The following response to a letter from Amnesty and ACT Refugee Action Committee members was received from the ALP Campaign Information Services. It sets out the current position on asylum seekers.
"Firstly, Labor would end the Howard Government's so called 'Pacific Solution' and shut down the detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island (PNG).
The Nauru immigration detention facility is currently costing Australian taxpayers more than $2 million per month. Since its inception, the Nauru and Manus Island centres (known as the ‘Pacific Solution’) have cost Australians more than $270 million.
Previous experience shows us that the vast majority of asylum seekers sent to Nauru end up being brought to Australia anyway, despite this Government’s extreme rhetoric to the contrary. Individuals simply suffer in the interim.
Labor supports the continued use of Christmas Island as an immigration processing facility. Labor believes in an orderly immigration program. It is strongly opposed to any form of people smuggling.
Australia must at the same time honour its international obligations and ensure that we treat people with decency. Labor would maintain the new immigration processing centre being constructed on Christmas Island for the purpose of health, identity and security checks for those seeking asylum. Labor would take action to end the private contracts which run Australia’s immigration detention centres and return the management of Christmas Island and the mainland detention centres to public administration.
Children would not be placed in any immigration detention centre.
As with processing on the mainland, all asylum claims at the Christmas Island facility would be processed within 90 days.
They would be processed, including review, using similar methods of processing as used by the UNHCR. If they are not found to be in need of protection they would be immediately returned. If they are found to be refugees then a durable solution would be provided.
Labor supported for very good reason the excisions of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Ashmore Reef and Christmas Island because they were in a very different position to every other offshore island and in a completely different position to the Australian mainland. These islands are the nearest Australian land to the areas of Indonesia where the people smugglers operated.
September 2007 was the sixth anniversary of SIEV-X, when hundreds of people drowned on their way to Australia. This was a people-smuggling operation that took advantage of the desperation of those people, in boats filled largely with women and children, headed not to the Australian mainland but to places like Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Island and Ashmore Reef.
Labor supported that excision for one very precise reason: to take action against the people-smuggling operations that were causing such misery and hardship for so many people.
Labor will also end the policy of Temporary Protection Visas (TPV). This change was adopted in pursuance of a very simple principle - that when people fleeing persecution reach Australia, that persecution must end.
Temporary protection visas do not allow the holder to sponsor their spouse or children to reunite or visit them in Australia. Despite its original intention the visa ended up encouraging asylum seekers to approach people smugglers.
When temporary protection visas were introduced the number of boats travelling to Australia actually went up.
In the years since their introduction we have seen that temporary protection visa holders can be emotionally, physically and financially disadvantaged by the temporary nature of their visas. Temporary protection visa holders experience uncertainty and a sense of isolation that can result in deteriorating mental health.
Ultimately the vast majority of temporary protection visa holders eventually gain permanent protection.
A Labor Government would abolish the system of temporary protection visas."
The 16 Indonesians recently plucked from the sea are being held on Christmas Island. The full circumstances of their case are not known, except that they are from a fishing community that has had its livelihood curtailed by Australian action on illegal fishing.
This presents a clear example of how punitive action to protect Australia's interests can have severe social and economic outcomes for neighbouring peoples. It underlines how important it is to take an integrated and holistic approach to issues such as illegal fishing. The downstream consequences of protecting our borders need to be fully understood. Loss of income can have savage consequences for communities largely dependent on subsistence activities. For instance, loans taken to generate additional income from fishing will have to be repaid. Sudden loss of income might have serious implications that are not merely economic and might explain why people would uproot themselves from their traditional lifestyle.
Australia's refugee policy cannot operate in a vacuum if it is to meet the human rights obligations of good international citizenship.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Monday, December 03, 2007
Human Rights in Australia - Pacific Solution to be abolished but we still have a long way to go on refugees
The Age reports "While Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd has claimed the Pacific solution is wrong and would be discontinued, asylum seekers intercepted outside of the migration zone would have their claims assessed on Christmas Island, not the mainland.
This would retain the two-tiered processing system, with those processed offshore remaining outside of Australian law and treated differently to those processed on the mainland, which refugee advocates say is unacceptable.
Under the new Government, Christmas Island, Cocos Island and Ashmore Reef will remain excised from Australia's migration zone.
The Government would search for a "durable solution" for boat people processed on Christmas Island and found to be genuine refugees, which could include resettling them in Australia.
However, shortly before the election, Mr Rudd refused to commit to Australia taking the 72 Sri Lankan refugees held on Nauru. He has also pledged to turn boats back at sea.
The Government is yet to commit to a deadline to closing the Nauru and Manus Island camps and transferring the 89 on Nauru to Christmas Island."
A Just Australia has set out a reform strategy for "the road ahead".
This would retain the two-tiered processing system, with those processed offshore remaining outside of Australian law and treated differently to those processed on the mainland, which refugee advocates say is unacceptable.
Under the new Government, Christmas Island, Cocos Island and Ashmore Reef will remain excised from Australia's migration zone.
The Government would search for a "durable solution" for boat people processed on Christmas Island and found to be genuine refugees, which could include resettling them in Australia.
However, shortly before the election, Mr Rudd refused to commit to Australia taking the 72 Sri Lankan refugees held on Nauru. He has also pledged to turn boats back at sea.
The Government is yet to commit to a deadline to closing the Nauru and Manus Island camps and transferring the 89 on Nauru to Christmas Island."
A Just Australia has set out a reform strategy for "the road ahead".
Friday, November 30, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Post-Election 2007 - both reflection and change needed
Well, the bloggers were largely right and the journalists are still scratching around for a narrative.
In a landslide, Australia has elected its 3rd Labor Government from opposition since WW2. A sense of relief is washing over the land - it is palpable on the air waves. Howard has brought himself and his party undone.
His policies toward refugees wrought immense change in my life. The alarming shift this country took in 2001 made be angry and dispirited. I felt the moral and ethical basis of our commitment to protect human rights had been compromised, and that vulnerable human beings in need of help had become pawns in a ruthless political agenda.
Refugee issues remain a concern and I plan to advocate and track changes to Australia's refugee laws. We can do so much better on so many fronts. I hope Kevin Rudd provides an enabling environment for community to heal itself.
In a landslide, Australia has elected its 3rd Labor Government from opposition since WW2. A sense of relief is washing over the land - it is palpable on the air waves. Howard has brought himself and his party undone.
His policies toward refugees wrought immense change in my life. The alarming shift this country took in 2001 made be angry and dispirited. I felt the moral and ethical basis of our commitment to protect human rights had been compromised, and that vulnerable human beings in need of help had become pawns in a ruthless political agenda.
Refugee issues remain a concern and I plan to advocate and track changes to Australia's refugee laws. We can do so much better on so many fronts. I hope Kevin Rudd provides an enabling environment for community to heal itself.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Election 2007 - Dirty tricks take centre stage on eve of Election
The last days of a government reveal many things. A sure government would review its performance, play to its strengths and seek to unite.
Tricky, manipulative dissinformation games are afoot. Its not pretty, but it suggests a mindset that has flourished during the Howard years. Wedge politics are nasty. Attacks on the union movement and disregard for civil society have characterised the Howard experiment.
At this election civil action has played a large role in keeping key human relations issues to the fore. Human rights, conservation and new directions in human capital investment are centre stage at this Election. Investment in social and economic infrastructure has declined over the last decade. Public disinvestment in key areas of education have held us back. Action on refugees and legislation with inadequate human rights protections has shone a light on the Howard Govt record.
Tricky, manipulative dissinformation games are afoot. Its not pretty, but it suggests a mindset that has flourished during the Howard years. Wedge politics are nasty. Attacks on the union movement and disregard for civil society have characterised the Howard experiment.
At this election civil action has played a large role in keeping key human relations issues to the fore. Human rights, conservation and new directions in human capital investment are centre stage at this Election. Investment in social and economic infrastructure has declined over the last decade. Public disinvestment in key areas of education have held us back. Action on refugees and legislation with inadequate human rights protections has shone a light on the Howard Govt record.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Election 2007 - How can Australians elect a man the hacks don't know? - duh!
A quick round of the ABC shows this morning continues to reveal the hacks from the 'club' just don't get why Australia wants to throw Howard out. For years they have been in thrall to Howard. They have treated the electorate like fools, failing to examine forensically the toxic effects of the Howard experiment.
We have been subject to a radical reactionary agenda that has taken Australia away from the political middle ground. The bully boys and girls have been chucking everything but the kitchen sink at Labor during the campaign. 'Union devils', 'neo-communists', 'centralists' (oh not that one!) and 'just who is Kevin Rudd?'.
What the hacks don't understand is that a large percentage of Australians have finally seen through Howard, despite their (ie the hacks) lazy work on the subject, and they don't like what they see. Howard hides his real self with consummate ease, but just a casual survey of changes wrought on his watch reveals a determination to 'americanize' our society and economy. The 'Thatcherites' were much the same. Its the economy stupid and nothing else matters.
I believe profoundly that much else besides the relative utility of human beings as units of production matters if you want to strengthen community and the social underpinnings of the body politic. I'm afraid the 'insider' hacks spend too much time around the political makers & shakers who have lost sight of what matters. This would explain why human rights considerations dropped off the radar of politicians and their pamphleteers caught in the 'Howard zone'.
We need to restore a sense of hope and optimism to this scorched land.
We have been subject to a radical reactionary agenda that has taken Australia away from the political middle ground. The bully boys and girls have been chucking everything but the kitchen sink at Labor during the campaign. 'Union devils', 'neo-communists', 'centralists' (oh not that one!) and 'just who is Kevin Rudd?'.
What the hacks don't understand is that a large percentage of Australians have finally seen through Howard, despite their (ie the hacks) lazy work on the subject, and they don't like what they see. Howard hides his real self with consummate ease, but just a casual survey of changes wrought on his watch reveals a determination to 'americanize' our society and economy. The 'Thatcherites' were much the same. Its the economy stupid and nothing else matters.
I believe profoundly that much else besides the relative utility of human beings as units of production matters if you want to strengthen community and the social underpinnings of the body politic. I'm afraid the 'insider' hacks spend too much time around the political makers & shakers who have lost sight of what matters. This would explain why human rights considerations dropped off the radar of politicians and their pamphleteers caught in the 'Howard zone'.
We need to restore a sense of hope and optimism to this scorched land.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Post-Election 2007 - A Royal Commission into the operation of the Immigration Dept is needed
This blog has called repeatedly for a Royal Commission into immigration policies and programs of the Howard Govt.
The RC Terms of Reference should include, but not be limited to, an investigation of:
1. implementation of the Pacific Solution (this of course should encompass the role and use of official aid)
2. wrongful detention of refugees and permanent residents of Australia
3. operation and financing of detention facilities on the mainland and offshore
4. wrongful repatriation of asylum seekers
5. influence of political staffers and Ministers in the determination of immigration decisions
6. role of the Prime Minister's task force on 'illegal' migration
7. influence of 'understandings' and 'deals' with neighbouring countries on the management of Australia's refugee policies and programs
This is enough to go on with. I for one would be pleased to give evidence before such a Royal Commission on the part that official aid played in the operation of the Pacific Solution.
The RC Terms of Reference should include, but not be limited to, an investigation of:
1. implementation of the Pacific Solution (this of course should encompass the role and use of official aid)
2. wrongful detention of refugees and permanent residents of Australia
3. operation and financing of detention facilities on the mainland and offshore
4. wrongful repatriation of asylum seekers
5. influence of political staffers and Ministers in the determination of immigration decisions
6. role of the Prime Minister's task force on 'illegal' migration
7. influence of 'understandings' and 'deals' with neighbouring countries on the management of Australia's refugee policies and programs
This is enough to go on with. I for one would be pleased to give evidence before such a Royal Commission on the part that official aid played in the operation of the Pacific Solution.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Human Rights in Australia - Another immigration horror story comes to light
SBS & ABC reported tonight on the case of Tony Tranh. The story should make the blood of decent minded Australians run cold. His is the latest case to come to light of unlawful and mistaken detainment at Baxter Detention Centre.
Immigration's deportation of Tony Tranh's wife and son without his notification - and the far reaching impact of years of mistaken detainment on Mr Tranh's mental and physical health and livelihood - are difficult to comprehend.
Please write to your local MP and to the major party leaders expressing your concern and contempt for this injustice. You might like to seek advice on
1. what steps are being taken by the Australian Government and DIAC to offer compensation and assistance to Mr Tranh and his son, and to resolve the issue of Tony Tranh's so called 'statelessness?
2. what steps are being taken to investigate DIAC's breach of procedural guidelines in this case?
Immigration's deportation of Tony Tranh's wife and son without his notification - and the far reaching impact of years of mistaken detainment on Mr Tranh's mental and physical health and livelihood - are difficult to comprehend.
Please write to your local MP and to the major party leaders expressing your concern and contempt for this injustice. You might like to seek advice on
1. what steps are being taken by the Australian Government and DIAC to offer compensation and assistance to Mr Tranh and his son, and to resolve the issue of Tony Tranh's so called 'statelessness?
2. what steps are being taken to investigate DIAC's breach of procedural guidelines in this case?
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