Mandatory Release for Asylum Seekers
July 28th 2008 22:29
It says it all in the national anthem. “For those who come across the seas, we’ve boundless plains to share”. And people have been taking that phrase literally for hundreds of years. It became not out of the ordinary to wake up to see a dilapidated raft bobbing along towards our shores, packed to the rafters with asylum seekers.
It’s been awhile since we last saw that kind of scene. For most of the 2000’s the influx of ‘boat people’ to Australia has slowed to a virtual standstill. For that, all we have to do is look to the man who started it all. No, not everyone’s favourite whipping boy John Howard. I’m talking about Kevin Rudd’s Labor predecessor Prime Minister Paul Keating. Keating instituted the policy of mandatory detention in an effort to deal with a high level of people entering the country illegally without the government or law enforcement knowing who they are and what their intentions are. Mandatory detention was taken by the horns by the Howard Government, who became infamous for their handling of asylum seekers in 2001 when the Tampa crisis brought the situation to the attention of the general public and the sinking of the refugee boat SIEV IV sparked the ‘Children Overboard’ scandal. Howard adapted the policy of mandatory detention into his Pacific Solution. He opened detention centres on islands off the shores of Australia where boat people would have to wait to be processed before hitting Australian shores. Now, if you know Australian politics you KNOW that such a sensible plan had to immediately get the backs up of all the human rights campaigners and student protesters who never let Howard forget it. Well, never let him forget it until the War in Iraq at which point they all moved on. I think they have a clause in their contract where they can only rabidly focus their ire at one issue at a time.
Now, today, Immigration Minister Chris Evans is going to announce the abolishing of mandatory detention. According to him, the Rudd Government will only detain people they perceive to be a threat to the community and let the rest out while they process their claims. Fantastic! Thank you Mr. Evans. How humanitarian of you. But one little flaw in the logic: how do you know who poses a danger until you’ve processed their claims and investigated who the hell they are in the first place?
Think about it, that’s what mandatory detention was for. We live in a world where, not just men, but women and children too strap bombs to themselves and blow holes in the streets. We live in a world where people plot against the excesses of Western consumerism. We live in a world where we don’t battle with conventional armies, we battle with single people or groups that are hard to identify. These boat people don’t generally come on the ship with documentation. They have no way to prove who they are. And we have no way to check. It can take months to process a claim, yes. And for the majority of people that come here, it is unfortunate because they are genuinely trying to escape a horrible situation. But there are those that would try to come here under the radar to do harm to the nation. That’s what mandatory detention was for. To stop those people being able to do harm while we checked if they really were a janitor from Kabul and not a terrorist from Waziristan.
So, when the Rudd Government announces that asylum seekers will be allowed to wander about while we check their claims, we can only be happy for those genuine refugees that won’t have to go through a period in confinement. But also think of all those that would seek to do us harm who will rub their hands together with glee.
I’m not an alarmist. And I believe in the rights of people to come to this country to start again, and our responsibility to see that they are allowed to. But I don’t want the Federal Government to find that someone wandering our streets is wanted for terrorism, or murder, or rape.
I just hope they don’t find out ten minutes too late.
It’s been awhile since we last saw that kind of scene. For most of the 2000’s the influx of ‘boat people’ to Australia has slowed to a virtual standstill. For that, all we have to do is look to the man who started it all. No, not everyone’s favourite whipping boy John Howard. I’m talking about Kevin Rudd’s Labor predecessor Prime Minister Paul Keating. Keating instituted the policy of mandatory detention in an effort to deal with a high level of people entering the country illegally without the government or law enforcement knowing who they are and what their intentions are. Mandatory detention was taken by the horns by the Howard Government, who became infamous for their handling of asylum seekers in 2001 when the Tampa crisis brought the situation to the attention of the general public and the sinking of the refugee boat SIEV IV sparked the ‘Children Overboard’ scandal. Howard adapted the policy of mandatory detention into his Pacific Solution. He opened detention centres on islands off the shores of Australia where boat people would have to wait to be processed before hitting Australian shores. Now, if you know Australian politics you KNOW that such a sensible plan had to immediately get the backs up of all the human rights campaigners and student protesters who never let Howard forget it. Well, never let him forget it until the War in Iraq at which point they all moved on. I think they have a clause in their contract where they can only rabidly focus their ire at one issue at a time.
Now, today, Immigration Minister Chris Evans is going to announce the abolishing of mandatory detention. According to him, the Rudd Government will only detain people they perceive to be a threat to the community and let the rest out while they process their claims. Fantastic! Thank you Mr. Evans. How humanitarian of you. But one little flaw in the logic: how do you know who poses a danger until you’ve processed their claims and investigated who the hell they are in the first place?
Think about it, that’s what mandatory detention was for. We live in a world where, not just men, but women and children too strap bombs to themselves and blow holes in the streets. We live in a world where people plot against the excesses of Western consumerism. We live in a world where we don’t battle with conventional armies, we battle with single people or groups that are hard to identify. These boat people don’t generally come on the ship with documentation. They have no way to prove who they are. And we have no way to check. It can take months to process a claim, yes. And for the majority of people that come here, it is unfortunate because they are genuinely trying to escape a horrible situation. But there are those that would try to come here under the radar to do harm to the nation. That’s what mandatory detention was for. To stop those people being able to do harm while we checked if they really were a janitor from Kabul and not a terrorist from Waziristan.
So, when the Rudd Government announces that asylum seekers will be allowed to wander about while we check their claims, we can only be happy for those genuine refugees that won’t have to go through a period in confinement. But also think of all those that would seek to do us harm who will rub their hands together with glee.
I’m not an alarmist. And I believe in the rights of people to come to this country to start again, and our responsibility to see that they are allowed to. But I don’t want the Federal Government to find that someone wandering our streets is wanted for terrorism, or murder, or rape.
I just hope they don’t find out ten minutes too late.
| 44 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
