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Could this signal a return to bipartisanship on refugees in Australia? Will Australia now resume pulling its weight in the international community? Alan Austin reports.
The Houston report to the Gillard Government on asylum seekers released on Monday has upset virtually all combatants in the current political brawl. But it just might work.
It rejects the Government’s arrangements within the region. The Malaysia solution ‘needs to be built on further’.
It disputes Opposition leader Tony Abbott’s assertion that refugee boats can safely be turned back to Indonesia.
It offends Greens leader Christine Milne who claims the report advocates a return to ‘the bad old days of offshore processing’.
It disappoints refugee support groups by recommending removal of family reunion concessions for arrivals by boat.
And it criticises the role of the High Court:
‘Currently, scheduled and prospective involuntary removals are impeded by an impending High Court decision raising issues of procedural fairness …’
The authors (the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers) are the former chief of Australia’s defence force Angus Houston, National Security College director Michael L’Estrange and refugee advocate Paris Aristotle. They made 22 recommendations in a thorough 162-page report.
Key proposals are:
- that Australia increases dramatically its refugee intake; and
- recommences processing boat people on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
Although not endorsing any current political position, it does provide a detailed plan. Importantly, it affirms critical realities often lost in the ideological argy-bargy in Parliament, on the hustings and in the media.
First and foremost, the situation is dire. Since 2001, 964 asylum seekers and crew have been lost at sea seeking Australia. ‘To do nothing is unacceptable,’ panel chief Angus Houston said.
The second is that the problem is partly one of Australia’s own making. Australia has contributed to the destabilisation of several countries through its support for US efforts to secure Middle East oil through destructive invasions.
Australia, according to the report”
‘needs to actively promote a more productive engagement by the wider international community in addressing the global phenomenon of forced displacement and irregular people movement.’
The third is that there are no queues. This refutes comments from Opposition Leader Tony Abbott last month:
‘The people we accept should be coming the right way and not the wrong way. If you pay a people-smuggler, if you jump the queue, if you take yourself and your family on a leaky boat, that’s doing the wrong thing, not the right thing, and we shouldn’t encourage it.’
The Houston report asserts
‘…there needs to be greater hope and confidence that applying through the regular processes of international protection, including in source and transit countries, can work better and more quickly.’
This endorses barrister and human rights advocate Julian Burnside who claimed:
‘Mr Abbott should know that there is no queue when you run for your life. The recent execution of an Afghan woman by the Taliban (another example of a very well-established pattern) gives some idea of why people seek asylum.
‘A significant proportion of boat-people in the past 15 years have been Afghan Hazaras fleeing the Taliban. If an Afghan were to embrace Mr Abbott’s scruples and look for a queue, the obvious place would be the Australian Embassy in Kabul.’
Mr Burnside then quoted the Foreign Affairs’ website:
‘The Australian Embassy in Kabul operates from a number of locations that are not publicly disclosed due to security reasons. The Australian Embassy in Kabul has no visa function.’
The fourth reality is that Australia can and should accept far more refugees than it does at present.
‘Given the world’s humanitarian crisis, the panel recommends that the Government immediately increase our humanitarian program from 13,750 to 20,000 with 12,000 of those places going to refugees. This would double our annual refugee intake offshore and onshore.’
The panel recommended expanding the intake further to 27,000 within five years.
The latest Global Trends report by the UN High Commission on Refugees depicts Australia unflatteringly.
Australia received only 23,434 refugees in all categories under UNHCR mandate in 2011. This is puny compared with other rich countries. And nowhere near as generous as many poor countries. Almost 10 million refugees were relocated worldwide. Australia ranks 47th in the world.
In the same period, France received 210,207 refugees – almost nine times Australia’s number – in one fourteenth the land mass. Germany accepted 571,685 on terrain smaller than that of France.
Even Austria, which fits into Australia 91 times, received more than twice Australia’s intake at 47,073. Switzerland, half the size of Austria again, accepted even more than them: 50,416.
None of the above nations enjoys Australia’s robust combination of strong employment, high income, low debt, low taxes and low poverty rate. None has the benefit of Australia’s low population density and uninterrupted economic growth since 1992.
Within hours of receiving the Houston report, the Prime Minister announced that the Government would accept all 22 recommendations. Independent Rob Oakeshott expressed support. The Greens immediately rejected it.
Yesterday, the Opposition allowed the bill to pass the House of Representatives, though taking the opportunity to scold the Government in for taking so long to re-implement the Nauru option.
We now await the decision of the Senate on Thursday.
The world is watching.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
8 Comments
Refugees and the Houston Report. Could this signal a return to bipartisanship on refugees in Australia? http://t.co/ScYEMSMd #auspol #asylum
“To do nothing is unacceptable,’ panel chief Angus Houston said.”
Big Gus hit it on the head, the current situation is unacceptable with people dying to seek asylum. Whether you subscribe to the view of Labor, LNP, Greens or Independents is not relevant if change is not initiated. Julia Gillard has done the right thing as has the LNP in supporting the recommendations. The lack of grace displayed by the LNP is a shame and the Greens all or nothing approach has made me seriously reconsider my support for them. Ideas are useless if they cannot be practically implemented.
Kindest regards.
“Will Australia now resume pulling its weight in the international community?”
No, because in order to do that you would need to acknowledge that these people have a right to request asylum. sweeping them under the carpet changes nothing
I have just resigned from the Greens because of their morally bankrupt defacto support for the al-Qaeda/NATO backed “Free Syrian Army” to Overthrow Syria in a war over Natural Gas Resources particularly for the US company Nabucco to build a pipeline from Qatar through Syria to Turkey then on to Europe. However I support the Greens Refugee position which has had only limited explanation in the media. It is the Greens position to have regional processing centres in transitional locations to prevent people getting on boats. The Greens could never support the ‘refugee lotto’ of the “Malaysia Solution” as inhumane and against the non-refoulement guidelines of the UN-Refugee convention.
The Pacific solution is also a cruel and inhumane “solution” done in the name of a deterrent, most of the Iraqi refugees who were on Nauru and Manus Island caught Malaria and we are temporarily proposing to house these people in tents. Yes by virtue of these two countries not having the death penalty they have been able to sign on to the UN refugee convention making processing there legal but that does not give them the capacity to cater for them. This brings me to my main objection being for the sake of wielding the ‘big stick’ so to speak of a “deterrent” we are spending ten times what it would cost to process these people in the outer suburbs of our cities ans regional centres where you don’t have to rely on FIFO staff meaning that a fortune is being spent on two very small facilities with very little capacity and all amenities have to be flown in as is presently the case on Christmas Island, It would be cheaper to have a word with France and put these people up in Club Med in Noumea or Vanuatu.
The figures in this article are to me compelling for an increase in Australias’ intake, the fact that France 210207 – Germany 571685 – Austria 47073 and Switzerland 50416 compared to our 23434 is symptomatic of the Australian psyche, we can handle and crave to be leaders in world sport. however, we fear leading the world in legislation on Carbon/Climate Change, NBN technology, Mining Tax Dividends and any other policy that is remotely progressive.
I think the average Australian would look at these figures and say “Good for all those countries that’s their business just because they take more than their share doesn’t mean that we have to take more here.”
bipartisanship ?. Not if Tony Abbott can help it.
But then his head may implode if he doesn’t get his way soon.
They only want to break the law. Why do people keep saying it is the Greens who are wrong? The only people who ever drowned were those we allowed to drown and have bipartisan law breaking and brutalising the innocent is not good law.
We need bipartisanship to uphold the law and the constitution, not trash it.
The only reason they all go for the punishment regime is because Pakistan is kicking out 3 million Afghans and we want them not to come here.
It is illegal, immoral and repulsive to punish men, women and kids who have committed no crime but are victims of terrible crimes – the Australian media, politicians and much of the public just do not understand how wrong they are.
Look at one other nation in the world who wants other nations to be responsible and then is so irresponsible with human lives.
It is not our right to stop people from seeking asylum, it is not our right to push away one person who asks for help and those who claim it is are deranged.
1.26 million children died of starvation in the 6 weeks of the non-experts writing up their lies and spin and nonsense, they are not experts but they ignored the experts, and ignored the immediate increase of places from Indonesia because we have money for push offs and prisons but none for helping anyone.
So when we still don’t help them, they will get on boats and come here and we will punish them because we won’t help them.
sievx.com shows without a doubt that all the refugees who drowned did so because we let them.
An AG is supposed to uphold the law and the constitution, not blind side it as endless AG’s do in this country.
Article 31 of the refugee convention forbids punishment, yet we do it in spades in the name of saving lives.
For the first time in decades refugee law in this nation was largely working as it was written and accepted by 148 nations now. People arrive and ask for help, we assess and protect.
That is the law, we just don’t care about laws.
Bipartisanship torture, isn’t that just sweet.
Houston was wrong. Dead wrong. The something we had to do was save people in trouble, not push them away if they aren’t in trouble.
“It’s the Law” – is a very ineffective argument to take, unless you happen to be arresting or prosecuting someone. Laws are always malleable and subject to the will of the majority through parliament. They can change from something you don’t like to something you do like, or vice-versa.
To show you just how pathetic such a refrain is, some examples:
“You want to vote? You can’t – you’re a woman/ethnic class/social class/etc, IT’S THE LAW – YOU WANT TO BREAK THE LAW – YOU CRIMINAL!”
“You want to sit up the front of the bus or attend the same public institutions as the majority racial/ethnic group?, well you are JUST A CRIMINAL WITH NO MORALS WHO WANTS TO BREAK THE LAW!!”
I could go on, but hopefully anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together has gotten the point. Weak meaningless argument, attempting to make people feel guilty for ‘breaking a law’ is not going to change their mind one bit if they don’t agree with said law, as they will feel no guilt.
Marilyn is the most counter-productive campaigner I have ever come across, apart from Jihadists.