|
September 2, 2011
The conventional wisdom in Canberra about how to respond to asylum seekers arriving by boat is that the only viable public policy is one of ever increasing toughness and hostility. Toughness for the ALP is mandatory detention, offshore processing and harsh treatment of refugees; or, for the right wing faction in the ALP, simply adopting the Coalition's policy hollis bollus.
The common ground between both the major sides of politics is to keep a cordon sanitaire around Australia against asylum seekers to keep them out. At Inside Story Peter Browne usefully reminds us about the significance of 'Fortress Australia' in the conservative political imaginary, or the collective repertoire of collective forms---mythological, rhetorical, narrative etc of the nation state.
He says that:
it’s important to remember that the issue as it’s currently framed belongs to Coalition. John Howard invested enormous energy and vast amounts of public money in his quest to transform a relatively small number of boat arrivals – most of them eventually found to be refugees – into an existential threat...The hardening of Labor’s position since then hasn’t created a sense that Labor is just as tough as the Coalition; it has created a sense that Labor thinks the Coalition was right all along.
Browne's argument is that Labor has let the Coalition set the terms of the debate. He adds:
the [Gillard] government has been trying to match the Howard government’s reputation for “toughness.” This is a dead end for Labor: the opposition will always find shortcomings in its measures, regardless of how harsh they are, and the government will constantly be on the defensive. And for what electoral gain?
This creates a problem for the Gillard Government: where do they go now that the High Court has vetoed the Malaysian Solution? Swallow a bitter pill and adopt the Coalition's policy, even though the entire offshore processing system might have seen its last days?
Or remember that a regional approach to an assessment centre for asylum seekers within a regional cooperation framework is the right option that it was working towards adopting the Malaysian solution. On this model refugee protection needs to be part of a regional response to irregular movement and asylum seekers in three key areas: processing and case management, resettlement and burden sharing, and repatriation of persons not in need of international protection.
An effective regional protection framework would be one which ensures that all asylum seekers in the region have access to fair procedures for determining their protection claims, obtain a durable solution within a reasonable time frame if found to be in need of international protection, and receive treatment that complies with human rights standards in the meantime.
|
We have an electorate that is deeply suspicious of the law-breaking queue jumper, a constant feature of anti-immigration rhetoric.They see boat arrivals as mere queue jumpers, who pose a potential security threat to Australia.