Reality and rhetoric:
Australia’s response to refugees
and asylum seekers
Paul Power
CEO, Refugee Council of Australia
Christians for an Ethical Society
12 May 2010
What would Jesus do? – Tony Abbott
Well, Jesus wouldn’t have put his hand up to lead the Liberal
Party, I suspect. Or the Labor Party, for that matter …
Don’t forget Jesus drove the traders from the temple as well …
The point is.....Jesus didn’t say yes to everyone. I mean Jesus
knew that there was a place for everything and it is not
necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia …
Jesus was the best man who ever lived but that doesn’t mean
that he said yes to everyone, that he was permissive to
everything, and this idea that Jesus would say to every person
who wanted to come to Australia, “Fine”, the door is open, I
just don’t think is necessarily right.
But let’s not verbal Jesus. I mean, he’s not here to defend
himself.
ABC-TV Q&A, 4 April 2010
What would Jesus do? - Kevin Rudd (2006)
Another great challenge of our age is asylum seekers.
The biblical injunction to care for the stranger in our
midst is clear.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is but one of many
which deal with the matter of how we should respond
to a vulnerable stranger in our midst ….
We should never forget that the reason we have a UN
convention on the protection of refugees is in large
part because of the horror of the Holocaust, when the
West (including Australia) turned its back on the Jewish
people of Germany and the other occupied countries
of Europe who sought asylum during the '30s.
The Monthly, October 2006
Convention definition of a refugee
To be a refugee:
• A person has to be outside his/her country of origin
• The reason for flight has to be a fear of persecution
• This fear of persecution has to be well founded
• The persecution has to result from one or more of
five grounds – race, religion, nationality, membership
of a particular social group or political opinion
• The person has to be unwilling or unable to seek
the protection of their country
How refugees enter Australia
Asylum process (Onshore Protection Program)
• Australia’s commitment to Refugee Convention process
• Different treatment for asylum seekers who arrive with some form of
temporary visa and those who don’t (mandatory detention, boat
arrivals denied access to courts)
• Linked numerically to Special Humanitarian Program (7750 places p.a)
Resettlement process (Offshore Refugee and Humanitarian Program)
• Voluntary sharing of responsibility with countries receiving much
larger numbers of refugees
• Refugee Program – resettlement process coordinated with UNHCR
(6000 places p.a.)
• Special Humanitarian Program – those in need of resettlement
nominated by Australian residents (7750 places p.a. shared with Onshore
Protection Program)
Australia’s global role in 2008
Australia’s share of global responsibility for refugees in
2008:
• 0.4% of the world’s asylum applications (4771 out of
1,203,140)
• 0.3% of the asylum seekers recognised as refugees
(1845 out of 557,809)
• 12.4% of the refugees resettled (11,006 out of 88,800)
• Of the world’s 15.2 million refugees, 0.6% were
resettled in 2008. At that rate, it would take 171 years to
resettle those currently refugees.
Changes in refugee policy
1992 – Mandatory detention and detention debts introduced
1994 – No time limit on mandatory detention
1996 – Refugee program set at 12,000 places, offshore
and onshore programs linked
1997 – Work rights, Medicare denied to asylum
seekers who apply after 45 days
1999 – Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) introduced
2001 – Excision policy and offshore processing
2004 – Refugee program increased to 13,000 places
– Limited changes to TPV system
2005 – Children out of detention centres
– Start of improvements to detention system
2006 – Community Care Pilot begins
2007 – Citizenship test introduced
Rudd Government’s changes 2007-09
• Nauru and Manus detention centres closed
• Temporary Protection Visas abolished
• Merits appointments to Refugee Review Tribunal
• Abolished ’45 day rule’ for work rights, Medicare
• Turned Community Care Pilot into ongoing program
• Abolition of detention debts
• Introduced ‘New Directions in Detention’ values
statement (enacting legislation delayed)
• Proposed system of ‘complementary protection’ to
cover protection needs under other human rights treaties
(legislation on hold)
A shift in rhetoric and policy
2009 – A shift in rhetoric
April – Fatal fire on asylum seeker boat
- People smugglers “vilest form of human life”
Oct – Interception of 255 Sri Lankans on Jaya Lestari 5
- Start of ‘Oceanic Viking’ saga
- Australian policy “tough but humane”
2010 – A shift in policy
- Tougher anti people smuggling legislation introduced
- Suspension of asylum applications for Sri Lankans and
Afghans
- Announcement of reopening of Curtin detention centre
What the Opposition is saying
• Every boat arrival is a policy failure
• Turn back the boats
• Introduce temporary protection for all refugees
recognised in Australia
• Asylum seekers on boats are illegal immigrants
If I rocked up at Los Angeles without a visa, without papers, the Americans
would give me very short shrift indeed and they would say ‘Mate, you’re
illegal’. Simple as that. – Tony Abbott, 30 April
• Millions of asylum seekers could come to Australia
If global conditions worsened, millions might at least be tempted to swap
their current existence for the opportunities of a new life in Australia. – Tony
Abbott, 4 May
Public opinion in Australia
Morgan poll, March 27-28 and April 3-4, 2010
Please say whether you support or oppose (Muslim / Asylum seeker/ Skilled
migrant/ Family reunion) immigration?
Should asylum seekers arriving by boat be allowed to apply for immigration
as now, or should they all be returned and told to apply through normal
refugee channels?
Refugee realities in Asia
147 out of 194 states have
signed Refugee Convention
or its Protocol (76%)
Of 47 non-signatories, 26
are in Asia-Pacific and
10 in Middle East
Only 4 out of 19 countries
in South and South-East
Non-signatories marked in grey
Asia have signed Convention
- Afghanistan, Cambodia, Timor Leste, Philippines
South and South-East Asia has 6.7 million people who are
refugees, asylum seekers or stateless. Too many lack
safety, legal status, right to work, access to education.
What RCOA is proposing
• Reverse
policies which create additional harm to already
damaged people, especially indefinite detention in desert
detention camps;
• Prompt and fair assessment of applications for refugee status,
with no discrimination on the mode of arrival;
• Staged expansion of Australia’s offshore refugee resettlement
program over five years to 20,000 places;
• A positive vision for Australia’s support for refugees and of
how Australia has benefited from the energy and enterprise of
750,000 refugees since Federation;
• A positive strategy for Australia’s international cooperation
on refugee protection – based on aid and development
programs, inter-government cooperation on refugee
determination, brokering resettlement options.