course… the rest of the time the vibe was awesome. Really friendly and looking back again, there was something special about it, tho I never realised it at the time.
Part of the reason I am proud to be Australian was that I lived in a place where that could happen. Where it did happen, spontaneously – not as some plan of integration.
I couldn’t care less about the rights and wrongs of immigration detention or who is a deserving refo and who is a damned illegal queue jumper. We don’t do that anymore … what we did when I was a kid … go get the kids and play cricket with them.
We don’t make people feel like they are part of Australia any more. They come here and we resent it.
Regradless of the rights and wrongs of the issue this is a bad sign for the psychological health of a nation like Australia, which has myths about freedom, openness and a “fair go” as a big part of our picture of ourselves.
Jules: you summarise many noble sentiments when you write “I couldn’t care less about the rights and wrongs of immigration detention or who is a deserving refo and who is a damned illegal queue jumper.” Same here. The big divide in Australian history is between those who experience ‘the whispering in our hearts’ and those without the heart to hear a thing. In the end we can only act with compassion towards those who need it and never give an inch to those of our fellow citizens who don’t share our values.
“The trouble is that if we were able to design a net wide enough to catch all the abusers, we’d exclude most of those with genuine need and hardship. In a fair system we cannot afford to do that.”
And Don@104, as with the very expensive chase to find the odd dole cheat, we might better spend those huge resources (over policing a few boat arrivals who largely turn out to be genuine refugees anyway) somewhere more important. It is actually bad for our hearts and our collective pockets.
Jobby: Plane arrivals are different because they arrive with papers. You cannot have been reading the thread very carefully.
Mercurius: You provide no evidence for the “visceral, fight-or-flight anxiety” of those who argue against boat arrivals. This is pure left wing myth making. And by the way – since you mentioned your grandfather fleeing the holocaust, I should point out that he managed to find safe haven without the 1951 convention, that he probably had papers and that he was not 100km by boat from his ethnically original nation.
Don, thanks for addressing my point about the rules hamstringing the assessors and some unworthy applicants getting through. Please note though that he thinks that most of the applicants are lying, not some of them. Anyway, true to my blog name, let’s think about type 1 and type 2 errors. In criminal trials it is appropriate to minimise the number of false convictions because of the relative costs of such compared to acquitting a guilty person. Refugee policy is quite different. Why? Because there is an effectively infinite number of refugees, both legitimate and not, who would come to this country. So our “problem”, if you like to think of it this way, is to make sure that 13500 of the 13500 intake are genuine and as worthy as possible. From a potential pool of millions. By as worthy as possible I mean facing execution or starvation rather than non-lethal forms of persecutions. Can we at least agree that this would be the ideal outcome?
These conditions mean we should not worry about rejecting a small number of legitimate refugees at all (type 1 errors) so long as we end up getting 13500 legitimate refugees. It may be terrible for those who are refused but those who take there place will be just as thrilled. The cost of this error is basically zero – offset by the one who gets entry instead. This is all too cold and academic for LPers though.
A related issue is to minimise the number of people who spend k$10 and risk drowning. There is no reason in principle why someone should pay so much and risk death to get here, right? We agree on this as well surely.
The way to achieve this is to say “nobody who arrives here without papers will even be considered. Don’t bother starting the journey.” There will be some legitimate refugees who will not have papers and they will miss out. But I would prefer them miss out than waste k$10 and then miss out. And there will be plenty of refugees with papers and proof of persecution who can fill our quota.
The left love the humanizing photos of the people on SIEV36 but we need to balance them against photos of people starving in camps, who will look a whole lot less well fed.
Does this sound like visceral, fight-or-flight anxiety to you, or does it sound more like someone thinking things through rather than to the succumbing to a knee-jerk illusion of compassion?
“A related issue is to minimise the number of people who spend k$10 and risk drowning. There is no reason in principle why someone should pay so much and risk death to get here, right? We agree on this as well surely.”
So what would drive you to do something like that?
Student T. – there’s no need to be rude, mate.
What ‘papers’ are you referring to? Passports or something?
If so, I’m still confused. I can’t see that passports provide any evidence whether someone has a legitimate claim for refugee status or not. I can think of a number of examples of countries which would actually deny passports to people seeking refugee status.
Regardless of whether someone arrives by plane or boat, their claims for refugee status is processed in the same way, right?
So my question remains. Why the hysteria about people on boats? There’s not very many of them (compared to plane arrivals) and it’s not as if anyone gets a ‘free pass’ when they arrive on a boat – if their claims for refugee status are denied, then they get shipped back home.
“A related issue is to minimise the number of people who spend k$10 and risk drowning. There is no reason in principle why someone should pay so much and risk death to get here, right? We agree on this as well surely.”
Can’t even agree on that point, Student T. The information we have suggests that most of those coming here that way don’t have the readies to spend: most of it is raised by selling up any assets, borrowing on the black market, even allowing other relatives to be held in hostage. Most are not intentionally risking their lives: it is the only option open to them in the circumstances and probably not subject to rational argument. In any event, given the political persecution many face in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the desire to find a safe haven and a future takes priority.
We get a similar situation when the occasional sex slave scene with young female Thais is encountered. (They mostly came out here with papers, even if they were dodgy and held by the sponsor.) While a few were probably told all sorts of lies to induce their agreement, a large number had at least some idea what they were in for. Still they came and went into huge debt to do so. It suggests that the desperation of their situation for them and their families at home was the main driving factor.
As Joe2 says, I don’t think we can afford the resources to try and ferret out whatever wrongdoers there may be in the mix. All the grandstanding of Howard’s Pacific Solution achieved sweet FA and cost us a fortune. He would argue that it was worth it because it bought him one, maybe two elections but this should not be the measure.
Student T, the evidence for the ‘flight-or-fight’ mentality can be found in the querulous, pants-wetting alarm and paranoia that resounds around the grimier corners of the internet whenever the subject of boat people (ooggga boooga!) comes up. I could cite it here but it would be redundant. You’ve supplied no evidence that it’s ‘left-wing myth-making,’ whatever that may be.
My grandfather found safe-haven without the 1951 convention but you know full well why the convention was established, and about the boat-load of Jewish refugees that were turned back from ports around the world leading to their deaths. It’s blind luck my grandfather wasn’t on one of those boats. If you so ardently favour a return to pre-1951 days, why don’t you ask the families of thoseboat people what they think of your proposal? As for my grandfather’s papers, the family is still not 100% certain to this day whether he was German or Austrian-born. And he wasn’t 100km from his home nation because if he’d stopped there, he’d have been exterminated.
ID papers are the answer, huh? To what end? Crime prevention? ID papers are the rhythm method of crime prevention. Last I heard, all the rogues, gang-members, hustlers, spivs, shysters, pimps and dealers who have ever done business in Australia, whether born here or elsewhere, had ID papers.
The fetish for quotas is also touchingly quixotic. I’m put in mind of a guy trying to catch in a bucket the raindrops that are drip-drip-dripping through the ceiling, when there’s a swimming-pool’s worth of water in the roof ready to burst through.
Be nice Steve.
It’s interesting that once left-wingers we’re the angry ones, but now most of the rage seems to be on the other side.
Thanks for the replies Don. You are the only one here that even tries to engage rationally. Look through the post here and we find the words and phrases describing the 80% of Australian who think LP is wrong: ‘evil”, “filth”, “cowardice”, “pile of ash in shirtsleeves”, ‘she orally pleasures Bill Clinton, now she attacks boat people”, “xenophobes”, “bugger off back to the pub”, “querulous, pants-wetting alarm”.
I am going to bugger off to Catallaxy and pick a fight with Graeme Bird. Or maybe a creationist blog if I really feel like wasting my time.
I am inclined to the view, in general terms, that the divide in Australia over refugees and their manner of entry into the country roughly follows the same cleavage between Australians prepared to apoligise to Aboriginal people for dispossession and the stolen generations and those not. To state the very obvious – I am suggesting that those unprepared to apologise are the same who experience panic at the prospect of refugee arrival by boat.
What appears to be at stake is the matter of cultural confidence. Some Australians have come to terms with our history and are confident of our capacity to live in an equalitarian social democracy based on principles of recognition and respect. Others cling to the fantasy of a ‘white nation’ and, put simply, are so far incapable of living by the sorts of principles above. They showed this incapacity by voting for Howard and his ilk.
It is a split. Right down the middle. All of the facts of the matter of refugees suggest that boat arrivals are not a significant problem except in so far as they allow reactionary exit-orifices like Turnbull to attempt to manipulate people’s fears. He won’t succeed like Howard because, unlike Howard, he is no traumatiser.
Well, now michael Darby, god Bless Him, is having a go at K.rudd for being too like JWH aka Ratty when it comes to refugees who arrive from the north by boat. (I gather – something like that was reported on ABC2 this morning,)
(Its actually all to do with us being in the Antipodes. gravity is pulling them down so we should just accept it as part of our destiny.
)
I think you might be right anthony.