Hypothesis 1 (from DFAT): Conditions in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka have improved so much nobody arriving from those countries could possibly have a legitimate claim to asylum.
Hypothesis 2 (from Bernard Keane at Crikey):
The Government was justifiably proud of its amendments to remove the excesses of the Howard Government’s treatment of asylum seekers, which had in any event been softened over time.But there is no way it will permit asylum seekers or their local advocates to endanger its re-election. This is straight-out, brutal realpolitik.
Anybody want to venture an opinion on which hypothesis is closer to the truth?
1 is demonstrably crap. 2 on the money. Afghanistan where the increasingly erratic Karzai is our big hope. As our young people risk their lives he hits up on some of Afghanistan’s finest product and talks of making peace with the Taliban. In Sri Lanka it’s great if you not a Tamil which is what most of the people coming here are. A
Head on ABC site encapsulated the bullshit on this announcement Limbo. That’s just what it is for the asylum seekers. Oh and let’s see, six months, that gets us past the election. Meanwhile what do these people do? Where do they do it. If the boats keep coming do we just leave them unprocessed on the beaches, in the water? It is rubbish. It is probably in breach of our treaty obligations and the more people like me who whinge the more Rudd will like it. So sad another political party tap dancing on the most vulnerable people in the world. In 30 years 30,000 have arrived by boat the majority are found to be genuine refugees.
If it’s designed to be brutal realpolitik, then it has failed.
It is just stupid realpolitik.
It is akin to tipping blood into a pool of sharks. And the biggest shark of them all is Tony Abbott.
This piece of semantic engineering declaring the end of conflict won’t stop Sri Lankans and Afghans of any ethnicity from fleeing their country. And it won’t stop them from choosing Australia as their ultimate destination.
When these assylum seekers arrive, they will be tossed into Christmas Island as before, except instead of being processed, they’ll simply sit there and rot.
Rudd had better start building lots of new detention centres. He’ll need them.
Totally agree with Katz. This will have no effect, I don’t even understand the new position or its implications so how is an asylum seeker supposed to? Extraordinary to think that once upon a time extraordinary efforts were made to assist the victims of war and persecution to resettle somewhere safe, that being the only option left open to them. And results of those polls are just stomach turning.
All Rudd has done is validate the effectiveness of the Liberal Party dogwhistle. Now they will just whistle louder. Whose next? Aborigines? “Asians”? Pacific Islanders? Reminds me of that old joke,Q.What Does ALP stand for? A. Another Liberal Party.
At least we can no longer be under any illusions about the kind of country in which we live.
Crikey was also exposing the arseholes called the AFP and their processes to determine refugee status of Tamils, by asking the sinhalese government!
Plus its illegal. The Refugee Convention requires every case to be assessed on its merits. Australia can no more ban applications from Afghanistan than they can applications from the USA.
Expect a visit from the UN shortly.
On a side note (but related), I sent an enquiry a couple of weeks back to the minister asking about the status of the old Port hedland detention centre.
To the best of my knowledge immigration still have the ability to resume the lease on that facility, at the moment its being used as accomodation for workers.
I was enquiring because I have a brother in law there, and housing in that town is rediculously hard to come by (hed want to strt looking ASAP).
No answer.
Rudd will also have the same “tail end” of people that Howard had after the original tightening of the refugee laws, that is people who have allready committed to the trips who will come anyway.
If this is meant to be a short term fix RE: Hypothesis 2 then its doomed to failure anyway.
So quite frankly I have no idea if it is #1 or#2 but Id be extremely suprised if it wasnt immediately challenged in the courts.
Horrible, racist fucking bullshit. I really hoped – even believed at one point – that we were past this kind of cruelty and inhumanity in Australia, that with Howard’s banishment so too was banished this pernicious, uncharitable racism. I was wrong, clearly.
For the life of me I can’t work out why, once someone’s identity and particulars have been established and suitable health checks have been completed and resolved, why they cannot be allowed to live in the community, supervised by a case manager, and with perhaps some people from their community here who are citizens/permanent residents agreeing to act as integration support. A requirement of the arrangement would be that they stay available for contact and review and seek permission to travel more than 100km from their place of residence. If they breached, they could be returned to detention for 90 days. If they were charged with a crime and were convicted, but not imprisoned, the same would follow. I daresay most would follow the rules.
This would not affect their claim for asylum but it would cost a fraction of the cost of Christmas Island to run and it would rapidly make the whole issue boring from a media perspective.
The sudden chance of stance is cynical politics. But I applaud the decision re Sri-Lanka. India is 35 miles from northern Sri-Lanka. Most quite rightly go there. Some are more opportunistic. It’s a scam.
I anticipate the usual LP avalanche of shrill comments about international obligations, UN denunciation, breaking conventions, compassion, demonisation of the desperate, ugly zeno-phobia, blah, blah, blah. But many truly desperate Africans will be the beneficiaries of this decision.
UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Article 3:
The Contracting States shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees
without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin.
That’s right: Australia can’t refuse Afghans any more than it can refuse Catholics or blacks. The policy clearly violates the convention. I guess the Australian government’s word on the international stage isn’t worth shit then.
So you’re pretty happy about the survey outcome eh Student T?
Population policy is Abbott’s way of saying he don’t like boat people.
many truly desperate Africans will be the beneficiaries of this decision.
Why is that, student T? Because there is some magical see-saw where refugees from one particular country mean we take less from another?
We are legally required to take these people. All of them.
I would be intrigued to see what your major is, that you’re so confident in assessing which refugees are truly “worthy”.
patrickg
You might not like it, but I believe the broad thrust of what student T is claiming is correct.
The refugee intake is a set number, the more fly ins/boat arrivals the less places allocated to people from camps.
I believe there is a bit of a scandal about those numbers not being used/met each year though.
Do you think Afghans and Sri Lankans don’t read newspapers and listen to radio and watch TV.
Of course they do, and they very much get the message that “the Australian government has abandoned border control” and “Australia is now a soft touch for people smugglers” coming from the Coalition every day.
I just wonder where all of Student T’s truly desperate Africans are going to find a boat. Because i’d be surprised if there’s any more of an orderly queue for them to jump than there is for the Afghanis, Iraquis and Sri Lankans.
Yes, Mole, that’s what I mean by magical see-saw, there is a magical see-saw, but we pretty much never stick to the balance.
Anyone that cries ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobe’ at this decision cannot be trusted to have a rational discussion on the topic. Same with ‘dog whistle’.
The invented racism of the left just kills the discussion and is used by people who do not know how to reasonably discuss things with people who they disagree with.
The policy change doesn’t mean people will be sent back without processing. However it is a cacky handed way of dealing with countries like Sri Lanka where the situation might improve within the next 12 months.
It may actually be more humane to return to a variation of the temporary protection via instead of preventing people getting on with their lives. However, I would only support this if:
1. Changes were made to the processing system in line with something like what Fran@10 is suggesting.
2. The temporary visa converts to a permanent visa after say 2 years. (Excluding time appealing decisions.)
3. People on temporary visas are treated as though they will probably end up on permanent visas, i.e., they get the same help and rights as those on permanent visas while they are here.
Like everyone else, I can’t see how hypothesis 1 can be taken seriously. At the same time as DFAT are claiming that conditions are so enormously improved in Sri lanka and Afghanistan as to justify this change in immigration policy, elsewhere DFAT, in their travel adisories (“ We advise you to reconsider your need to travel to Sri Lanka at this time because of the volatile security situation. Sri Lanka remains in a State of Emergency …… We strongly advise you not to travel to Afghanistan because of the extremely dangerous security situation and the very high threat of terrorist attack”, proclaim situation unchanged, dangerous and should be avoided.
Oh, that’s right, brown foreign people don’t deserve the same sort of security conditions as Australians are entitled to.
Hypothesis 2 may be closer, though I would cross out “realpolitik” and substitute “panic”. What I don’t see is how the Government hopes to get away with this sort of brazen volte face. For months they have put it about that soaring boat arrivals owe nothing to Australian policy and its softening under this Government; now they claim that “the changes we’re announcing today send a strong message to people smugglers”. Oh, that’s the people smugglers who’ve allegedly taken no notice of policy change for the past 2 years then?
Still I suppose they have been pretty right in their judgment so far about the degree to which the supine Australian media will allow them to get away unscrutinised on almost everything.
But Wozza, it can hardly be “panic” if you believe that the Rudd government is likely to get away with it.
BTW, I agree with that part of your analysis. Refugee policy always was likely to have only a marginal impact on the outcome of the next election. Rudd would have been better advised simply to stay the course.
Oh look, let’s just stop the pretense and reinstate the White Australia Policy.
How many people have been killed trying to get into Australia by boat? Surely a moral person wouldn’t encourage people to come here that way?
We should accept as many refugees and asylum seekers as possible, but at the same time should stop illegal boat arrivals.
Julian Burnside: Abbott ignorant on boat arrivals
http://tinyurl.com/yfspn4n (comments are Fascist Bingo, sadly)
We should accept as many refugees and asylum seekers as possible, but at the same time should stop illegal boat arrivals.
Sean M – how, exactly? Shooting them on sight to deter “the rest” of the Scary Brown People?
Student T @ 11:
Why, exactly, do you think this announcement of DFAT will be the cause of claims that Australians live in fear of the long-dead founder of Stoicism, Zeno of Citium?
There really is only one way of stopping the boats with certainty, but of course, most of us, quite rightly, shrink from that sort of thing. I doubt Navy personnel would be all that keen either.
Anyone who says you can stop the boats really needs to explain how their proposal can achieve that, this side of becoming a nation of barbarians.
Not that I have anything against people from Barbary. My apologies to anyone who may have thought I was taking a swing at the people from that region.
@lilacsigil
Whether you like it or not, the policies of the previous government allowed us to dramatically increase our intake of refugees whilst keeping the number of those arriving by boat to a minimum.
How about:
I suppose the good news is that, as in the insulation debacle, Rudd eventually changes course. However, given previous history, I expect it to resume its stupidity five minutes after being re-elected. They’ll figure they got away with flat-out lying about border security the last time, so why not do it all over again.
‘However, given previous history…’
Hate to be a pedant and all, but when someone is accusing someone else of stupidity…
Tautology acknowledged Adrian. I will try harder in future history.
This old trick – of giving two extreme options and inviting people to choose one or the other doesn’t allow for reasonable contribution to the debate. As usual it’s much more likely that the truth lies somewhere in between…
I heard the report on BBC last night of UN expressing concern about the exponential growth of people smuggling businesses (on the subcontinent and elsewhere in S Asia) and the related opportunistic encouragement and exploitation of people who have been displaced or who want(understandably) to get out of where they are.
These things are relevant:
The UNHCR is currently reviewing criteria for refugee qualification; the frequency of irregular boat arrivals is increasing; in Sri Lanka the numbers of Tamils in camps are reducing as people return to their villages; elections there(albeit not perfect – but cf Russia and elsewhere) are under way; polls show people are beginning to feel uneasy that all is not necessarily on the up and up with boat arrivals; Opposition dog whistling is seeking to exploit this concern; Christmas Island is full; the government can see an ugly election issue raising its head…
The public airing of the UN’s concerns and the fact that it is conducting a review, provide a convenient window of opportunity for the government to try to buy some breathing space and maybe even neutralise the issue somewhat. They can look like they’re keeping their fingers on the pulse as relevant circumstances vary (appease the folks upset by the dog whistles) and at the same time,thanks to the Opposition’s knee-jerk, ill-disciplined extremist pronouncements,to those who are concerned about the well-being of genuine asylum seekers the government can still look to be more cool headed, more reasonable and more compassionate than the alternative.
What the 3- and 6-month timelines probably mean is that the election is probably fewer than 3 months away and certainly not as many as 6 months. My guesstimated date of 3 July 2010 is looking pretty good.
FB @ 36,
Cynic.
Good policy by Rudd and co. This will stop us from being swamped by boat people as we have been over the last period of the Rudd Government’s term in office.
I’ll make a modest proposal for all those who want to reduce the numbers of boats arriving. If DIMA set up an office in each port from which these boats depart, people’s refugee status could be assessed before they attempted the journey. If they knew in advance that they wouldn’t be granted refugee status they would hardly waste their money coming here. Of course we would be obliged to act in a timely manner with regard to genuine refugees.
It wouldn’t stop every boat, but it would be a far more humane (and I would think far cheaper) alternative to our present policies. And it would reduce the perceived flood that is keeping our bedwetters awake at night.
According to this story at least half of Sri Lankan Tamils were denied the vote in the recent Sri Lanka elections.
But the Rudd government denies that Tamils suffer political persecution.
It’s a sick, cynical joke.
Another demonstration of why we should withdraw from the UN Refugee Convention.
@zoot I think that’s a great idea. Might be some problems with the practical implementation though. The boats leave from many different places and the whole reason people smuggling is a business is because they avoid the legal channels. Definitely worthy of more thought though.
Fran you’re wrong (or at least contested). The etymology of Barbarian isn’t thought to refer to inhabitants of Barbary.
Back on topic… if these Tamils are political refugees and not economic ones, why do they come here rather than stop in India? According to the UNHCR, India generally grants protection to Tamils.
I can’t find where the UNHCR has said it’s reviewing these countries.
However, its website does discuss the changed circumstances in Sri Lanka and that many of those in refugee camps are being encouraged to go home:
http://www.unhcr.org/4bbc9b9b9.html
So, on that basis, I’m willing to accept that someone who fled Sri Lanka several years ago may be mistaken in believing that they’d be in danger there now.
The Afghanis stump me though.
On the other hand, I don’t want people dying in leaky boats.
@37 agreed Fran, that was always the best timing for a double dissolution. But I just don’t get the obsession with boats. Why aren’t we as freaked out about the (pick a colour) peril arriving by plane? There’s more of them, living in our suburbs, draining our precious bodily fluids.
If you really want to stop the boatloads of refugees, make a straight swap. Everyone who arrives in a boat is shipped back to a refugee camp somewhere, and we take two refugees from the camp in their place. Make this intake separate from the current refugee quota. That will be the end of the boats. And nobody who cares about actual outcomes could complain. And no, I couldn’t care less if this breaches some international convention or other. Net positive, any way you slice it. I don’t actually expect this idea to be adopted by anyone, it might interfere with the
dog-whistlingpolitical realities….
Now, I stuck the Libs below Labor on all my federal ballots since 2001 because I couldn’t stomach their policies toward refugees. (It won’t happen again, because there is no way in hell I’ll ever contribute to re-electing
economic conservativeneo-socialist Rudd again. Fool me once…) But I’m just curious about how many of theconga line of ALP apologistsprincipled leftwingers who post here will even consider doing the same. And no, preferencing the greens first doesn’t count – the majority of you were going to do that anyway (it doesn’t change the result but leaves you with that warm tingly feeling…).
If any of you force yourself to vote for the Libs over the issue, you’ll know you really care about asylum seekers. Doesn’t matter that the Libs policy isn’t better, it isn’t substantially worse, and they’re not in government. And if you won’t, just stop posturing on the issue. You’re a labor hack and aint nothing gonna change it. At least once you admit that to yourself you’ll be able to avoid all those moral contortions that are necessary to support Rudd and still pretend you hold your principles dear. And LP would get that triple hypocrisy bypass it so desperately needs.
.
I won’t hold my breath.
@44
1. The boats that are being used are dangerous and many refugees are dying attempting the voyage. Surely you wouldn’t cheer on this needless loss of like. This doesn’t happen on planes.
2. Planes arrive legally and people on those planes are subject to the normal legal processes of entry to australia. Many are sent home immediately if their paperwork is not in order.
I also thought it was an interesting word to reference in this debate
It’s origin is I believe from the ancient Greek word ‘barbaroi’, someone who doesn’t speak Greek, and I checked at etymology online again. Apparently a general term for any foreigner not necessarily negative, used in a more pejorative sense against Persians after their wars, an old story it seems. The Romans, barbarians themselves, then took it on board and applied it to unruly tribes.
The idea of becoming a nation of ‘barbarians’, from the original sense, is exactly becoming full of foreigners who don’t speak our language, don’t live like us. Though is obviously used to describe any brutal, ignorant and heartless b’stard in most contemporary use.
In way it describes the fears expressed by both the dog whistlers (in the ancient sense) and those of us who might believe a more human approach is required (in the modern sense).
Seems an appropriate word, it’s origin and meaning, to ponder in this situation. How old some basic social problems and perceptions have existed.
Quoll
The version I remember reading was to the Greeks the germanic tounge was a harsh “barbarbar” sound.
Probably urban myth though.
Quoll,
IIRC the word, in origin, is pejorative. Those who could not speak Greek were though to make noises like “ba ba”, thus “barbaroi”, those that make “ba ba” sounds. I would enterpret that as xenophobia (also with Greek origins).
@20
“Anyone that cries ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobe’ at this decision cannot be trusted to have a rational discussion on the topic. Same with ‘dog whistle’.”
Well, given that most people have no contact with refugees and the fact that refugees arrivals are extremely low, what rational reason could the majority have for being worried about those who are coming here? I would say that the 3 terms you would like to proscribe encapsulate the generally irrational response of the mainstream.
Zoot @ 38: Excellent suggestion. I have never heard either party justify why we do not have a presence at the major refugee camps in Africa and the middle east. We have a fixed quote of 13,600. Our aim sholul be to have al 13600 places filled by the most deserving, not those who can fly to Malaysia, sell their passports, pay thousands to an Indonesian, and then sink their own boat.
Katz @ 39: So being denied the vote makes you a refugee? China…come on down! But they already are – see below.
Tim Quilty @ 45: Brilliant! Are you an economist by any chance?
Sean M @ 46: Even arriving by plane doesn’t avoid the scammers. The largest single nationality of asylums seekers is made up of Chinese who claim to be Falun Gong. They research on the internet for a week so they can talk the talk, and our convention driven assessment policy is that we accept them automatically because of a “well founded fear of persecution.”
There are 20 million refugess in the world. But if you can get your foot in Australia and say you practice Falun Gong, you go from position 20 million to position 1. Sounds like queue jumping to me. When are we going to walk away from this insane 1951 convention? Or perhaps we could have a referendum on it, 59 years after Robert Menzies forced it on us?
2.The first is a make work scheme for the politicians wanting job security whilst being gainfully.
Can you please remove that pic with the silly Minister for Agriculture who is a god fearing do nothing. Wonder what his christian princoples tell him of this latest bit of refugee bashing??
Seems to have shut down the option 2 specialists Student T?
I am curious that Iraqi boat arrivals were’nt included in Sen. Evans rule change since relevant (ie fair) elections were recently held there. The pity of a debate like this is that the public really has little idea of where boat arrivals have come from. This shouldn’t be beyond Rudd spin?
If he dogwhistle didn’t work it wouldn’t be used and the government wouldn’t need to counter it. It works at least partly because people of good will (including those who comment on this blog, including myself) aren’t out there selling the idea of tolerance and compassion to their friends, neighbours, family, workmates etc. We leave the field to the rednecks because we would rather talk to like minded people – the rednecks have no such compunction. Perhaps it’s another example of a people getting the government they deserve……..
Boo boo boo boo boo …….. just boo!
Terrible on any level. Boo!
@52
“There are 20 million refugess in the world. But if you can get your foot in Australia and say you practice Falun Gong, you go from position 20 million to position 1. Sounds like queue jumping to me”
You have stupid ears.
Patrickb: “Given that …. refugees arrivals are extremely low, what rational reason could the majority have for being worried about those who are coming here?” Because there is a fixed quota of 13600 and every scammer takes the place of a genuine refugee. My ears work fine. Back to the footy. Carna pies!
No Student T. Running away from political persecution makes you a refugee. It’s called seeking political asylum.
At first I thought your obtuseness was feigned. But you’re the genuine article aren’t you?
Anyone else notice the petulant tone emnating from the Australian in particular? The line runs something like this- “Do something, do something, do something. Oh shit, don’t do that. It blunts our line of attack”. The debate about asylum seekers and population growth is beyond hysterical now. Every man and his dog has an entrenched position and now we are only hearing from the loudest shouters. With ANZAC day around the corner can witch hunts be far off? The calm, wise heads in this debate will be drowned out by tub thumping hate mongers who would not think twice about rushing into a crowded cinema and falsely shouting “fire” just to validate their own beliefs. It’s times like this I really loathe my fellow countrymen and the infantile level of debate. What is lost is the very nature of what it means to be a human being. What sickens the most though is the undisguised hatred directed at asylum seekers. It’s akin to these sick weirdos who paste warped messages of hate on Facebook pages of people who die in tragic circumstances. It’s not free speech when the person at the recieving end of it has to pay dearly for the rest of their lives because of it. For those of you who think that such sentiments are soft hearted then so be it. Better that then a heart made of stone.
Student T, why do you keep referring to refugees by boat – the overwhelming majority of which are found to be genuine by a department with far more resources and knowledge (thank god) than yours – as “scammers”? Clearly, by our own governments standards, the vast majority are not, in fact, scammers, and their need is perceived to be genuine.
It is a shameful day for the Left and shameful day for moderate Liberals and a shameful day for Rudd ……..
Kevin Kaldwell or as I said some time back ‘the blonde rodent’ …seamless transition…haneef hunters & the famous feb tresuary gretch downtime etc…tsk tsk lol
Get a grip.
It’s realpolitik. The Essential Report ran the appalling question above with a very dim result for Labor and a move has happened within days.
Katz: Go back and read your comment 40 (previosuly 39). “Half of Sri Lankan Tamils were denied the vote in the recent Sri Lanka elections. But the Rudd government denies that Tamils suffer political persecution.” Am I corrrect that you are arguing that being denied the vote means you are suffering persecution which means you are a refugee which means you get a visa? If so, was my comment that all of China are eligible pertinent or not? And your response?
“No Student T. Running away from political persecution makes you a refugee.”
But does being denied the vote mean persecution? You are just making the same claim again! Aren’t you at all embarassed to be so incoherent in a public forum?
Revolting lack of leadership on this issue. Just when I was thinking [hoping] he was growing a spine and was going to address the so-obvious fear-factor politics carefully and intelligently, instead he succumbs to it. Disgusting.
As much as I don’t like Rudd’s social conservatism, I still believe he is a compassionate person. I also feel he is a capable of being a good communicator, but I’m starting to get the feeling that waiting and hoping for those things to become more evident is a folly.
Thanks to those above who corrected me on the etymology of barbarian. It’s always good to learn new things.
The Roman reference is interesting though. Apparently the Romans became non-”barbarians” by adopting what they took to be civilised standards — a set of cultural norms. In the current context one might regard that cultural norm as civilised treatment of humans in need — which was my basic point.
I note that none of you LPers want to engage with the point of a fixed refugee quota. You would rather play the man ans say that I have “stupid ears” adn that I am the “genuine article.” If you mean I am a life tiem labour voter, and Howard hater you would be right. I hate Howard for signing my country up to an illegal ward that killed 500,000 Iraqis. Genuine article I am. You lot ahve completely lost your way.
If just one scammer gets entry to Australia it is a tragedy. I will take that points as won. Unlike my adversaries, I will engage with hostile comments. To whit Patrickg @ 61.
How many times do I hear refugee advocates reciting the mantra that “the overwhelming majority of refugees are found to be genuine by a department.” That is because we are contrained by inappropriate law and convention to PROVE that they are not refugees. How the hell do you do that when people have no papers and you have a time limit of 3 months?
One of my closest friends works for immigration. She is a refugee and is currently on Xmas island. She is convinced that virtually none of the people she interviews are refugees, and she is sick abotu it. But is completely constrained by the system which forces her to admit them. The refugees have legal advocates. Why? On the rare occasion that she thinks she can prove they are not refugees, they appeal to the tribunal and win on pedantic points of law. She cannot talk to anyone about this situation. If she did she would not just lose her job. She would be jailed. I fear that some immigration official will read this blog and try to identify her. This is the state we have reached where the government desperately hides the Kafkaesque truth with threats of jail, to the applause of LP.
That last paragraph is absolute and total bullshit as anyone who has even the remotest connection with refugees or the RRT would know. What a load of tripe.
adrian.
Not to defend everything student T says, but having worked for a number of years in immigration Im pretty sure it is quite possible he knows a DIMIA employee who feels that way.
And he is accurate on the department having to prove a negative, its one of the main reasons refugee applicants coming via that route lack documents.
I could pretty well be sure that you would be able to again buy tapes in Indonesia of successful refugee applicants interviews.
It was the one thing I used to tell new arrivals when we were picking them up was “Get your story as precise and accurate as you can for the first interview, its the most important one”.
I have no problem with a Hazara who has spent 4 years in Packistan still being considered a refugee, however the rules of claiming asylum would mean that applicant would be likely to be refused.
So ID documentation is disposed of and its claimed they have come almost directly from Afg.
The is nothing black and white about many asylum claims, a Pashtun man may claim to be an Afghani, but have resided in Packistan their whole life.
A man may own 3 oil wells, be rejected for asylum in Australia but accepted in Switzerland, and flown straight from detention in Australia to freedom in the EU.
A Chinese national being deported from Australia, who, when you hand back his belongings before landing has a union card, bank card, superannuation number and drivers licence.
(all of the above are genuine examples)
And for your imformation you can be prosecuted by the Commonwealth for making public commetary while either DIMIA or a contractor for them.
However you can usualy get around it by NEVER mentioning names or dates.
Sorry Student T. That is plain wrong. The refugee tribunal is an arm of the executive/ administrative body under our law. They are not a judicial body. They are set up to review a case on its merits.
I have read many hundreds of RRT decisions (I was supporting a family of refugee applicants at the time and have been interested ever since) and I was impressed by their consistent and concsientious discharge of their responsibilities in reviewing cases. They gave people a fair hearing, which is what the law setting them up meant them to do. Then they made their decision on thge merits before them.
I cannot remember of all those cases of the RRT that I have read any on which a tribunal relied on pedantic points of law in deciding an application in favour of an asylum seeker.
Perhaps though you have one (or more) in mind. If so point them out and I will bbe glad to discuss with you what you put forward.
That is,of course, a separate question from the deficiencies or otherwise of the legislation under which the tribunal operates.
I think T has mixed up the RRT and the court hearing.
The RRT is a strange beast though, it can really only rule that a person has been denied the correct process.
A lot of refugee applicants were (and probably still are) quite confused as to its role. It is to ensure the refugee applicant has been allowed the opportunity to state their case, rather than the merits of their case.
Nothing, absolutely nothing was more important for a refugee applicant as their first interview.
But most were unaware of that.
There really should be a good solid “process” document made up for giving to new arrivals, showing the stages and what they do.
Mole, I’m having difficulty accepting your defense of Student T. In particular, under what rules would an application for asylum be refused because a Hazara has spent 4 years in Pakistan? Pakistan is not a signatory to the convention, neither the Australian government nor the courts have held that refugees are able to find either “effective protection” or a “durable solution” in Pakistan. Also, the contention that the department has to “prove a negative” seems inconsistent with the well established and recognized principle that convention States do not declare refugee status they simply confirm it.
1 is obviously rubbish.
2 is whats happening – but it wont work as a deterrent. I suspect its not even meant to.
A freeze on processing (also done by Howard re Iraqis in 2003) will have no impact in terms of arrivals. It will cause problems in the centres though.
I think the govt’s realized – as Howard did – that if the MSM and some punters are so stupid as to think this tiny trickle is a problem – then tell em some utter crap that sounds disincentive-y.
Used to work for Howard a treat – we never received so many asylum seekers than after he “got tough” in 1999-2001. The TPV has zero disincentive effect. And every last one of his PAcific solution asylum seekers came here.
But people felt… reassured. And asylum seekers got a big runaround, they were expendable.
Lefty E
“we never received so many asylum seekers than after he “got tough” in 1999-2001.”
I cant let this bull pass as if accepted as true it leads to bad outcomes.
The vast majority of the people who came after the rules changed under Howard were those who had either.
A: Allready committed to the trip, and in most cases didnt have the funds left to try another country.
B: Were family members of those allready in detention, or released who were waiting for family reunion visas. There were explicitly ruled out by the rule changes.
Rudd will have the same problem, anybody looking from Indonesia now will be desperate to get on any boat at all to beat any other possible rule changes, thats why option #2 will end up a huge own goal. It may actually see a spike in numbers over the next few months.
You are absolutely correct on the problems at the centres though. There was a huge amount of conflict between (of all things) refugee applicants who fell on the wrong side of rule changes, and those more lucky ones who didnt.
BTW Darwin detention was pretty well set up just to house/detain the boat crews, it was never used as anything much more than that. There is an element of window dressing in the refusal to open any of the other “historical” centres.
Would this include something telling them to keep their documents safe, say by getting them scanned in some internet cafe in Semarang, before they go on their undocumented journey so that they can make them immediately available to our immigration authorities when requested.
And if they haven’t done that simple thing they’ll be thrown out of the country?
I shouldn’t need to point out to Student T that he hasn’t got the insight about those who leave comment here,and is a bit late on Howard matters.
Mole, though we disagree on a few matters, I would like to thank you for you illuminating and thoughtful comments on posts discussing asylum seekers. Your perspective regularly highlights the nuance and difficulties inherent in our system as it stands, and I value them.
mole, with all due respect, in regard to the RRT you have no idea what you are talking about. And DIMIA has been known as DIAC for about the last 2 years.
And in 2008/2009 the RRT affirmed 73% of cases and set aside only 19%, which should tell you all you all you need to know about Student T and his or her opinions.
In contrast the MRT affirmed 35% and set aside 48% in the same period.
adrian.
With all due respect most of the staff are the same people, many in the same positions.
While I realise the groud shattering difference a name change makes comparing the 2 types of tribunals is chalk and cheese.
http://www.mrt-rrt.gov.au/
The Migration Review Tribunal (the MRT) and the Refugee Review Tribunal (the RRT) provide an independent and final merits review of decisions made in relation to visas to travel to, enter or stay in Australia. The MRT reviews decisions made in respect of general visas (e.g. visitor, student, partner, family, business, skilled visas) and the RRT deals with decisions made in respect of protection (refugee) visas.
Very different beasts.
patrickg
Thanks for the comment, I know my past work means I should eat babies and wear horns, but really the system is/was badly disfuncional. It is extraoadinarily complex, and a person is just as big a fool to say “they are all scammers” as they are if they say “they are all telling the truth”.
I had people I knew in Port hedland denied visas I would have released in a heartbeat, and others who were released Id bet money ae thugs and criminals.
Heres one for you.
A Sri lankan chap, “C”, Christian religion of Tamil background. He owned a small business and was “taxed” by the Tamil Tigers under threats of violence to support their cause.
The Sri Lankan police accuse and beat/tourture him for supposting the Tamils. He stops paying the Tamils and his wife is raped as punishment.
He and his wife seek sanctuary from a Christian priest, effectively moving into his home/compound.
The priest arranges C’s smuggling out of the country to Australia.
I left detention just before C was due to be deported back to Sri Lanka, he was refused a visa as his story wasnt believed. He has spent about 3 years in detention by that stage, was a genuinely nice bloke, and would have made a great Australian citizen.
Contrast: A chap who claimed to be Syrian, committed numerous assaults on staff and other detainees who was released the day after he attempted to bash 2 female staff members with a steel pipe.
I have no doubt he will be involved in criminal activity right now.
So refugee status is a terrible way of selecting “good” citizens, there is no difference in the treatment of a violent thug to a peaceful person. Its one of those wrinkles that make refugee issues so complex.
I might ad that the “devils and angels”, hols true for only about 5% of detainees at either end. the vast majority are just normal people.
Hyopthesis 2 has an element of the truth, but will hopefully misfire, given that it is just another reason to keep the ALP next to the Liberals at the bottom of any list of preferences.
Any government capable of showing real moral leadership would be tackling the real source of this whole purported ‘problem’, namely that our idiot media and homegrown xenophobes cannot tell the difference between the following two cases:
(i) the entire darker-than-white billions of south and east Asia rocking up, with all their navies, and claiming this supposed Terra Nullius for their own.
(ii) at most a few thousand people per year, from countries where they are genuinely endangered, blowing everything they own on getting here in a ricketty boat and claiming asylum, rather than booking flights by credit card, properly.
The following points should be major issues for Public Education/Government Information, particularly while the government is in no serious danger of being voted out.
1. European countries cope with an order or two magnitude larger numbers of asylum seekers per year than we do. Our numbers are small fry. We are not being swamped by anyone.
2. These people are not invaders, visaless holidaymakers, or voluntary economic migrants. They have risked everything to get out of really nasty situations, some of which we have contributed to.
3. In some countries, if you try to apply for visas, or to book plane tickets, nicely, the secret police or a militia will break down your door at 4 am and do various combinations of abducting you, torturing you, and killing you.
4. It is no more illegal to land on an Australian beach and claim asylum than it is to get off a plane and do so. Stop accusing people untruthfully of doing illegal things, or worse, BEING illegal.
5. Case (i) above simply cannot and will not happen, whatever dumb, primordial fears it taps into.
6. Conflating case (i) and case (ii) is either dumb and evil, or cynical and evil. Your choice.
You are confident about that Andyc but I would suggest that based on experience and focus groups the government has judged this one to be a big threat to their continued existence.
I would love that the public in general were clued up about the facts on asylum seekers that you mention. As it stands, the message is not getting through and I put that down largely to a media interested in pressing emotional fear buttons than educating.
In short real moral leadership would require the government to risk going down in a ditch on this one because the media has shown absolutely no sign that they will give them a chance to exhibit it.
Hi Joe,
Don’t you think that real moral leadership takes the hard road in these matters precisely when there is a risk? Because some things are more important that votes?
You completely miss the point, mole. I realise that they deal with different kinds of visas, but they perform the same function of review. The fact that it is far more difficult to succeed in the RRT in comparison to the MRT, puts the lie to Stutent T’s bizarre assertions.
Hi Casey. You are, of course, right.
Trouble is the fourth estate is now so unaccountable and out of control that true moral leadership is mocked, and laughed out of court, as ‘softness’ with ultimately a bad result for us all.
It is just as difficult, for instance, to put a sensible and moral case for drug decriminalisation, as it is for a fair go for refugees. The media goes after any politician, unmercifully, if they draw away from the ‘correct’ narrative. When we know quite well that we have huge numbers of folks, wasting away in jails, who have addiction and mental health issues.
adrian
No Im afraid it you missing the important distinction between the 2 reviews.
The RRT are dealing with failed applicants from a process which starts off with a much more generous bias towards the applicants evidence. So in effect many cases which might be seen as negative/borderline in the initial decision are granted asylum.
That is the correct approach, refugees cant be expected to provide the documentation or normal paperwork a regular immigrant can.
So in effect the RRT is more likely to see cases with no merit. In addition unless the asylum seeker withdraws their request for a review it is triggered automatically, whereas a MRT appeal has to be applied for. this again leaves a “drag” on the figures you quote.
Its another area where raw figures give the exact impression you are getting, IE: refugee applicants get the shitty end of the stick. Its not as clear cut as it seems.
BTW:I don’t know about this because of any assumed superiority to you, I know it because I worked in it for 5 years. So unless its something brand new (and surprisingly little is)….
In all seriousness, Australia should withdraw from the International Convention on Refugees, since it’s clear that neither party intends to honour it. There should be a bipartisan announcement that from now on, we will decide who enters this country and the circumstances under which they come, and party politicians can bicker over the best ways to keep the boats out.
Rudd’s announcement BTW seems to have misfired badly if it was intended to make this a non-issue. It’s had the opposite effect and since community beliefs about who is soft on refugees are too deeply embedded now for Rudd to change them, the whole business can only do more harm to Labor than if they’d shut up and kept on doing what they were doing before.
Well, it should be a very good election for the Greens. Seriously, if immigration policy is a vote changing issue in 2010, what reason does one now have to vote for Labor? If one were to think we should be tougher on immigration, one would vote for the coalition. If not, there is certainly no reason to bother with the incumbents. Keenly anticipating Lindsay Tanner’s next Age/SMH instalment.
Geez mole this is really OT but I can’t let fundamental errors go uncorrected. If an RRT review is triggered ‘automatically’ why do they provide applicants’ with an application form and a 28 day time limit?
And I’m not making any inferences about this figures just correcting Student T’s absurd claims.
“There should be a bipartisan announcement that from now on, we will decide who enters this country and the circumstances under which they come, and party politicians can bicker over the best ways to keep the boats out.”
Why announce it? That’s what has been happening ever since Howard tore up the original bipartisan agreement that the issue was far too sensitive and should be left out of the political arena.
Like lot’s of other crap things, that are being dealt with right now, they lead straight back to the biggest creep that has ever been a P.M. And for some reason we are supposed to forget his dirty influence.
Agree Ken. It will just lead to calls for more draconian changes when it fails – as it will.
All this can possibly achieve is more crowding in the camps.
Mole, above, we agree on the problems this change will cause in centres, but with respect its not bull. Figures spiked 1999-2001 after the TPV not primarily becuase of A or B (though these were factors), but C: TPV regs made family members come by boat, when previously they sent one male member and went for family reunion and then came in by plane.
Then numbers dropped off from key source countries – and arrivals dropped everywhere in 2002-3. Howard can hardly claim credit given that they also dropped sharply in Europe.
Once again: Howard’s ‘achievements’ in this area were always much more about punishing those who got here – lawfully in the case of TPVs. He was way less successful at deterrence that has generally been claimed.
adrian.
There is no fee.
There is no requirement for the applicant to state a reason for the appeal.
The request for a review will (to the best of my knowlede) never be denied.
You sign a paper and post it back.
Thats about as close to automatic as you can get as opposed to the MRT process.
Perhaps I should have worded it a little more precisely though! My mistake.
Lefty E
The numbers dropped in the EU by a % far, far lower than ours.
And you are repeating half of my reasoning anyway, family reunion was a large part of the group allready committed to the trips.
So we arent argueing on that point.
Do you really think its just a coincidence that the resumption of traffic coincided with the relaxing of the Howard era laws?
Not a coincidence Mole – but it has to be noted there’s been a refugee catastrophe in Sri Lanka, for reasons we all know, in the last year. That has nothing to do – whatsoever – with our domestic policy settings.
And I firmly maintain that the TPV had no real deterrent effect for genuine asylum seekers (what are their alternative options? – but sure, offshoring them in Manus and Nauru may have had some deterrent effect on some. But then again, it was a terrible policy – a hopelessly expensive detour – to Australia.
That simply had to go in the bin anyway. What else did Howard have? Nothing much.
Lefty E
We can agree to disagree on the reasons for the drop. No worries.
I disliked the offshoring of people as well.
In many respects it would be good if Kens proposal was adopted, followed by an announcement we are doubling offshore intake for refugees, and barring all but the most exceptional onshore ones.
As I see it it would achieve 2 results.
Satisfy the “we will decide…” mob and step up our commitment to those who need protection.
joe2 @86: “Trouble is the fourth estate is now so unaccountable and out of control that true moral leadership is mocked, and laughed out of court, as ’softness’ with ultimately a bad result for us all.”
Who voted, and made Uncle Rupert President of Oz? While accepting that what you say is true, it is high time that this was dealt with. OUR government is supposed to represent the Australian people, NOT big business and NOT multinational media proprietors. If journos spout counterfactual and abusive drivel off their own bat, I’d expect responsible editors and proprietors to put them straight. If the crap is being encouraged from the top down, then those responsible need to be named, shamed,and if they won’t change, disempowered. Sweden has laws that force 250-odd local newspapers to remain independent, unable to merge. Where would Murdoch be if we had something similar? If the media are pulling the polies strings, running the country, and driving it in the direction of racist barbarism, then they may need new ownership.
Alternatively, we do what Ken @ 88 suggests, get honest about the fact that we’d sooner be a land of racist b**tard lowest common denominators, and withdraw from the International Convention.
If we don’t want to do that, then we should take the opportunity to unbrainwash the people who have these entrenched views on which party is soft on refugees, and for that matter, the people who think that being hard on refugees has merit.
OK, it’s three days since the decision was announced and I haven’t heard zip from the UNHCR,either saying that the government is lying about the review or that their decision to suspend refugee assessments is in any way reprehensible.
So I propose Hypothesis 3:
The UNHCR is reviewing the criteria for Sri Lankan and Afghani refugees. In the light of that decision, the Australian government is taking a ‘wait and see’ approach and suspending processing applications from these refugee groups until the UNHCR has concluded this process.
The UNHCR, which is the body which oversees the resettlement of refugees and ensures that countries meet their moral obligations, has no problem with this position.
Now that, according to the Rudd government, the condition of Sri Lanka is “normalised”, will the Rudd government encourage tourism to Australia by Sri Lankans on the same basis as pertains to Britons, Germans, Swedes, Danes, Dutch, etc?
It appears that many, many Sri Lankans would love to visit Australia.
mehitabel
‘But the UNHCR’s regional representative, Richard Towle, said the decision to delay processing applications in anticipation of a UNHCR review was unprecedented.
”I’m not aware of suspensions like this applying in any other part of the industrialised world,” Mr Towle told The Sunday Age.
”The normal practice is to make assessments based on current information and to keep that information updated as much as possible.”
Mr Towle also said that the prolonged detention of asylum seekers on Christmas Island or the mainland was questionable from a humanitarian point of view and went against UNHCR principles that mandatory detention should be avoided where possible.
”We are primarily concerned that if there is a suspension that the humanitarian and psycho-social needs of those suspended are properly taken care of,” he said.’
http://www.theage.com.au/national/legal-bid-likely-on-refugees-20100410-rzy5.html
Above in this thread I made the claim that July 3 2010 was now looking ood as the election date.
I’ve just read Antony Green’s analysis at The Drum where he points out:
I must admit that I overlooked this technical requirement, which probably means that the only way that my date could be correct would be if the government went for a double dissolution, based either on the Health Levy means testing issue or the rejected CPRS. I still tend to think that the government would prefer a bog-standard election, as The Greens would perform worse in it in favour of the ALP and the government could continue to defer thorny issues like the ETS until July 2011 when the new senators would take their seats and people like Minchin and Field would finally go. Doubtlesds the new election will seriously diminish the medium-term power of the coalition in the Senate and probably provoke a serious split which the ALP would like to exploit for 10 months or so.
On that reasoning, we are looking at August 10 or later — still within the six-month time window for asylum seekers.
Green’s view is that a DD is most likely, and one can’t rule it out of course.
oops MODs: would you close italics after The Greens in the above text?
[done ~tigtog]
You know what? I know why Rudd did this – he has to take the issue off the front page to deny Abbot the only talking point which seems to be getting any traction. Its shocking policy and very bad all ropund but I’m not mad at him. I’m mad at that majority of the Australian polulation who are so afraid of boatpeople and immigrants generally that the Australian Government is too afraid to engage in real debate on real policy in this area.
I’m freaking sick of it – A pox on all of those in the OZ population who ticked that box on the surveys!
Yeah – suspect he’s also hoping the news gets back and people decide Indonesia is a better place to spend the next 3-6 months than an overcrowded camp on Xmas Island; at least till the election is done.
Of course – it could have no effect, or even the opposite. The wider problem is that people imagine this trickle of mostly legitimate asylum seekers is a problem worth worrying about. I can see Italy, Spain and Malta rolling their eyes in disbelief – if they had our arrival rate, their papers headlines would read “Almost no asylum seekers arrivals in 2010″.
Just for the record Robert, this ones a keeper; following “the real culprit’s” Friday 3 Stooges show we now have Ms Playschool’s answer to your question; “they are two different tests” she tells Cassidy about half way in post the parent/teacher killing fields (& 21% of what?)…a must see. The next PM.
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201004/r546472_3206390.asx
But wait, there’s more…not sure if this is Larry Curly or Moe but hey…
“We want to, once processing starts, process people expeditiously.
“We don’t want to return to the bad old days where people are left in wilderness for years and where people are effectively vilified for exercising their rights under the refugee convention.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/refugee-door-not-indefinite-detention-stephen-smith/story-e6frg6n6-1225852390284
‘Starts’ ‘different’ (& election) are Essentially the operative words; beat up on that not the awb deficient DFAT or soldier Keane.
Is that clear? Ok wait till after the election is operative too…
Oh poor foolish reality-addled Tellurians.
Let me you tell as former Assistant Deputy Comptroller for Industrial Recruitment and Excess Biomass Recycling, you want more not less canonically chicago school fodder. In the new extra spready formula. As your elite propaganda shack troops say “I can’t believe it’s not better!” What is a decent metropoli without scuttling serfs of different epidermis providing your with 7-11 dim sun taximeter cabriolets.
Open your legs to the macrocosmic all. Before Boskone does it for you.
Oh fuck it zwilnik, the whole Doc E E Smith meets Jimmy Joyce thang is rapidly wearing thin.
Why don’t you stretch yourself instead with Iain M. Banks does Bill Burroughs?
Zwilnik’s copy reads like sporge text to me, Nabakov. I’ve seen this stuff on usenet quite a bit. It’s apparently generated by an app designed for mocking up websites with non-copyrighted material, but it is also used by sporgers.
That’s a bit harsh. Sporgers, as I understand it, flood internet discussion site. Zwilnik, despite his/her/its newness to our planet, posts only occasionally.