“If our days could be filled with small rebellions
Senseless brutal acts of kindness from us all
If we stand between the fear and firm foundation
Push against the current and the fall, the current and the fall”
~ ‘Small Rebellions’, by Haseltine/Mason/Odmark/Lowell
from the Jars of Clay album “The Shelter”, 2010
One weekend in 1973, a minister was going door-to-door in the suburbs of a small town seeking donations from the public. Finances in his congregation were meagre at best. It was no doubt arduous work, and yet, when a friendly couple with two young boys welcomed him into their home and offered tea as a refreshment, the minister was at best confused. Confusion turned quickly to concern, even anxiety, when the cup of tea was served in a china cup.
The reason for his concern was two-fold: refreshments were not readily offered inside the home (the back door-step was a more common venue), and the cup traditionally given to people like him was cheap enamel rather than more precious crockery. The place was apartheid era South Africa, and the minister was black. The white family that accepted him into their home were my parents.
I was born a few years later, and eleven months after that, we were fortunate enough to be afforded the opportunity to emigrate to my adopted home, Australia. It is one of life’s ironies that my family was initially denied residency by the Whitlam Labour government, which after “The Dismissal” of 1975, was replaced with the government of Liberal Malcolm Fraser, whose policies were far more sympathetic towards immigrants. Our request for citizenship was finally accepted and we were allowed to move away from the environment of oppression from which we sought asylum. This oppression was not directed towards us (being white we were considered by the South African government as a “superior race”), but the socio-political climate was not one my parents wished me or my older brothers to be shaped by. Our personal situation, both in what we left and the method of our leaving, pales into insignificance when compared to the stories of those displaced people who flee famine, war and life-threatening persecution by their millions every year. That said, I am grateful to call this sunburnt country home and will always be thankful for the brave decision my parents took to bring our family here.
It is perhaps revealing that Malcolm Fraser would revoke his Liberal Party membership in 2009 following an increasing estrangement from the party he once led, especially with regard to foreign policy and immigration. He allegedly told friends at the time that he “disliked the racist overtones adopted by the [Liberal] party in the debate on immigration”.*
The asylum seeker debate has been raging with increasing fervour in the last decade, and has received even more attention in the last few weeks following the Australian High Court decision to rule the recent asylum-seeker arrangement between Australia and Malaysia as unlawful. This decision effectively scuppered Julia Gillard’s plans to deal with so-called “boat people”, people attempting to gain refugee status after entering Australian territory by sea, an incredibly dangerous and risky venture often facilitated by people smugglers.
The Malaysia deal was dreadful policy. It would have seen eight hundred Australia-bound boat arrivals sent to Malaysia, while accepting four thousand refugees processed in Malaysia and chosen by the Malaysian authorities. Malaysia is not currently a signatory to the UNHCR Refugee Convention (similar to the Pacific island nation of Nauru, whose boat people deal with John Howard’s government was ceased largely on that basis) and Malaysia has a poor human rights record, including in their dealings with asylum seekers. As policy, it was a sad and sorry return to the days of the Howard Government, with their thinly-veiled xenophobia and the responsibility-shifting of their so-called “Pacific Solution”, oxymoronic in that it solved precisely nothing. It is worth noting that the apparent drop in boat arrivals in the years of the Pacific Solution had more to do with the Howard government’s redefinition of Australian territory in the relevant legislation and the diverting of boat arrivals to neighbouring countries (a pathetic dereliction of responsibility) rather than a decrease in the numbers of attempted boat arrivals. Tumult and upheaval in the Middle East (especially Afghanistan and Iraq) in the last decade have had a greater ‘push’ influence on asylum seekers than changing policy here negates the ‘pull’ factor.
(Push factors are external influences, whereby someone is displaced (either by choice or force) and seeks to settle elsewhere. Pull factors are domestic policies that are varying degrees of inviting or discouraging towards people who would seek to resettle. Despite what many politicians argue, push factors are far more influential than pull factors. Perhaps the view that pull factors are the stronger of the two comes from a collective delusion of grandeur that Australians and our parliamentarian representatives hold with respect to controlling what others overseas think about us. It is also likely influenced by the mistaken view in politics that compassion is somehow correlated with weakness.)
This point is most plainly demonstrated by the Howard government’s ill-conceived Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs), which were instigated in 1999. TPVs provided asylum seekers who had the audacity to apply for asylum after arriving in Australia with extremely limited access to legal representation and supports. It was also specifically designed with mechanisms that served to isolate family members from one another and deny them travel rights in an attempt to discourage asylum seekers from making the hazardous trip to Australia by boat. What this did achieve, however, was a massive jump in the proportion of woman and children arriving as boat people from 15% to 40%, as families could no longer afford the risk of long-term separation. The introduction of TPVs did nothing to discourage overall numbers of boat people, which did not diminish in the years immediately following the introduction of TPVs. TPVs were thankfully abolished by Kevin Rudd early in his term as Prime Minister, much to the chagrin of the conservative right.
Australian governments past and present (but especially Liberal governments), have maintained an unnatural and frankly unhealthy preoccupation with both the morally dubious practice of mandatory detention and with off-shore processing. It is absolutely perplexing. It ought to be kept in mind that applying for asylum, whether before or after reaching Australian shores, is an action which has always been and remains completely legal, according to the UN Refugee Convention, to which Australia is a long-term signatory. Those who argue that off-shore processing offers discouragement to boat people are often ignorant of the fact that in 2010, the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat comprised only 47% of the total - less that half - with the rest arriving by plane. Even more startling is that over 90% of boat arrivals over the last decade have been found to be genuine refugees deserving of resettlement. Genuine refugees among plane arrivals are more difficult to find, a fact worth remembering next time Tony Abbott babbles mindlessly about “stopping the boats” without a single mention of turning the planes around.
Furthermore, it costs three times more to house asylum seekers (often for ridiculously extended periods of time) in detention centres than to provide the Red Cross with the resources to care for them in the community. It has been claimed (in those bone-headed group emails some seem hell-bent on sending to everyone in their address book prior to engaging their brains) that asylum seekers receive more financial benefits than pensioners. This is patently false. At best, some asylum seekers have temporary access to a Red Cross Asylum Seeker Assistance Scheme payment that is at the most 89% of the lowest Centrelink Special Benefit available to Australian citizens.
The real villains of this story are the people smugglers, who are unlikely to be discouraged by the domestic policies of the countries to which they deliver their customers. These are profit hungry criminals; it is unrealistic to expect that they will be honest to those desperate souls to whom they are selling their wares with respect to their prospects of resettlement.
The fear of terrorists somehow slipping the security nets around Australia by using the guise of an asylum seeker is equally ridiculous. The intense personal risks undertaken by boat people are not worth the effort for committed criminals considering there are other far safer, more cost effective and simpler ways of gaining access to this country in order to commit acts of terror than to risk the perils of the open sea.
Many believe we take far too many refugees, bumper stickers vitriolically stating “We’re Full” are prevelent. This simply does not stand up to scrutiny. In 2009, Australia was not among the top nations in regards to accepting refugees. In fact, we didn’t even break into the top twenty. Above Australia on that particular list were Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, Kenya, Tanzania, and even Iran. Ponder that last one for just a moment. European countries receive (and process onshore) asylum seekers by boat from North Africa and the Middle East every single day, with much smaller areas of vacant land and far less robust economies than ours. Compared with many other nations, Australia’s efforts are weak. We are capable of so much more.
With the latest High Court ruling, there presents itself a golden opportunity for the Gillard Government to take a step back from the furore and froth of the current debate and reframe a new policy based on compassion and justice rather than lowest-common-denominator, bottom-of-the-barrel politics. They can offer the Australian constituency a genuine alternative to the knee-jerk, reactionary, bitter politics of their rivals for office. I hope and pray they take a stand and lead the debate rather than get dragged through the gutter attempting to appeal to the most base and selfish parts of the Australian psyche.
Personally, I choose to make a stand. I refuse to be anxious about refugees. I refuse to be fearful of people from cultures other than my own, no matter how much short-sighted, ignorant, bigoted, and xenophobic individuals think I ought to be. I choose to approach people with compassion and acceptance, even if it means I’m branded as naïve.
Another story related to me by my mother involved a group of black labourers working on the street outside our home. One worker badly gashed his foot with an errant spade. While trying to avoid the neighbours noticing (you could get in serious trouble for these kinds of things), the man was whisked inside our house where his wounds were bathed and dressed. My mother remembers being struck by the deep, vivid red blood on his dark, black skin. The memory in turn reminded me that we all bleed the same, sharing a common brotherhood despite the national borders that separate us from one another. I am likewise reminded that neither I, nor anyone else, regardless of their station, have the right to treat others as if they are less than who they are - our brothers and sisters in humanity.
* As reported in The Age newspaper: http://www.theage.com.au/national/baillieu-tells-of-sadness-after-fraser-quits-liberal-party-20100526-wbes.html
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