Asia
Australia's asylum-seekers
Offshoring the boat people
Jul 28th 2011, 7:48 by R.M. | SYDNEY
EVER since a conservative government under John Howard launched Australia’s so-called Pacific Solution to repel boat people ten years ago, the country’s political leaders have been vying to stop asylum-seekers landing by sea. On July 25th, Julia Gillard’s Labor government signed a deal with Malaysia that it hopes will trump all previous moves. Australia will send the next 800 boat people who sail into its northern waters to Malaysia. There they will join about 90,000 other asylum-seekers who have been waiting, some of them for years, to have their claims assessed. In return, Malaysia will send 4,000 certified refugees to Australia and receive compensation for the programme’s costs.
The Malaysia deal is the first of its kind Australia has secured with another country. Up to now, Australia has held most of its boat people and processed their claims on Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean. Since January, the number detained there has been cut by more than half, to about 1,100.
In a way, the politics are strange. Australia’s asylum-seekers comprised only 1% of the world’s last year. Over the past decade, most applicants have arrived by air. But the political flashpoint has raged around the boat arrivals. Tony Abbott, Mr Howard’s successor as leader of the conservative Liberal Party, fans the flames by calling them a “peaceful invasion”. His calls to “stop the boats” have made good fodder for the tabloid journalists who love to sow alarm in Australia’s suburbs.
Ms Gillard was under pressure. Last year she announced prematurely a plan to set up a regional processing centre in Timor-Leste. It came to nothing. She first mooted the Malaysia deal two months ago. Critics accused the government of trying to palm off Australia’s obligations under the United Nations Refugee Convention to a country that has not signed that agreement. The deal that emerged has tried to deflect that complaint. Australia will cover the transfers’ cost, estimated at A$300m ($325m). The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says Australia should process the boat people itself; but the agency will agree anyway to monitor those whom Australia sends to Malaysia. The Howard government dumped boat people in Nauru and Papua New Guinea without UNHCR surveillance. Human-rights critics are branding the “Malaysia Solution” as a pale imitation of the Pacific Solution that Labor pledged to dismantle while it was in opposition.
If it bears a likeness, at least its edges are not quite as raw. John Menadue, a former head of Australia’s immigration department, is the sort of critic to deplore his country’s “screwed-up debate” and “phobia about boats”. Nonetheless, he believes the Malaysia deal has the potential to improve on Australia’s regional approach to resettling refugees. Mr Menadue recalls Malaysia’s role 35 years ago in handling large numbers of asylum-seekers from war-torn Indochina before they could be resettled in Australia and other rich countries. That massive resettlement would never have worked so well, he says, without Malaysia’s co-operation. This plan can be seen as an evolution within the same approach.
Ms Gillard regards her people-swapping deal a bit differently. She says it will deter people from risking dangerous sea voyages to Australia, and so “smash” the people-smuggling rings. She has high stakes placed on that outcome. Mr Menadue argues that toughening up policies does not stop boats arriving when people are fleeing war zones. Most of the 2,675 refugee visas Australia has granted so far this year have gone to people from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Sri Lanka. As a hedge against the possibility that too many asylum-seekers will wash in—ie, more than the 800 asylum-seekers earmarked for Malaysia—Australia has been quietly talking to Papua New Guinea about reopening a camp for asylum-seekers on Manus island. If that happens, the Pacific Solution indeed will indeed be back in force.
In this blog, our Asia correspondents and our Banyan columnist provide comment and analysis on Asia's political and cultural landscape. The blog takes its name from the Banyan tree, under which Buddha attained enlightenment and Gujarati merchants used to conduct business.
Advertisement
- Analects | China
- Americas view | The Americas
- Babbage | Science and technology
- Bagehot's notebook | British politics
- Banyan | Asia
- Baobab | Africa
- Blighty | Britain
- Buttonwood's notebook | Financial markets
- Charlemagne's notebook | European politics
- Clausewitz | Defence, security and diplomacy
- Democracy in America | American politics
- Eastern approaches | Ex-communist Europe
- Elysée | France’s presidential election
- Free exchange | Economics
- Game theory | Sports
- Graphic detail | Charts, maps and infographics
- Gulliver | Business travel
- Johnson | Language
- Leviathan | Public policy
- Lexington's notebook | American politics
- Newsbook | News analysis
- Prospero | Books, arts and culture
- Schumpeter | Business and management
Most commented
- The euro in crisis: Groping towards Grexit
- The euro crisis: The Greek run
- Gay marriage: North Carolina begs the question too
- Renouncing citizenship: Did Eduardo Saverin do anything wrong?
- Brazil’s economy: A bull diminished
- Greek politics: Slouching towards the drachma
- The euro crisis: Europe’s Achilles heel
- Should gay marriage be legal in America?
- The euro crisis: Going, going, gone?
- Daily chart: The German motor
Over the past five days
Most recommended
- The euro crisis: Europe’s Achilles heel
- Lexington: Peter David
- Gay marriage: North Carolina begs the question too
- The euro crisis: The Greek run
- Renouncing citizenship: Did Eduardo Saverin do anything wrong?
- The euro in crisis: Groping towards Grexit
- J.P. Morgan’s trading mistakes: A billion here, a billion there
- Greek politics: Slouching towards the drachma
- Poverty: The audacity of hope
- Greece fails to form a government: Adrift
Over the past seven days
Advertisement
Readers' comments
The Economist welcomes your views. Please stay on topic and be respectful of other readers. Review our comments policy.
Sort:
Now that Australia finally has a legal channel for refuge immigration for these people which will allow more than a few people at a time into the country they may see a decrease in the number of people trying to enter illegally. I think other countries should try to follow Australia's lead.
Australia has enough land that they could easily set up their own immigration centers in the country to process refugees. This would probably be the most humane way of allowing these people into the country. I can only image that the camps in Malaysia are far below the living standards of any people in the region.
@sikko6
You wrote:
"Asutralia, as being a member of Iraq and Afghanistan military intervention force, should take responsibility for refugees she created"
Did you miss the following passage in the article?
"Most of the 2,675 refugee visas Australia has granted so far this year have gone to people from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Sri Lanka"
Perhaps you should read more thoroughly before rushing to type out ill-considered commentary.
More broadly,
This issue isn't, nor has it ever been, one of Australia being unwilling to accept refugees. Australia has a long history of doing so, including those who have arrived "by boat".
The issue is far more complex than the simplistic jingoism we so often encounter in the debate. To be fair, the tabloid media and even politicians have been guilty of playing up to the fear they themselves create for their own nefarious ends of selling advertising and winning votes.
My main concerns, and concerns of a good many Australians are that these crossing are extremely dangerous!
On December 15th 2010, at least 30 refugees were killed when the boat in which they were travelling was dashed upon the rocky shore of Christmas Island. There have been numerous other occasions where the Australian Navy has had to rescue asylum seekers after their boat began to sink or caught fire. We cannot know for sure how many boats have departed and been lost without trace during the voyage. Therefore, in my opinion, we cannot be seen to endorse such a risky crossing by granting automatic entry. In fact, we should be taking all reasonable measures to deter boat arrivals on humanitarian grounds to the extent that such modes of entry become undesirable to the prospective asylum claimant.
There are numerous other issues as well. These include the fact that these entries are not ad-hoc movements of groups of refugees from one area. The refugee arives in a second country, usually Indonesia, where they are put into contact with "Snake's Heads" who organise the crossings upon receipt of large cash payments of up to US$10,000. These "Snake's heads" are members of organised crime gangs who care little for the welfare of the refugee once the the money has been received and the boat departs. There is also the difficulty of establishing the bona fides of the claimant upon arrival. Just because they arrive by boat, doesn't mean their claim to refugee status is genuine. Finally there is the very legitimate desire to control entry to our nations borders, and to ensure that genuine refugees are given the best possible chance at a better life once they arrive. This takes time to establish, plan and coordinate for each individual arrival, you can't just put them in a taxi and send them off to look for work and a house.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, so much of this debate has been hijacked by tabloid media and political parties who are driven by the 24 hour news cycle.
But that's a conversation for another thread....
The Conservative government which was supposedly tough on refugees let in more than 200,000 immigrants a year, just to please their business community buddies. They then beat their chests and lied about refugees in order to improve their image with immigration skeptics. They knew that if Australia didn't have a large refugee intake program, there would be enormous upward pressure on wages. Despite mass immigration and a First World recession after 2008, unemployment stayed very low, showing how hungry Australia is for workers. To slow immigration would be very risky economically- the median age is already 37 years old and rising as the Baby Boomers begin to retire, placing enormous strains on the State. Neither major party wants to risk derailing the economy by cutting immigration but the unliberal Liberals are more duplicitous about it, employing borderline racist terminology like 'invasion' to try and woo Far Right votes. Sadly, it has been working for over a decade now.
Gillard really needs to bring ethics back to her government's politics. The Howard government was disgusting, and was expected to be. But the party of progress? Is she really wanting the Greens to look like the only ethical party?
http://on.fb.me/ipVbk8
sikko6
1/ What does East TImor have to do with this? But I see you are repeating the same claim as you did in late April under your alias of sikko2. And again I'll show the world how little you know:
* TImor Leste ranks higher on the Democracy Index compiled by the EIU than Singapore, Brazil, Russia, Poland, Hungary and not far behind India and France
* The East Timor Petroleum Fund had US$7.2 billion in it at the start of March - more than oil rich Venezuela or Nigeria, a quarter of oil rich Brunei’s and extremely impressive when compared to Malaysia’s
* GDP growth of 6%
Yeah really failing...... See how difficult it is to take anything you say seriously?
2/ Yes I am anglo-irish with a bit of Danish and also a dash of Spanish - still unsure what that has to do with it. As I said (and you didn't comment on - 700,000 refugees that's SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND! So yeah, I'm freaking proud as mate! 3% of my country was a refugee! Add their children born here and a healthy wack of my country is refugee derived.
And as for a "recent" immigrant, study your history mate my country has been letting in non-anglo immigrants for 65 of its 110 year history - don't fall into the ignorant trap of assuming it only started in the 70s - it didn't.
3/ You laughably make out I have no compassion for Iraqi and Afghani refugees... nice play attempt there. So who would be responsible for Burmese refugees? North Korean? Chinese? Serbian?
Here's our intake for the 6,000 refugees processed OFFSHORE for the year 2009/10:
Burma 1959
Iraq 1688
Bhutan 1144
Afghanistan 951
Congo (DRC) 584
Ethiopia 392
Somalia 317
Sudan 298
Liberia 258
Sierra Leone 237
A lot of these countries have refugees through no fault of a third country...... so who gets those?
Your country? Which is?
Cloudy,
You still argue that East Timor is not a failed state? You should have read recent Economist article showing that she is! Where's your credibility?
East Timor is a failed state that Australis helped to create. Such mistakes should never occur again. It's too painful for people.
Cloudy,
If you are not a pure Anglo-Irish extraction or recent migrant to Australia, you also have refugee roots! Congratulations. You should have at least have some symphathy to your parents and grand parents.
Look, I am not talking about refugees in general. I am talking about refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan. They are the refugees created by George Bush and his deputies like Tony Blair, John Howard, et al. Invading Afghanistan and Iraq, they created lots of refugees. I am talking about these people. They are freeing Taliban and corrupt Kazai government. Iraqis also have the similar reasons.
Australia, as being part of invading forces, has responsibility to take care of refugees. It should be in UN convension. Australia can give these people priority than people from other countries. In addition, Australia can ask other countries which participated the invasions, such as US, Canada, et., to share the burden.
Because of US led invasions, Afghan and Iraqi refugees are in horrible situation. Give some companssion!
Despite all the coverage, I have to say I'm confused about where accountability lies here, and who assesses it.
As I understand it, most refugees – intially at least – have not decided upon a specific country in which to settle; they are merely fleeing some kind of unfavorable or intimidating situation in their homelands, essentially just ‘getting out of prison’ to wherever they can. If that’s the case, surely the country in which they arrive (often illegally) should not be held solely and fully accountable for processing their status, nor for ultimately accepting them?
I’m not sure what the solution is, but I find the current expectation that the country on whose shores they land – often by chance – to accept responsibility for their welfare, processing, and ultimate settlement to be wholly inappropriate. I say this not out of any contempt for genuine refugees fleeing genuine hardships, but out of fairness. And while I’ve never had a great deal of confidence in the UN (which is a misnomer to begin with: in too many cases, it represents governments, not nations), this is surely the kind of circumstance in which - by default if no other criterion – it should take the lead for the resettlement of all refugees among all member nations on an equitable basis, not an arbitrary one.
Whatever the case, no nation should be obligated on either legal or moral grounds to accept full responsibility for persons arriving by fortune or by accident on its shores.
Real logical sikko6... as per usual.
Wonder if your family benefitted when Australia helped defeat Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan...... should we have been responsible for all the refugees then?
A simplistic approach by a simplistic person!
Australia has accepted 6.8 million immigrants since 1945 and 700,000 refugees - for a country of now only 22 million, this is a staggering number. Please compare this to any other country and I doubt you can find more than 2 or 3 that have done more.
You won't even tell anyone which country you come from so I can gleefully say that my country has done more than yours and you are unable to disprove it.
In principle, countries must accept refugees they created. Asutralia, as being a member of Iraq and Afghanistan military intervention force, should take responsibility for refugees she created. If you don't want to take responsibility for refugees, don't participate on bloody military interventions and thus don't create refugees!
Choosing refugees from those in camps in Malaysia whose identity has been established and whose claims to refugee status has been certified by the UNHCR is such a sensible solution it is a wonder that our political classes took only 10 years to figure it out.
It offers asylum-seekers a way into Australia that doesn't involve boats so it is safer takes some of the hysteria that surrounds the issue and is an opportunity to work on a regional basis on a regional issue.
Of course the government announced it prematurely and it hasn't been fully implemented yet so there is lots of room for this toes for fingers government to fumble it. Still, for the time being, it should count as one in the win column.