Julian Burnside has written on the High Court’s decision overturning the government’s Malaysian solution on the ABC’s The Drum. Here’s an excerpt of what he wrote:
In the past 15 years, most boat arrivals have been Afghan Hazaras fleeing the Taliban, Iraqis fleeing Saddam Hussein, Iranians fleeing the theocracy in that country, and Tamils fleeing genocide in Sri Lanka. Not surprisingly, a very high percentage (approximately 80-95 per cent) of boat people ultimately establish an entitlement to protection. […]
It is therefore difficult to assume that anything done by Australia will make any appreciable difference to the arrival rate of boat people.
If things are left as they are, Australia will continue to face the following problems associated with the present system: needless infliction of mental harm on detainees and damage to Australia’s reputation as a nation which cares about human rights. And don’t forget the huge cost: mandatory detention costs us about $1 billion a year.
There is simply no merit in the idea of detaining people indefinitely just because they have arrived in Australia by boat. Asylum seekers also arrive by air: typically they arrive on short-term visas such as business, tourist or student visas. Once in Australia, they apply for asylum. Once their initial visa expires, they are given a bridging visa pending assessment of their claim for asylum. This may take years, but they remain in the community while it happens. Most of these asylum claims fail on the merits (only about 20 per cent succeed). By contrast, about 80-90 per cent of boat arrivals ultimately succeed in their claim for asylum, but they are detained during the entire process.
The arrival rate of asylum seekers who come by air is two or three times greater than the arrival rate of boat people.
A question inevitably arises: what is the justification for detaining boat people indefinitely, at vast expense, when most of them will ultimately succeed in their claim for protection but will be damaged more or less severely by the process? To this question, it seems that the only genuine answer is an appeal to political advantage.
Director of the Institute for Human Security Dennis Altman
This week Parliament finally debated Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan. For most Australians our commitment there is a consequence of the American alliance, and as doubts about the war increase in the United States, Australians will be forced to rethink some of the basic assumptions of a largely bipartisan view of global politics.
Hugh White’s recent essay, Power Shift, suggested that the rise of China challenges Australia to reassess its relations with the United States. White is too cautious to suggest that foreign policy is merely a matter of choosing between two super powers, as if there were no other options. But many commentators read his essay as an attack on the American alliance, which has become the cornerstone of mainstream Australian thinking about the outside world.
It is unclear what sort of global structures and tensions will emerge over the coming decades, a more complex question than the apparent decline of the United States and the inexorable rise of Chinese economic, political and military power. Almost certainly our foreign relations will involve dealing with a number of significant nation states and growing trans-national crises, and both are central to understanding Australian security.
However one measures it, the world that emerged at the end of the Cold War, in which the United States was clearly the only super power, is rapidly changing. In Australia this has been largely discussed in terms of the growing importance of East and South Asia to our economy, with occasional nods to the ongoing centrality of Indonesia as the closest significant power.
This discussion misses the complexity of global shifts that are seeing American dominance replaced by a set of shifting patterns as a number of countries, not only China and India, jostle for greater global influence. The gradual displacement of the old G7 grouping by the G20, of which Australia is a member, is symbolic of an emergent world order that is as yet poorly understood.
Consider whom the Prime Minister will sit beside at the next G20 meeting in Korea, itself a significant political and economic power. Our old allies and adversaries—the United States, Britain, China, India and Japan, will be there of course. But so too will the leaders of Turkey, Indonesia, Mexico and Russia among others.
These countries all have ambitions to the sort of “middle power” status of which Kevin Rudd likes to speak, and increasingly diplomatic and economic links are being forged between various combinations of these states of which we are not necessarily a part.
There is virtually no expertise about half the countries of the G20 in our universities, and current funding patterns make this situation unlikely to change. If the government’s bid for a Security Council seat leads to greater Australian understanding of a number of emerging states the effort would be worthwhile in itself.
At the same time new global issues demand greater cooperation between governments to respond to challenges such as climate change, infectious diseases, food and water scarcity, uncontrolled population movements and transnational crime.
But increasingly international development is shaped by multilateral decisions around issues such as trade, debt relief and peace keeping. Strategic thinking, as many military analysts now acknowledge, requires us to think beyond either conventional or guerrilla wars to ways of building global, institutions capable of dealing with global problems.
Australia is constantly torn between historical and cultural ties to the North Atlantic world, and its geographic situation between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Ironically while we are becoming more ethnically diverse than ever our politicians seem to have turned inwards, with a Prime Minister and Opposition Leader who seem largely disinterested in the complex shifts in global power.
The looming defeat of the western mission in Afghanistan should remind us that entrenched poverty, corruption and inequality are the greatest threats to stability, but also suggests that these problems do not have military solutions. Yet greater global cooperation will involve new powers, whose views of the world are different to those of our traditional allies. It will take great skill and flexibility for Australia to manage these changes.
Dennis Altman is Director of the Institute for Human Security, La Trobe University, which is hosting a discussion on changing global architecture at the Wheeler Centre this Sunday. The full version of this piece appeared in the Age.
I often think everyone should ask themselves the basic question that I pose to myself each day: What would I do if I was fleeing for my life and trying to save my family? I know I would do whatever it took. I would get on a boat – no matter how dangerous – and would pay every last cent I had if it meant my family could live another day. Wouldn’t you do the same?
In the nine years since I started the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, I have sat face to face with thousands of asylum seekers, trying to provide them with support and legal advice. There is a lot I notice in those moments: the look of fear, despair and uncertainty on people’s faces; the weariness of a life lived on the run from persecution; and the slump of bodies overwhelmed with experiences of loss and grief.
The memories sit deep within me. I don’t want to forget a single one. I’ve held a man in my arms as he wept uncontrollably, having just tried to take his own life. I’ve rushed to the hospital at 3am to be at the bedside of a 10-year-old little girl after she tried to hang herself with a bedsheet while in detention. I’ve struggled to find a way to conjure up some hope – many thousands of times over – as the words “I don’t want to be here”, “I’m scared that my government will kill me if I go home” and “I am losing all hope” have all been uttered to me.
In these moments I feel, and waver between, so many emotions: from compassion and deep sadness at how much people suffer and sacrifice to be free, to amazement at the courage and resilience of people who have risked their lives to keep their families safe from harm, and a deep sense of anger at how our government treats people seeking asylum.
Never in those moments do I look at the person as someone to fear, or someone whose plight should be politicised. I look and think how easily that could be me, my mum or my sister. I remind myself that life is a human lottery; that I could have been born anywhere and it could so easily be me fleeing for my life on a leaky boat, begging for Australia to show me some compassion and care about my human rights.
Image courtesy of The Big Issue
I also think how, apart from Indigenous Australians, most people’s forebears came on a boat to Australia as migrants. The only difference is that they were welcomed and wanted. Today, everywhere I look, the message is the same. It’s Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott vowing to be ‘tough’ on asylum seekers and stop the boats. Or our mainstream media telling me that we are being swamped by refugees. I wonder how a moral and humanitarian issue has become a political one. I question why, in a country as multicultural, peaceful and prosperous as ours, we fear people arriving by boat.
In the past, I have naively thought the facts would bring an end to the fearmongering – by explaining to people that we receive just a few thousand asylum seekers each year, and that they pose no threat to our way of life or sustainability. I want to explain that 99.99% of people who entered Australia last year did so by plane; that Australia takes just 0.03% of the world’s refugees and displaced people; and that there are 76 countries that take more refugees than we do, based on wealth.
These days, I talk about a much simpler truth: the moral responsibilities that come with living in a free and democratic country, and what it means to be an Australian. This means we have a moral duty to act and show compassion to vulnerable, innocent people who are fleeing for their lives.
Being Australian should count for something greater than pandering to baseless fears. We should stand up for what is moral and just. The idea of turning back the boats or being tough on people who are fleeing war and torture represents the worst in us as human beings.
I know that, deep down, we are far better than this.
Kon Karapanagiotidis is the founder of Melbourne’s Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. For more information, visit asrc.org.au. Article first appeared in The Big Issue, Ed#361, 17–30 August, 2010.
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