Page 986 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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The immigration policy under the Howard government not only has been grossly inhumane but also has undermined Australia’s obligations under various UN conventions. The Pacific solution is bad enough; asylum seekers have endured inhumane conditions with inadequate protection in relation to the determination process, which denies asylum seekers access to independent legal advice and judicial oversight.
Many genuine refugees have been held in limbo on Nauru—some for up to five years. Australia refuses to settle them in Australia and has not found another country willing to take them. Under this policy the US will be accepting around 200 refugees a year, processed on Nauru, but Australia, in turn, will receive the same number of Cuban refugees.
Since the issue cannot be one concerning the number of asylum seekers to be settled in Australia, the only plausible rationale for swapping Cubans with, say, Sri Lankan or West Papuan refugees is the reduced likelihood of networks of family and friends. Thus this policy is seen to act as a deterrent. The bizarre rationale used by the immigration minister, Kevin Andrews, is that this refugee swap with the US will deter asylum seekers from using people smugglers to gain residence in a preferred destination. That rationale just will not work and is ridiculous. I assume that fleeing persecution is any asylum seeker’s top priority. Entering a Western safe country is their hope; whether that is in Australia or the US is probably irrelevant.
This process undermines three basic elements of the refugee convention. First, an asylum seeker may not be punished on account of illegal entry in a country which they are seeking asylum. Second, refugees are not to suffer punishment as a means of deterrence. Third, the principle of non-refoulement requires that a refugee cannot be returned to their country of origin if found to be a genuine refugee.
I say this because the refugees sent to the US will not receive any assistance and there will not be any follow-up checks to see if their refugee status is adhered to. The immigration department has justified this process, as it claims it is cheaper than deporting involuntary returns—that is, failed asylum seekers. However, these refugees would not replace involuntary returns; if the refugees are being sent to the US, that means they have been found to be genuine refugees.
If the immigration ministry is after regional solutions to this regional problem, this policy just does not add up. This process cannot even be described as a “burden sharing” option—an approach commonly taken by the EU to equal out unequal numbers of refugees in various countries. How is the burden shared if we are exchanging equal numbers of refugees? And, far from being inexpensive, this process is likely to cost millions of dollars.
This completely nonsensical, complicated and extremely expensive policy is one of the most astonishing policies of this completely uncompassionate federal government. On 24 April the immigration minister launched its new program entitled “Systems for people”. When the immigration department views asylum seekers as people, and not pawns in their dirty political game, please let me know.
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