Up to a couple of weeks ago, Australian Prime Minster Kevin Rudd had that ‘Asylum Seekers genie’ firmly in the bottle. A combination of the GFC, Opposition ineptness, and media focus plus Kevin’s mellifluous and hypnotic speeches kept it under control, but then it started to unravel - with Labor today even charged with ‘mistreating boat people’.
Recent developments -
• Expansion of Christmas island’s capacity to 1400 proved insufficient for the numbers of asylum seekers coming. A detention centre in Darwin was then hurriedly planned. • Last week Indonesian cooperation on interception of boats was strained. P.M. Rudd hurriedly flew there to meet Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. • Despite agreement between the two leaders, involving financial aid from Australia, another meeting of the two leaders becomes necessary, tomorrow in Thailand. • Human Rights Commissioner, Catherine Branson, now criticizes conditions on Christmas Island, demands the Rudd Government stop detaining people immediately.
Australians are a compassionate people, now most are uncertain about these asylum seekers. So today an article by Greg Sheridan, the Weekend Australian’s Foreign Affairs Editor, is well worth reading. This puts all points of view on illegal immigration in perspective, squarely with no hypocrisy or undue harshness.
Two extracts from Greg’s article…
“UNCONTROLLED Muslim immigration into Europe has been a public policy failure, if not an outright disaster. This is the view of most Europeans, as measured by opinion polls, and of a large number of European officials and politicians. Having just spent a month in Europe, talking to dozens of officials, politicians and immigrants, it is a view I reluctantly share.
This is given sharp relief by the illegal immigration crisis Australia is experiencing to its north. For across Europe there is great admiration for the success and durability of the Australian immigration program.
The elements of the program which European officials most admire are that Australia selects which immigrants it takes, in skills, family reunion and refugee categories, and that the program enjoys public support.
When proponents of open borders in Australia dismiss the numbers coming illegally by boat in the north as trivial, and compare it with the huge numbers coming into Europe, they are wrong on two counts.
If the illegal route to Australia in our north gets established the numbers will radically increase. Second, almost every European nation is taking increasing steps to control Europe's borders at the same time as internal European politics is increasingly polarised over Muslim immigration.
Australia stands at perhaps a pivotal moment. Misdirected sentimentalism about illegal immigrants could easily swing us towards losing control of our immigration program. This could lead to European-style failure and the erosion of support for our big and successful immigration program.
This in turn would see the official program cut back and the result would be fewer immigrants, and fewer refugees. The posturing vanity of ostentatious compassion would once again have had damaging human consequences.
And…
“While of course there is an absolute obligation on Australia to observe and respect the human rights of anybody who comes under its jurisdiction, in truth these messages are in conflict. There is only one form of compassion asylum-seekers want, and that is permanent settlement in Australia.
If this becomes the norm, then the Australian government will have lost control of its borders. This, the government does not want. Immigration Minister Chris Evans said this week: "A lot of people in this debate are basically open-borders people. That's not this government's view. We actually know we've got to maintain strong borders and control who comes into this country."
Australia is an immigration success story, while Europe has had a much more troubled experience. Many people this week bizarrely want to put us on the path to European failure.” .............................. A major problem we tend to ignore in this debate is high Youth unemployment in Australia; this is tied to lack of youth skills also to poor application of training programs for them. Coupled with massive problems besetting Australia’s Indigenous population, we do face much needed work to solve these problems, here at home. This needs to be given highest priority.
