Asylum Seeking - a reasonable perspective

Asylum Seeking – A Reasonable Perspective

Our beloved recycled PM and the Leader of the Opposition are racing each other to the bottom of the barrel when it comes to policy on asylum seekers.

We will use the military, we will use the rule of law, and we will use anything we can find lying around except good old compassionate common sense.

Refugees and boat people

In writing this I must admit that I am not a fan of boat people, not because I am a racist, but because I work with those in the refugee camps who live in squalid conditions and who until recently had their places taken by boat people. Recent changes to the regulations means that the boat people have no advantage over those in refugee camps in that everyone has a number and you are processed once your number comes up.

However, unlike our detention centres, refugee camps have diseases such as malaria and TB raging through them. Health and dental checks are few and far between, malnutrition is not uncommon as is rape, and the spread of HIV. So to say the the new regulations will give no advantage to those arriving by boat is really not altogether true. They should be substantially better off in a detention centre than a refugee camps. (Oh and for the uninitiated, refugee camps have barbed wire and guards too!)

Recently the newspapers carried a story about a pack rape of a young man in an Australian detention centre. This incident is reprehensible and the culprits need to be brought to justice! Detainees need to be safe. You might see that behaviour in a refugee camp but it should never happen in a detention centre. Today one of our papers said our detention centres were Gulags, but please let me take you on a tour of a real refugee camp and then compare that to Manus Island and you will see that there is quite a difference.  In detention centres people should be secure, and they should be safe, and they should be well fed and they should be healthy and they should have access to health services counselling services and education. If you think a detention centre has a bad effect on children just visit a refugee camp. Detention centres are basic but they are a lot better than camps!

People complain about the time people spend in detention but there are good reasons, one they have to wait their turn (remember the refugees in the camps) and two people smugglers tell them to destroy their passports and other forms of ID and many of them do, so how is it that you can prove someone is the person they say they are; but a few years in a detention centre is much better than a few years in camp, and those who complain about the length of time taken to process asylum seekers should at the very least take these points into consideration.

Money talks loudly

So, let’s talk about money asylum seekers are paying $10,000 in gold to come across on a leaky boat, so where did that money come from. Yes some of them are dying in the process, but they are paying good money to have a chance to get to Australia! Their choice to get on a leaky boat should not be used as emotional blackmail in the political debate, any more than we should blame ourselves that a young person tragically dies when they drink drive, it was their choice!  Yes asylum seekers are desperate to get to Australia, but those they are seeking to replace in the immigration queue, (those who live in the camps) are even more desperate, they just do not have the funds with which they can try to change their circumstances.

People living in refugee camps are not allowed to work, not allowed to accumulate wealth whilst living in the camps they can be deported for doing so. So they cannot compete with those who are cash rich, who can afford boat passages, satellite phones and other such luxuries!  In one camp I was in just last week I was told that that people who have been on the waiting list 30 years or more are now being pushed down on the list by newly arrived cash rich refugees who are bribing authorities to put their names at the top of the list. Who speaks for those who are missing out, why it is that the presence of money is allowed to cause such injustice!

So I am not a fan of boat people, and my reasons are based on compassion not racism; however let us now turn our attention to the race to the bottom of the policy barrel.

Setting the attack dogs on them,

Even though asylum seekers arriving by boat are well funded and desperate to come to Australia are we going to set the attack dogs on them? Are we really going to get our Navy to act like a police force, or like bouncers at a disco to rid us of all the undesirables approaching the rim of our shores? Are we going to not allow every asylum seeker who comes by boat to settle here; if their lawyers find one exception you will soon have two then three and soon your policy is in tatters.

Despite the UNHCR having problems with the Rudd plan, which is a worry in itself, if PNG pull out of the deal, how many islands off the coast of Australia and in the Pacific are we going to fill with asylum seekers before we wake up to the fact that the policy is unsustainable?

Yes I believe detention centres maybe a necessary evil and they in themselves could be deterrent enough for people wanting to attempt the journey, especially if they understand that they will have to wait in a controlled environment much like a refugee camp, until they are processed and that processing times will be longer if they destroy their identity papers.

What about tweaking our aid program to try and make it more inviting for people to stay in their own countries. What about increasing our aid budget instead of the size of our navy?

And for those who are genuine asylum seekers who have proved their identity, waited their turn and ticked all the right boxes, and who fit into the annual refugee quota why don’t we find a place for them, after all we are the Lucky Country and we have enough to go around.