Asylum seekers - there is a better way to "stop the boats"

Most Australians have been disgusted by what they saw in Parliament House last week during the rushed asylum seeker debate. They've seen the Labor and Liberal Parties bickering over which off-shore processing solution is the best, tears shed, and Tony Abbott proclaiming "I just don't like it." Oh OK then...

This is a lengthy post sorry. But it is a complex issue and eight-second sound bites cannot do it justice.

The reality is that both ALP and Liberals have painted themselves into corners. John Howard served his political purposes of the day to sow fear and uncertainty around the whole issue of border protection. Then to get elected, Kevin Rudd painted himself the same as Howard in order to remove that point of difference (and several others). Many ALP and Rudd supporters went along with it, believing that once elected, Rudd's ethics would win through and he'd take a more humane approach. But Rudd locked himself into his own rhetoric - instead of being a leader and bringing a more educated community along with the need to change, he locked the off-shore solution in even firmer.

Julia Gillard had a chance to leverage her "good party that had lost its way" speech and make changes for the better. But she also adopted a "don't scare the horses" path to asylum seekers and other contentious issues - and she's being paying the price for her lack of leadership on these issues ever since.

The only way out now is for either Gillard or Abbott to admit their respective proposal will not get up and make a radical shift in position. The one who does will seize an opportunity that is sitting there begging to be taken - and be seen to be making the move necessary to break the deadlock - because it is the right thing to do.

A sad day for the Australian Parliament - both ALP and Liberals combining
to vote against the humanitarian package proposed by the Greens.

So what is this better way? It's a combination of increased resourcing of asylum seeker claims in off-shore locations, coupled with increased intakes, and on-shore processing of those who do get to our shores. After all - onshore processing is what the government already does for anyone who arrives here by plane...

Currently, in Indonesia there are just two UNHCR staff working to process some 8000 asylum seekers, and Australia has been accepting just 60 on average of those people a year from Malaysia and Indonesia combined! How can anyone accuse these people of "queue jumping" a queue that never moves??

You don't have to be an Einstein to realise that most of those people will look at that situation and realise they are going nowhere fast - and that they need to look a more drastic measures. So people risk everything to get on a leaky boat organised by an obviously dodgy operator. This result is a direct product of the Australian Government not adequately resourcing assessment staff at the point of origin.

The Greens have proposed that the Government immediately inject $10 million a year into boosting the UNHCR's capacity to increase assessments. The Greens also  propose the refugee intake is increased to 20,000 per year, including 1000 from Indonesia and 4000 from Malaysia. In case this is sounding like a lot, here are the Immigration Department's number for refugee intakes right now, including, please note, more than a third of whom were granted under onshore assessment. And here are the total inbound immigration numbers - including some 127,000 people in 2010-11. So 20,000 desperate refugees really is a drop in the lake.

To make these changes would give people in refugee camps hope that they could be properly assessed and travel safely to a new home. It would remove the incentive to even listen to the people smugglers. You "stop the boats" by removing their clients.

As for onshore processing - the key difference would be that - for all the faults of Villawood and the other sites - they are not "out of sight, out of mind", like Nauru and Christmas Island. They are here in Australia and when there is mismanagement or strife, we know about it. And that is as it should be. As they say - daylight is a great sanitiser.

There are other facets to the proposed package of measures put forward by the Greens through Christine Milne and Sarah Hanson-Young. Together they represent a solution that has the support of many key stakeholder groups:

Labor for Refugees: http://www.facebook.com/labor4refugees/posts/327067277379352 

Amnesty International: http://www.amnesty.org.au/news/comments/29104/

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre: http://www.asrc.org.au/media/documents/media-release-time-bring-back-debate.pdf

Refugee Action Coalition: http://refugeeaction.org.au/2012/06/27/oakeshott-asylum-bill-is-shabby-political-theatre-to-deny-refugees-their-human-rights/

GetUp!: www.getup.org.au/campaigns/refugees/new-solution/a-new-approach

ChilOut: https://www.facebook.com/chiloutrevived#!/notes/chilout-revived/humanitarian-protection-not-border-protection/387707434622239

Refugee Council of Australia: http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/n/media/120628_Parlt_Bill.pdf

Australian Lawyers Alliance: http://www.lawyersalliance.com.au/documents/280612_parliament_bills_show_need_for_hr_act2.pdf

There's a chance there for either Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott to change tack and embrace the Greens' proposals. I tend to think it is more likely from Gillard - she has at least taken on a part of the Greens'package - the committee to examine the issue. Let's hope that she then pays attention to their findings.