Forgotten on Nauru

My interest in asylum seeker issues gathered pace as Director of the aid program put in place to leverage Nauru’s part in the policy to keep boat people outside Australia’s immigration zone, otherwise known as the ‘pacific solution’ (a term attracting growing infamy).

From a paltry few scholarships per annum, post Tampa the Australian taxpayers have been footing a huge bill to keep Nauru on side. Nauru is a failed state. It was a failed state prior to the AusAID and DIMIA funding that forms the ongoing ‘bribe’ to keep the detention camps open on Nauru. The plight of asylum seekers detained on this benighted speck of guano continues in our name, paid for by our taxes.

Prominent refugee advocate, Julian Burnside QC, reminded Australians of the grave implications of these actions on Nauru The Age (27 March 2005):

"Julian Burnside QC said it was not an offence to arrive in Australia without a visa and ask for asylum. Yet the government was locking up asylum seekers and their children without charge for years, ostensibly to send a message to people smugglers, he said.

"None of these people have committed an offence, so by definition we've got innocent people held in jail for three years plus," Mr Burnside told the Ten Network's Meet The Press program."We're jailing innocent human beings and we're jailing them in order to send a message to other people. Now the mistreatment of innocent human beings to mould the behaviour of others is seriously bad conduct and it's conduct which most people would not approve of.”

"It's the sort of thing that hostage takers do. It's the sort of thing that terrorists do."

Mr Burnside said the message seemed to have got through to the people smugglers, with no new arrivals recently. “From now on, the cruelty seems to be quite pointless," he said. "We know that the people who are held in immigration detention have not committed any offence. Quite frankly, if they had committed an offence, do you think that any court would sentence children to three years imprisonment for coming along with their parents without a visa? Of course they wouldn't. It is not an offence to arrive in Australia without a visa and ask for asylum."

Mr Burnside said the only place the laws could be tested would be in the International Criminal Court."But more importantly I think this has got to be exposed in the court of public opinion," he said. "What we're doing to innocent asylum seekers fails every test of democratic principle."