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August 15, 2012
The conservative commentary about Julia Gillard being vanquished and humiliated, having retreated to embrace the Coalition policy on Nauru, and Tony Abbott wining a smashing political victory is currently washing through the media circuits. Abbott’s core position, namely that the Coalition’s policy worked and Labor was incompetent to abandon it, is still not being questioned by the media, even though the Coalition is cherry picking the Houston panel's package.
Lets be clear about one thing: the Houston panel does not think the solution to the asylum lies in the Coalition's three ponged policy of Nauru, temporary protection visas and turning the boats back. The panel talk in terms of an integrated package: in which Australia must deal with the wider region and that includes processing in nations that have not endorsed the Refugee Convention through the Bali Process. It states:
Australia needs to engage in, and help facilitate, the development of practical strategies with regional states on protections, registration, processing of asylum claims and provision of durable outcome.
This package involving a regional solution is a clear repudiation of the core Coalition deterrence policy of the iron fist that is designed to exclude aliens.
The panel members argued that their preferred approach will only have the desired effect if the whole package is accepted, rather than cherry picked. That package also involves a deterrent component to Australia’s policy (prolonged migration detention on Nauru/PNG), that is workable and conforms with reasonable human rights standards. Those standards do not appear to involve a non-custodial accommodation arrangement with Nauru and/or PNG whilst waiting out the “no advantage”period.
The panels no advantage period looks like its going to be rather long in practice. Asylum seekers would stay on Nauru for the same period of time that it would have taken them to get to Australia via assessment in other places. Would it be 15 years? Do asylum seekers sit around for 15 years or more in Malaysia or Indonesia hoping to get chosen for Australia?
No one has any idea of how long this length of time is because there is no queue.
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" a deterrent component to Australia’s policy (prolonged migration detention on Nauru/PNG), that is workable and conforms with reasonable human rights standards. "
The Panel’s specific recommendations for Nauru are:
*treatment consistent with human rights standards (including no arbitrary detention);
*appropriate accommodation;
*appropriate physical and mental health services;
*access to educational and vocational training programs;
*application assistance during the preparation of asylum claims;
*an appeal mechanism against negative decisions on asylum applications that would enable merits review by more senior officials and NGO
*representatives with specific expertise;
*monitoring of care and protection arrangements by a representative group drawn from government and civil society in Australia and Nauru;
*and providing case management assistance to individual applicants being processed in Nauru.
The Coalition's conception of deterrence on Nauru would be more punitive as it is about the iron fist on aliens.