STOP THE DROWNINGS

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/it-is-time-all-sides-work-together-to-halt-needless-asylum-seeker-drownings-20130611-2o21s.html

Paris Aristotle in this article throws down the challenge to all sides and parties in our current and next Parliament.  The arrival of asylum seeker boats is not going to be addressed without a more organised solution to which there is bipartisan commitment. The Malaysia Deal is not that solution. The recent Malaysian elections exposed some of the tensions along the lines of race, class and religion in an already overpopulated society. To send asylum seekers back to Malaysia from Australia is not only Australia shrugging off its responsibilities but putting those asylum seekers into a society that does not want them, will not welcome them and will marginalise and discriminate against them.

 

More organisation in Indonesia and Malaysia to identify refugees and then flying them to Australia would stop the boats. This has been done before in the 1970s and 1980s with the Orderly Departure Program that saw up to 250,000 Vietnamese boat people brought to Australia on Hercules Aircraft. The Orderly Departure Program was organised by the UN and the US and Australian Governments in co-operation with the Vietnamese Government of the time to stop Vietnamese Boat People taking to boats and being attacked on the high seas by pirates or pushed back to sea by the Malaysian military. We can do this again. Nothing stops us except our ability to get it organised. We can absorb tens of thousands of people a year in this country quite successfully. We have done it with the Vietnamese and other ethnicities that are now part of our daily lives in one of the world’s most successful multicultural countries. We can do this again. All that is required is the political will and political leadership. We need to stop catering to the lowest common denominator in this debate and start acting to save lives.

 

Jenny Haines

A REVIEW “THE PEOPLE SMUGGLER” BY ROBIN DE CRESPIGNY,  PENGUIN VIKING,2012.

By Jenny Haines

 

This is an important book in the current debate about refugees, asylum seekers and people smugglers that should be read by all members of Federal Parliament, some of whom stood weeping in Parliament during the debate on asylum seekers in 2012, and then allowed the re-opening of Nauru and Manus Island to add to the asylum seeker misery they claimed to be so concerned about.

At last we get to hear the debate from the point of view of an asylum seeker who through circumstance becomes a “people smuggler”. Ali Al Jenabi grew up in Saddam’s Iraq. He learnt very early the vile nature of Saddam’s regime through the internment, torture and persecution of his father, a man with a most remarkable ability to survive the horrors of Saddam’s jails. Ali himself is interned in Abu Ghraib and despite the best efforts of the cruel guards, he also survives Saddam’s jails. He makes several efforts to escape Iraq and eventually after many attempts gets to Malaysia, and then on to Indonesia. After you have read what he has been through you are cheering him on. His bravery, endurance, commitment and sheer entrepreneurial skills are just what Australia needs, but in Indonesia they were also just what his fellow Iraqis fleeing the horrors of Saddam needed. After being cheated on the beach by a people smuggler, Ali decides to go into the business of transporting desperate people to Australia by boat himself, but not to cheat and rob them, but to help them. His prime motive was always to raise enough money to get his own family out of Iraq and to Australia. As his lawyer in Australia says to him later –

“Smuggling is the wrong description for you. You weren’t trying to get people into a country without the authorities knowing. The Australian’s knew from their own intelligence the vessel had left Indonesia, because their Orion aircraft were out there looking for it. They picked the people up and took them to Australian territory for processing as refugees. That’s not smuggling. Smuggling is about hiding people in containers and under vehicles like they do in Europe. You were not doing that. Nor were you human trafficking, which is kidnapping and trading of slaves for sex or labour.”

Ali gradually learns through trial and error the “people smuggling” business, successfully getting seven boats to Australia, including one which carried several members of his family. There is a terrible time for Ali where he hears that the boat that his family were on may have gone down. He lies catatonic on a bed for 14 days until his sister rings from Australia to tell him that the captain got lost, so it took seven days. and then when they landed the Australian authorities kept the news from the media so no one knew the boat had arrived. Ali weeps like a child.

People smuggling is not illegal in Indonesia. Just a well, as just about all of the authorities are getting a cut of the trade. Ali has to pay them all so the desperate people he is trying to help can get to safety. So for the Australian Federal Police to arrest Ali they have to get him to Thailand. Ali is betrayed, and the AFP arrested him in Thailand on a false passport charge, then arrested for people smuggling. He was extradited to Australia and tried in a Darwin court on people smuggling charges but thank heavens for Australian lawyers and courts. After hearing all the evidence Justice Mildren says -

“....Oskar Schindler saved many lives by employing Jews as slave labourers and he made a great deal of money out of their labour, although of course he did later repay many of those that he was able to save. But the point is a valid one: there can be mixed motives and I accept that the prisoner was not solely motivated by money, but was largely motivated by the need to get his family to Australia come what may.”

Ali Al Jenabi...the Oskar Schindler of Asia.

Ali is sentenced to jail and with time already served only spends another 21months. On his release a DIAC Officer tries to trick him in to going back to Iraq voluntarily, but he wisely refuses to sign and makes a claim for asylum. He spends time in Villawood while the Howard Government, and then the Ministers of the Rudd and Gillard Government’s, angry at the court’s decision and sentence,  when the Government had wanted to make an example of him to pander to marginal seat prejudice, spitefully keep him in detention. It is only when asylum seeker activists take up his case he finally is granted a Removal Pending Bridging Visa, which means the government can send him back to Iraq at a time of their choosing.

Faris, an asylum seeker who travelled to Australia on one of Ali’s boats, but lost his family on the SIEV X says of Ali in the book “I think he is a very very gentleman. He is the best smuggler. He had a good heart. He was not hard, not a greedy person. I have a conscience about what I saw from Ali Al Jenabi.”

Ali watches the parliamentary debate in 2012.He hears Julia Gillard and Minister Chris Bowen talk about “the people smugglers business model” He laughs and asks -

“Do they think there are men in suits sitting around boardroom tables somewhere devising strategies? Has no one told them people smuggling is an amorphous rag-tag network run by word of mouth and mobile phones? There are no records or bank accounts. No spreadsheets or business plans. They pop up where ever people are trying to escape and disappear when they are no longer needed. If you want to stop people smugglers you have to do something about what causes people to flee their own countries in the first place.”

Wise words from Ali Al Jenabi. Is anyone in power listening?

LABOR IN A MESS

Sent to the SMH 22.11.12, not yet published.

The Editor,

SMH.

 

The Gillard Bowen Government is in an real mess on asylum seekers now. Having walked away from their own party to making policy on the run to appease the ever more right wing calls of Tony “the No Man” Abbott, they have now walked themselves right in to Howard territory from which it is going to be hard for them to retreat.

 

We now have mass hunger strikes on Nauru and at least one asylum seeker close to death. There will no doubt be mass hunger strikes on Manus Island soon as the people placed there realise they may be there for up to 5 years. Immigration goon squads are raiding houses in Australia again, Gestapo style, to pick up asylum seekers whose poor English in their application to stay here (because they didn’t have any interpreter assistance with making a proper application), has not passed some DIAC officers assessment for being allowed to stay in Australia.

 

Now we are to release new arrivals into the community while their legitimate claims are lodged and processed but they will not be allowed to work, and so reliant on the kindness of churches, charities and strangers, none of whom having seen these people’s need will ever vote Labor again. What a terrible mess! And none of it is stopping the boats because none of it addresses the push factors.

 

What is needed now is leadership and sadly I don’t think it is there on either side of parliament. Minister Bowen is now totally captive by his department . Where are the Greens and Independents? I did hear Oakeshott say that there are no short term solutions here and that we need to concentrate on a longer term regional solution. We can’t do that with 2 major parties running short term, short sighted agendas up to the next election only.

 

Jenny Haines

 

ASYLUM SEEKER ROUNDUP

Asylum Seeker Roundup begins - Raids, Re-detentions and Deportation.

Sunday 18.11.12

Immigration raids and re-detentions have begun across Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide this weekend. Immigration cars are watching houses where people are living lawfully on community detention conditions and bridging visas. There is fear among community based asylum seekers as those called to appointments are then seized and taken back to detention centres. These are men who have been detained in isolated detention centres already for more than two years which compounds their terror of being taken again.

When one person in a house goes to a DIAC (Immigration) and then does not return it sends fear into those left behind. In some instances they then have gone to stay elsewhere because they are unable to bear the waiting for their turn to come when they too will be taken. One man tried to return to get his papers on the weekend but saw the DIAC cars waiting for him so he spent the night in a park in fear. Other men who have cases filed in the court so cannot by law be deported and who would not normally be detained, have been told that they will be locked up no matter what. Their house has been raided three times since Friday.

The ordinary rules have changed. DIAC orders are now to raid, capture and detain those on community detention. In addition there are a large number of Hazaras whose bridging visas cease on the 29^th November and who are being told to go to DIAC offices with an airline ticket and passport for return to Afghanistan.

Currently there are three legal cases on foot which may affect these men’s status. It would seem that DIAC are acting before this can happen.

The two groups at risk are the Tamil and Hazara asylum seekers. The common factors in their cases are that they have not had a fair go. These cases were judged under the IMR system which has been discontinued and discredited. Some of the reviewers have been named in Court as showing “bias” and criticised for the decisions they handed down.   There was no redress for those whose cases did not get to the court but who were refused by the same reviewer on the same spurious grounds. An unofficial, un- documented PRE process which was put together to quietly fix the terrible decisions only operated from BOAT 175 onwards. This has left a pool of people who fell outside both the faulty system and the faulty system fix. The difficulty in finding a lawyer and get to court because they were detained in far off WEIPA or Curtin detention centres has further cruelled any chance for a fair go.

 These men also missed out on the Complementary protection provision which was introduced in March this year. This means that their cases were not examined against the torture convention or other international human rights conventions leaving them further at risk. Political edict saw the acceptance rates of Hazaras go from 99% in 2009/2010 to 30% in 2010/2011 be ministerial decree as the boat numbers grew. We have seen the same cases detailing persecution on grounds of ethnicity, religion and political belief dismissed because of political considerations when if they had arrived six months earlier they would have been accepted.  The statistical evidence screams politics rather than fair assessment in the treatment of these men.

What is most egregious about the kangaroo court injustice they have received is revealed in reading their cases.  We see case after case where the reviewer says that they accept that the asylum seeker is a “credible witness”, that the reviewer accepts that Family members were killed by the Taliban, that brothers and fathers disappeared at the hands of the Taliban, that the letters threatening them are genuine but still they refuse them on the grounds that they can “relocate” elsewhere or on the grounds of the DFAT cable which claims that Hazaras are experiencing a “golden age”. It is unbelievable that such bare faced political concoctions can be used to dismiss refugee applications but this is the reality.

NO SPIN OR GLOSS CAN HIDE THE FACT that people are about to be sent home to die for Australian political purposes.

PS Enablers in DIAC and the Government have got around the fact that the Afghan Ambassador, a decent man , has not obliged by providing travel documents to return Hazaras to Kabul. Enablers have found someone in Kabul the capital of corruption who is obliging!

 The Australian government's cosy relationship with the SriLankan embassy and lashings of cash to the SL government for boats and surveillance equipment  has been rewarded with compliance.

-- 

Pamela Curr

Campaign Coordinator

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre

 

31 Oct 2012

Labor Learned Nothing From Howard

By Jenny Haines, as published in New Matilda today.

 Federal Labor is performing amazing policy contortions as it seeks to excise mainland Australia from the migration zone. It's another shocking repudiation of the party platform, writes Jenny Haines of Labor for Refugees

Here we go again! Labor, in an effort to try to prove it is as tough as the Howard government on refugees and asylum seekers, is preparing to do a double back flip that would make an Olympic diver proud.

Minister for Immigration Chris Bowen admits it’s a backflip. He says he is changing party policy to allow for the excision of the whole of the Australian mainland, including presumably Tasmania and Macquarie Island, just in case any asylum seeker boat ever gets there. He must not be reading the same party policy as I am. The National Conference Platform adopted at the National Conference of the ALP in 2011 included the following statements in Chapter 9, A Fair Go for all Australians:

"26. Labor believes a Human Rights Framework that reflects our international obligations is necessary in reflecting our commitment to fundamental rights across social and economic policies.
We are committed to promoting the awareness and understanding of human rights, supporting the international human rights instruments to which Australia is a signatory, and properly funding the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Labor will adhere to Australia’s international human rights obligations and will seek to have them incorporated into the domestic law of Australia, and have them taken into account in administrative decision-making and whenever new laws and policies are developed."

The National Conference committed us to the Refugee Convention, its values, principles and commitments. It hasn’t met again to revoke this decision. That is how party policy is changed — not at the whim of a minister who is being badly advised by his department. Nor is party policy changed by the perceived demands of a party struggling to drag itself out of the mire of the polls.

But National Conference Policy, to its shame, and because Labor for Refugees could not convince delegates to vote these provisions down, also states:

"153. To support Australia’s strong border security regime, Labor will maintain:
• an architecture of excised offshore places
• the non-statutory processing on Christmas Island of persons who arrive unauthorised at an excised place, except where other arrangements are entered into under bilateral and regional arrangements.
Labor is united in its commitment to prevent further loss of life at sea of vulnerable children, women and men… Such arrangements will result in asylum seekers who arrive both by air and sea being treated the same when it comes to the processing of their claims and access to support while on bridging visas."

Now we know what that "architecture of excised offshore places" and the "bilateral and regional arrangements" really means. Those clauses are supposed to be read in the context of the whole document — but obviously there is some fundamentalist interpretation of the National Conference Platform being undertaken in Canberra.

But note the last sentence. While the Minister several months ago said that those who arrive by air and those who arrive by sea will be treated equally, we are not doing that. We are now going to send those who arrive by sea directly to Nauru and Manus Island, with virtually no legal resources to process their rightful claim for asylum in Australia. Limited internet access for asylum seekers on Nauru — because there are not enough computers — does not allow for the fair preparation of a claim for asylum.

There is another way.

Labor for Refugees recently made a submission to the Houston Panel which set out the following principles as a guide for government action:

• Genuine concern and compassion for the wellbeing and future of asylum seekers who come by boat; alternatives to "dangerous journeys" should not be driven by political considerations. That people are willing to risk their lives in such circumstances is an indicator of desperation. Policy should not be simply motivated by border control and exclusion but a genuine desire to find safer alternatives for people in need of protection.
• Respect for the integrity of the Refugee Convention and the international protection frameworks and compliance with Australia’s legal obligations under the convention and complementary protection legislation
• Respect for the time-honoured maritime principle of rescue at sea above all other considerations. Preservation of lives and prevention of tragedies requires constant vigilance on the part of Australia, in collaboration with Indonesia. Given Australia’s superior capabilities for surveillance and rescue, it is essential that the Australian Maritime and Safety Authority take the lead role rather than relying on the lesser resources of Indonesian maritime authorities in responding to vessels in distress en route to Australia.
• Recognition that punitive policies targeting asylum seekers arriving by boat are contrary to the Refugee Convention by discriminating on the basis of mode of entry.
• Recognition of the profound psychological harm caused to asylum seekers found to be refugees of harsh deterrence policies including offshore internment in remote Nauru and Manus Island and Temporary Protection Visas.
• Recognition of compelling "push" factors including internal conflict and human rights abuses that influence the decision to seek irregular access to Australia’s protection frameworks from source countries such as Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Burma.
• Recognition that the vast majority of asylum seekers who come by boat are found to be in need of protection and are therefore by definition, vulnerable people who have experienced trauma.
• Recognition of the very limited options for asylum seekers in Indonesia and Malaysia in being resettled permanently within a reasonable time-frame; that pathways to resettlement are not well established and supported in the region.
• Recognition that while it is desirable for Australia to control entry, it will not always be possible to achieve this in the context of world-wide forced migration movements.
• Recognition that Australian Government policies such as severe restrictions on refugee family reunion contribute to the number of irregular arrivals.
• That the Bali Process should involve genuine engagement and collaboration with countries of the region aimed at addressing the needs and human rights of asylum seekers and refugees, and raising the standards for protection within the region.

The most ridiculous consequence of all of this is that the Government is failing to stop the boats. Surely the test of any government policy or strategy should be, is it working? So what next?

We need to immediately establish pathways to resettlement from Indonesia. Over the period 2001-2010, Australia has accepted only 56 refugees from Indonesia per year, and only 24 in the past six months. This is despite Indonesia being the primary exit point for boats of asylum seekers to Australia and despite the fact that there are currently 4239 refugees in Indonesia awaiting resettlement. Lack of formal pathways to resettlement is directly contributing to irregular arrivals.

Labor for Refugees recommended to the Houston Panel that 2000 places be allocated annually to resettlement from Indonesia. This would effectively create a queue for resettlement in Australia.

Australia needs to assist with the processing of refugees in Indonesia and the region. This should include increased funding to the UNHCR in Indonesia in particular and processing of applications by the Australian Embassy, with staff preparing reports assessing claims which could then be sent to Immigration for completion. This may necessitate increased staffing levels at the Embassy, with costs offset against a reduction in processing costs on Christmas Island.

We need to assist the UNHCR with the processing of refugees in Indonesia. There were until recently only two people in Indonesia processing refugees, with UNHCR funding expected to be halved over the next few years. If we are serious about stopping people getting on unsafe boats, we need to increase funding to UNHCR and have more people processed in Indonesia, so refugees can see that they will have their claims heard, for free, rather than paying large sums to people smugglers.

Most importantly, as Labor for Refugees in its submission to the Houston Panel emphasised, it is crucial that we learn from the experience of offshore processing and TPVs under the Howard years. If we are genuinely concerned for the welfare of asylum seekers, these policies should not be reintroduced. The so-called Pacific Solution was high cost not only to the Australian taxpayer but in terms of adverse impacts on asylum seekers, most of whom qualified as refugees. The experience of incarceration in remote detention camps re-traumatised these vulnerable people, the majority of whom eventually resettled in Australia.

Can Labor learn? Not if the parliamentary party does not listen to its own party policy making forums. Making policy on the run does not good policy or good government make! If it is obvious that a policy or strategy is not working, then it is time to change direction and implement strategies that can work.

SARAH HANSEN YOUNG'S SPEECH TO SENATE

Posted 19.8.12

Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia) (09:31):  I rise today to speak to the bill currently before this chamber, the Migration Legislation Amendment (Regional Processing and Other Measures) Bill 2012, that proposes to dump vulnerable men, women and children anywhere but here—a proposal put forward by this government that trashes Australia's obligations under international law and, of course, our obligations under the refugee convention. I note that, interestingly, overnight the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, has reminded Australia that our obligations are not optional. Ban Ki-Moon is calling on Australia to do what it is that we have signed up to do: to treat people with dignity, respect, care and compassion when they arrive on our shores desperate for protection and safety.

Australia was the sixth country to sign and ratify the refugee convention in 1954 under Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies. In Geneva on 22 January 1954 Australia's representative to the United Nations called it the Magna Carta of the refugee. He said, 'I am glad now to offer further evidence of our compassionate concern with this problem by formally stating our binding adherence to a convention which will elevate the standard of treatment of refugees to the status of international legal obligation.' Erika Feller, the UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, has said that this convention is 'the wall behind which refugees can shelter'. The importance of this convention and Australia's adherence to its obligations are highly understood by Australians, by members in this place and by the international community.

The reason we are even having this debate on this piece of legislation is because we have vulnerable people fleeing persecution and brutality from places around the world. I want to give you a quick snapshot of one young man who is now living in Melbourne, Hatif, who had to flee the brutality of the Taliban in Afghanistan. He came to Australia seeking our protection and our help. Hatif was 15 when his father was killed by the Taliban. His father was an interpreter for the coalition forces in Afghanistan. His father worked with our own officers, our own brave men and women, in Afghanistan so that they could understand the language, the messages and the important discussions that were being held Afghanistan. His father acted as our interpreter to the local administration of the leaders in Afghanistan. For that, it cost him a very high price: his father was killed by the Taliban. And the Taliban left a note on his father's body saying that his teenage son would be next.

Hatif speaks very good English, and being the son of an English interpreter who had worked for the armed forces in Afghanistan made him a direct target once his father had been killed. His mother, sadly, realised that she would have to get Hatif out of Afghanistan if he was to survive. He was detained on Christmas Island after arriving in Australia by boat. He is now doing brilliantly at a local school in Melbourne—he is the top of the class in specialist maths and IT. He wants to be an engineer for Australia, but he desperately misses his family. I have written to the minister about Hatif, about the fact that his family cannot arrive here because there is no effective family reunion for him. Regardless of the fact that he had no choice but to flee his country, the minister's bill is going to make it even harder for Hatif and people like him to seek the protection they deserve, the protection they need.

We have a debate in this country about the pull and push factors. The push factors are the persecutions, the brutality and the torture that the individual refugees have to flee. The pull factor is that Australia is a signatory to the refugee convention which, when we signed in 1954 under the Menzies government, we proudly stood by and said that it was because we understood compassion was important. That is the pull factor—that Australians live proudly in a fair country where we look after one another, where the vulnerable have a safety net. That is the pull factor in this debate.

The deterrence is the awful decision that refugees make to flee their homelands in the first place and take that dangerous journey. The deterrent is having to make the decision to leave, however that is done, whether in the dead of night or in the morning, and whether you take your family with you, where you go, who will accept you and what is the best avenue for safety. Having to make that decision to leave your home, your family, your community is the deterrent.
Unfortunately we have got ourselves into an awful state of affairs where both sides of this place and the other have locked themselves into a delusion that if we can deter refugees from seeking protection that somehow that relieves us of our obligations to help others. When there are no durable solutions for refugees, when there is no ability for safety after they have left their homelands, refugees will continue to flee and they will continue to run until they feel safe. Pakistan, where many of the Afghan refugees have been hiding in fear of the Taliban, is pushing those refugees back. They are no longer safe in Pakistan and they move on to the next place. They move to Malaysia, they move to Europe, they move to Indonesia.

In our region there is no protection for these people under law except for those countries that have signed the refugee convention. Many of the people are not even able to come to Australia by plane because we do not offer them visas to get here. If you are from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran or from Syria, the government believes that you are at high risk of applying for asylum and you will not be given a visa to fly into this country. Our whole policy is designed to force people onto boats. The government does not want to talk about that because they would prefer to have the tussle with the opposition about deterring people who need our help from even asking for it. That is what this whole debate is about. We do not want these refugees here. That is what the minister's legislation says. It is what John Howard's legislation said. John Howard said that he wanted the right to decide who came into this country and the means by which they came. This legislation says that the government will decide, and if you are a refugee coming by boat you will not be allowed into this country. This is John Howard's legislation, make no mistakes about it.

There are a lot of mistruths about this issue. I heard the leader of the chamber here from the opposition, Senator Abetz, say yesterday that there is a 'tsunami' of refugees coming to Australia. That is a lie. It is not true. He knows that it is not true. Australia takes less than two per cent of the world's refugees. There is no tsunami. There are a number of boats of very poor, desperate people who have been forced to take that journey because they have no other, safer option.
The expert panel asked for submissions from experts in this field, and they got submission after submission after submission that outlined what could be done to save lives now. We need to be looking at what worked in the Fraser government years. We need to be looking at how at that very particular time—and there were many, many more people desperate for protection in our region—we managed their needs from a humanitarian perspective. We assessed people's claims effectively where they were with a commitment to take those who genuinely needed our help. We did not wait for them to board a dangerous leaky boat only then to be shunted off out of sight out of mind because the reality was we never wanted them here anyway. We had true leadership that said Australia is a signatory to the refugee convention and we will abide by our obligations. We would work with our regional neighbours to assess people's claims and keep them safe while that application process was undertaken, and then welcome them into our communities.

We asked other countries to take them too. They went to Canada and the United States, and many, many of them came to Australia.
We took tens of thousands Vietnamese refugees back in those days because it was the right thing to do. The members of this place had the courage to do the right thing.

This bill that is currently before this chamber has nothing of our courage in it at all. It lacks courage, but is all about cruelty; it lacks compassion, but is all about harm; and it lacks decency, but is all based on a lie that these people do not have rights, that they are not our responsibility and that if we be as mean as we possibly can that will deter them. It is simply not the truth.

The countries from which these people are fleeing are places like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Sri Lanka and, increasingly, Syria. These are people who we know are fleeing places where they are brutalised—places of persecution. They are not here simply because they thought it was the easy option. It is the hard option; it is a hard thing to decide to leave your family, to leave your community, to leave your home and to flee in fear of your life. That is not an easy option. That takes courage, that takes bravery and that takes a commitment to humanity—to save the lives of your family.

They are the people who, over the generations, have made this country great. People who understood hardship, loyalty and resilience. These are the people who have built this country, who have contributed so much to this country and who will continue to do so. When young Hatif becomes an engineer he will be a fine engineer. He will probably be rebuilding the infrastructure that this country desperately needs for the future, because he understands loyalty, commitment and hard work.

The Houston report included many important recommendations, none of which this government or the opposition have said any word of since Monday. Where is the commitment to increase our refugee intake immediately? Where is the plan to resettle those who have been waiting for years in Indonesia? Where in this legislation is our commitment to upholding our commitment under the convention to treat people properly, to ensure that they are housed appropriately, to ensure that they have access to legal assistance and to ensure that we do not detain children? None of that stuff, none of those important safeguards which are listed in the Houston report, are in this legislation. The government says that they are implementing the Houston report and they have not even bothered to read the detail of the recommendations.

We can be doing things now to save people's lives. Those who submitted to the Houston panel said it very clearly: increase the ability to assess people's claims and give them an opportunity to apply for protection in Australia in the places where they are. We know they are in Malaysia and we know they are in Indonesia; commit to doing that there and bring them safely to Australia. This debate has become riddled with this issue of saving lives at sea. If we were saving lives at sea we would be bringing these people safely to our shores. We would be giving them an opportunity to apply for protection safely in the places where they are waiting, scared, frightened, helpless and desperate. And yet that is not what this legislation is about. This is going back to the horrors that we know happened in Nauru and Manus Island. It is not by staring into the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup that we know these things will happen, because they have happened before.

Mr Deputy President, before I wrap-up I will table these really important pictures that were drawn by children last time they were detained on Nauru. Indefinite detention damages children, indefinite detention violates children's rights and indefinite detention kills people. This legislation will not save lives; this legislation will kill people. It will send brave, courageous and resilient people insane. We know it will because it did last time. Rather than learning from the mistakes of the past and learning from what worked in history, like the leadership that was taken by the former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, this government have lost their way. This government have lost their moral compass. This government are doing what Tony Abbott asked for, and Tony Abbott cannot be trusted on people's human rights. Tony Abbott wants to be as cruel as possible to the most vulnerable people who reach our shores. I condemn the bill, and we will not be supporting it in this place.
I seek leave to table the documents I referred to.
Leave granted.

----------

LABOR FOR REFUGEES SUBMISSION TO HOUSTON

SUBMISSION TO THE EXPERT PANEL ON ASYLUM SEEKERS

Introduction

Since 1992 successive Australian Governments have tried to discourage asylum seekers coming to Australia and thus avoid our obligations under the Refugee Convention to provide protection to asylum seekers. This was done by the introduction of mandatory detention, temporary protection visas, the excision of islands from our migration zone, and by sending asylum seekers to Nauru and Manus Island. Changes made by the Rudd Labor Government were intended to eliminate the most extreme elements of harsh deterrence. The stalemate in the present policy proposals provides an opportunity to completely rethink the way we treat asylum seekers and to implement a more humanitarian asylum seeker policy.

What the objectives of Australia’s asylum seeker policy should be

1.      Comply with the principles of the Refugee Convention

2.      Respect the human rights of asylum seekers and refugees

3.      Comply with the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child and complementary protection legislation

4.      Establish alternative pathways to resettlement that discourages asylum seekers travelling to Australia onboard unseaworthy boats

5.      Show compassion to people in distress

6.      Avoid costly long term detention of asylum seekers in offshore detention camps that are known to cause psychological distress and long term harm

Suggested policy

Ensure all asylum seekers are promptly assessed in the region (with the right of review)

Provide security check refugees (with the right of appeal) before they come to Australia.

Promptly bring asylum seekers accepted as refugees to Australia in substantially increased numbers.

Make it easier for refugees to have family reunion in Australia.

Increase capacity within the above policy framework to fund asylum seeker programmes including providing accurate information to the Australian population regarding refugee issues and to combat racism.

Overview

Labor for Refugees understands that the expert panel has been requested to provide advice and recommendations on policy options aimed at preventing asylum seekers risking their lives on ‘dangerous boat journeys’ to Australia.

Labor for Refugees is an organisation with a very extensive membership of committed people who deal with asylum seekers on a day to day basis. Our members have the benefit of understanding the motivations and reasons for asylum seekers embarking on dangerous sea journeys, because we talk to those people and we have their confidence.

Labor for Refugees is very concerned that in order for the Panel to make recommendations which will be effective, it must understand the motivation for asylum seekers embarking on sea journeys. We believe that this understanding is lacking in the debate. There is one key point that our members want the Panel to appreciate, which is that asylum seekers get on boats because when they arrive in Indonesia they are told that they will not be processed for protection in Australia for more than 10 years. That is why families get on boats. They see their children's future evaporate.

It is vital to understand that this key factor, which motivates asylum seekers to embark on sea journeys, is a product of an artificial and deliberate policy of successive Governments to restrict the places for resettlement of those who are refugees present in Indonesia.

The two key facts, not appreciated by many to whom we have spoken, are these:

            Australia only settles an average of 56 refugees from Indonesia per year;

            There are only 4,239 asylum seekers present in Indonesia.

Given the small number of asylum seekers who make it to Indonesia, there is simply no justification for the restriction of places which creates the delays that motivate people to embark on sea journeys. If we are to break the 'people smuggler's business model' we must give people a 'queue' to join. 

If the proportion of resettlement places allocated to Indonesia is increased to a more reasonable level, say 2,000, then Australian officials could tell asylum seekers that they could expect to be processed in 2 years by Australian Embassy officials (as opposed to the 2 UNHCR officers currently burdened with the caseload).

In our experience, the key cause of desperation amongst asylum seekers is uncertainty and the absence of a clear and defined pathway. If that desperation can be removed we believe that the motivation to take boat journeys will be removed.

Further, the increase in resettlement from Indonesia is likely to be offset against reductions in visas to boat arrivals, as people will no longer embark on sea journeys. 

This proposal will not create any 'honeypot' effect in Indonesia. There are considerable logistical difficulties which already prevent people from reaching Indonesia; that will not change. The ‘honeypot’argument against giving refugees safe passage from Indonesia ignores the difficulties that refugees experience in getting to Indonesia: the cost, time, their health, their ability to travel etc. Note that almost all of the asylum seekers in Malaysia and Thailand are from Myanmar and asylum seekers from Myanmar cannot get to Indonesia because movement outside of refugee camps in both countries is heavily restricted.

In the 1970’s, resettlement pathways were established for asylum seekers, enabling them to be  assessed in countries of first asylum (Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong); this did not result in a flood of asylum seekers and there is no reason to think that it would be different now.

Indeed, if it is accepted that the current policy settings involve maximum pull factors for people to travel by boat to Australia, then it must be accepted that the maximum pull factors for people to go to Indonesia already exist; and yet the numbers there are still small and there no substantial increase in people in Indonesia in recent times. The 'honeypot' argument should be rejected.

In fact, it will be in the interests of Indonesia to clear as many people through a better resettlement process to Australia.

We see this Panel as offering the only potential to provide a circuit breaker to what has been a toxic and false debate. This is a real opportunity for the true underlying problem to be addressed in a sensible way as we have proposed.

Guiding Principles for Reform

In undertaking this task, we urge that the panel adopt the following principles as a guide:

·         Genuine concern and compassion for the wellbeing and future of asylum seekers who come by boat; alternatives to ‘dangerous journeys’ should not be driven by political considerations. That people are willing to risk their lives in such circumstances is an indicator of desperation. Policy should not be simply motivated by border control and exclusion but a genuine desire to find safer alternatives for people in need of protection.

·         Respect for the integrity of the Refugee Convention and the international protection frameworks and compliance with Australia’s legal obligations under the convention and complementary protection legislation

·         Respect for the time-honoured maritime principle of rescue at sea above all other considerations. Preservation of lives and prevention of tragedies requires constant vigilance on the part of Australia, in collaboration with Indonesia. Given Australia’s superior capabilities for surveillance and rescue, it is essential that the Australian Maritime and Safety Authority take the lead role rather than relying on the lesser resources of Indonesian maritime authorities in responding to vessels in distress en route to Australia.

·         Recognition that punitive policies targeting asylum seekers arriving by boat are contrary to the Refugee Convention by discriminating on the basis of mode of entry

·         Recognition of the profound psychological harm caused to asylum seekers found to be refugees of harsh deterrence policies including offshore internment in remote Nauru and Manus Island and Temporary Protection Visas.

·         Recognition of  compelling ‘push’ factors including internal conflict and human rights abuses that influence the decision to seek irregular access to Australia’s protection frameworks from source countries such as Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Burma

·         Recognition that the vast majority of asylum seekers who come by boat are found to be in need of protection and are therefore by definition, vulnerable people who have experienced trauma

·         Recognition of the very limited options for asylum seekers in Indonesia and Malaysia in being resettled permanently within a reasonable time-frame; that pathways to resettlement are not well established and supported in the region

·         Recognition that while it is desirable for Australia to control entry, it will not always be possible to achieve this in the context of world-wide forced migration movements

·         Recognition that Australian Government policies such as severe restrictions on refugee family reunion contribute to the number of irregular arrivals

·         That the Bali Process should involve genuine engagement and collaboration with countries of the region aimed at addressing the needs and human rights of asylum seekers and refugees, and raising the standards for protection within the region.

Labor for Refugees is concerned that the overheated public discourse and politicisation of refugee and asylum seekers policy is extremely damaging, undermining the status of refugees and asylum seekers in the community and harming their chances for successful settlement. It also damages the prospect of balanced decision-making on policy, distorting public perceptions about the numbers of people seeking asylum. Australia’s geographic isolation means that relatively few asylum seekers will actually make it to Australian shores. The most recent UNHCR statistics for 2011 show that Australia recognised 5,726 asylum seekers as refugees in 2011, just 0.56% of all individuals and groups recognised as refugees globally. The vast majority of refugees and asylum seekers continue to be hosted by developing countries.

Measures to prevent asylum seekers risking journeys by boat

1.      Immediately establish pathways to resettlement from Indonesia. Over the period 2001-2010, Australia has accepted only 56 refugees from Indonesia per year, and only 24 in the past six months. This is despite Indonesia being the primary exit point for boats of asylum seekers to Australia and despite the fact that there are currently 4, 239 refugees in Indonesia awaiting resettlement. Lack of formal pathways to resettlement is directly contributing to irregular arrivals. Labor for Refugees recommends that 2000 places be allocated annually to resettlement from Indonesia. This would effectively create a queue for resettlement in Australia.

2.      Assist with the processing of refugees in Indonesia and the region. This should include increased funding to the UNHCR in Indonesia in particular and processing of applications by the Australian Embassy, with staff preparing reports assessing claims which could then be sent to Immigration for completion. This may necessitate increased staffing levels at the Embassy, with costs offset against a reduction in processing costs on Christmas Island.

3.      Currently, there are only TWO people in Indonesia processing refugees, with UNHCR funding expected to be halved over the next few years. If we are serious about stopping people getting on unsafe boats, we need to increase funding to UNHCR and have more people processed in Indonesia, so refugees can see that they will have their claims heard, for free, rather than paying large sums to people smugglers.

4.      Increase the refugee intake to Australia to 20,000. This would allow Australia to offer a more regularised process of resettlement from countries of the region whilst also continuing to resettle refugees from other zones of conflict. The offshore component, 6000 places annually, of the refugee and humanitarian quota of 13,750 offers little flexibility to achieve this. Labor for Refugees supported the proposed increase of 4000 extra places for resettlement from Malaysia, but we do not support under any circumstances the return of asylum seekers to Malaysia.

5.      Create a separate quota for preferential and concessional refugee family reunion in the Family stream of the annual migration program. Labor for Refugees supports the de-linking of sponsored places for family reunion, including split family members, under the Refugee and Humanitarian quota, and the creation of a separate category allowing for increased refugee family reunion in the annual migration program. This is a policy response which could be implemented almost immediately. The Refugee Council of Australia and other agencies have identified the lack of opportunity for family reunion as a significant factor contributing to irregular arrivals. The cost of family reunion is now prohibitive for refugees in Australia, with the Special Humanitarian program providing the primary option to bring separated family members to Australia. The linking of the humanitarian quota to the acceptance of asylum seekers as onshore refugees means that places are reduced for family reunion. This not only distorts the refugee and humanitarian program, it also creates artificial (and damaging) competition between refugees and asylum seekers. Other major resettlement countries do not link offshore and onshore refugee programs and make separate provision for family reunion.

6.      Regional cooperation. The recent tragedies involving sinking of boats highlights the urgency for Australia to work collaboratively and constructively with neighbours in our region to find solutions to refugee movement and protection. The Bali Process should not be used merely for the purposes of achieving exclusion of asylum seekers from Australia by thwarting boat departures but should aim to extend, through inter-country cooperation, access to protection and resettlement for refugees. This includes accelerated processing and support for refugees and asylum seekers living in the region, including access to housing, health, education and employment. Enduring solutions are needed which enhance protection and minimise harm to vulnerable people.

7. Cost advantage of onshore processing. Processing of refugees onshore will work out to be ten times cheaper than processing a refugee in Nauru or Christmas Island and will avoid the potential for substantial litigation. The money which is saved by way of onshore processing of refugees can then be used for a range of other considerations, including funding to UNHCR, building facilities for processing and even go towards the cost of settling refugees in the community.

8. Labor for Refugees vigorously opposes:

·         Return of asylum seekers to Malaysia

·         Offshore processing on Nauru or Manus Island

·         Reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas

·         Towing boats back to sea/enforced return to Indonesia

9. It is crucial that we learn from the experience of offshore processing and TPVs under the Howard years. If we are genuinely concerned for the welfare of asylum seekers, these policies must not be reintroduced. The so-called Pacific Solution was high cost not only to the Australian taxpayer but in terms of adverse impacts on asylum seekers, most of whom qualified as refugees. The experience of incarceration in remote detention camps re-traumatised these vulnerable people, the majority of whom eventually resettled in Australia. The devastating mental health and family impacts of TPVs is well documented. The reintroduction of TPVs would be  intentionally harsh and punitive, contrary to the Refugee Convention and would target only those coming by boat. The exclusion of family reunion created a direct incentive for women and children to come by boat. It is well known that most of the passengers who drowned on the SIEV-X were seeking to reunite with family members.