Australia’s Tough Refugee Plan to be Brought Before UN

SBS News reports that tough plans by Australia’s new conservative government to deter asylum seekers, including towing back their boats, will be raised at the UN’s Human Rights Council’s current session in Geneva. Newly elected Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he will use the navy to “tow rickety people-smuggling boats back to their place of origin – typically Indonesia – and will force those who do arrive or are already here onto a tough new regime”. Asylum seekers will be placed on three-year temporary visas with no chance of permanent residency, denied family reunion, appeal or legal assistance, and made to work for government benefits. The Human Rights Law Centre said that even the current policy had been assessed by the UN as inadequate under Australia’s international obligations.

From a personal point of view, this particular article has led me to disappointingly question the legitimacy or even downright sanity of the Australian government. After having being found guilty by a United Nations committee in August this year for committing “almost 150 violations of international law over the indefinite detention of 46 refugees” (Gordon, 2013), I am astonished as to how the Australian government could even contemplate introducing more stringent policies towards its asylum seekers. Is not now the perfect time to ‘repent of our sins’ and show a more compassionate stance towards them?

Perhaps the answer to this question can be found in the history of Australia’s public culture and Australian political rhetoric about asylum seekers and refugees. According to Hattam and Every (2010),

“The re-settlement of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia and other ‘metropole’ nations has a chequered history marked by periods of relative generosity, but also by racism, exclusion and oppression”.

Since the signing of the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, continual amendments to the immigration policy by changing governments have altogether exhibited heightening restrictive measures towards all those who seek to call Australia their new home. The White Australia Policy, for example, permitted admittances if they adhered to the strict criteria of a refugee’s ability to provide skills, labour and economic resources to Australia, rather than the humanitarian concerns of their individual needs (Neumann 2004). Further restrictive measures were introduced in 1992 and 2001, where mandatory detention was warranted for all unauthorized (‘illegal’) asylum seekers, and the right to appeal asylum decisions in Federal Court was also removed (Hattam and Every, 2010). The promulgation of asylum seekers as ‘illegals’ (Clyne, 2003), ‘terrorists’ (Pickering, 2001), ‘queue jumpers’ (Gelber, 2003), and ‘burdensome and threatening’ (Klocker, 2004) by the highest levels of Australian government moreover established a prejudiced sense of fear and rejection of “the others” within the Australian public, and therefore legitimized the anti-asylum-seeker laws and practices. On the eve of the 2001 election for example, John Howard stated in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, “Australia has no way to be certain [that] terrorists, or people with terrorist links, were not among the asylum seekers trying to enter the country by boat from Indonesia” (Allard, 2001).

In conclusion, given Australia’s history of intensifying restrictive measures and dissenting political rhetoric towards asylum seekers and refugees, I suppose it should be unsurprising that the current political attitude remains unchanged, if not more severe and bitter. Nonetheless, in my opinion, the Australian government should seriously rethink its contradictory stance towards such matters, as it “sends a very dangerous message to other countries that respect human rights as optional” (SBS News, 2013).

References:

Allard, T. (2001) Cooking up Howard’s knockout punch. Sydney Morning Herald.

November 16.

Clyne, M. (2003) When the discourse of hatred becomes respectable – Does the

linguist have a responsibility? Australian Review of Applied Linguistics

Gelber, K. (2003) A fair queue? Australian public discourse on refugees and

immigration, Journal of Australian Studies 77: 23–36

Gordon, M. (2013) ‘Australia violated refugees’ human rights, UN says’, Sydney

Morning Herald, viewed 20 October 2013 [http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/australia-violated-refugees-human-rights-un-says-20130822-2sdxq.html]

Hattam, R. and Every, D. (2010) ‘Teaching in fractured classrooms: refugee

education, public culture, community and ethics’, Race Ethnicity and Education, vol. 13, No. 4, 409-424

Klocker, N. (2004) Community antagonism towards asylum seekers in Port Augusta,

South Australia, Australian Geographical Studies 42, no. 1: 1–17

Neumann, K. (2004) Refuge Australia: Australia’s Humanitarian Record. Sydney:

University of New South Wales Press.

Pickering, S. (2001) Common sense and original deviancy: News discourses and

asylum seekers in Australia. Journal of Refugee Studies 14, no. 2: 169–86

SBS News (2013) Australia’s tough refugee plan to be brought before UN, viewed 20

October 2013, [http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/09/17/australias-tough-refugee-plan-be-brought-un]