BY SARAH STEPHEN
In order to defend the mandatory detention of asylum seekers, both Labor and Coalition governments have had to convince the Australian people that it is both necessary and justifiable to treat those who arrive in Australia without authorisation differently from the vast number of other people who enter the country each year.
The only way they have been able to turn public opinion against the relatively small number of asylum seekers who have risked the dangerous journey to Australia by boat has been to use lies — that thousands more are behind them just waiting to jump on boats, that they bring diseases that no-one else has, that they are rich, that they are less desperate and deserving than those they leave behind in refugee camps.
Then there are lies about the detention system — that everyone gets a fair hearing, that all genuine refugees are accepted, that everyone has the right to a lawyer, that no-one is sent back to torture or death in their home countries. There are lies about the availability of doctors and treatment for sick detainees, and lies about facilities and schooling for detained children.
The lie about asylum seekers throwing children overboard is a minor deception compared with some of the blatant misinformation the government and its supporters peddle every day. The significance of this incident is that the government has been exposed in its campaign of deception.
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Australia's mandatory detention policy was set in legislation by the federal Labor government in 1992, and came into force in September 1994. It was introduced when the "wave" of people arriving by boat, mainly Cambodians and Chinese, was less than 500 a year. Chinese boat arrivals peaked at just over 1000 in 1994.
To justify mandatory detention, the government claimed that without it Australia would face a "flood" of unauthorised asylum seekers.
WA Labor Senator Jim McKiernan claimed in 1992 that if "the refugee assessment procedure was changed, Australia would be inundated, and boats filled with people, who can afford the fare and the bribes that go with it, will land on our shores by the score".
In 1995, he reportedly warned that if one particular piece of migration legislation were not passed, "Turning boats around at sea may be the only way to stop the floodgates opening and to protect Australia in the long term."
'The flood'
Past government ministers, both Labor and Coalition, have been very passionate and articulate in evoking fears of "the flood".
Australia does face a flood, but it's not a flood of asylum seekers coming on boats. It's people coming in by plane, not in their thousands but in their millions! Just under 5 million tourists came to Australia in 2001. There is never any concern about this flood, even though the numbers involved are equivalent to a quarter of Australia's population.
Many tourists stay after their visas have expired, sometimes for years, but there isn't a systematic campaign to track down and detain English backpackers and Canadian journalists who fall in love with Australia. We're more likely to sympathise with them, to think "We don't blame them for staying — it's such a great place to live". That's because we've been conditioned to identify with people from white, English-speaking backgrounds as being "just like us".
In 1998 the Australian National Audit Office estimated that "boat people" represented less than 0.01% of all arrivals in Australia. Despite the increase in asylum seekers arriving by boat since the late 1990s, as a proportion of all arrivals, asylum seekers still only account for 0.08%.
Gerry Hand, immigration minister in the Keating Labor government, said in 1992 that it was necessary to detain asylum seekers who arrived in Australia illegally in order to "send a message" internationally. "The government is determined that a clear signal be sent that migration to Australia may not be achieved by simply arriving in this country and expecting to be allowed into the community."
However, with some fluctuation, the number of asylum seekers arriving on Australia's shores has risen every year since mandatory detention was introduced. This alone should be enough to prove that mandatory detention is no deterrent.
In 2000-01, the number of people arriving by boat was 4141, nearly 20 times the 1989 level, with 79% coming from just two countries — 2270 from Afghanistan and 1009 from Iraq.
Australian policy has a minimal effect on people's decisions to flee terror and seek refuge. The desperation of those coming to Australia is such that the government would have to match the repression of the regimes asylum seekers are fleeing in order to "deter" them.
More than 2000 Vietnamese asylum seekers arrived on Australia's shores in 56 boats from April 1975 to August 1981. The Coalition government of the time had few concerns about their "bona fides". They were fleeing a regime that Australia had fought against. They were held in "loose detention" in an open part of Westbridge (now Villawood) Migrant Centre in Sydney, together with migrants who had been granted visas under the humanitarian and refugee programs, and processed for permanent residence almost immediately.
As the numbers of Vietnamese asylum seekers risking the journey to Australia started to rise, resettlement countries took larger numbers from refugee camps in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Thailand. This gave refugees confidence that they would soon be resettled without turning to their own resources. Eventually boats stopped arriving.
'Queue jumpers'
Government ministers claim that asylum seekers arriving by boat are "queue jumpers". But in Iraq and Afghanistan there are no queues for people to jump. Australia has no diplomatic representation in these countries. There is therefore no standard refugee process where people wait in line to have their applications considered. Few countries between the Middle East and Australia are signatories to the 1951 refugee convention, and as such asylum seekers are forced to continue to travel to another country to find protection.
Australia has not taken a single refugee from the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Jakarta — from the so-called "queue" — for more than three years. Refugees have no rights or protection and cannot stay in Indonesia because Indonesia is not a signatory to the refugee convention.
There is no requirement in international law for refugees to seek asylum in the first country they arrive in. Some developed countries have made this an additional requirement in order to avoid processing claims, leaving the most asylum seekers in camps in Third World countries.
Some people have given up on the "queue" and resorted to coming by boat. Twenty four of those who recently died when their boat sank off the coast of Indonesia had already been granted refugee status by the UNHCR in Jakarta. Australia has taken only two of those granted refugee status. Many more had relatives in Australia who had been provided with asylum but who are not allowed to bring their wives and children.
In theory, mandatory detention applies to visa over-stayers as well as unauthorised arrivals. However, visa over-stayers who apply for refugee or other visas are given "lawful" status through the granting of bridging visas. They are not held in detention while their claims are assessed. The rationale for the different treatment of over-stayers is that they have been through identity and health and character checks. Why, then, detain unauthorised arrivals for the entire duration of the claims process?
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, February 27, 2002.
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