Ruth Skilbeck
September 9, 2015
The seemingly endlessly circular public and
humanitarian discussions of policies over how “irregular” entry refugees are
treated began most strongly in Australia at the beginning of the century, in
August 2001, with the Howard government’s refusal to give permission to enter
Australian waters to the Tampa, a Norwegian boat that saved 433 people
when their boat was in distress, hundreds of miles off the coast. Australian
authorities had conveyed the distress call to the Tampa and like any
responsible ship captain in such a situation Captain Arne Rinnan wanted to
bring them to safety. They were in Indonesian waters, and some of the ‘boat
people’ were threatening ‘jump overboard’. He intended to land them on nearby
land, Christmas Island. But his request to enter Australian waters was
refused. Captain Rinnan decided, for reasons of the safety of his passengers to
continue as people were in distress; he did not have life jackets and
provisions for more than 40 people on his ship, the number it was licensed to carry.
Australian SAS boarded the ship.
New Zealand took in 131 of the asylum seekers, the
rest were taken to Nauru; PM John Howard said they could never come to
Australia. This was the start of the Pacific Solution, which has created
migration “zones of excision” excising the northern coastal borders and waters
from Australia’s “migration zone” to deter arrivals of asylum seekers.
Asylum seekers in the excision zone cannot access
Australia’s migration determination system. They are transferred to the Australian-run
detention centre camps in Papua New Guinea’s Nauru, and Manus Island, which
reopened under the Rudd-Gillard Labor government, that have been denounced by
the United Nations for not processing any claims for refugee status, and
failure to care for the asylum seekers. (There have also been reports of
towing back boats to Indonesia and the Australian government paying $30,000 to
tow back a boat).
Professor Gillian Triggs, President of the AHR
Commission, was verbally attacked for months this year, told the government had
“lost confidence” in her and urged to resign, when the report she oversaw The Forgotten Children (2014)
was released, detailing abuse of children in the camps including sexual and
physical assault. She refused to resign under political pressure for to do so
she said in her appearance in the Senate committee “would undermine the
independence of the commission.”
Whereas Australia’s two major parties have a
unilateral approach to refugee issues, the Greens have consistently demanded a
more humane policy and are calling on the Australian Government in the ongoing
crisis displacing millions of Syrian people fleeing the murderous rampages of
IS and US bombings (soon to be joined by Australia) to increase intake of
refugees and release Syrian asylum seekers in Nauru and Manus Island detention
centres for refugee processing in Australia.
Fourteen years ago, with the horrors of the
September 11 attacks weeks away, the Tampa incident created a political
expediency, which was seized upon and has shaped the tough politics of not
treating irregular asylum seekers according to international law that states people
in fear of their lives have a right to flee, and be resettled in a country that
is a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention which Australia is.
The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights
defines a refugee as “a person who…owing to a well-founded fear of being
persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his
nationality and is unable, or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail
himself of the protection of that country.” It is this definition that has been
incorporated into Australia’s 1958 Migration Act.
Many with a moral conscience including the 51
artists who boycotted the 2014 Sydney Biennale over links to detention centre
profits funding by Transfield, and was effective in pressing for the ending of
those ties, and the National Council of Churches in Australia Refugee
Taskforce, oppose Australia’s hard line approach, to what is now the world’s
major humanitarian issue of asylum for refugees. But since the Tampa incident
part of the rhetorical approach of the government has been to refuse to listen.
Following the Australian Human Rights Inquiry and
report, and the recent Senate Inquiry and report into abuses
and the stream of whistle-blower reports of murder, sexual abuse of children,
girls, women, men, and drugs in exchange for sex with children and women, in
the detention camps, the Border Force Act was brought in on July 1.
This forbids any workers in detention centres to
talk about abuse they witness, with a two-year jail sentence, in an attempt to
gag doctors, nurses, community and social workers, as well as security and
management.
The Papua New Guinea government has recently raised
the cost of applying for a visa for media to report on the camp on Nauru from
$200 to $8000, if refused it is not refunded. This is clearly designed to act
as a deterrent.
In August, Transfield Services announced the
expected renewal of its five-contract. “This company was paid $1.2 billion by
Australian tax payers to manage these gulags on Manus Island and Nauru.
Transfield and their sub-contractors should have been punished by their poor
performance, not rewarded!” said Sister Brigid Arthur, a regular visit to
mainland detention centres who works with the women and children who are
victims of sexual assault on Nauru.
At the same time the global refugee debate is
igniting the world in new dialogues.
Ruth Skilbeck, PhD, is an author, arts writer
and freelance journalist. Her latest book Missing
is coming out soon.
References:
Skilbeck, Ruth, ‘Exiled Writers, Human Rights and
Social Advocacy Movements in Australia: A Critical Fugal Analysis’, in ed. John
Nguyet Erni, Cultural Studies of Rights: Critical Articulations Routledge,
2014 (fourth edition).
Brennan, Frank, Tampering with Asylum, University
Queensland Press, 2003
Press Release National Council of Churches in
Australia, ‘Transfield awarded yet another 5 years to mismanage offshore
detention centres,’ 31 August 2015
Michael Gordon, Sarah Whyte, ‘Defiant Gillian
Triggs resists pressure from Abbott government to resign’ The Sydney Morning
Herald online, 25 February 2015.
Taking Responsibility: conditions and
circumstances at Australia’s Regional Processing Centre in Nauru.
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Regional_processing_Nauru/Regional_processing_Nauru/Final_Report
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