OPINION PIECE - REFUGEE POLICY
OPINION PIECE
20th April 2009
Australia has long been one of the most generous hosts to people found to be refugees, displaced and in need of a long term resolution of their circumstances.
To achieve this outcome, Australia has conducted its Refugee and Special Humanitarian program for the resettlement task.. Few countries provide such relief and Australia is the second largest contributor per capita in the world.
The UNHCR tells us there are more than 10 million displaced people worldwide who require protection from being returned to their country of origin. However, not all are in need of resettlement places. Choices have to be made as in total fewer than 150,000 places are available annually in developed countries. From time to time, some who do not face imminent danger , some who are not refugees at all, seek to travel to a country where they believe their future prospects are best served and do so unlawfully engaging people smugglers to assist them in that effort.
In the current debate some argue that the present increase in numbers seeking to access Australia without lawful authority are a result of a deterioration in security situation in certain countries.
These are described as the “push” factors. While the intensity of the these factors vary, they are always present. Iraq today is more hospitable to its people while Afghanistan and Sri Lanka are perhaps less so, and Iran remains about the same. It is disingenuous of the Rudd Government to argue that the present increase in arrivals is as a result of such push factors.
The other side of the equation are the “pull” factors. They are matters which an Australia Government can address by making us either a more or less attractive destination. Recent changes in policy have made us more attractive. They are three in number –
· The abandonment of Temporary Protection visas. Their purpose was to give those who arrived through Refugee and Special Humanitarian program greater benefits than those who engaged people smugglers.
· They abandoned the Pacific Solution and in doing so enhanced people smugglers marketing that they could successfully bring people here.
· The abridged processing where people – some not refugees – are released into the community while the Government only seeks to assess health and character issues. While unauthorised arrivals are detained, this fuels the perception that even if you are not a refugee, you have successfully reached Australia.
The Howard Government had few options other than to reduce the potency of pull factors. Indonesia, while well-disposed to Australia, was unwilling to operate detention centres for onshore processing there. This view may have changed and this could in fact be Kevin Rudd’s “Pacific Solution”. It does require change of law in Indonesia, something which I know from experience does not happen quickly.
Border protection is not easy. Our primary international obligation is not to return people found to be refugees to situations of persecution. We never have done so but the only measures the Government has in its arsenal are those which address pull factors.
If the Government is unwilling or unable to address the issue, present increase in unauthorised border arrivals will be seen in months to come as a mere trickle. Inevitably such a failure in policy will lead to increasingly fraught ventures being attempted. Marginal operators will be more emboldened and inevitably more people will die on treacherous seas and some even as a result of sabotage designed to force rescue and possible passage to Australia.
It is always tragic when people die, as we have recently seen happen. Their grief, to which we all relate, should not cloud our view about how this has occurred nor sap our resolve to bring this insidious trade in human beings to an end.
Hon Philip Ruddock MP
Federal Member for Berowra