tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/manus-island-4761/articlesManus Island – The Conversation2023-03-29T19:03:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2017832023-03-29T19:03:59Z2023-03-29T19:03:59ZWe provided health care for children in immigration detention. This is what we found<p>Australia’s immigration policies allow for indefinite locked detention, including for children and families. Detention is mandatory for people arriving without a valid visa – all those who arrived by boat between 2009 and 2013 were held in Immigration Detention Centres in Australia, or in Australian-contracted detention in Nauru or Papua New Guinea (PNG).</p>
<p>Australian detention numbers peaked in mid-2013, with 2,000 children detained at this time. By mid-2014, the average duration of detention exceeded 400 days. </p>
<p>While the last children were released from locked detention at the end of 2018, Australian law and policy still mandate detention for children arriving without visas. While the government refers to “held” or “locked” “detention”, to be plain, these children were imprisoned for seeking asylum.</p>
<p>We have just published a study describing the health of asylum-seeker children who experienced detention attending our Refugee Health Clinic over the <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0282798">past ten years</a>. </p>
<p>Our team has been seeing refugee children for more than 20 years. We have extensive experience in refugee health, forensic medicine and child development, but nothing prepared us for the complexity of looking after these children.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-moves-to-copy-australias-cruel-asylum-seeker-policy-and-it-will-have-the-same-heavy-human-toll-201390">UK moves to copy Australia's cruel asylum-seeker policy – and it will have the same heavy human toll</a>
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<h2>Trauma, mental illness, lack of protection</h2>
<p>Our cohort of 277 patients comprised 239 children who had been detained, including 31 infants born in detention, and another 38 children born after release to families who experienced detention. </p>
<p>There were 79 children from families who had been detained on Nauru/PNG, 47 children had been detained offshore. Most children had spent time in at least three different Australian detention facilities.</p>
<p>The duration of locked detention ranged from a few months to more than five years. Children sent to Nauru/PNG were detained for longer (typically three to five years) than those held in Australia (typically around one year), and many of this group remain in community detention.</p>
<p>The experience of these children was traumatic. They arrived with trauma – 62% had experienced major trauma before or during their journey to Australia, 8% had experienced the death of an immediate family member. They then experienced trauma in detention. They were exposed to self-harm, suicide attempts and violence – in unrelated adults and within their own families. </p>
<p>One in five children were separated from a parent in detention, often for weeks or months, and young children were left alone in detention while their parents were hospitalised. More than half the cohort had parents with mental illness, this reached 86% in the Nauru/PNG cohort, and 21% of these children had parents requiring psychiatric admission.</p>
<p>The trauma and deprivation of immigration detention had profound impact on children’s health. Two-thirds had a mental health problem (most commonly anxiety, depression and/or post-traumatic stress disorder) and 75% presented with developmental concerns. Child protection issues were common – 19% required child protection notification and 8% were referred for sexual assault concerns in detention.</p>
<p>Protective systems were limited or absent. Almost half the children had interrupted education in detention. Schooling was unavailable or extremely limited for most children on Christmas Island for long periods. In Melbourne, within 20km of our hospital, school-aged children were not enrolled in school, often for months.</p>
<h2>No health screening or follow-ups</h2>
<p>While basic medical services were provided in detention, health screening was effectively absent – both in detention, and in the community in Victoria. </p>
<p>Only 1% of children had a recommended health screen before being seen in our service and only 29% of children had received routine childhood immunisation. We saw children with severe mental health, developmental and medical diagnoses that had not been recognised in detention.</p>
<p>In the early stages, there were some children seen once, who were transferred to another detention centre before their review appointment and never seen again. Families attended clinic with multiple guards, and were often late, completely missing their appointment time, despite the detention centre being notified well in advance. </p>
<p>Parents were frequently incapacitated by their own mental illness. We saw parents with severe depression, catatonic and psychotic features, and witnessed profoundly disordered attachment. Often it was difficult for them to even tell us what had happened to them and their children and what symptoms they were experiencing. In some cases, we admitted children directly to hospital, for immediate safety or medical concerns. </p>
<p>Documentation was unavailable, and we spent hours chasing paperwork, painstakingly piecing together health records for families, and notifying the detention health providers and the Department of Home Affairs of the issues.</p>
<h2>Precarious migration status is traumatising too</h2>
<p>We had not anticipated detention could, or would, last for years, or that we would still be seeing these children in 2023. </p>
<p>After release from detention, most children experienced improvements in family function, wellbeing and mental health. However, short-term bridging visas precluded parents working for years, and in many families, financial stress has impacted housing and food security. </p>
<p>The impact of detention, years of precarious migration status and trauma is ongoing, and many individuals in families in the Nauru cohort remain extremely unwell. These children have now been here nearly ten years – meaning some have entered and almost completed schooling. </p>
<p>The transition to permanent residency will be life-changing for the families detained in Australia, but deeply distressing for those sent offshore, who do not have access to this pathway.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-doctors-ethically-obliged-to-keep-at-risk-children-out-of-detention-49047">Are doctors ethically obliged to keep at-risk children out of detention?</a>
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<h2>What has to happen</h2>
<p>Our research provides clinical evidence for the harm to children from Australian immigration detention, migration law, and related policies. </p>
<p>Governments must avoid detaining children and families – in Australia, and in other countries. It is unsafe and harms children. </p>
<p>We urge a compassionate approach to resolving the immigration status of these children and families, including those sent offshore to Nauru or PNG, that also recognises the impact of time.</p>
<p>These children have grown up in Australia, their identity is now Australian, and we should support them as children and young people in Australia.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-types-of-denial-that-allow-australians-to-feel-ok-about-how-we-treat-refugees-186294">3 types of denial that allow Australians to feel OK about how we treat refugees</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201783/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shidan Tosif is a paediatrician and researcher at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, University of Melbourne and Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Georgia Paxton has provided independent advice to the Department of Home Affairs from 2013.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hamish Graham is a paediatrician-researcher at the University of Melbourne, MCRI, and Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne.</span></em></p>Our new study describes the health effects of detention on children, and the clinical results are alarming.Shidan Tosif, Honorary Clinical Associate Professor, The University of MelbourneGeorgia Paxton, Associate Professor of Paediatrics , Murdoch Children's Research InstituteHamish Graham, Associate professor International Child Health; Paediatrician, Murdoch Children's Research InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1862942022-07-21T01:30:22Z2022-07-21T01:30:22Z3 types of denial that allow Australians to feel OK about how we treat refugees<p>As one of its first acts in government, the newly elected Labor government <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-24/labor-turns-back-election-day-asylum-seeker-boat-arrival/101095322">turned back a boat</a> of Sri Lankan asylum seekers trying to enter Australia. </p>
<p>Labor has <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/albanese-government-turns-around-its-first-asylum-seeker-boat-20220524-p5ao2y.html">vowed to continue Operation Sovereign Borders</a>, including boat turnbacks and offshore detention. This is concerning. Not only do <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/refugee-rights-policy-wrongs/">turnbacks violate international law</a>, but offshore detention has resulted in <a href="https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CAT/Shared%20Documents/AUS/INT_CAT_NGO_AUS_18683_E.pdf">torture and cruel and inhuman treatment</a> of refugees. </p>
<p>Even more concerning is the lack of criticism Labor has received for continuing offshore detention and turnbacks. Apart from being condemned by <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/albanese-government-turns-around-its-first-asylum-seeker-boat-20220524-p5ao2y.html">human rights groups</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-24/labor-turns-back-election-day-asylum-seeker-boat-arrival/101095322">minor political parties</a>, Labor’s refugee policies appear to have gone without much comment from a large part of the Australian public. </p>
<p>As I found in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jrs/feac041/6646968?login=true">my new research paper</a>, the Australian government has used three forms of denial, creating physical and psychological distance between itself and refugees.</p>
<p>This allows the federal government to promote illegal and harmful policies while proclaiming to still be upholding human rights.</p>
<h2>Creating indifference</h2>
<p>Human rights abuses in offshore detention have been <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa12/002/2013/en/">well documented</a>. </p>
<p>On Manus Island (in Papua New Guinea) and Nauru, refugees have <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/publications/communique-to-the-office-of-the-prosecutor-of-the-international-criminal-court-under-article-15-of-the-rome-statute-the-situation-in-nauru-and-manus-island-liability-for-crimes-against-humanity/">faced torture</a>, inhumane detention, overcrowding, violence from guards, sexual assault and rape, and mental harm. Children as young as nine have suffered <a href="https://msf.org.au/sites/default/files/attachments/indefinite_despair_4.pdf">severe depression and attempted to commit suicide</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/operation-sovereign-borders-offshore-detention-statistics/2/">According to the latest data by the Refugee Council</a>, 112 people remain on Nauru and just over 100 people are on Manus Island. Although New Zealand will <a href="https://theconversation.com/aus-nz-refugee-deal-is-a-bandage-on-a-failed-policy-its-time-to-end-offshore-processing-180241">now resettle</a> many of them in the coming years, Nauru detention centre will continue to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/24/australia-signs-deal-with-nauru-to-keep-asylum-seeker-detention-centre-open-indefinitely">remain open indefinitely</a>.</p>
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<p>How can Australia continue to <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/international-relations/themes/human-rights">promote itself as upholding human rights</a>, while at the same time maintain such policies? </p>
<p>One answer is that offshore detention has created indifference to the suffering of refugees. Australia’s policy framework has produced what the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has called “<a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N20/188/03/PDF/N2018803.pdf?OpenElement">moral disengagement</a>”. This involves “the self-deceptive denial of reality” by denying the wrongfulness of, responsibility for, or occurrence of, human rights violations. </p>
<p>These “self-deceptive” strategies reduce moral dilemmas that come from violating human rights norms.</p>
<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jrs/feac041/6646968?login=true">My research</a> found Australian federal governments have used three forms of denial to push refugees out of sight and out of mind – denial of responsibility, denial of fact, and denial of wrongdoing.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cruel-costly-and-ineffective-australias-offshore-processing-asylum-seeker-policy-turns-9-166014">Cruel, costly and ineffective: Australia's offshore processing asylum seeker policy turns 9</a>
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<h2>3 types of denial</h2>
<p><strong>Denying responsibility</strong> </p>
<p>The government has denied responsibility over refugees in offshore detention by denying it has jurisdiction. The term “jurisdiction” <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/law/human-rights/access-asylum-international-refugee-law-and-globalisation-migration-control?format=PB">is different</a> from sovereign territory. A state can have jurisdiction outside of its sovereign territory when it <a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#%7B%22fulltext%22:%5B%22HIRSI%20JAMAA%20AND%20OTHERS%20V.%20ITALY%22%5D,%22documentcollectionid2%22:%5B%22GRANDCHAMBER%22,%22CHAMBER%22%5D,%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-109231%22%5D%7D">exercises effective control over others</a>. </p>
<p>Showing that a country has jurisdiction over others is important. It can help hold states accountable for human rights abuses and establish responsibility for those in its care. </p>
<p>The Australian government has <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Manus_Island/Report">argued</a> that PNG and Nauru – which aren’t part of Australia – have jurisdiction over the detention facilities and the refugees in them. It claims all Australia does is provide financial and material support.</p>
<p>Such arguments make it difficult to hold Australia accountable. But they are also incorrect. <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Regional_processing_Nauru/Regional_processing_Nauru/Final_Report">A Senate inquiry</a>, the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Regional_processing_Nauru/Regional_processing_Nauru/Submissions">UN High Commissioner for Refugees</a>, and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/02/australia-appalling-abuse-neglect-refugees-nauru">human rights groups</a>, among others, have argued Australia exercises effective control and shares jurisdiction with Nauru and PNG. </p>
<p>Denying jurisdiction creates physical and psychological distance between itself and refugees, helping to create indifference. By denying responsibility, human rights abuses become someone else’s problem.</p>
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<p><strong>Denying fact</strong> </p>
<p>A second key strategy is denial of fact. The Australian government, along with the governments of Nauru and PNG, has <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-37675003">denied human rights abuses</a> and made it hard to find out what occurs in offshore detention. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/NauruandManusRPCs/Report">Human rights monitors</a> and <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Regional_processing_Nauru/Regional_processing_Nauru/Final_Report">journalists</a> have been restricted or denied access to offshore detention.</p>
<p>Staff have been <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/publications/communique-to-the-office-of-the-prosecutor-of-the-international-criminal-court-under-article-15-of-the-rome-statute-the-situation-in-nauru-and-manus-island-liability-for-crimes-against-humanity/">threatened with prosecution</a> under confidentiality agreements if they speak publicly about detention treatment. </p>
<p>Operation Sovereign Borders has also been shrouded in <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/02/australia-appalling-abuse-neglect-refugees-nauru">secrecy</a>. For example, it was common for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/21/scott-morrison-breaks-own-rule-against-commenting-on-on-water-matters-to-confirm-asylum-boat-intercepted">Coalition</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jun/10/peter-dutton-invokes-on-water-secrecy-over-claim-of-payments-to-boat-crew">ministers</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2013/s3887267.htm">border force officials</a> to refuse to answer questions in the media about “on water matters”. </p>
<p>As Peter Young, the former mental health director of IHMS, the medical provider in immigration detention, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa12/4934/2016/en/">stated</a>: “Secrecy is necessary because these places are designed to damage”.</p>
<p>These policies have made it difficult to know what occurs in offshore detention. They also create doubt about whether such harm is even happening at all.</p>
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<p><strong>Denying wrongdoing</strong> </p>
<p>Along with “stopping the boats”, the government has argued offshore detention has been necessary to save lives at sea.</p>
<p>When former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Méndez criticised Australia for violating the UN Convention against Torture in 2015, then Prime Minister Tony Abbott <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/tony-abbott-australians-sick-of-being-lectured-to-by-united-nations-after-report-finds-antitorture-breach-20150309-13z3j0.html">stated</a></p>
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<p>The most humanitarian, the most decent, the most compassionate thing you can do is stop these boats because hundreds, we think about 1200 in fact, drowned at sea during the flourishing of the people smuggling trade under the former government.</p>
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<p>This is a key strategy of self-deception. By arguing the policy is saving lives, it focuses attention away from the harm refugees suffer, to the humanitarian goal of “saving lives”.</p>
<p>Moral dilemmas about torture or ill treatment are pushed aside, and so are feelings of wrongdoing. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-temporary-visa-system-is-unfair-expensive-impractical-and-inconsistent-heres-how-the-new-government-could-fix-it-185870">Australia's temporary visa system is unfair, expensive, impractical and inconsistent. Here's how the new government could fix it</a>
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<h2>Challenging indifference</h2>
<p>Key to ending this illegal and harmful policy is to challenge these self-deceptive strategies that have produced moral disengagement. </p>
<p>Other countries, such as the UK, are following in Australia’s footsteps by <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-seals-deal-with-rwanda-to-offshore-asylum-migrant-seekers/">introducing offshore detention</a> for asylum seekers. This means challenging strategies that deny reality – and widening our circle of empathy – is more urgent than ever.</p>
<p>It’s indifference that’s helping to maintain offshore detention. And it’s this indifference that needs to be challenged to both respect international law and uphold the rights and dignity of refugees.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamal has received funding from the Australia-Germany JRC Scheme (UA-DAAD) and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).</span></em></p>Australia’s offshore detention policies have helped to produce indifference to the suffering of refugees. Pushing refugees out of sight, and out of mind, has now placed them beyond moral concern.Jamal Barnes, Lecturer, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1815012022-04-22T13:58:58Z2022-04-22T13:58:58ZHow the UK’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is 21st-century imperialism writ large<p>In announcing his plan to <a href="https://theconversation.com/outsourcing-asylum-seekers-the-case-of-rwanda-and-the-uk-180973">partner with Rwanda</a> to manage migration, Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed, on April 14 2022, that the UK is “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-action-to-tackle-illegal-migration-14-april-2022">a beacon of openness and generosity</a>”. He lauded the great British tradition of offering sanctuary to those who seek it through legal routes while outlining how he intends to curb what he termed illegal migration.</p>
<p>Under this new <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abd_ArqW_bM">scheme</a>, people claiming asylum in the UK are to be relocated to Rwanda, where their cases will be processed. If they are granted asylum, they will be encouraged to remain in Rwanda for at least five years. </p>
<p>While the UK government <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/asylum-seekers-rwanda-one-way-ticket-not-get-refugee-status-uk-1575281">has promised</a> smooth operations, it is unclear how asylum seekers relocated from the UK might be accommodated in Rwanda, beyond temporary plans to convert <a href="https://news.sky.com/video/rwanda-inside-hope-guest-house-accommodation-for-uk-channel-migrants-12590080">a former hostel</a> into a detention centre. There is also no sense of what will happen to those who are not granted asylum. </p>
<p>Religious, international and human rights organisations are questioning the legality of this process. However, this attempt to move the immigration process offshore is not unique. It is part of <a href="https://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/176073/1/OSI%20009-18%20Offshoring%20asylum%20and%20migration.pdf">a wider strategy</a> deployed by the powerful governments of richer nations, from Australia to the EU, to discourage unwanted arrivals by creating conditions that are hostile or inhumane. </p>
<p>And while they outsource migration management to low-income countries, these richer countries are furthering their own geopolitical interests. Human displacement is becoming a motor for what experts – from Canadian activist and author <a href="https://www.acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1823">Harsha Walia</a> to British political scientist <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2015/07/01/imperialism-in-the-twenty-first-century/">John Smith</a> – identify as 21st-century imperialism. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6">Migration</a> is not merely a consequence of poverty, inequalities, conflict and environmental crises. It is a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/50781503/Ivekovic_Europe_and_contemporary_migrations">political tool</a>. </p>
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<img alt="A Border Force boat pictured returning to Folkestone Harbour, with white cliffs in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459311/original/file-20220422-26-minung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459311/original/file-20220422-26-minung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459311/original/file-20220422-26-minung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459311/original/file-20220422-26-minung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459311/original/file-20220422-26-minung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459311/original/file-20220422-26-minung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459311/original/file-20220422-26-minung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Rwanda deal is the UK government’s latest strategy to restrict unwanted immigration to Great Britain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/folkestone-kent-united-kingdom-february-24th-1324300796">Susan Pilcher | Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Politics of exclusion</h2>
<p>Sending asylum seekers to another country strips them of <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/1951-refugee-convention.html">their right</a>, as afforded by the International Refugee Convention, to have their cases considered in the country in which they have chosen to seek refuge. It denies them agency. It doubles their displacement. And it exposes them to prolonged uncertainty and further risk, namely, Rwanda’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/14/rwanda-human-rights-fears-paul-kagame">worrying</a> human rights record. In 2018, in particular, a dozen refugees were reportedly killed by Rwandan police after protests outside the offices of the UN high commissioner for refugees in Karongi district.</p>
<p>The UK government has said that the scheme will apply mainly to undocumented single men. Its key aim is to tackle the business model of people smuggling. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/TCMirregularmigration.pdf">Research</a> shows, however, that <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2079/1436958842.pdf?1650453096">for the most part</a>, undocumented migrants are fleeing areas affected by conflict, poverty and environmental crises, among other problems. </p>
<p>Comparing the Rwanda deal, then, with the safe haven opened up to Ukrainian refugees in recent weeks, it is clear that <a href="https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/uk-governments-rwanda-asylum-seeker-plan-reeks-of-racial-prejudice-angus-robertson-msp-3658199">UK immigration policy</a> is biased in terms of race, religion and skill-set. </p>
<p>Further, Johnson has called the Rwanda scheme a prototype, suggesting that it could be replicated elsewhere. There are certainly precedents, including Australia’s infamous arrangements with <a href="https://theconversation.com/multibillion-dollar-strategy-with-no-end-in-sight-australias-enduring-offshore-processing-deal-with-nauru-168941">Nauru</a> and with Papua New Guinea to house asylum seekers on <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10304312.2018.1468414">Manus Island</a> These so-called processing centres are effectively places of detention. </p>
<p>The EU, meanwhile, is in talks, via its border and coastguard agency <a href="https://frontex.europa.eu">Frontex</a>, with the government of Niger to establish frontier zones on African soil. With the support of the International Organization for Migration, the aim is to keep undocumented people there while their cases are processed. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Protestors in Australia hold up signs decrying the government's detention of refugees offshore." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459316/original/file-20220422-15-5iy5vm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459316/original/file-20220422-15-5iy5vm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459316/original/file-20220422-15-5iy5vm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459316/original/file-20220422-15-5iy5vm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459316/original/file-20220422-15-5iy5vm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459316/original/file-20220422-15-5iy5vm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459316/original/file-20220422-15-5iy5vm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Precendents for the UK’s Rwanda scheme include the Australian government’s detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sydney-australia-july-20-2019-hundreds-1460462129">Holli | Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>21st-century imperialism</h2>
<p>Research shows that plans like these are a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1035304617739759">strategy of empowerment</a> for already powerful nations. They allow them to offload, back to poorer countries, unwanted migrants, especially those who come from outside of Europe. At the same, they give <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/bisa21/9781526159014/imperialism-and-the-development-mythimperialism-and-the-development-myth/">those richer nations </a> a political and economic <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/45197784">foothold</a> in regions of interest. </p>
<p>When Johnson’s government closed down the Department for International Development in 2020, merging it with the Foreign Office, he effectively did away with international aid. International development was, instead, folded into diplomacy – directed by national and international political strategy. </p>
<p>The UK’s offer of £120 million to kickstart this partnership is attractive for Rwanda precisely because it comes under the aegis of development. The country is ranked 160th out of 189 in the 2021 <a href="https://hdr.undp.org/sites/all/themes/hdr_theme/country-notes/RWA.pdf">Human Development Index</a>, has long been a recipient of <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/913346/Rwanda-Profile.pdf">UK foreign aid</a> and <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/DT.ODA.ALLD.CD?locations=RW">international assistance</a> and already hosts nearly 130,000 refugees, <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/rwanda">90% of whom</a> remain in refugee camps and transit centres. The scheme would help elevate Rwanda’s international profile as an engaged partner in global migration and refugee governance. </p>
<p>For the UK, meanwhile, it represents <a href="https://waronwant.org/resources/new-colonialism-britains-scramble-africas-energy-and-mineral-resources">yet another business interest in Africa</a>. </p>
<p>At the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz43FAea7W0">UK-Africa Investment Summit</a> held in 2020, Johnson emphasised the UK’s ability to “support ventures” and desire to “strengthen partnerships” with Africa. While this growing relationship with the continent is framed in the positive terms of development, the <a href="https://www.waronwant.org/resources/new-colonialism-britains-scramble-africas-energy-and-mineral-resources">question arises</a> about the UK’s larger intent. </p>
<p>As partnerships go, these are fundamentally unequal. They seek to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/3-graphs-that-explain-why-investing-in-africa-is-good-for-uk-firms">fortify</a> the UK’s economy by way of foreign investments that bring back more revenue than the original outlay. Investing in poorer countries overseas is financially beneficial to the UK. It is also part of the UK government’s <a href="https://brexitcentral.com/supporting-overseas-investment-british-companies-can-bring-vast-benefits-uk/">post-Brexit strategy</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.routledge.com/International-Trade-and-Sustainable-Development-Economic-Historical-and/Milward/p/book/9781032085098">Evidence</a> shows that, in the long term, the surplus from such investments inevitably flows back to the richer countries. This perpetuates global <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-662-44766-6">structural inequalities</a>. It does little to sustain development. </p>
<p>Africa is both struggling to develop amid myriad environmental, social and economic problems and is rich in resources. Not only does Rwanda have a mining industry in tin ore, gold, tungsten ore and methane, it is also home to <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2022/01/20/in-rwanda-kivuwatt-transforms-gas-from-killer-lake-into-electricity/">Lake Kivu</a>, which is enormously rich in gases and a potential source for <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2022/01/20/in-rwanda-kivuwatt-transforms-gas-from-killer-lake-into-electricity/">energy generation</a>. </p>
<p>The Rwanda scheme presents troubling echoes of the UK’s imperial past: the colonial transportation of slaves and indentured workers across continents and seas; the empowerment of the imperial heartland through the violence that accompanied its historical ravages, for which reparation can never be complete. In a repeat of colonial politics, it tasks Africa yet again with working to the UK’s interests for only short-term financial benefits. In the long term, Africa’s needs remain unmet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181501/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Parvati Nair does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Richer nations are increasingly looking to offshore their immigration processing and further their own economic and political interests at the same time.Parvati Nair, Professor of Hispanic, Cultural and Migration Studies, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1689412021-10-03T19:00:07Z2021-10-03T19:00:07ZMultibillion-dollar strategy with no end in sight: Australia’s ‘enduring’ offshore processing deal with Nauru<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424138/original/file-20211001-13-1e0vw0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=366%2C12%2C3645%2C2249&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Late last month, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews and the president of Nauru, Lionel Aingimea, quietly <a href="https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/KarenAndrews/Pages/maritime-people-smuggling.aspx">announced</a> they had signed a new agreement to establish an “enduring form” of offshore processing for asylum seekers taken to the Pacific island.</p>
<p>The text of the new agreement has not been made public. This is unsurprising. </p>
<p>All the publicly available information indicates Australia’s offshore processing strategy is an ongoing human rights — not to mention financial — <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/news/press/2021/7/60f558274/unhcr-statement-on-8-years-of-offshore-asylum-policy.html">disaster</a>. </p>
<p>The deliberate opaqueness is intended to make it difficult to hold the government to account for these human and other costs. This is, of course, all the more reason to subject the new deal with Nauru to intense scrutiny.</p>
<h2>Policies 20 years in the making</h2>
<p>In order to fully understand the new deal — and the ramifications of it — it is necessary to briefly recount 20 years of history. </p>
<p>In late August 2001, the Howard government impulsively refused to allow asylum seekers <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/tampa-affair">rescued at sea by the Tampa freighter</a> to disembark on Australian soil. This began policy-making on the run and led to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Solution#:%7E:text=The%20Pacific%20Solution%20is%20the,land%20on%20the%20Australian%20mainland.">Pacific Solution Mark I</a>. </p>
<p>The governments of Nauru and Papua New Guinea were persuaded to enter into agreements allowing people attempting to reach Australia by boat to be detained in facilities on their territory while their protection claims were considered by Australian officials. </p>
<p>By the 2007 election, boat arrivals to Australia had dwindled substantially.</p>
<p>In February 2008, the newly elected Labor government closed down the facilities in Nauru and PNG. Within a year, boat arrivals had increased dramatically, causing the government to rethink its policy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424144/original/file-20211001-15-4u7zxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424144/original/file-20211001-15-4u7zxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424144/original/file-20211001-15-4u7zxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424144/original/file-20211001-15-4u7zxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424144/original/file-20211001-15-4u7zxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424144/original/file-20211001-15-4u7zxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424144/original/file-20211001-15-4u7zxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sri Lankan migrants bound for Australia after they were intercepted by the Indonesian navy in 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Irwin Fedriansyah/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a <a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n7824/pdf/ch09.pdf">couple of false starts</a>, it signed new deals with Nauru and PNG in late 2012. An expert panel had <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/files/expert-panel-report.pdf">described</a> the new arrangements as a “necessary circuit breaker to the current surge in irregular migration to Australia”. </p>
<p>This was the <a href="http://www.refugeeaction.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Pacific-Solution-II-fact-sheet.pdf">Pacific Solution Mark II</a>. In contrast to the first iteration, it provided for boat arrivals taken to Nauru and PNG to have protection claims considered under the laws and procedures of the host country. </p>
<p>Moreover, the processing facilities were supposedly run by the host countries, though in reality, the Australian government outsourced this to private companies.</p>
<p>Despite the new arrangements, the boat arrivals continued. And on July 19, 2013, the Rudd government took a hardline stance, <a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20130730234007/http:/pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/79983/20130731-0937/www.pm.gov.au/press-office/transcript-joint-press-conference-2.html">announcing</a> any boat arrivals after that date would have “have no chance of being settled in Australia as refugees”. </p>
<h2>New draconian changes to the system</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadestimatesquestions/EstimatesQuestion-CommitteeId6-EstimatesRoundId11-PortfolioId20-QuestionNumber545">1,056</a> individuals who had been transferred to Nauru or PNG before July 19, 2013 were brought to Australia to be processed. </p>
<p>PNG <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/papua-new-guinea/memorandum-of-understanding-between-the-government-of-the-independent-state-of-papua-new-guinea-and-the-government-of-austr">agreed</a> that asylum seekers arriving after this date could resettle there, if they were recognised as refugees.</p>
<p>Nauru made a more equivocal <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/nauru/memorandum-of-understanding-between-the-republic-of-nauru-and-the-commonwealth-of-australia-relating-to-the-transfer-to-and">commitment</a> and has thus far only granted 20-year visas to those it recognises as refugees.</p>
<p>The Coalition then won the September 2013 federal election and implemented the military-led Operation Sovereign Borders policy. This involves turning back boat arrivals to transit countries (like Indonesia), or to their countries of origin. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/foi/files/2021/fa-210100105-fa210100899-document-released-pt1.PDF">cumulative count</a> of interceptions since then stands at 38 boats carrying 873 people. The most recent interception was in January 2020. </p>
<p>It should be noted these figures do not include the large number of interceptions undertaken at Australia’s request by transit countries and countries of origin. </p>
<p>What this means is the mere existence of the offshore processing system — even in the more draconian form in place after July 2013 — has not deterred people from attempting to reach Australia by boat. </p>
<p>Rather, the attempts have continued, but the interception activities of Australia and other countries have prevented them from succeeding.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1443712420891947010"}"></div></p>
<h2>No new asylum seekers in Nauru or PNG since 2014</h2>
<p>Australia acknowledges it has obligations under the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/1954/5.html">UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees</a> — and other human rights treaties — to refrain from returning people to places where they face the risk of serious harm. </p>
<p>As a result, those intercepted at sea are given <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadestimatesquestions/EstimatesQuestion-CommitteeId6-EstimatesRoundId10-PortfolioId20-QuestionNumber311">on-water screening interviews</a> for the purpose of identifying those with <em>prima facie</em> protection claims. </p>
<p>Those individuals are supposed to be taken to Nauru or PNG instead of being turned back or handed back. <a href="https://www.asyluminsight.com/savitri-taylor#.YVUDX5pBwtI">Concerningly</a>, of the 873 people intercepted since 2013, only two have passed these screenings: both in 2014. </p>
<p>This means no asylum seekers have been taken to either Nauru or PNG since 2014. Since then, Australia has spent years trying to find resettlement options in third countries for recognised refugees in Nauru and PNG, such as in <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadestimatesquestions/EstimatesQuestion-CommitteeId6-EstimatesRoundId4-PortfolioId20-QuestionNumber152">Cambodia</a> and <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadestimatesquestions/EstimatesQuestion-CommitteeId6-EstimatesRoundId11-PortfolioId20-QuestionNumber549">the US</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadestimatesquestions/EstimatesQuestion-CommitteeId6-EstimatesRoundId11-PortfolioId20-QuestionNumber544">As of April 30</a>, 131 asylum seekers were still in PNG and 109 were in Nauru. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-medevac-repeal-and-what-it-means-for-asylum-seekers-on-manus-island-and-nauru-128118">Explainer: the medevac repeal and what it means for asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru</a>
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<h2>A boon to the Nauruan government</h2>
<p>Australia has spent <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadestimatesquestions/EstimatesQuestion-CommitteeId6-EstimatesRoundId11-PortfolioId20-QuestionNumber427">billions</a> on Pacific Solution Mark II with no end in sight.</p>
<p>As well as underwriting all the infrastructure and operational costs of the processing facilities, Australia made it worthwhile for Nauru and PNG to participate in the arrangements. </p>
<p>For one thing, it promised to ensure spillover benefits for the local economies by, for example, requiring contractors to hire local staff. In fact, in 2019–20, the processing facility in Nauru employed <a href="https://devpolicy.org/nauru-riches-to-rags-to-riches-20210412/">15% of the country’s entire workforce</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1360001314172727297"}"></div></p>
<p>And from the beginning, Nauru has <a href="http://www.paclii.org/nr/legis/sub_leg/ia2014ir2014385.pdf">required</a> every transferee to hold a regional processing centre visa. This is a temporary visa which must be renewed every three months by the Australian government. </p>
<p>The visa fee each time is A$3,000, so that’s A$12,000 per transferee per year that Australia is required to pay the Nauruan government. </p>
<p>Where a transferee is found to be a person in need of protection, that visa <a href="http://www.paclii.org/nr/legis/sub_leg/ia2014irn4o2014511/">converts automatically</a> into a temporary settlement visa, which must be renewed every six months. The temporary settlement visa fee is A$3,000 per month — again paid by the Australian government. </p>
<p>In 2019-20, direct and indirect revenue from the processing facility made up <a href="https://devpolicy.org/nauru-riches-to-rags-to-riches-20210412/">58% of total Nauruan government revenue</a>. It is no wonder Nauru is on board with making an “enduring form” of offshore processing available to Australia.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cruel-costly-and-ineffective-australias-offshore-processing-asylum-seeker-policy-turns-9-166014">Cruel, costly and ineffective: Australia's offshore processing asylum seeker policy turns 9</a>
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<h2>‘Not to use it, but to be willing to use it’</h2>
<p>In 2016, the PNG Supreme Court <a href="http://www.paclii.org/pg/cases/PGSC/2016/13.pdf">ruled</a> the detention of asylum seekers in the offshore processing facility was unconstitutional. Australia and PNG then <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/3a32f9b8-b53d-4251-a739-7e12e1fc506e/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2017_10_23_5658_Official.pdf;fileType=application/pdf#search=%22committees/estimate/3a32f9b8-b53d-4251-a739-7e12e1fc506e/0001%22">agreed</a> to close the PNG facility in late 2017 and residents were moved to alternative accommodation. Australia is <a href="https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2017/10/29/Media_Release-Minister_Thomas_on_Closure_of_Manus_RPC.pdf">underwriting the costs</a>.</p>
<p>Australia decided, however, to maintain a processing facility in Nauru. Senator Jim Molan <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22committees/estimate/2c68087e-f913-401c-88da-f76e4cc7f2fc/0002%22">asked</a> Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo about this in Senate Estimates in February 2018, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So it’s more appropriate to say that we are not maintaining Nauru as an offshore processing centre; we are maintaining a relationship with the Nauru government.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pezzullo responded,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the whole purpose is, as you would well recall, in fact not to have to use those facilities. But, as in all deterrents, you need to have an asset that is credible so that you are deterring future eventualities. So the whole point of it is actually not to use it but to be willing to use it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is how we ended up where we are now, with a new deal with the Nauru government for an “enduring” — that is indefinitely maintained — offshore processing capability, at great cost to the Australian people.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/could-the-biden-administration-pressure-australia-to-adopt-more-humane-refugee-policies-153718">Could the Biden administration pressure Australia to adopt more humane refugee policies?</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Little has been made public about this new arrangement. We do know in December 2020, the incoming minister for immigration, Alex Hawke, was <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/foi/files/2021/fa-210100105-fa210100899-document-released-pt1.PDF">told</a> the government was undertaking “a major procurement” for “enduring capability services”. </p>
<p>We also know a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadestimatesquestions/EstimatesQuestion-CommitteeId6-EstimatesRoundId11-PortfolioId20-QuestionNumber423">budget of A$731.2 million</a> has been appropriated for regional processing in 2021-22. </p>
<p>Of this, $187 million is for service provider fees and host government costs in PNG. Almost all of the remainder goes to Nauru, to ensure that, beyond hosting its current population of 109 transferees, it “stands ready to receive new arrivals”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Savitri Taylor receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
She is a member of the Committee of Management of Refugee Legal.
She is a member of the Kim for Canberra Party.
The views expressed in this article are her own.</span></em></p>Nauru is receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from Australia annually to house 109 asylum seekers. The real purpose, though, is to ‘stand ready to receive new arrivals’.Savitri Taylor, Associate Professor, Law School, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1660142021-08-12T01:04:39Z2021-08-12T01:04:39ZCruel, costly and ineffective: Australia’s offshore processing asylum seeker policy turns 9<p>This week marks nine years since Australia re-introduced a policy of offshore processing for asylum seekers arriving by boat. Nine long years of a cruel, costly and ineffective policy sustained by successive governments of both major parties, despite <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/files/Policy_Brief_11_Offshore_Processing.pdf">consistently failing to meet</a> any of its stated aims.</p>
<p>As we outline in a new Kaldor Centre policy brief, <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/files/Policy_Brief_11_Offshore_Processing.pdf">Cruel, costly and ineffective: the failure of offshore processing in Australia</a>, offshore processing does not “save lives”, “stop the boats” or “break the business model of people smugglers”. Nor is it a benign failure. </p>
<p>Beyond simply not doing what it sets out to do, offshore processing carries enormous costs. There are human costs, for the men, women and children subject to immense suffering, and even to some of the people tasked with implementing it.</p>
<p>It also carries diplomatic costs, as Australia’s international reputation is tarnished. Its relationship with Pacific neighbours in Nauru and Papua New Guinea grows increasingly strained with each passing year. Then there’s the ballooning economic costs for taxpayers, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/12/australia-will-spend-almost-34m-for-each-person-in-offshore-detention-budget-shows">billions are sunk in vain</a> into a disastrous policy failure. </p>
<p>That no Australian government in almost a decade has successfully brought this policy to a formal close is astonishing, and it demands interrogation.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-billions-more-allocated-to-immigration-detention-its-another-bleak-year-for-refugees-160783">With billions more allocated to immigration detention, it's another bleak year for refugees</a>
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<h2>Failing to meet its stated policy aims</h2>
<p>The government’s own data on the impact of offshore processing on boat arrivals is the starkest revelation of this policy’s failure. During its first year, <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/BoatTurnbacks">more people sought asylum in Australia by boat</a> than at any other time since boat arrivals were first recorded in the 1970s. Deaths at sea also <a href="https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/2523141/BOB-Research-Brief-18-_border-deaths-annual-report-2020_Final.pdf">continued at broadly comparable rates</a> to previous years. </p>
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<p>People continued to seek safety in Australia via maritime routes until they physically could not do so anymore. The 2013 launch of Operation Sovereign Borders, and the Abbott government’s commitment to intercepting and returning people trying to reach Australia by boat — no matter the legal and humanitarian consequences — effectively rendered it futile to try and reach Australia by sea.</p>
<p>Despite early suggestions offshore processing was a vital complement to this turning back of boats, there is no evidence that this is so.</p>
<p>In fact, while offshore processing has formally remained on foot, and popular rhetoric gives the impression that it is still a key part of the matrix of border security measures necessary to keep the boats “stopped”, Australia <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/4129606/upload_binary/4129606.pdf">ceased transferring new arrivals offshore in 2014</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, Australian officials have gone to extraordinary lengths to intercept at sea and return <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadestimatesquestions/EstimatesQuestion-CommitteeId6-EstimatesRoundId8-PortfolioId20-QuestionNumber203">hundreds of asylum seekers</a> in recent years. </p>
<p>What this means is that transfers offshore occurred for less than two years. The following seven years have been spent in a prolonged and costly policy bind, as successive Labor and Coalition governments have tried to find solutions outside Australia for people who should have been settled here long ago.</p>
<p>Meanwhile almost everyone still subject to this policy is back in Australia, having been either returned following a <a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20130730234007/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/79983/20130731-0937/www.pm.gov.au/press-office/transcript-joint-press-conference-2.html">policy change in July 2013</a> or medically evacuated amid <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/files/supplementarysubmission_medevac.pdf">spiralling health crises offshore</a> from 2017. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us-subsite/files/population-and-number-of-people-resettled.pdf">latest figures</a>, there are barely more than 100 asylum seekers left in each of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. The men and women in Nauru are living in the community. The men in Papua New Guinea are in the capital, Port Moresby, having been transferred there following the closure of the Manus Island detention centre in 2017. </p>
<h2>So why does this policy drag on?</h2>
<p>The reason given publicly for continuation of this policy — that offshore processing is necessary to prevent a resurgence of boat arrivals — has no demonstrated evidentiary basis. </p>
<p>When Australia previously sent asylum seekers offshore, under the Howard government, the majority of people processed offshore and found to be refugees were <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/bn/2012-2013/pacificsolution">settled in Australia</a>. </p>
<p>This fact did not prompt an increase in boat arrivals. More recently, there was no spike in boat arrivals when Australia announced that people offshore would be eligible for <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/publication/australia%E2%80%93united-states-resettlement-arrangement">resettlement in the United States</a>, or when almost everyone was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2020/dec/10/timeline-australia-offshore-immigration-detention-system-program-census-of-asylum-seekers-refugees">moved back to Australia</a>.</p>
<p>We have just over a thousand asylum seekers here in Australia, and a small number offshore, who have been put through significant trauma in a failed attempt to send a harsh deterrence message to others who might consider trying to reach Australia by boat. </p>
<p>They have been waiting years for a solution, when a simple one is available right now. </p>
<p>All should be permitted to settle permanently in Australia or another appropriate country, provided that alternative is voluntary. Serious consideration should be given to what reparation and rehabilitation Australia may owe the victims of offshore processing.</p>
<p>This deeply flawed policy must not be permitted to reach its ten-year mark.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/could-the-biden-administration-pressure-australia-to-adopt-more-humane-refugee-policies-153718">Could the Biden administration pressure Australia to adopt more humane refugee policies?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166014/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeline is the author of 'Offshore: Behind the wire on Manus and Nauru' (NewSouth, 2016). She does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has not disclosed any relevant affiliations beyond her academic appointment.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Yacoub is an international refugee law scholar and practitioner, having worked on refugee protection for two decades with the United Nations in conflict and peacetime settings. She is presently a researcher and doctoral candidate at UNSW. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.</span></em></p>That no Australian government in almost a decade has successfully brought this policy to a formal close is astonishing. In fact, Australia ceased transferring new arrivals offshore in 2014.Madeline Gleeson, Senior Research Fellow, Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyNatasha Yacoub, International refugee lawyer and scholar, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1607832021-05-13T06:12:55Z2021-05-13T06:12:55ZWith billions more allocated to immigration detention, it’s another bleak year for refugees<p>Refugees and asylum seekers will take little comfort from the 2021–22 budget. Resettlement places remain capped, while spending on offshore processing, immigration detention and deterrence measures remains high. </p>
<p>For those still held offshore in Papua New Guinea or Nauru, in detention here in Australia, or on <a href="https://temporary.kaldorcentre.net/introduction">temporary</a> visas in our community, the budget compounds the human cost of Australia’s hardline asylum policy.</p>
<h2>Cap remains the same on refugee placements</h2>
<p>Before COVID-19, Australia’s humanitarian program provided for the resettlement of up to 18,750 refugees and others in need each year. The program <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/resettlement-briefing-on-covid-19/">fell short</a> of this number early last year when international travel was restricted due to the COVID-19 outbreak. </p>
<p>It was then cut by 5,000 places for 2020, and these places <a href="https://amp.sbs.com.au/eds/news/live-blog/federal-budget-2021-11-may-2021/c0c756d3-b98f-4f9d-b7fe-910b24d2d170">have not been restored</a> under the latest budget. </p>
<p>This is despite <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/20210129-International-Australia-Submission_Pre-Budget-Priorities.pdf">calls</a> from advocacy groups for Australia to do more in response to global displacement — particularly with the <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2021/01/25/afghanistan-refugee-resettlement-coronavirus-conflict-australia-canada">pressures</a> COVID has placed on countries hosting large numbers of forced migrants — and to restore the humanitarian program to its pre-pandemic level.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-our-borders-shut-this-is-the-ideal-time-to-overhaul-our-asylum-seeker-policies-146016">With our borders shut, this is the ideal time to overhaul our asylum seeker policies</a>
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<h2>Little help for those in Nauru or PNG</h2>
<p>Offshore processing is once again a big budget item for Home Affairs, set at close to <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/reports-and-pubs/budgets/2021-22-home-affairs-pbs.pdf">A$812 million</a> for 2021-22. </p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/federal-budget-what-it-means-for-refugees-and-people-seeking-humanitarian-protection/">109 people currently being held on Nauru and 130 in Papua New Guinea</a>, this equates to almost <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/12/australia-will-spend-almost-34m-for-each-person-in-offshore-detention-budget-shows">$3.4 million</a> per person for 2021. </p>
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<p>For the next three years (2022–24), spending on offshore processing is projected at just over $300 million annually, although experience shows annual costs have exceeded those provided in the forward estimates since at least <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/news/2015-2016-budget">2015</a>.</p>
<p>This excessive spending raises serious questions about the government’s planning for these refugees stuck in limbo. </p>
<p>Keeping people in Nauru and PNG cannot be the only option, and the UN refugee agency has long made <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/news/briefing/2017/12/5a3cce224/australia-must-secure-solutions-refugees-abandoned-manus-island.html">clear</a> Australia must “live up to its responsibilities” to find long-term and humane solutions for those held offshore. </p>
<p>The budget includes continued support for Nauru and PNG to provide “durable migration options” in the way of resettlement, voluntarily return to individuals’ home countries or removal for those found not to be refugees. </p>
<p>But in addition to Australia’s <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/publication/offshore-processing-australia%E2%80%99s-responsibility-asylum-seekers-and-refugees-nauru-and">obligations</a> on this front, experts have raised real <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/RCOA-Seven-Years-On.pdf">concerns</a> that some asylum seekers have been pressured to agree to return home, despite the risks this may pose to their safety. </p>
<p>Among those still held offshore, only a <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/567ff01c-d590-41e8-ab09-bd5d4e996f13/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2021_03_22_8611.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/567ff01c-d590-41e8-ab09-bd5d4e996f13/0001%22">small</a> number have received provisional approval as of March for resettlement in the United States. The UN refugee agency, meanwhile, is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/17/canada-europe-resettling-australia-refugees">working</a> to find resettlement places in Canada and Europe, without help from Australia. </p>
<h2>Vast sums for detention</h2>
<p>The budget also sees big spending on immigration detention, with more than <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/reports-and-pubs/budgets/2021-22-home-affairs-pbs.pdf">$1.2 billion</a> allocated to Home Affairs for onshore detention and compliance in 2021-22. This includes packages to assist individuals to voluntarily return to their countries of origin. </p>
<p>An extra <a href="https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/AlexHawke/Pages/securing-our-future.aspx">$464.7 million</a> has also been allocated to increase capacity in detention centres on the Australian mainland and on Christmas Island, due to the <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/567ff01c-d590-41e8-ab09-bd5d4e996f13/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2021_03_22_8611.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/567ff01c-d590-41e8-ab09-bd5d4e996f13/0001%22">challenges</a> of deporting people during COVID-19 travel restrictions. </p>
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<p>The Christmas Island facility was “reactivated” under last year’s budget to the tune of <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/news/how-australia%E2%80%99s-federal-budget-2020-21-impacts-refugees-and-asylum-seekers">$55.6m</a>, and currently holds more than <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/567ff01c-d590-41e8-ab09-bd5d4e996f13/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2021_03_22_8611.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/567ff01c-d590-41e8-ab09-bd5d4e996f13/0001%22">200</a> people. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-give-visas-to-the-biloela-tamil-family-and-other-asylum-seekers-stuck-in-the-system-155354">Murugappan</a> family from Biloela, Queensland, lives in a <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/detention-australia-statistics/3/">separate</a> section of the facility. They have been detained there since August 2019 — and for a long time they were the only occupants — at a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jan/07/keeping-biloela-family-locked-up-on-christmas-island-cost-australia-14m-last-year#:%7E:text=The%20department%20said%20in%20October,Island%20has%20cost%20%241.4m.&text=The%20legal%20costs%20incurred%20by,the%20past%20year%20to%20%24402%2C100.">substantial cost</a>.</p>
<p>Farther afield, Home Affairs will spend $104 million to continue working with regional governments and international organisations (such as the International Organisation for Migration) as part of ongoing efforts to prevent human trafficking and people smuggling. </p>
<p>And an additional <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/reports-and-pubs/budgets/2021-22-home-affairs-pbs.pdf">$38.1 million</a> is going to Indonesia to continue funding basic services for asylum seekers and information campaigns designed to deter people from seeking asylum in Australia. </p>
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<h2>Mixed support for asylum seekers in the community</h2>
<p>There are thousands of asylum seekers in Australia still <a href="https://temporary.kaldorcentre.net/introduction">waiting</a> for their claims for protection to be assessed. </p>
<p>The Department of Home Affairs has recently launched a “<a href="https://www.racs.org.au/news-old/human-rights-legal-community-appeals-to-government-against-a-new-blitz-of-fast-track-interviews-as-processing-for-boat-arrivals-comes-to-a-close">blitz</a>” in calling people in for their first interviews, which <a href="https://www.racs.org.au/news-old/human-rights-legal-community-appeals-to-government-against-a-new-blitz-of-fast-track-interviews-as-processing-for-boat-arrivals-comes-to-a-close">refugee lawyers</a> say has left some applicants with just two weeks to prepare. </p>
<p>Perhaps unsurprisingly, the budget continues a downward <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/federal-budget-what-it-means-for-refugees-and-people-seeking-humanitarian-protection/">trend</a> in the amount of funding for support services for asylum seekers at just <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/05_2021/budget-2021-22_portfolio_budget_statements_11052021_1000.pdf">$33 million</a> for 2021–22, down from $39 million two years ago. </p>
<p>Advocates <a href="https://asrc.org.au/2021/05/12/budget-21-continues-the-governments-detention-cost-blow-out-and-exclusion-of-people-seeking-asylum-refugees-and-migrants-in-time-of-crisis/">say</a> this funding will only cover “a tiny percentage” of the needs of asylum seekers in the community while their protection claims are being assessed. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, however, the budget did hit some positive notes for refugees in the measures aimed at improving women’s safety. </p>
<p>Alongside economic and social support initiatives for refugee and migrant women, there is a <a href="https://budget.gov.au/2021-22/content/womens-statement/download/womens_budget_statement_2021-22.pdf">pilot program</a> to enable women on temporary visas who are experiencing family violence to explore visa options not reliant on their partner.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/scores-of-medevac-refugees-have-been-released-from-detention-their-freedom-though-remains-tenuous-156952">Scores of medevac refugees have been released from detention. Their freedom, though, remains tenuous</a>
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<h2>A missed opportunity</h2>
<p>With Australia’s borders predicted to remain closed until mid-2022, the needs of refugees and asylum seekers may not be grabbing headlines in this budget cycle. </p>
<p>But as the Refugee Council of Australia has recently <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/priorities-covid-19/">documented</a>, there are <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/new-data-reveals-children-of-people-seeking-asylum-left-hungry-as-impact-of-covid-19-crisis-deepens/">many ways</a> the government can help displaced people during the pandemic.</p>
<p>This includes bringing people from Nauru and PNG to Australia and ensuring procedural fairness in the assessment of their protection claims. </p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/publication/cost-australias-asylum-policy">studies</a> repeatedly showing the settlement of displaced people can help to address demographic and labour shortages and substantially boost Australia’s economy, this budget’s emphasis on detention, deterrence and removal is disappointing. </p>
<p>It’s a missed opportunity for refugees and for the nation’s post-pandemic future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160783/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Higgins receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>This excessive spending raises serious raise questions about the government’s long-term planning for refugees stuck in limbo.Claire Higgins, Senior Research Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1537182021-01-26T18:52:28Z2021-01-26T18:52:28ZCould the Biden administration pressure Australia to adopt more humane refugee policies?<p>As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden <a href="https://joebiden.com/immigration/">promised</a> the US would demonstrate “global leadership on refugees”. Once elected, he <a href="https://www.jrsusa.org/news/jesuit-refugee-service-welcomes-announcement-from-president-elect-joe-biden-on-increase-of-refugee-admissions-to-125000/">pledged</a> to vastly increase refugee resettlement in the US. </p>
<p>If history is any guide, the new president’s forward-thinking approach could help drive Australia’s commitments to refugee protection, as well.</p>
<p>Over the past four decades, the United States and Australia have contributed to international refugee resettlement through planned annual admission programs. </p>
<p>The annual US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) has traditionally operated on a much larger scale than any other country, with tens of thousands of places per year. Since 1980, the program has enabled more than <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2331502418787787">3 million</a> people to find safety and build new lives in the US.</p>
<p>Under former President Donald Trump, however, the program was cut to historic lows of just <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/FY21-USRAP-Report-to-Congress-FINAL-for-WEBSITE-102220-508.pdf">15,000</a> places for the year beginning in October 2020. </p>
<p>Less dramatically, Australia’s quota for the admission of refugees and others in humanitarian need was similarly reduced from <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/resettlement-briefing-on-covid-19/#:%7E:text=Australia%20had%20been%20planning%20a,1650%20permanent%20onshore%20protection%20visas.">18,750</a> in 2019-20 to <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/news/how-australia%2525E2%252580%252599s-federal-budget-2020-21-impacts-refugees-and-asylum-seekers">13,750</a> in 2020-21, a cut <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/resettlement-briefing-on-covid-19/">attributed</a> to travel restrictions imposed due to COVID-19.</p>
<h2>Biden pledging to increase US refugee intake</h2>
<p>Revitalising the US refugee program is one of the many tasks facing the newly installed Biden administration, in addition to <a href="https://www.undispatch.com/how-the-biden-administration-can-reset-americas-approach-to-refugees-asylum-seekers-and-international-migration/">revising</a> US asylum policy for those seeking protection at the borders. </p>
<p>Biden has committed to an annual refugee intake of up to 125,000 people, echoing the goals of the <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/28/presidential-determination-refugee-admissions-fiscal-year-2017">Obama administration in its final year</a>, when it set an intake of up to 110,000 refugees.</p>
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<p>At that time, resettlement was valued as a “<a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/20/fact-sheet-leaders-summit-refugees">foreign policy priority</a>” for the US, with President Barack Obama joining UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in hosting a <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/p/io/c71574.htm#:%7E:text=President%20Barack%20Obama%20hosted%20a,through%20resettlement%20or%20other%20legal">Leaders’ Summit on Refugees</a> in 2016 to address record levels of global displacement, including from Syria. </p>
<p>The Australian government participated in that initiative and <a href="https://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/speech-at-president-obamas-leaders-summit-on-refugees">pledged</a> to increase its annual humanitarian intake to 19,000 by 2018. The summit demonstrated how leadership by the US can have direct impact and influence on the actions of other states.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-our-borders-shut-this-is-the-ideal-time-to-overhaul-our-asylum-seeker-policies-146016">With our borders shut, this is the ideal time to overhaul our asylum seeker policies</a>
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<h2>Australia has similarly tried to boost its reputation</h2>
<p>By increasing the US resettlement numbers now, Biden is looking to rebuild America’s image abroad. </p>
<p>This is a tried and tested tool, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/dh/article-abstract/39/2/223/468690?redirectedFrom=fulltext">evident</a> in the Ford and Carter administration’s large-scale admission of Vietnamese refugees in the aftermath of the disastrous war in Vietnam.</p>
<p>Previous Australian governments have also sought to improve the country’s image through the rosy glow of resettlement contributions. </p>
<p>In September 2015, for example, just five days after The New York Times published a scathing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/03/opinion/australias-brutal-treatment-of-migrants.html?searchResultPosition=7">assessment</a> of Australia’s offshore detention system, the Abbott government announced Australia would resettle an additional 12,000 Iraqi and Syrian refugees. </p>
<p>Abbott <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/australias-foreign-policy-and-refugee-resettlement">claimed</a> Australia was demonstrating good international citizenry. </p>
<p>However, the optics did not prevent the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16414">decrying</a> a week later the lack of transparency around offshore detention in Australia and the inability of asylum seekers to access medical care and independent legal advice. </p>
<p>Most recently, the Australian government this month <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/AUindex.aspx">cited</a> the country’s “generous” humanitarian program in its formal response to <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G20/306/42/PDF/G2030642.pdf?OpenElement">UN concerns</a> about the treatment of asylum seekers here.</p>
<h2>US and Australia policies have long echoed one another</h2>
<p>Whether the Biden administration could influence Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers is hard to gauge. </p>
<p>The US has been a model for Australia’s harsh asylum policies over the years. The US Coast Guard, for instance, was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/30/us/reagan-orders-aliens-stopped-on-the-high-sea.html">interdicting</a> asylum seeker boats under the Reagan administration, years before the Howard government adopted the practice in 2001. </p>
<p>And in the early 1990s, the Bush and Clinton administrations <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-turned-away-thousands-of-haitian-asylum-seekers-and-detained-hundreds-more-in-the-90s-98611">authorised the detention</a> of Haitian refugees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base — a practice later adopted by Australia on Manus Island and Nauru.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-the-us-border-policy-is-harsh-but-australias-treatment-of-refugee-children-has-also-been-deplorable-98706">Yes, the US border policy is harsh – but Australia's treatment of refugee children has also been deplorable</a>
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<p>And at times, Australia has influenced the US. In a phone call with Trump following his inauguration in January 2017, then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull expressed support for Trump’s promotion of hard-line immigration control, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/politics/australia-mexico-transcripts/">claimed</a> that Australia had “inform[ed] your approach”. Turnbull said,</p>
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<p>We have, as you know, taken a very strong line on national security and border protection here […] We are very much of the same mind. </p>
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<h2>Could the Biden administration lean on Canberra now?</h2>
<p>If Biden follows through on his <a href="https://www.jrsusa.org/news/jesuit-refugee-service-welcomes-announcement-from-president-elect-joe-biden-on-increase-of-refugee-admissions-to-125000/">pledge</a> to reinstate America’s “historic role in protecting the vulnerable”, he may prove to be a very different kind of leader.</p>
<p>The Obama era could provide some clues to the Biden approach. In 2015, the head of the Department of State’s refugee bureau <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/prm/releases/remarks/2015/243186.htm">encouraged</a> Australia to </p>
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<p>be with us again in really being leaders in humanitarian response to migrants and refugees in the region. </p>
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<p>The Obama administration <a href="https://time.com/4894058/donald-trump-malcolm-turnbull-refugees-famine/">urged</a> the Australian government to change its hard-line insistence on detaining asylum seekers offshore. </p>
<p>Unsuccessful in this effort, the Obama administration did what it could, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/nov/13/australias-deal-to-resettle-refugees-in-the-us-what-we-know-so">signing a resettlement deal</a> with the Turnbull government in 2016 to get refugees off Manus and Nauru and grant them entry to the United States. </p>
<p>The deal was loudly criticised but <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/politics/australia-mexico-transcripts/">reluctantly upheld</a> by the Trump administration (even though Trump struggled to understand what he called Australia’s “thing with boats”). </p>
<p>Importantly, the deal was reportedly predicated on Australia “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-22/us-refugee-deal-architect-says-based-on-australia-doing-more/8375250">doing more</a>” for refugees elsewhere in the world. Signs of this effort were evident in Australia’s increased refugee admission quotas of recent years.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hotels-are-no-luxury-place-to-detain-people-seeking-asylum-in-australia-134544">Hotels are no 'luxury' place to detain people seeking asylum in Australia</a>
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<p>If the Biden administration leans on Canberra in a similar way, we may see Australia return to a higher resettlement quota. </p>
<p>Perhaps we will also see humane solutions for those who came by boat seeking Australia’s protection and are still being detained in hotels and remote detention facilities — including <a href="https://ama.com.au/media/release-biloela-family-immigration-detention">young children</a>. </p>
<p>There are glimmers of hope. In recent days, for instance, the Australia government released <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-20/victoria-medevac-detainees-released-from-melbourne-park-hotel/13074722">dozens</a> of refugees and asylum seekers from detention. </p>
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<p>However, these men have been given short-term visas, which means they will continue to face an uncertain future — a product of current government policy that affects many <a href="https://temporary.kaldorcentre.net/">thousands</a> of refugees living in Australia today. </p>
<p>It is clear that leadership by the US, Australia’s major ally, is needed now more than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153718/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Higgins receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>If history is any guide, the new US president’s forward-thinking approach toward refugee resettlement could help drive Australia’s commitments to refugee protection, too.Claire Higgins, Senior Research Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1437432020-08-04T03:51:45Z2020-08-04T03:51:45ZClaims that Behrouz Boochani jumped the queue are a reminder of the dangers of anti-refugee politics<p>Perhaps predictably, last week’s announcement that Behrouz Boochani had been <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122166500/iranian-writer-behrouz-boochani-granted-refugee-status-in-nz">granted</a> refugee status in New Zealand quickly became election campaign fodder.</p>
<p>Both National Party leader Judith <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300067637/judith-collins-wont-say-if-she-has-evidence-for-boochani-queue-jumping-claim">Collins</a> and NZ First leader Winston Peters alluded to Boochani being a “queue-jumper” and the beneficiary of elite favouritism. </p>
<p>Originally from Iran, Boochani arrived in New Zealand last November after six years in a detention centre on Manus Island. Using a smuggled smartphone, he detailed his experience as a refugee in what became an <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/awards/national-biography-award/2019-winner-no-friend-mountains">award-winning book</a>, No Friend but the Mountains. </p>
<p>His lawyer <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122166500/iranian-writer-behrouz-boochani-granted-refugee-status-in-nz">rejected</a> the queue-jumping label. He said neither the minister of immigration nor Immigration New Zealand had given direction to allow Boochani to enter New Zealand.</p>
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<p>Green MP Golriz Ghahraman <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/07/golriz-ghahraman-hits-out-at-judith-collins-for-race-baiting-over-behrouz-boochani-refugee-status.html">said</a> the comments of Peters and Collins were “race-baiting” and “dog-whistling” that would lead to New Zealand’s minority communities feeling “less safe”.</p>
<p>Peters called Ghahraman’s comments “disgraceful”, while Collins <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12351762">said</a> her party “will not be cowed into not asking legitimate questions about processes”.</p>
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<h2>Anti-refugee sentiment as an electoral strategy</h2>
<p>The campaign has moved on for now, but the exchange firmly placed Boochani within a history of using anti-refugee sentiment for electoral gain. The strategy was most successful during the Australian election in 2001 when John Howard turned the MV Tampa refugees and the “children overboard” <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-boat-that-changed-it-all-20110819-1j2o2.html">affair</a> into electoral victory.</p>
<p>The fact the 9/11 terror attacks occurred in the midst of that campaign reinforced the border security focus of Howard’s campaign and led to a conflation of Muslim refugees with Islamic terrorism.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/issues-that-swung-elections-tampa-and-the-national-security-election-of-2001-115143">Issues that swung elections: Tampa and the national security election of 2001</a>
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<p>The hot-button issues of refugees arriving by boat being a threat to border security, the queue-jumper claim and global terrorism were all parts of a deliberate attempt to sow fear and division in the electorate. </p>
<p>Its primary purpose was to draw attention away from negative coverage of other issues. Crafted by Howard’s campaign directors <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/feature-archive/510105/Nats-secret-advisers-accused-of-dirty-tricks-across-Tasman">Crosby Textor</a> (now known as CT Group), it became known as the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/20/lynton-crosby-and-dead-cat-won-election-conservatives-labour-intellectually-lazy">dead cat</a>” strategy. </p>
<p>According to a later Crosby Textor client, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, “throwing a dead cat on the table” inevitably makes people focus on the cat – “and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief”.</p>
<p>This style of campaigning won plaudits for Crosby Textor (and a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lynton-crosby-knighted-zac-goldsmith-sadiq-khan-london-mayor-david-cameron-service-to-politics-a7016681.html">knighthood</a> for Lynton Crosby) and led to a high demand for their services in other parts of the world, including the UK, Canada and New Zealand. </p>
<p>Wherever they have worked, anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment or divisive culture wars have <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6192627/sir-lynton-crosby-and-the-dark-art-of-kingmaking/">characterised election campaigns</a>, with accusations of <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/tories-rehire-strategist-behind-racist-london-mayor-campaign">racism</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/opinion/with-anti-muslim-campaign-canada-has-its-trump-moment.html?_r=0">islamophobia</a> not uncommon. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/queue-jumping-the-hot-button-for-australian-thinking-about-asylum-seekers-4004">'Queue jumping' the hot button for Australian thinking about asylum seekers</a>
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<p>While anti-refugee politics has never packed the punch in New Zealand that it has in <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/polls-apart-how-australian-views-have-changed-on-boat-people">Australia</a>, former prime minister John Key occasionally <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5269049/Key-accused-of-scaremongering">referred</a> to the threat of a boat making it from Indonesia to these shores, and in 2012 he declared Sri Lankan asylum seekers were not welcome.</p>
<h2>The link to March 15</h2>
<p>The 2019 terror attack in Christchurch was so shocking in its scale and in the depth of hatred and racism it revealed that many hoped it would transform political conduct in New Zealand and internationally. </p>
<p>The fact the attacker was born and raised in Australia lent support to the claim that a toxic political culture built in large part around anti-refugee and anti-Islamic sentiment was at least partly <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-refugees-newzealand-shooting/u-n-refugee-chief-warns-new-zealand-massacre-the-result-of-toxic-politics-media-idUSKCN1RL28S">responsible</a> for what happened.</p>
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<p>Many of the refugees who were rescued by the MV Tampa and became central to the Australian election in 2001 were later resettled in New Zealand. Tragically, many were personally affected by the March 15 attacks at the Al-Noor and Linwood mosques.</p>
<p>Boochani himself has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAT25ISGtpI&t=2264s">said</a> the attack had “roots in Manus and Nauru”. The Australian government and a compliant media, he argued, “produced violence and exported that violence to Manus and Nauru for years […] and finally they exported this violence to such a peaceful place such as Christchurch”. </p>
<h2>Beyond the dead cat strategy</h2>
<p>In her contribution to the parliamentary condolences after the attack, Judith Collins <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20190320_20190320_04">expressed</a> her “hope that when we get to the bottom of what could be done in the future to help stop this happening again, we will have a much safer and a much better community from it”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-tampa-to-now-how-reporting-on-asylum-seekers-has-been-a-triumph-of-spin-over-substance-66638">From Tampa to now: how reporting on asylum seekers has been a triumph of spin over substance</a>
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<p>Winston Peters <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20190319_20190319_08">praised</a> Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s “clarity, empathy and unifying leadership” following the attacks and promised to “follow that example”.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, “queue-jumping” rhetoric during an election campaign gives the opposite impression – that National and New Zealand First are again reaching for the false comfort of the dead cat strategy.</p>
<p>One legacy of the March 15 attack should be that political campaigns are <a href="https://theconversation.com/christchurch-attacks-are-a-stark-warning-of-toxic-political-environment-that-allows-hate-to-flourish-113662">conducted carefully</a> on any issues that relate to race, religion, immigration and refugees. </p>
<p>It should not be up to the voting public to ignore the dead cats being thrown on the table. The political leaders who would throw them should show greater responsibility for their words, <a href="https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/islamic-womens-council-accuses-police-othering-not-taking-threats-against-muslims-seriously-before-christchurch-attack">listen</a> to those who are the potential victims, and reconsider how they want to conduct their campaigns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143743/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Moses does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recent history shows politicians should think twice before using refugees and asylum seekers for electoral gain.Jeremy Moses, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1281182019-12-04T03:18:52Z2019-12-04T03:18:52ZExplainer: the medevac repeal and what it means for asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305082/original/file-20191204-70116-bqkej9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jacqui Lambie has made a secret deal with the Coalition government to secure the repeal of medevac.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After much negotiation, the government has <a href="https://theconversation.com/medevac-repealed-after-government-comes-to-secret-arrangement-with-jacqui-lambie-128303">secured the repeal</a> of the medical evacuation law – known as “medevac” – after making a secret deal with Senate cross-bencher Jacqui Lambie.</p>
<p>So what does this mean for those held in offshore detention?</p>
<h2>Understanding the numbers</h2>
<p>The number of refugees and asylum seekers in Nauru and Manus Island peaked at <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/Offshore#_Total_number_of">2,450 in April 2014</a> (1,273 on Manus and 1,177 on Nauru) and has been dropping ever since. As of this week, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/most-people-transferred-under-medevac-law-now-living-in-community-detention-20191203-p53gjo.html">about 466 asylum-seekers</a> and refugees remain offshore – 208 on Papua New Guinea and 258 on Nauru.</p>
<p>Of the nearly 2,000 who are no longer in offshore detention, 632 have been transferred to the United States, <a href="https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1703636/BOb-Annual-Report-2018.pdf">17 died</a> in detention, mainly due to suicide, several hundred have been deported after their claims had been rejected, or after returning “voluntarily” with financial assistance from the <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/operation-sovereign-borders-offshore-detention-statistics/8/">Australian government</a>. Of these returnees, 33 have been reported <a href="https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1703636/BOb-Annual-Report-2018.pdf">dead</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-will-the-medevac-bill-actually-affect-ill-asylum-seekers-111645">Explainer: how will the 'medevac' bill actually affect ill asylum seekers?</a>
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<p>In addition, the majority of those who are no longer on Nauru and PNG have been transferred to Australia for medical treatment. Prior to the Medevac law, 1,246 people had been transferred to Australia for medical reasons, including accompanying family. “Less than a handful” of these were <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/48ea734a-e5f8-4bc6-813e-1f22b32a238a/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2019_10_21_7290.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/48ea734a-e5f8-4bc6-813e-1f22b32a238a/0000%22">returned</a> to Nauru or PNG. The most recent return was on April 15 2018. </p>
<p>The number of medical transfers jumped dramatically from 2017-18, when there were <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/operation-sovereign-borders-offshore-detention-statistics/2/">35 transfers</a>, to 461 from July 2018 to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/12/scott-morrison-suffers-historic-defeat-as-labor-and-crossbench-pass-medevac-bill">passing of the medevac law</a> in February 2019. Since then, a further 288 were transferred under the earlier system of approvals. </p>
<p><a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/48ea734a-e5f8-4bc6-813e-1f22b32a238a/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2019_10_21_7290.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/48ea734a-e5f8-4bc6-813e-1f22b32a238a/0000%22">According to Senates Estimates</a>, between March 2 2019 when Medevac became law, and October 21 2019, 135 refugees and asylum seekers from Nauru and PNG have been transferred for emergency medical treatment under this process. </p>
<h2>Why has there been such a focus on medevac?</h2>
<p>The primary failure of the policy of removing asylum seekers to Nauru and PNG for processing has been the inability to find permanent resettlement options for those who are found to be refugees under the UN Convention.</p>
<p>Having ruled out resettlement in Australia, the government has scrambled to find other countries to take in the asylum seekers. In 2016, then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was fortunate to find President Barack Obama open to a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-13/australia-announces-refugee-resettlement-deal-with-us/8021120">resettlement arrangement</a>, which he subsequently convinced Donald Trump to honour.</p>
<p>But this has been the only option on the table. There was an aborted deal with Cambodia, and a small number have been <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/someone-has-to-do-it-australians-sponsor-refugees-into-canada-20191102-p536rn.html">resettled in Canada</a> through private sponsorship. The government inexplicably refused an offer from New Zealand to resettle <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/17/new-zealand-and-png-could-do-deal-on-refugees-peter-dutton-says">150 refugees</a> each year, concerned they could then enter Australia via New Zealand. </p>
<p>With limited prospects for resettlement, and the mental health of those on Nauru and PNG always vulnerable and quickly deteriorating, medical transfers have been an important strategy. The increasing number of people transferred for medical reasons is a result of the escalating medical emergency.</p>
<p>Prior to medevac, transfers were at the discretion of the minister. When the minister refused a medical transfer to Australia, people were forced to challenge the exercise of the minister’s discretion in the <a href="https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2016/2016fca0483">courts</a>. </p>
<p>After protracted legal actions, Australian courts routinely ordered the minister to transfer people for urgent medical treatment to fulfil Australia’s duty of care to people in offshore places. Medevac replaced this cumbersome process with a medical assessment by two doctors that was reviewed by an independent health advice panel. The minister maintained the power to refuse a transfer on security grounds.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-what-does-reopening-christmas-island-actually-mean-and-why-do-it-111866">Grattan on Friday: What does “reopening” Christmas Island actually mean and why do it?</a>
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<p>Now that the medevac law has been repealed, people will once again rely on ministerial discretion for a medical transfer. One would expect that most, if not all, of those remaining on Nauru and PNG will eventually make an application for a transfer. This is because spending up to six years in these places with limited facilities, and an indefinite timeframe for their detention, will eventually undermine the mental health of even the most robust of those who remain.</p>
<p>Recent figures released by the Department of Home Affairs suggest there are currently <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/most-people-transferred-under-medevac-law-now-living-in-community-detention-20191203-p53gjo.html">418 applications</a> for a transfer out of the remaining 466 people remaining offshore.</p>
<p>The tragedy is that these applications will not be assessed on purely medical grounds, and are likely to be long and protracted. </p>
<h2>Repeal of medevac and the end game for offshore detention</h2>
<p>The government’s repeal of the medevac law will do little more than delay transfers of the last remaining refugees held offshore. We may never know the conversations between the government and Jacqui Lambie, but perhaps she was persuaded that there was value in the government maintaining its uncompromising line on asylum seekers arriving by boat, while medical transfers continue unabated. </p>
<p>The majority of those now in Australia as a result of a medical transfer live in alternative places of detention while they access medical treatment. In time, the only realistic option is to grant these people a visa to stay in Australia. This should happen quietly, while the government maintains its firm but unrealistic line of no one ever being resettled in Australia.</p>
<p>These people can then become part of the Australian community, adults can find work, children can go to school. If this happens, there will be no <a href="https://theconversation.com/resettling-refugees-in-australia-would-not-resume-the-people-smuggling-trade-60253">resumption of boats</a> arriving from Indonesia, and we can be rid of the blight of offshore detention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Reilly receives funding from the Department of Social Security for a project investigating Refugee Women and Work in Australia.</span></em></p>Now that medevac has been repealed, people will once again rely on ministerial discretion for a medical transfer.Alex Reilly, Director of the Public Law and Policy Research Unit, Adelaide Law School, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1246392019-10-03T10:06:45Z2019-10-03T10:06:45ZGrattan on Friday: Jackie Lambie should not horse trade on medevac repeal bill<p>In this age of celebrity, Jacqui Lambie fits the narrative to a tee in the political sphere. She’s a rough-talking woman with a struggle-town back story who has landed centre stage because she has a lot of power – and sometimes the crucial vote – on contested issues in the Senate.</p>
<p>You get the impression Lambie loves both the drama and the influence. She revelled in getting the government to deliver big money to obtain her vote on the tax relief legislation. With chutzpah, she later lamented coming cheap.</p>
<p>But soon Lambie will face a decision with more complexities than tax cuts, affecting relatively few lives but those lives in a huge way. As things stand she’ll be the determining vote on the legislation to repeal medevac, the law that facilitates medical transfers from Papua New Guinea and Nauru.</p>
<p>Lambie, everyone says, is “keeping her cards close to her chest”.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, behind the scenes a race is on to get as many people as possible with medical needs to Australia ahead of the vote, in case the government wins Lambie’s support.</p>
<p>A Senate inquiry on the repeal legislation is due to report on October 18. The government could try to push through its bill in the week of November 11, the next available Senate sitting week.</p>
<p>Those pursuing transfers on behalf of applicants claim the government is attempting to “run down the clock”, dragging out the transfers where it can.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/peter-dutton-is-whipping-up-fear-on-the-medevac-law-but-it-defies-logic-and-compassion-119297">Peter Dutton is whipping up fear on the medevac law, but it defies logic and compassion</a>
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<p>The number of people offshore is now relatively small, after 632 have departed to the United States (with another 263 going through the approval process) and more than 1000 transfers, including accompany family members, to Australia over the years (these mostly not under the new legislation).</p>
<p>According to government figures as of Thursday, there are 281 people in Papua New Guinea (including refugees, non-refugees and some that are still being processed) and 279 in Nauru.</p>
<p>In relation to medevac, the government says there have been 283 notifications for medical transfer, with 127 transferred, 23 in the process of transfer and “numerous others” engaged at various levels. It says the minister has refused 54 cases for transfer and the Independent Health Advisory Panel (IHAP) agreed with the refusal.</p>
<p>The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (which is a member of the Medical Evacuation Response Group set up to manage transfer requests under the medevac law), operating on slightly different figures - its numbers were as of September 29 - says the minister had given approval in 133 cases, while in 15 cases, the minister had been overridden by the IHAP. Refusals had numbered 39, ASRC says.</p>
<p>It says some 79% of all medevac applications that had been determined won approval. In 71% of cases decided, the minister approved the application in the first instance.</p>
<p>The medevac legislation passed when the Coalition was in minority at the end of the last parliamentary term. The government at the time warned of dire consequences, including that rapists and paedophiles would get to Australia.</p>
<p>It re-opened Christmas Island and said transferees would be sent there. No one has been. (Only the Tamil family is there. That family has lived in Australia for years but has failed in its bids for refugee status and will be deported if it loses its current court case.)</p>
<p>The government insisted medevac would trigger a reopening of the people smuggling trade. That hasn’t happened, and the several boats (not a flotilla) that have set out in recent months have been intercepted by the efficient turnback operation. Any “pull” factor is also offset by the medevac law only applying to people who came before it passed.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lambies-vote-key-if-government-wants-to-have-medevac-repealed-118905">Lambie's vote key if government wants to have medevac repealed</a>
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<p>Is medevac a way of clearing everyone from PNG and Nauru by the backdoor? No and yes. Not directly, because people have to be demonstrably ill. But after so many years, most of these people are or will be sick, mainly though not entirely with mental illnesses. Which of us would not be, in their circumstances?</p>
<p>Given there is not evidence medevac has compromised border security since its passage early this year, the government’s quest to repeal the legislation seems driven by anger (that it was imposed on it by Labor and the crossbench), ideology and politics.</p>
<p>If it were looking at the matter strictly logically, surely it would reason that the remaining people offshore present, in policy terms, what the political scientists call a “wicked problem” which medevac is helping solve.</p>
<p>These people can’t stay where they are for ever (and should not have been there anything like this long). More have been transferred to Australia than are now offshore. People who’ve been brought here under medevac remain in detention facilities (various places can be designated a detention facility) at the discretion of the minister.</p>
<p>If the medevac law helps end the offshore issue, isn’t this an upside for Australia without a demonstrable downside? That’s just putting things in crude policy cost-benefit terms. Behind this, of course, lies the compelling humanitarian case.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-will-the-medevac-bill-actually-affect-ill-asylum-seekers-111645">Explainer: how will the 'medevac' bill actually affect ill asylum seekers?</a>
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<p>In the end, everyone waits on Lambie. The government is in her ear. So are those wanting medevac preserved. Her office says she is still taking “soundings”, although there has been a long time to get across the arguments, which aren’t particularly complicated. The Senate inquiry, chaired by the government, can be expected to come down on party lines, rather than adding much new.</p>
<p>Gross horse trading is now a feature of dealing with legislation in the Senate. While sometimes the Senate acts as a genuine house of review, at others it seems the proportional representation voting system, which has delivered so much clout to crossbenchers representing relatively few voters, has a lot to answer for.</p>
<p>No doubt the government would be willing to put a feast on Lambie’s table to get a win on what has become this totemic issue for it.</p>
<p>But this is a piece of legislation on which Lambie should not contemplate any deals, whether in response to carrots for Tasmania or anything else the government might hold out or she might want.</p>
<p>The key crossbencher’s decision should involve only judgements about morality, the medical needs and future lives of vulnerable people, and border security. On those criteria how she should vote seems pretty clear, even while she keeps everyone guessing how she will vote. </p>
<p>*This article has been changed to correct the Senate sitting date.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government would be willing to put a feast on the table to get a win on the medevac repeal, but this is a piece of legislation on which Lambie should not contemplate any deals.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1183962019-06-12T03:07:11Z2019-06-12T03:07:11ZAustralia’s asylum seeker policy history: a story of blunders and shame<p><em>This article was developed from a series of interviews with politicians, officials and other key players, including former Immigration minister Chris Evans and former Victorian premier Steve Bracks. Others preferred to remain anonymous.</em></p>
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<p>We know very little about the kind of government Scott Morrison runs. After beating Peter Dutton and Julie Bishop to the prime ministership in August last year, most commentators assumed Morrison was keeping the chair warm until Labor’s Bill Shorten won the 2019 election. </p>
<p>Following the Coalition’s unexpected victory, it’s time to ask more searching questions, not only about Scott Morrison’s political values and policy aspirations, but about his prime ministerial style.</p>
<p>Recent history suggests processes of policy decision-making can make or break governments. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cruel-and-no-deterrent-why-australias-policy-on-asylum-seekers-must-change-117969">Cruel, and no deterrent: why Australia's policy on asylum seekers must change</a>
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<p>Labor’s shambolic attempts to create asylum seeker policy during the Rudd-Gillard years are emblematic of the dire consequences when tried-and-tested processes of policy advice fail.</p>
<p>In the face of internal dissent, thousands of asylum seekers arriving by boat and a marauding opposition leader, the government rejected its most vital source of advice, the public service.</p>
<h2>It began in 2009</h2>
<p>In mid-October 2009, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was informed that a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/oceanic-viking-breakthrough-asylum-seekers-to-come-ashore-20091117-ijly.html">vessel carrying 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers</a> was in danger of sinking in Indonesian waters. Rudd negotiated directly with the Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and decided to dispatch a Customs vessel, the Oceanic Viking, to rescue the asylum seekers and return them to Indonesia.</p>
<p>The then immigration minister Chris Evans first heard of the plan when he received a phone call from Rudd’s chief of staff, Alister Jordan. </p>
<p>Jordan was not consulting the immigration minister, but rather informing him of a plan that had been enacted. Evans rang his departmental secretary, Andrew Metcalfe, who told him the plan would not work because the asylum seekers would <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Triumph_and_Demise.html?id=Ij9bBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">refuse to disembark</a>.</p>
<p>As Metcalfe had foreseen, the asylum seekers refused to leave the Australian boat at Bintan. Australian voice surveillance revealed there was <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Triumph_and_Demise.html?id=Ij9bBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">talk of mass suicide</a>. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-next-australian-government-can-balance-security-and-compassion-for-asylum-seekers-110713">How the next Australian government can balance security and compassion for asylum seekers</a>
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<p>The standoff lasted four weeks, until a deal was struck that saw the Sri Lankans resettled in countries including New Zealand.</p>
<p>Officials in the Immigration Department were dumbfounded. One told me: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Oceanic Viking was a thought bubble from Rudd … It was an absolute debacle. It was crazy. It had nothing to do with immigration but we were asked to go in and fix it up. And that scuttled any possibility of us doing anything with Indonesia for a long time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The boats kept coming. There were <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-30/boat-arrivals-record-broken/4162680">6,555 boat arrivals in 2010</a>. On the night he lost the prime ministership to Julia Gillard, Rudd told the Labor caucus that if he won the leadership vote, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-06-23/gillard-moves-on-rudd/878810">he would</a> “not be lurching to the right on question of asylum seekers”. </p>
<p>What Rudd didn’t mention was that the government had been actively exploring offshore options for some time. </p>
<p>The Immigration Department had prepared a list of possible sites for offshore detention that included Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, and East Timor. </p>
<h2>Sounding out the East Timorese government</h2>
<p>Evans was focused on pursuing a multilateral solution. His officials consulted with members of the refugee lobby, including the prominent lawyer David Manne, about being part of a broader regional arrangement that had the approval of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).</p>
<p>Evans and his department worked on an offshore deal that would meet with the approval of Australian stakeholders, neighbouring countries, and the UNHCR. But meanwhile, a small group of ministers focused on East Timor. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-refugee-law-expert-on-a-week-of-reckless-rhetoric-and-a-new-way-to-process-asylum-seeker-claims-111756">A refugee law expert on a week of 'reckless' rhetoric and a new way to process asylum seeker claims</a>
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<p>The former Victorian premier, Steve Bracks, was approached at an airport and asked to sound out the East Timorese government about a processing centre. Bracks reported back that Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao was interested, but he would need some time to win support within his government. </p>
<p>Gusmao wanted negotiations to be done through the president, Jose Ramos Horta. This process was in train when Kevin Rudd was overthrown as prime minister on June 24, 2010.</p>
<p>In a speech to the Lowy Institute on July 5, the new prime minister, Gillard, announced she had discussed with Horta the possibility of establishing a regional processing centre in East Timor. But in going public, she had pre-empted the internal East Timorese process. Gusmao distanced himself from the plan and it quickly fizzled.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the public servants who had been working on the multilateral solution were left scratching their heads. One official told me: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have no idea where [East Timor] sprang from. </p>
<p>We were working on arrangements … and one of the really difficult things was thought bubbles kept coming from funny quarters and then you’d have the media onto it, laughing at it or making a joke of it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Failed Malaysia initiative</h2>
<p>After the 2010 election, the new immigration minister <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-25/malaysia-signs-refugee-deal/2809512">Chris Bowen secured</a> an offshore processing arrangement with Malaysia. Immigration Department officials had encouraged Bowen to bring refugee stakeholders and the UNCHR on board. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/refugees-are-integrating-just-fine-in-regional-australia-101188">Refugees are integrating just fine in regional Australia</a>
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<p>But Bowen, who was facing immense political pressure from opposition leader Tony Abbott, preferred to deal unilaterally with his Malaysian counterpart, Hishamuddin Hussein, with whom he had developed a strong rapport.</p>
<p>Hours before the first 16 asylum seekers were due to be transported to Malaysia, Manne <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/malaysia-solution-on-hold-20110807-1ihvv.html">obtained an injunction</a> against their removal from Australia, pending a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/refugee-to-challenge-malaysia-deal-in-court-20110616-1g63r.html">challenge to the legality</a> of the government’s agreement with Malaysia. </p>
<p>In September 2011, the High Court decided in a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-31/high-court-rules-on-asylum-seeker-challenge/2864218">six-to-one decision</a> that the Malaysia agreement contravened the Migration Act because the refugees would not be given the protection required by the Australian legislation.</p>
<p>According to a key player, the High Court ruling was the product of a profound failure of process: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the government did a very bad job at … going to the organisations who would be part of any solution. And, instead, pissed them off so comprehensively they went to the High Court.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/robert-manne-how-we-came-to-be-so-cruel-to-asylum-seekers-67542">Robert Manne: How we came to be so cruel to asylum seekers</a>
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</em>
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<p>This account is rejected by David Manne, who says the decision to take the Malaysia agreement to the High Court was not linked to politics and was a response to a request for legal representation from asylum seekers on Christmas Island.</p>
<p>After the failure of the Malaysia initiative, the Gillard government <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/gillard-moves-swiftly-on-nauru-option-20120814-246ai.html">hurriedly reopened</a> the Nauru and Manus Island processing centres. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WmxKK2hySRA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In 2013, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott debate about asylum seeker policy, and the ‘PNG solution’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Rudd replaced Gillard in June 2013, he <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-more-asylum-in-australia-for-those-arriving-by-boat-rudd-16238">announced</a> that no one who arrived by boat would ever be settled in Australia. The boats slowed, but it was the institution of boat turnbacks under the Abbott government’s Operation Sovereign Borders that stopped them altogether.</p>
<p>The consequences of the Rudd and Gillard governments’ blundered handling of asylum seeker policy were considerable. Indonesia and East Timor were unnecessarily offended, the government’s political fortunes suffered and, most significantly, asylum seekers were again subjected to processing on Nauru and Manus Island.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-manus-theatre-delivers-home-truths-that-cant-be-dodged-113352">In Manus, theatre delivers home truths that can't be dodged</a>
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<p>It is conceivable that Manus and Nauru would have remained closed and Operation Sovereign Borders rendered unnecessary had the Rudd and Gillard governments heeded the advice of the Immigration Department to bring key refugee stakeholders and UNHCR on board into the process. </p>
<p>The institution of rigorous decision-making processes will not guarantee Scott Morrison’s success, but they could help him avoid many of the pitfalls that contributed to the downfall of the Rudd and Gillard governments.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Carolyn Holbrook is presenting a talk on this topic at the Australian Policy and History ‘History and the Hill’ Conference at Deakin University on Thursday, June 13</em></p>
<p><em>This story has been amended to include a response from David Manne.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn Holbrook receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is the Director of Australian Policy and History. </span></em></p>Prime Minister Scott Morrison can learn from the pitfalls that contributed to the downfall of the Rudd and Gillard governments.Carolyn Holbrook, ARC DECRA Fellow at Deakin University, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1133522019-03-13T00:42:44Z2019-03-13T00:42:44ZIn Manus, theatre delivers home truths that can’t be dodged<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263297/original/file-20190312-86678-1ym8xp1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Iranian theatre company Verbatim Theatre Group performed Manus as part of this year's Adelaide Festival.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mohammad Sadeq Zarjouyan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Manus, Adelaide Festival, March 8</em></p>
<hr>
<p>How to review a play whose relationship with matters of fact is so serious and politically culpable it overwhelms the critical distinctions that might normally be used to judge it? </p>
<p>Where is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislavski%27s_system">Stanislavski</a>’s “magic if” (if I were a refugee locked up for six years by the Australian government …)? What are the “given circumstances” (near-drowning at sea, a sun-beaten island at the end of the earth)? Or the “inciting incident” (political oppression, military destruction, despair on an epic scale)? </p>
<p>We might ask is the narrative balanced? Does the piece make appropriate use of contemporary staging techniques in portraying, say, how a 23-year old refugee set himself on fire, or a group of teenage youths sewed their lips together? </p>
<p>Is it well-shaped dramaturgically? Is the flow of events satisfying to an audience expecting a good night out at the theatre? Or is it too much for those affronted by the horror, the inhumanity, the endless hell of it all? How will Australians in particular cope, given that we are the ones responsible for building that hell and setting its cycle of torment in motion?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263296/original/file-20190312-86693-1jhzqc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263296/original/file-20190312-86693-1jhzqc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263296/original/file-20190312-86693-1jhzqc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263296/original/file-20190312-86693-1jhzqc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263296/original/file-20190312-86693-1jhzqc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263296/original/file-20190312-86693-1jhzqc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263296/original/file-20190312-86693-1jhzqc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263296/original/file-20190312-86693-1jhzqc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In Manus, actors perform verbatim interviews with Iranian asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Elsby</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/events/manus/">Manus</a>, as the title will suggest to most, but especially Australian audiences, is a drama presenting the stories of eight refugees from Iran who sailed to this country in 2013, just after the passing of the Coalition government’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2013L02166/Explanatory%20Statement/Text">Operation Sovereign Borders legislation</a>. </p>
<p>Apropos the new zero-tolerance approach to marine-arriving asylum seekers, they and hundreds of others were mandatorily detained at Manus or Nauru Regional Processing Centres for five years or more. There they faced limited resettlement options, and an explicit commitment to never allow them entry into Australia, regardless of whether they were found to be “genuine” refugees or not.</p>
<p>The first half hour of this 90-minute show by Iranian company Verbatim Theatre Group explores the background of the characters – who are not characters, of course, but men and women with names, faces, families and fates, just like you and me – and the reasons they chose to leave their home. </p>
<p>These are as various as you’d expect, and fall into the category of the credible. Their journey takes them via Indonesia, into the Arafura and Timor seas, where they hit storms and rough waters, their flimsy vessel breaks apart, and they nearly drown. </p>
<h2>Harrowing narrative</h2>
<p>Just in abbreviated form, delivered with the slight means at the disposal of a small company from Tehran – two dozen red petrol cans, some projections and a rain effect – this section of the narrative is harrowing.</p>
<p>It’s a ghastly journey even when undertaken with adequate food, water and equipment, which are frequently absent. Rescue comes from a British naval vessel and the Iranians are asked where they want to go. They say Australia.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263285/original/file-20190312-86686-jcmmrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263285/original/file-20190312-86686-jcmmrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263285/original/file-20190312-86686-jcmmrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263285/original/file-20190312-86686-jcmmrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263285/original/file-20190312-86686-jcmmrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263285/original/file-20190312-86686-jcmmrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263285/original/file-20190312-86686-jcmmrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263285/original/file-20190312-86686-jcmmrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first part of the show is dedicated to the life stories of the people portrayed in the play.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Elsby</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are sharply divided opinions in this country about what director Nazanin Sahamizadeh describes in the program note as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a world in which every three seconds one person is forced to flee home … to seek safety, security or simply a better life in peace and freedom. Tragedy in our time shows its ugly face when the borders are closed rather than open to these women, men, girls and boys.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is not hard to imagine her view being strongly contested: the argument put that opening our borders only encourages people-smugglers, for example, thus more dangerous maritime crossings, and thus more deaths at sea. It is also possible to question the social impact of large-scale migration (though <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/MigrationStatistics">Australia’s in-take</a> is not especially large) and a global order where, in the words of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/20/migrants-refugees-asylum-seekers-21st-century-trend">academic Alexander Betts </a>“refugees and displacement are likely to become a defining issue of the 21st century”.</p>
<p>But beyond the general debate we find, in legal parlance, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright-line_rule">bright-line</a>. The last two-thirds of Manus narrate how the eight Iranian detainees fared in their tiny island prisons, and the neglect, abuse, humiliation, indifference, and, to our ever-lasting shame, outright violence and cruelty they were subject to. </p>
<p>In this, the main body of the play, we hear the voices and accounts of those who saw the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-truth-or-not-about-manus-island-riot">2014 riots</a> on the island close-up, because, unlike the Australian politicians glibly sure of their judgements later, they actually witnessed them. </p>
<p>The deaths, injuries and hunger-strikes that followed were peaks in a sine wave of misery that ground down the asylum seekers through repeated acts of petty tyranny. The play describes this through the voices of the actors: food delivered late or not at all; latrines limited in number and broken; electricity cut off in the middle of the night; telephone calls restricted. </p>
<p>On and on and on it goes: a stream of organisational meanness as deliberate, ingenious and grim as any that can be found in Dante’s Inferno. </p>
<p>It is one thing to refuse entry to people who claim asylum in Australia on the grounds their entry is illegal. It is another to treat them in the way we have, subjecting them to prolonged and aggravated incarceration for no criminal offence, dragging Australia’s reputation into the slime, where it will no doubt remain for some time to come, and deservedly so.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263284/original/file-20190312-86686-1dfsk2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263284/original/file-20190312-86686-1dfsk2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263284/original/file-20190312-86686-1dfsk2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263284/original/file-20190312-86686-1dfsk2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263284/original/file-20190312-86686-1dfsk2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263284/original/file-20190312-86686-1dfsk2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263284/original/file-20190312-86686-1dfsk2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263284/original/file-20190312-86686-1dfsk2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Manus is delivered entirely in Persian.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Elsby</span></span>
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<h2>An imperfect show</h2>
<p>Manus is not a perfect show. It is hard to imagine how such a panorama of human misery could be condensed into 90 minutes of stage action.</p>
<p>Within the verbatim theatre model there is a tension between emotional authenticity and documentary accuracy. Delivered entirely in Persian, with English surtitles, Manus leans toward the first, with the result that sometimes details blur and it is difficult to judge the scale and effects of a given event. News footage, projected onto the bodies of the performers themselves, is used to boost atmosphere rather than to communicate precise chronology.</p>
<p>But this does nothing to rob the drama of its impact in the Australian context. In fact, the opposite: the show’s imperfections only point up the evil perpetrations we have let slither by us, as an electorate, like a venomous snake. Theatre has a trick of banging-out home truths in ways that can’t be dodged, even with our nation’s studied mastery of the toad-arts of moral evasion. </p>
<p>I left the venue feeling numbed, drained and profoundly confronted. What was I doing while all of this was happening? While these refugees, normal people, neither better nor worse than myself, were having their lives excoriated by devils, large and small, in my name? What were we all, as supposedly good Australians, thinking? </p>
<p>Not even God can change the past, the Spanish say. We have infinite time ahead of us to answer such questions, and contemplate the void they have opened up in our national soul.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Meyrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This verbatim drama presenting the stories of eight Iranian asylum seekers detained on their island prisons delivers uncomfortable home truths.Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1107132019-03-04T19:03:19Z2019-03-04T19:03:19ZHow the next Australian government can balance security and compassion for asylum seekers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258650/original/file-20190213-90491-j9enr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Crossbenchers Kerryn Phelps, Julia Banks and Rebekah Sharkie celebrate the passing of the "Medivac" law through the House of Representatives.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is part of a major series called Advancing Australia, in which leading academics examine the key issues facing Australia in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election and beyond. Read the other pieces in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/advancing-australia-66135">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>With a rapidly changing climate and increased instability in the world order, patterns of people movement are likely to change dramatically in the future. It is not a tenable response to isolate Australia from the shocks of these changes.</p>
<p>Sadly, the politicisation of refugee policy <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-mv-tampa-and-the-transformation-of-asylum-seeker-policy-74078">since the Tampa crisis of 2001</a> indicates that our major political parties are incapable of the kind of honest and open decision-making that is required in this complex and vexed policy space. However, the passing of the Kerryn Phelps-<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-government-defeated-on-medical-bill-despite-constitution-play-111636">led amendments to the Migration Act</a> to facilitate medical evacuations from Manus Island and Nauru may point to a shift in the nation’s mood on the issue. </p>
<p>In the second half of the 20th century, Australia transformed the idea of itself into a multicultural nation. An important part of this story has been Australia’s contribution to the resettlement of refugees. </p>
<p>Australia was the first country outside Europe to accede to the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/1951-refugee-convention.html">1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees</a>. Australia was also an early adopter of the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/ProtocolStatusOfRefugees.aspx">1967 protocol</a> that extended the convention beyond Europe. Australia’s generous resettlement of refugees under the convention has reinforced its identity as a nation built on migrants. </p>
<p>Australia’s acceptance of refugees remained uncontroversial while the numbers of refugees could be strictly controlled through its immigration program. The first serious challenge to control was the arrival of <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/vietnamese-refugees-boat-arrival">boatloads of Vietnamese refugees</a> in 1976. However, the Fraser Coalition government maintained control through an arrangement with South East Asian countries that Australia would resettle a high number of Vietnamese refugees if those countries stopped redirecting boats that arrived on their shores back out to sea. </p>
<h2>How the Tampa changed Australian asylum-seeker policy</h2>
<p>When boats began arriving in larger numbers from 1999 to 2001, the struggling Howard Coalition government used the rescue of 438 asylum seekers by the MV Tampa as an opportunity to implement a more restrictive policy. This included boat turn-backs, offshore processing and detention, and issuing temporary protection visas for people arriving by boat whose applications for asylum were accepted. The boats stopped arriving within months. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-mv-tampa-and-the-transformation-of-asylum-seeker-policy-74078">Australian politics explainer: the MV Tampa and the transformation of asylum-seeker policy</a>
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<p>In 2007, the Labor government dismantled these policy settings. Asylum seekers arriving by boat were rescued at sea and processed on the Australian territory of Christmas Island. If they were found to be refugees, they were granted permanent protection visas. This policy was premised on boat arrivals being at similar levels to those experienced previously. But this proved mistaken. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258060/original/file-20190210-174883-hr9n30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258060/original/file-20190210-174883-hr9n30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258060/original/file-20190210-174883-hr9n30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258060/original/file-20190210-174883-hr9n30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258060/original/file-20190210-174883-hr9n30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258060/original/file-20190210-174883-hr9n30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258060/original/file-20190210-174883-hr9n30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Norwegian cargo ship Tampa collected 438 stranded asylum seekers and changed Australian policy on the issue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Wallenius Wilhelmsen</span></span>
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<p>By 2013, refugee policy was in disarray. In 2012, <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/BoatTurnbacks">17,204 people arrived by boat</a>, rising to 20,587 in 2013. This far outnumbered the planned refugee intake of 13,750 and reinforced the fear that Australia was in danger of being “swamped” by asylum seekers.</p>
<p>Prior to this rapid rise in boat arrivals, the Labor government had attempted to introduce a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-25/malaysia-signs-refugee-deal/2809512">novel policy response</a>, the Australia-Malaysia asylum-seeker transfer agreement. The Malaysian government agreed to the return to Malaysia of asylum seekers who tried to reach Australia by boat via Indonesia. Malaysia guaranteed housing, education and work rights for these asylum seekers, but also that they would receive no advantage in resolving their application for refugee resettlement. </p>
<p>This arrangement removed the incentive to take a risky boat journey to Australia.
We will never know if it would have stopped the boats, as the High Court held the government did not have the power to implement the arrangement, and the Coalition and the Greens blocked an attempt by the government to amend the Migration Act to provide it with the requisite power. </p>
<p>In mid-2013, the Labor government <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/AsylumPolicies">changed direction</a> radically. It committed to offshore processing for the first time, stating categorically that no asylum seeker reaching Australia by boat <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-more-asylum-in-australia-for-those-arriving-by-boat-rudd-16238">would ever be resettled here</a>.</p>
<p>When it was returned to government in 2013, the Abbott Coalition government readily adopted Labor’s policy and added a policy of aggressive boat turn-backs covered in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-operations-to-turn-the-boats-around-be-kept-secret-18670">veil of operational secrecy</a>. It also reintroduced temporary protection visas for the 30,000 asylum seekers who had entered Australia during the six years of Labor government. Within a few months, boat arrivals had <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-boats-may-have-stopped-but-at-what-cost-to-australia-30455">ceased completely</a>. </p>
<h2>Asylum-seeker policy becomes a national security issue</h2>
<p>The current Coalition government has successfully cast refugee policy as an issue of border security. The ministers for immigration, first Scott Morrison and then Peter Dutton, have spun a narrative that any softening of the government’s stance on resettlement would risk relaunching a flotilla of boats.</p>
<p>The line they have drawn is breathtaking in its strictness. The government has been unwilling even to accept New Zealand’s offer to resettle <a href="https://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/369352/nz-confirms-refugee-offer-is-150-each-year">150 refugees a year</a> from offshore detention for fear they will then have backdoor entry to Australia. It has also made it very difficult for asylum seekers to get emergency medical treatment in Australia. </p>
<p>The government’s narrative of border protection does not acknowledge the human cost of long-term offshore detention. Since detention centres on Nauru and Manus were opened in 2014, <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/operation-sovereign-borders-offshore-detention-statistics/">3,127 people</a> have been transferred there. As of early February 2019, as a result of third-country resettlements and voluntary returns, about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/10/coalition-ministers-fail-to-explain-whether-all-refugees-held-offshore-need-medical-transfer">1,000 remain</a>. The last <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-03/nauru-last-asylum-seeker-children-to-leave-detention-pm-says/10774910">children on Nauru</a> were resettled in the US in February 2019. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-children-are-airlifted-from-nauru-a-cruel-and-inhumane-policy-may-finally-be-ending-105487">As children are airlifted from Nauru, a cruel and inhumane policy may finally be ending</a>
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<p>Despite strictly controlling access to information from Nauru and Manus, the government has not been able to prevent courageous medical officials bearing witness to the human suffering of refugees. This includes suicides and self-harm, and children simply giving up. It has not been able to prevent Behrouz Boochani using mobile phone messages <a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-behrouz-boochanis-unsparing-look-at-the-brutality-of-manus-island-101520">to write an award-winning book</a> bearing witness to the official strategies used to break the spirit of refugees on Manus Island. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258059/original/file-20190210-174857-yipo0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258059/original/file-20190210-174857-yipo0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258059/original/file-20190210-174857-yipo0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258059/original/file-20190210-174857-yipo0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258059/original/file-20190210-174857-yipo0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258059/original/file-20190210-174857-yipo0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258059/original/file-20190210-174857-yipo0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Asylum seeker and journalist Behrouz Boochani wrote the award-winning book No Friend but the Mountains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amnesty International handout</span></span>
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<h2>Finding a more humane way forward</h2>
<p>As on so many policy issues facing Australia, we need an honest discussion on refugees. On the one hand, it needs to be acknowledged that refugees are victims of regimes intent on persecuting them and are deserving (and entitled) to our protection. </p>
<p>As a nation, we continue to have a policy of high levels of immigration, and refugees can be a significant part of our strategy for future prosperity. We have a responsibility not to contribute further to people’s suffering, and thus long-term detention of refugees is untenable.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Australians believe they are entitled to determine who is provided access to the benefit of membership in the Australian state. This being the case, refugee policy must be able to control the number of people who are accepted for resettlement. The most effective mechanism of control is to prevent onshore arrivals by boat and plane, and to use planned resettlement from refugee camps in consultation with the UNHCR. </p>
<p>The unprecedented number of boat arrivals in 2012-13 tilted the equation towards control over compassion. However, there is a sensible middle ground more in line with Australian values.</p>
<p>First, it is possible to resettle all the asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus in Australia expeditiously, without triggering large numbers of boat arrivals. This resettlement must be the immediate priority of a new government. It was never envisaged that refugees would spend up to six years in offshore detention.</p>
<p>Retaining the architecture of offshore detention and processing for the future and the possibility of boat turn-backs is more than adequate deterrent to prevent people risking the perilous journey to Australia by boat. The Coalition governments in 2001 and 2013 demonstrated that if this proves to be wrong, introducing a hard-line policy can stop the boats very quickly.</p>
<p>Second, all those refugees on <a href="https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/temporary-protection-785">Temporary Protection Visas</a> and <a href="https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/safe-haven-enterprise-790">Safe Haven Enterprise Visas</a> in Australia need to be offered permanent protection. Temporary visas create a huge psychological and social burden on refugees in Australia, with no benefits.</p>
<p>Third, the movement of refugees, particularly from the Middle East, through South East Asia to Australia is a regional problem. The Australian government needs to resume discussions with Indonesia and Malaysia about a more nuanced solution. </p>
<p>With the Coalition cutting through with its narrative of fear of invasion and Labor still spooked by policy failure during its previous term in government, it has taken independent MPs to begin to push Australian refugee policy to a sensible middle ground.</p>
<p>Kerryn Phelps’ amendment to the Migration Act, supported by Labor and the Greens, <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-will-the-medivac-bill-actually-affect-ill-asylum-seekers-111645">provides for</a> the evacuation of asylum seekers and refugees to Australia if two doctors assess that they require medical treatment not available on Nauru or Manus Island. The minister for home affairs retains the power to reject a transfer on security grounds. The law is also limited in its application to refugees already on Nauru and Manus Island. </p>
<p>In parliament, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten framed their positions on the “Medivac” law as a test of character. Morrison focused on the importance of “mettle” and “holding the line”. Shorten focused on “compassion” and “balance”. </p>
<p>The passing of the law ensures refugee policy will be a key election issue once again. The Australian people will determine what version of character prevails.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110713/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Reilly receives funding from the Department of Social Services in its National Grants scheme to conduct research into Refugee Women and Work.</span></em></p>Since the Tampa affair in 2001, successive governments have been anxious to be seen as “hard-line” on asylum seekers, but the cost – to people and the country – has been too high.Alex Reilly, Director of the Public Law and Policy Research Unit, Adelaide Law School, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1117562019-02-14T05:41:13Z2019-02-14T05:41:13ZA refugee law expert on a week of ‘reckless’ rhetoric and a new way to process asylum seeker claims<p>Today, we’re bringing you a special episode of our podcast <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/podcasts/trust-me-podcast">Trust Me, I’m An Expert</a> for anyone wondering: what the hell happened this week? </p>
<p>A sitting government lost a vote on the floor of parliament (which hasn’t happened in decades) over a bill that aims to facilitate medical transfers from Manus and Nauru. </p>
<p>(You can hear the MP Kerryn Phelps, who set the ball rolling for that legislation, give her account on Michelle Grattan’s politics podcast over <a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-kerryn-phelps-on-medical-transfer-numbers-111751">here</a>).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-kerryn-phelps-on-medical-transfer-numbers-111751">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Kerryn Phelps on medical transfer numbers</a>
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<p>A day after a bloc of cross-benchers and the opposition won the vote, Prime Minister Scott Morrison signalled the government may re-open the Christmas Island detention facility and the Coalition was accusing Labor of being weak on borders. </p>
<p>In other words, a federal election campaign centred on border security has well and truly begun. </p>
<p>To help us understand the broader context, we’re hearing today from Dr Daniel Ghezelbash, a refugee law expert from Macquarie University. </p>
<p>In our discussion, he busted several myths about how the asylum seeker “medevac” bill would work, and described as “reckless” political rhetoric that the new legislation represents a destruction of Australia’s border security. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-will-the-medevac-bill-actually-affect-ill-asylum-seekers-111645">Explainer: how will the 'medevac' bill actually affect ill asylum seekers?</a>
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<p>This week, many Australians cheered the release of refugee footballer Hakeem Al-Araibi, and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-14/politicisation-of-refugees-stop-playing-politics-with-migration/10808394">reports</a> emerged showing airport arrivals of asylum seekers has soared, but much of the political discussion centred on boat arrivals.</p>
<p>The focus on boat arrivals in the lead-up to an election should be familiar to any student of Australian political history, he said – but this time it may be different. </p>
<p>Join us on Trust Me, I’m An Expert, as Dr Daniel Ghezelbash explains a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/31/theres-a-workable-alternative-to-australias-asylum-policy">policy alternative</a> to our current system of offshore processing that he says wouldn’t involve compromising security or shirking our international legal obligations.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-dont-know-how-many-asylum-seekers-are-turned-away-at-australian-airports-111344">We don't know how many asylum seekers are turned away at Australian airports</a>
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<h2>New to podcasts?</h2>
<p>Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click <a href="https://pca.st/VTv7">here</a> to listen to Trust Me, I’m An Expert on Pocket Casts).</p>
<p>You can also hear us on Stitcher, Spotify or any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Trust Me, I’m An Expert.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/trust-me-im-an-expert/id1290047736?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D8"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL2F1L3BvZGNhc3RzL3RydXN0LW1lLXBvZGNhc3QucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-conversation/trust-me-im-an-expert"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/Trust-Me-Im-An-Expert-p1035757/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://radiopublic.com/trust-me-im-an-expert-Wa3E5A"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="268" height="87"></a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/7myc7drbLJVaRitAMXLB7V"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237984/original/file-20180925-149976-1ks72uy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" width="268" height="82"></a> </p>
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<h2>Additional audio</h2>
<p>Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from <a href="https://www.elefanttraks.com/">Elefant Traks</a></p>
<p>Guardian News <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PMBdBNAneE">video</a>. </p>
<p>Sky News <a href="https://twitter.com/SkyNewsAust/status/1095493652502081536">report</a>.</p>
<p>RN Breakfast <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/future-under-labor-means-weak-border-protection/10810282">report</a>.</p>
<h2>Image:</h2>
<p>AAP Image/Mick Tsikas</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111756/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Today on Trust Me, I'm An Expert, a refugee legal expert busts myths about how proposed medical transfer rules would work, and described some of this week's border security rhetoric as 'reckless'.Sunanda Creagh, Senior EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1116452019-02-13T02:34:02Z2019-02-13T02:34:02ZExplainer: how will the ‘medevac’ bill actually affect ill asylum seekers?<p>Both the House of Representatives and the Senate have now passed <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6069">amendments to the Migration Act 1958</a> that allow for the medical evacuation of asylum-seekers from Manus Island and Nauru. These amendments are also known as the medevac bill.</p>
<p>So, how will the situation for asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island and Nauru change with the provisions in place?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-was-defeated-on-the-medevac-bill-but-that-does-not-mean-the-end-of-the-government-111635">The government was defeated on the 'medevac' bill, but that does not mean the end of the government</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What’s in the Bill?</h2>
<p>The medevac bill allows for the transfer of asylum seekers or refugees on Nauru or Manus Island to Australia for “medical or psychiatric assessment or treatment”. Family members will also be transferred if recommended.</p>
<p>It gives a clear pathway for medical specialists to make medical decisions. Two doctors must assess – either in person or remotely – the person and make the recommendation for transfer. The criteria used in the initial assessment and in any review is that the person:</p>
<ul>
<li>needs medical or psychiatric assessment or treatment</li>
<li>is not receiving appropriate medical or psychiatric assessment or treatment in Nauru or Manus Island, and</li>
<li>must be transferred for appropriate medical or psychiatric assessment or treatment.</li>
</ul>
<p>The recommendation is given to the Minister for Home Affairs who must either approve or refuse the transfer within 72 hours. The minister can refuse the transfer if the person has an adverse security assessment or if the person has a “substantial criminal record”. </p>
<p>The minister may also refuse the recommendation on the basis he does not accept the transfer is necessary on medical grounds. In those cases an expert medical panel – known as the Independent Health Advice Panel (IHAP) – would be formed to reassess the recommended transfer. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-government-defeated-on-medical-bill-despite-constitution-play-111636">Morrison government defeated on medical bill, despite constitution play</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If the panel recommends the person’s transfer should be approved, the minister must transfer the person unless satisfied there are security or character grounds for refusing the transfer.</p>
<p>The panel will consist of at least eight members, including the Chief Medical Officer for the government, the Department of Home Affair’s Chief Medical Officer and the Surgeon-General of the Australian Border Force. Other members would be appointed by the minister based on nominations by various professional medical bodies.</p>
<p>Medical transfers to Australia are for a temporary period only, so those currently in Australia could still be returned to Nauru or Manus Island following their treatment. This will continue to be the case even now this bill is passed.</p>
<p>These procedures are only applicable to asylum seekers and refugees who are on Nauru and Manus Island currently. The law will not apply to anyone who comes after the passage of this bill. Anyone brought to Australia for medical treatment must be kept in onshore immigration detention.</p>
<h2>Three examples</h2>
<p>Medical transfers that <a href="https://www.msf.org.au/sites/default/files/attachments/indefinite_despair_3.pdf">have occurred to date</a> are mostly for psychiatric reasons or a combination of psychiatric and other medical reasons. The importance of provided, rapid medical assessment and response to critically ill, or at-risk-of-dying, refugees and asylum seekers cannot be overstated.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258642/original/file-20190213-90488-m17ytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258642/original/file-20190213-90488-m17ytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258642/original/file-20190213-90488-m17ytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258642/original/file-20190213-90488-m17ytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258642/original/file-20190213-90488-m17ytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258642/original/file-20190213-90488-m17ytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258642/original/file-20190213-90488-m17ytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258642/original/file-20190213-90488-m17ytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Under the provisions of the medevac bill, asylum seekers with medical or psychiatric conditions can be transferred to Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In August, 2014 a 24-year-old Iranian detainee on Manus Island, Hamid Khazaei, <a href="https://www.minterellison.com/articles/inquest-into-the-death-of-hamid-khazaei">fell ill and presented to clinicians</a> at the detention centre with “flu-like symptoms” and a small lesion on his leg. After a course of antibiotics, his condition deteriorated and he was transferred to a hospital in Papua New Guinea. He died a few days later. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.minterellison.com/articles/inquest-into-the-death-of-hamid-khazaei">coronial inquest</a> identified ambiguous and deficient policies for emergency evacuation, finding Mr Khazaei’s death was preventable. If his clinical deterioration was recognised and responded to in a timely manner, and he was evacuated to Australia within 24 hours of developing severe sepsis, Khazaei could have survived.</p>
<p>Medical evacuations are time sensitive because of the nature of the emergency and the logistics of the transfer itself. Were the provisions of the medevac bill in place at the time, independent expert overview of clinical decisions could have saved Khazaei’s life.</p>
<p>Another case was that of a <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2018/1432.html">refugee woman on Nauru</a> who attempted suicide. An order was made for her to be urgently transferred to Australia. This was based on reports from a psychiatrist and a surgeon who expressed concerns that, without urgent surgical intervention, she could develop peritonitis (a life-threatening inflammation resulting from her suicide attempt) and die. </p>
<p>This case was heard by the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2018/1432.html">Federal Court</a> within four days of her attempt. Evidence demonstrated she needed complicated surgical intervention and psychiatric care that appeared not to be available on Nauru. Medical evacuation to Australia was requested as soon as possible, and the woman was brought to Australia.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/self-immolation-incidents-on-nauru-are-acts-of-hopeful-despair-58791">Self-immolation incidents on Nauru are acts of 'hopeful despair'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>With the medevac provisions in place, the woman could have been brought to Australia earlier for an independent assessment of her physical and mental health prior to her situation deteriorating to a point where emergency management was required. The costs and delays involved in seeking intervention of the courts to order medical evacuations would also have been reduced with the provisions in place.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2018/1350.html">Another recent case</a> involved a 46-year-old refugee on Manus Island who had lost vision in his right eye after a traumatic injury during a riot on the island. Vision in his left eye was also deteriorating and there was a lack of appropriate treatment in PNG. His mental health had also deteriorated to a point where he was assessed as being at high risk of suicide.</p>
<p>The evidence was that Manus Island did not have adequate facilities to treat his physical deterioration and suicidality. The court ordered his transfer to Australia as soon as possible for assessment and treatment.</p>
<p>Again, this man could have been brought to Australia earlier for an independent assessment, prior to emergency life saving treatment being required. The bill’s provisions will now allow for this. This translates to continuity and consistency of care and reduced deadlocks over treatment decisions.</p>
<h2>Medical care can’t be political</h2>
<p>Aside from being a circuit breaker to current arrangements, the bill is a new opportunity to establish agreed governance arrangements and a clinical pathway for recognising and responding to medical need without political interference. In the past bureaucrats and politicians have invalidated medical evidence and clinical decision making processes. </p>
<p>To provide safe and high quality care to refugees and asylum seekers based on medically assessed need, independent medical experts must be provided with all available relevant information about the patient. Giving the best medical and health advice must be free from delay and political interference.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Procter has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Research Council, Department of Home Affairs and Australian Red Cross. He has received sitting fees from the Department of Home Affairs. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Anne Kenny has received funding from the Australian Research Council. She has received sitting fees from the Department of Home Affairs.</span></em></p>A bill to allow for asylum seeker on Nauru and Manus Island to be transferred to Australia for medical and psychiatric treatment has passed both Houses. How will it change things for those detained?Nicholas Procter, Professor and Chair: Mental Health Nursing, University of South AustraliaMary Anne Kenny, Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1109862019-02-01T07:35:25Z2019-02-01T07:35:25ZBehrouz Boochani’s literary prize cements his status as an Australian writer<p>When the author Richard Flanagan described Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish-Iranian asylum seeker currently held on Manus Island, as “a great Australian writer”, he turned tired cliché into a pointed question: what makes an “Australian” writer? </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256812/original/file-20190201-103164-y03u6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256812/original/file-20190201-103164-y03u6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256812/original/file-20190201-103164-y03u6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256812/original/file-20190201-103164-y03u6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256812/original/file-20190201-103164-y03u6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256812/original/file-20190201-103164-y03u6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256812/original/file-20190201-103164-y03u6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No Friend But the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pan Macmillan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Flanagan was writing in the foreword to Boochani’s startling book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39284186-no-friend-but-the-mountains?from_search=true">No Friend But the Mountains</a> (Picador), which last night won the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, the richest of its kind in Australia. Boochani also claimed the award for non-fiction, worth another $25,000.</p>
<p>This triumph cements Boochani’s status as an Australian writer.</p>
<p>Boochani was arguably the most important literary phenomenon in Australian literature in 2018. In part, this is because of the distinctive qualities of No Friend But the Mountains, an epic work that moves between verse and prose, reportage and fantasy, the mundane and the historical. The fact that Boochani’s political memoir of what he calls Manus Prison was ever published in book form defies the odds. </p>
<p>A journalist and experimental documentary maker, Boochani wrote the book as text messages on his mobile phone, sending them, sometimes through several intermediaries, to the academic Omid Tofighian for translation into English.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/truth-to-power-my-time-translating-behrouz-boochanis-masterpiece-101589">Truth to power: my time translating Behrouz Boochani’s masterpiece</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Indeed, beyond the recognition of Boochani’s book as a singular achievement in its own right, its success this week highlights recent intersections of human rights activism and the vocal political position-taking of the Australian literary community.</p>
<p>The publication of No Friend But the Mountains was accompanied by numerous public events, such as one at the <a href="https://www.greekcommunity.com.au/gocmv_public/index.php/eventlist/details/653-engaging-w-behrouz-boochanis-qno-friend-but-the-mountainsq">Greek Centre in Melbourne</a> in October 2018, where the conditions detailed in the book were discussed and protested, and Boochani participated via Skype. The same month, A “National Day of Action” organised by <a href="https://academicsforrefugees.wordpress.com/">Academics for Refugees</a> featured public “read-ins” of the book on university campuses nationwide. </p>
<p>Other Australian authors have also used their voices to bring attention to the plight of asylum seekers. During her acceptance speech for her second Miles Franklin Award in August 2018, Michelle de Kretser chastised politicians for their treatment of refugees on Nauru and Manus Island. To <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/michelle-de-kretser-wins-her-second-miles-franklin-award-20180824-h14hcu.html">illustrate her point</a>, she read a list of names of asylum seekers who have died there in the past five years.</p>
<p>It is tempting to dismiss such actions as gesture politics by an urban elite. But each individual action has served to raise awareness of the Australian government’s policy of “offshore processing” for asylum seekers, and to fuse artistic expression with political activism in a particularly forceful manner. </p>
<p>At the same time, and perhaps uniquely in the history of Australian literature, No Friend has seen the translation of human rights awards into convertible cultural capital in the literary field. The author has been awarded the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/oct/05/behrouz-boochani-wins-anna-politkovskaya-award-for-manus-island-writing">Anna Politkovskaya Award</a>, the<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/02/behrouz-boochani-wins-amnesty-international-award-for-writing-from-manus"> Amnesty International Award</a> and Liberty Victoria’s <a href="https://libertyvictoria.org.au/content/voltaire-2018-behrouz-boochani">Empty Chair Award</a>. These humanitarian awards have confirmed Boochani’s rapidly acquired high profile in the literary field. </p>
<p>Last night’s news topped all of that to make Boochani the first “non-Australian” author to win the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. The Victorian government established these awards in 1985 to honour Australian writing. The specific challenge this poses to the definition of “Australian writing” can be seen as an intervention by the literary community into the field of politics. If a non-citizen who has never set foot on mainland Australia can win, who counts as an Australian author? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-behrouz-boochanis-unsparing-look-at-the-brutality-of-manus-island-101520">Book Review: Behrouz Boochani's unsparing look at the brutality of Manus Island</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Ironically, perhaps, Boochani’s success simply mirrors some of the prevailing trends in Australian authorship in an age of global literary circulation, which allow writers to transcend national borders. An example of this phenomenon is Nam Le who rose to fame with the publication of his very successful <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2599523-the-boat">The Boat</a>. This collection of short stories, informed by the author’s diasporic identity and upbringing in Australia, soon earned him over a dozen major literary awards in Australia, the United States and Europe. </p>
<p>Conversely, Boochani’s status on Manus Island has been defined by deterrence, indefinite detention and the spectre of refoulement. The narrative of this experience is one that he seeks to address directly to the Australian people from beyond Australia’s borders. </p>
<p>With no clear solution to the indefinite detention of asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru in sight, the paradox of Boochani’s award success can only contribute further to public debate over the tangled logic of indefinite detention. It shows how cultural practices and political activism can be reconfigured to correspond with the newly created literary currency associated with refugee writing. For now, at least, Boochani is an “Australian writer” because Australia is morally implicated in what he wrote and how he wrote it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Behrouz Boochani, an asylum seeker currently detained on Manus Island, has won Australia’s richest literary prize. The win commands the question, ‘what makes an Australian writer?’Keyvan Allahyari, PhD candidate in English, The University of MelbournePaul Rae, Associate Professor, English and Theatre Studies, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1085022018-12-12T00:03:13Z2018-12-12T00:03:13ZHonouring the dead: Alex Seton’s stark, moving protest sculptures carved from marble<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249882/original/file-20181211-76986-1o3bujl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from Alex Seton's A Durable Solution? - a series of memorial plaques naming the 12 men who have died under our 'care'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sullivan & Strumpf</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alex Seton’s sculpture A Durable Solution? is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/07/marble-tombstones-at-labor-conference-reminder-of-alps-role-in-offshore-detention">concentrating the minds</a> of some delegates as they approach this weekend’s ALP national conference in Adelaide. It is the key work in <a href="https://allwecantsee.com/">All We Can’t See</a>, an exhibition in the foyer of the Adelaide Convention Centre. </p>
<p>No delegate will be able to avoid this visual response to the Nauru Files, the records of life on that island first exposed by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/nauru-files">The Guardian</a>. With exquisite timing, the show’s opening reception will be held at the centre on Sunday, the evening before the Labor Party debates its refugee policy. </p>
<p>Seton has a carved series of stark, minimalist memorial plaques, naming the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2018/jun/20/deaths-in-offshore-detention-the-faces-of-the-people-who-have-died-in-australias-care">12 men who have died</a> under our “care” on Nauru and Manus Island. There is no compromise, no gloss. The white Carrara marble, the same material used by Michelangelo, has been pared back, muted. Its surface is bereft of texture, the only incisions are the names of the dead and the dates they died.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail from Alex Seton, A Durable Solution?</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A Durable Solution? is the third time this relatively young artist has made work that can be described as a collective memorial. Even though each of these sculptural installations commemorate the lives of a specific group of people, they also focus on the individual, to allow private grief. Seton has described his approach to memorials as “capturing those moments that are a test of our humanity”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alex Seton: Insert Grievance Here (2011).</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He came to memorials via his series of sculptures of flags. Seton is an artist passionate about one material, marble. While this may be the great classic stone for monuments, it is very unfashionable in the 21st century. But his childhood home was near the Wombeyan Caves Marble Quarry, and he was fascinated by those rough blocks of veined rock that could be transformed beyond recognition.</p>
<p>So while studying a Bachelor of Art Theory degree, Seton began to carve. His passion for the precise craft of manufacture melded with his understanding of subtext and symbol. He learnt to carve stone so that it was easily mistaken for fabric. He looked at the ultimate symbolic use of cloth – in flags.</p>
<h2>Carving folded flags</h2>
<p>Flags may be ironic, but more often they are patriotic. They are the symbols soldiers fight under, and when they are killed a flag will drape their coffin. Seton is the same age as some of the young soldiers who first died in Australia’s longest war in Afghanistan. As part of coming to terms with the deaths from his generation, he began to carve folded Australian flags to honour the dead – one for each soldier. </p>
<p>These are made of pink, pearl marble from Chillagoe in north Queensland. Its flush suggests flesh and blood. Each is “bound” with a cloth halyard, creating confusion as to where the stone may begin. Twenty-three flags were first exhibited in Lismore and Brisbane. More have been added with each death. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Alex Seton, As of Today, marble with halyard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sullivan + Strumpf</span></span>
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<p>The title of these works, As of Today, reminds the viewer that more deaths may be on the way. The Australian War Memorial purchased the flags, with a commission to add more when necessary. There are now 42. Seton has <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/seton/statement">said</a>, </p>
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<p>Initially I thought this work was about us – how easily we forget – but it is not about us at all. It is about those who gave their lives and whose memory we now preserve.</p>
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<p>At the same time as the Australian War Memorial was preparing to show his work, Seton was completing a rather different memorial. Dark Heart, at the 2014 Adelaide Biennial, can be described as a dive into the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-2014-adelaide-biennial-contemporary-art-as-it-was-meant-to-be-23033">dark night of the national soul</a>. Much of the art was confronting, pricking the national conscience as a Jeremiad against the follies of modern Australia. </p>
<p>Now owned by the Art Gallery of South Australia, Someone Died Trying To Have a Life Like Mine was made in response to a particular incident in the sorry history of the many boat people who have died at sea. </p>
<p>In May 2013, 28 empty lifejackets were found washed ashore on Cocos Island. There is no official record of who the voyagers may have been, but one jacket contained a small amount of Iranian money. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Alex Seton Someone Died Trying to Have a Life Like Mine, Wombeyan marble, polyester webbing, stainless steel, varied dimensions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Adelaide Biennial</span></span>
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<p>Seton began his work to honour these dead, and to give an answer to the question many ask – why set off in an unseaworthy boat across hostile waters? The answer is that these people want what we take for granted, a life like ours.</p>
<p>Each carved jacket manages to quote elements of the western canon of art. One is burst open like Michaelangelo’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Slave">Dying Slave</a>. Two are together, as intimate as a quattrocento Madonna and Child. Others are placed in an arc, like flying angels.</p>
<p>The power of Someone Died Trying to Have a Life Like Mine comes from its evocation of empathy, the realisation that the people Seton is commemorating were like us. They wanted to walk in our shoes, so we are drawn to don their lifejackets.</p>
<p>It is this empathetic approach to honouring the dead that gives Alex Seton’s memorials their power. He moves beyond the studied factionalism of party politics and asks the viewer to consider the shared humanity of those who have died.</p>
<p>It does not matter whether they are soldiers or asylum seekers, lost at sea or imprisoned on land. They are us, and we are them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108502/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from The Australian Research Council. Many years ago she taught Alex Seton at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW.</span></em></p>Alex Seton’s sculpture A Durable Solution? dominates the protest exhibition at the forthcoming ALP national conference. He has also created an official memorial to Australian soldiers killed in AfghanistanJoanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1054872018-10-23T08:16:43Z2018-10-23T08:16:43ZAs children are airlifted from Nauru, a cruel and inhumane policy may finally be ending<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241792/original/file-20181023-169831-chyly1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If refugee and asylum seekers are not resettled in Australia, the humanitarian crisis will only worsen.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Jeremy Ng</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia’s off-shore detention policy is unravelling. Predictably, after five years of detention, the mental health of adults and children who have been left in indefinite detention on Nauru is collapsing. On Monday, 11 children and their families <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-22/eleven-children-transferred-from-nauru-for-medical-attention/10416348">were flown to Australia</a> for urgent medical attention. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/oct/23/labor-says-its-prepared-to-strike-deal-with-coalition-to-get-children-off-nauru">New Zealand deal,</a> under which some asylum seekers could be resettled in New Zealand as long as they are banned from ever coming to Australia, is now being seriously considered.</p>
<h2>Good politics, bad policy</h2>
<p>From the middle of 2013, when off-shore processing was re-started on Nauru and Manus Island, the <a href="http://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-22763">Rudd government</a>, and later the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jan/11/new-zealands-offer-to-take-150-offshore-refugees-a-year-never-taken-up">Abbott government</a>, made bold and irresponsible claims that no asylum seeker attempting to enter Australia by boat would ever be resettled here. </p>
<p>This played well to an Australian public spooked by a dramatic rise in boat arrivals under the Rudd government between 2009 and 2013, and set the foundation for a policy that has systematically brutalised hundreds of innocent people.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/same-old-rhetoric-cannot-justify-banning-refugees-from-australia-67923">Same old rhetoric cannot justify banning refugees from Australia</a>
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<p>The claim, in the name of deterrence, relied on hopes Australian governments would find places to resettle the asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru and Manus Island in other countries. But there was no plan as to where they might go and, predictably, resettlement proved very difficult. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jan/11/new-zealands-offer-to-take-150-offshore-refugees-a-year-never-taken-up">An agreement with the Cambodian government</a> failed because Cambodia lacks the capacity to resettle people of such different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. </p>
<p>Malcolm Turnbull seemed to have <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-deal-is-a-good-news-story-for-refugees-heres-why-it-took-so-long-68716">stumbled upon a resolution</a> when the Obama administration agreed to take sone refugees from Nauru and Manus. </p>
<p>The current US administration has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-23/labor-backs-moving-refugee-children-on-nauru-to-new-zealand/10416720">resettled 276 people</a> from Nauru and rejected a further 148. There may be more resettlements to come, but there is no clear timetable, and it will be a resolution for only some of the 652 people remaining on Nauru. </p>
<p>Inexplicably, the Australian Government has repeatedly rejected an <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/national-video/news/video.cfm?c_id=1503075&gal_cid=1503075&gallery_id=199728">offer from New Zealand</a> to resettle 150 refugees there, fearing that people will take advantage of open migration between Australia and New Zealand and will end up resettling here. </p>
<p>Under renewed pressure from opposition parties, the government is reconsidering the New Zealand offer, but only if there is a travel ban preventing refugees ever coming to Australia. Prime Minister Scott Morrison <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/wentworth-vote-puts-more-pressure-on-scott-morrison-to-get-children-off-nauru-20181022-p50b9l.html">has drawn</a>, once again, on the tired justification that to allow asylum seekers any right of entry to Australia may encourage people smuggling. </p>
<h2>Why the people smuggling argument does not stack up</h2>
<p>The people smuggling narrative does not withstand reasonable scrutiny. How much cruelty to innocent people on Manus and Nauru is really needed to stop the boats? </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/resettling-refugees-in-australia-would-not-resume-the-people-smuggling-trade-60253">A comparison</a> with the Howard years is instructive. From 2001 to 2008, of the 1,153 refugees and asylum seekers resettled on Nauru and Manus Island, 705 went to Australia, 401 to New Zealand and 47 to other Western countries. Most were resettled between 2002 and 2004.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/resettling-refugees-in-australia-would-not-resume-the-people-smuggling-trade-60253">Resettling refugees in Australia would not resume the people-smuggling trade</a>
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<p>These resettlements were not followed by a resumption of the people smuggling trade. From <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/PacificSolution#_Toc334509642">2002 to 2007</a>, 18 boats arrived with 288 asylum seekers. In addition, one boat was turned back with 14 passengers.</p>
<p>What remained important for deterrence was the possibility of being detained offshore with no guarantee of being settled in Australia and New Zealand. Only when this possibility was removed (when the new Rudd government dismantled the Howard government’s offshore processing and turn-back policies) was there a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/QG/BoatArrivals">dramatic spike</a> in asylum seekers arriving by boat. </p>
<h2>The message of deterrence is clear</h2>
<p>The systemic cruelty of detaining refugees in offshore detention centres indefinitely has sent an unequivocal message to any asylum seekers who might contemplate seeking asylum in Australia by boat. No person would countenance subjecting themselves to the mental and physical trauma suffered by detainees on Nauru and Manus Island for the chance of receiving protection in Australia. And no parent would risk subjecting their child to a lifetime of mental illness.</p>
<p>The Australian government has proved its mettle. It is prepared to subject innocent people to the cruellest of punishments, to disregard basic principles of human dignity, and to ignore its obligations under international law. This is deterrent enough for any prospective boat rider. </p>
<h2>Time to end an inhumane policy</h2>
<p>It is well past time to resettle every refugee and asylum seeker on Manus and Nauru in Australia. If this is done while the policies of boat turn backs and offshore detention remain in place, this will not lead to a resumption of people smuggling operations. And if I am wrong in this, we can be confident of stopping the boats again, as the government did with startling effectiveness in 2001 and 2013. </p>
<p>It seems that the government may finally be softening its untenable hard line. With no other resolutions on the table, most of the refugees on Nauru and Manus must end up in Australia or New Zealand. </p>
<p>Until this happens, the mental health of refugees stuck on Nauru and Manus will continue to deteriorate, and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-17/australias-top-doctor-on-nauru-to-be-deported-today/10385970">courageous whistleblowers</a> will continue to risk their employment revealing the brutality and trauma of conditions in detention. </p>
<p>All this pain and suffering, and economic cost, for a deterrent that is not needed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Reilly receives funding from the Commonwealth Department of Social Services on a project investigating Refugee Women and Work.</span></em></p>As families are airlifted off Nauru for medical treatment, there is at last a glimmer of hope that a long-standing and cruel policy might finally be put to rest.Alex Reilly, Director of the Public Law and Policy Research Unit, Adelaide Law School, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1015202018-08-28T01:32:54Z2018-08-28T01:32:54ZBook Review: Behrouz Boochani’s unsparing look at the brutality of Manus Island<p>It is a matter of wonder that Behrouz Boochani was able to write <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/no-friend-but-the-mountains-behrouz-boochani/prod9781760555382.html">No Friend but the Mountains</a> at all. He did so while in Manus prison, using text messages in Farsi on smuggled mobile phones. Egyptian and Australian academic Omid Tofighian worked closely with Boochani to <a href="https://theconversation.com/truth-to-power-my-time-translating-behrouz-boochanis-masterpiece-101589">translate the text into English</a>. In a detailed introduction to the book, Tofighian explains that Boochani’s writing contributes to a Kurdish literary tradition. He describes his style as “horror surrealism”. </p>
<p>This is not how I experienced the book. Although the imagery Boochani shares is horrific, and the brutality of the prison environment is almost beyond belief, Boochani is bearing witness to a system of detention that is part of contemporary Australian policy, and to which he is an on-going victim. This is no piece of imagination. </p>
<p>In a prologue to the book, author <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/18/richard-flanagan-national-press-club-speech-full-politics-black-comedy">Richard Flannagan</a> places the book in the Western genre of “prison literature”, alongside writing by the likes of <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674984387">Oscar Wilde</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Gramsci">Antonio Gramsci</a>. </p>
<p>For me, the book invokes Ken Kesey’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/332613.One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo_s_Nest">One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest</a> for its use of insanity and humour to explore the brutality of authority, and Shahram Khosravi’s <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230230798">‘Illegal’ Traveller</a> for its meditation on state techniques for exclusion through the eyes of the excluded. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/truth-to-power-my-time-translating-behrouz-boochanis-masterpiece-101589">Truth to power: my time translating Behrouz Boochani’s masterpiece</a>
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<p>The book begins with Boochani boarding a boat somewhere on Java, hoping to reach Australia. In elegant prose, he brings to life the refugee journey through detailed observations of his fellow travellers. He describes a rapid collapse of order: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Men lie in the arms of another’s wife, children lie on the bellies of strangers. It seems they have all forgotten … the energy spent establishing a gender-based order. </p>
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<p>A storm destroys the boat with waves the size of mountains that transport him back to the mountains in his native land. </p>
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<p>Where is this place? Why is my mother dancing? </p>
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<p>After being rescued, a short interlude on Christmas Island begins the clinical process of dehumanising the asylum seekers. They are issued flip-flops and ill-fitting clothes, regularly strip-searched, exposed to CCTV in toilets, moved from cage to cage through layers of bureaucracy, and finally escorted (or carried) by two guards per prisoner to an plane bound for Manus Island. </p>
<p>From this moment, the sense of a journey ends, and the book is a meditation on survival in a prison system intent on destroying the prisoners’ will. </p>
<p>Australians accept detention on Nauru and Manus as a “necessary evil” to prevent an uncontrollable flow of asylum seekers to Australia by boat. Boochani dissects this necessary evil. He sits us on a white plastic chair, our feet on the wire border fence, overlooking the jungle. </p>
<p>There is no silence. Only the constant grind of an old tractor generator, the whirr of fans, the noise of hundreds of prisoners crammed into a space the size of a football field, the static of the guards’ walkie-talkies signalling an incident. </p>
<p>Boochani takes us on a sensory tour of the Manus prison. The smells – body odour and bad breath, rotting vegetation, diesel and excrement. The rubbing against one another in the tight spaces – flesh on hairy, sweaty flesh. </p>
<p>The uniforms are reminiscent of dystopian regimes – nurses in orange carrying boxes of yellow pills, local guards in purple, medical staff in white, and Australian federal police in flak jackets with shields and black gloves with metal spikes. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-chauka-bird-and-morality-on-our-manus-island-home-90107">Friday essay: the Chauka bird and morality on our Manus Island home</a>
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<p>The heat is oppressive. The bottled water so warm it does not quench one’s thirst. The only relief is a huge shade tree in the middle of the complex. </p>
<p>We learn of the daily routine, the constant queuing for meals, for the toilet, for cigarettes, for the telephone. Through a detailed analysis of how these queues operate, we begin to understand the way institutional power breaks the spirit of the prisoners by pitting one against another, and using an unbending authority to remove all human compassion. </p>
<p>In one incident, a man cannot swap his place in the telephone queue to speak to his dying father because the regulations make no provision for it. An appeal to a higher authority brings out the Boss, backed by 12 police officers. The Boss places his hand on the shoulder of The Man with the Dying Father (as Boochani calls him) and calmly explains that the rules are the rules.</p>
<p>The queues mean that stronger prisoners eat well, and weaker ones starve. Bouchani marvels at the fortitude of The Cow, a brick of a man, who is prepared to sit in the heat of the sun for hours to ensure his place at the front of the meal queue. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233741/original/file-20180828-76006-1gzmqi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233741/original/file-20180828-76006-1gzmqi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233741/original/file-20180828-76006-1gzmqi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233741/original/file-20180828-76006-1gzmqi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233741/original/file-20180828-76006-1gzmqi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233741/original/file-20180828-76006-1gzmqi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233741/original/file-20180828-76006-1gzmqi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">No Friend but the Mountains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pan Macmillan</span></span>
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<p>In the first few months of detention, there is still a sense of resistance. Maysan the Whore entertains prisoners most nights with wild dancing in innovative costumes of bed sheets, “pretending to be happy as a form of revenge”. But eventually Maysan begins to deteriorate. “We must find another way to cope with exile”, Boochani laments.</p>
<p>Boochani shares his own weakness, anger, frustration and despair. He does not romanticise these feelings. He simply observes. </p>
<p>Periodically, he tries to make sense of his experience, musing on the strategies of oppression. He describes Manus prison as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/sep/10/kyriarchy-and-patriarchy">Kyriarchal system</a>, a system of total psychological control. </p>
<p>The generator, which Boochani calls Mr Generator, breaks down periodically, leaving rooms unbearably hot and filled with mosquitoes. Just when the tension is unbearable, the generator resumes. </p>
<p>Games are not allowed. When prisoners create a makeshift backgammon board on a table using bottle lids, it is destroyed. </p>
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<p>How can it be that soccer balls are prohibited, but cigarettes are always available?</p>
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<p>Milk is offered as a special treat. The allocation is always half a cup. If a cup is overfilled, even slightly, it is removed and binned. Why not just redistribute the milk? The lack of logic “confines the mind of the prisoner”, Boochani writes, “leaving him just trying to cope”.</p>
<p>The toilets flow with excrement. They are a place for sex. A place to cut wrists with a razor. Despite risk of punishment, people prefer to piss behind bushes after dark. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/manus-detention-centre-closure-sparks-safety-fears-for-refugees-84460">Manus detention centre closure sparks safety fears for refugees</a>
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<p>The sights and sounds outside the walls are important for retaining hope and sanity – the sound of the ocean just behind a thin strip of forest, the coconut trees, the chauka birds and crickets, the sunsets and phases of the moon, the white flowers along the sewage line. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The prisoner’s imagination is always occupied with the world beyond the fences.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Poetic streams of consciousness intersperse the narrative, and Boochani is occasionally transported back to the Kurdistan of his childhood. At these moments, the reader is with Boochani at the fence as he lets his mind run free, interpreting the confusion of his existence in this place of torture. These interludes make the book more intensely personal without descending into romanticism or self-pity. </p>
<p>The book ends with the description of a riot in the prison. The full brutality of authority is unleashed in response. We learn that The Gentle Giant, <a href="https://theconversation.com/manus-violence-report-highlights-the-futility-of-offshore-processing-27231">Reza Barati</a>, has been killed.</p>
<p>No Friend but the Mountains reveals that Manus prison is designed to break the will of refugees so they see no option but to return home. It leaves no doubt that any prisoner who chooses to repatriate has been driven to do so through the brutality of the prison system, in clear breach of Australia’s <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/4d9486929.pdf">non-refoulement obligation</a> under the UNHCR’s <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/1951-refugee-convention.html">1951 Refugee Convention</a>. </p>
<p>Every Australian should read this book and marvel at the extent of our brutality, the human cost of a “necessary evil”.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Behrouz Boochani is appearing via video link from Manus Island at the Melbourne Writers Festival on <a href="https://mwf.com.au/program/behrouz-boochani-live-from-manus-1506/">Wednesday, 29 August</a>, and at University of Technology Sydney on <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/no-friend-but-the-mountains-in-discussion-with-behrouz-boochani-live-tickets-49242346183">Wednesday, 5 September</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>No Friend but the Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison is available in bookstores and <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/no-friend-but-the-mountains-behrouz-boochani/prod9781760555382.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9ObA58SO3QIVC7aWCh2B8QRbEAAYASAAEgKT__D_BwE">online</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Reilly is the recipient of a National Research grant through the Department of Social Security to conduct research into the engagement of refugee women in the Australian workforce, and funding from the horticulture industry to conduct research into low-skilled labour supply options for the industry. </span></em></p>Boochani bears witness to the deterioration of the human spirit on Manus Island, where he’s been detained with hundreds of other asylum seekers for the last five years.Alex Reilly, Director of the Public Law and Policy Research Unit, Adelaide Law School, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1015892018-08-15T20:14:12Z2018-08-15T20:14:12ZTruth to power: my time translating Behrouz Boochani’s masterpiece<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231999/original/file-20180815-2906-r60397.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Behrouz Boochani photographed on Manus Island.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Garman/Amnesty International via AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The GM picks me up from the airport. I call him the GM because after the PNG Supreme Court ruled the Manus Island immigration detention centre <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-26/png-court-rules-asylum-seeker-detention-manus-island-illegal/7360078">illegal</a>, this man was able to leave the prison and find work as the general manager of a lodge in Lorengau town. Behrouz Boochani has arranged for me to stay at that lodge.</p>
<p>The GM’s Manusian colleague and another refugee accompany him. Driving into town we see police blocking part of the road beside a school; some locals are dispersing, others are gazing over at a cluster of trees.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232034/original/file-20180815-2900-1psodnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232034/original/file-20180815-2900-1psodnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232034/original/file-20180815-2900-1psodnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232034/original/file-20180815-2900-1psodnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232034/original/file-20180815-2900-1psodnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232034/original/file-20180815-2900-1psodnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1342&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232034/original/file-20180815-2900-1psodnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1342&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232034/original/file-20180815-2900-1psodnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1342&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hussein Shamshiripour alongside a picture of his deceased son Hamed in August 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I find out afterwards that the body of <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/behrouz-boochani/the-tortuous-demise-of-hamed-shamshiripour-who-didnt-deserve-t_a_23076393/">Hamed Shamshiripour</a> has just been discovered among those trees beaten and with a rope around his neck.</p>
<p>Hours later, I meet Behrouz for the first time at the central bus stop in Lorengau. I always imagined him holding his smart phone – an inseparable union. A Kurdish journalist, writer and refugee from Iran, Behrouz has been incarcerated on Manus for five years. Since the start of 2016 I have been translating his journalism, communicating with him through WhatsApp.</p>
<p>During this time, his phone has been a lifeline to the outside world. He has shot a film and written articles on it – texting them to those beyond the prison fences – and now his book, No Friend but the Mountains. </p>
<p>We greet each other as he finishes a phone call. Australia’s border regime has stolen prime years of his life – he is weary and famished, but proud, vigilant and resolute. This is despite having had nothing to eat all day, the heat and sweat, being traumatised at the loss of a friend and the responsibility of reporting and communicating with the Australian and international media.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232016/original/file-20180815-2903-1d8f578.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232016/original/file-20180815-2903-1d8f578.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232016/original/file-20180815-2903-1d8f578.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232016/original/file-20180815-2903-1d8f578.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232016/original/file-20180815-2903-1d8f578.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232016/original/file-20180815-2903-1d8f578.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232016/original/file-20180815-2903-1d8f578.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232016/original/file-20180815-2903-1d8f578.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Behrouz Boochani and Omid Tofighian pictured in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over some days we get to know each other personally for the first time, and I meet others and translate articles in response to this latest tragedy. Then after the intensity, stress and anger have faded a little, we begin reviewing the chapters of <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/no-friend-but-the-mountains-review-behrouz-boochanis-poetic-and-vital-memoir-20180801-h13fuu.html">No Friend but the Mountains</a>. I have already translated about 80%. </p>
<p>Behrouz began writing from the very beginning of his exile and incarceration; he persevered after his phones were confiscated twice and stolen once. I began translating in December 2016; for one year I translated as he wrote using his smart phone.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231980/original/file-20180814-2909-t8035c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231980/original/file-20180814-2909-t8035c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231980/original/file-20180814-2909-t8035c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231980/original/file-20180814-2909-t8035c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231980/original/file-20180814-2909-t8035c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231980/original/file-20180814-2909-t8035c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231980/original/file-20180814-2909-t8035c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231980/original/file-20180814-2909-t8035c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Behrouz had text-messaged parts from various chapters to Moones Mansoubi, his very first translator beginning in 2015 and a translation consultant on this project. She would sort the texts into chapters on his instructions. Mansoubi then emailed me the PDFs – each chapter was one long text message of between about 9,000 and 17,000 words. </p>
<p>As I was translating from Farsi to English, I consulted regularly with Behrouz through WhatsApp. He would often add sections and make changes.</p>
<p>My translation process also involved weekly sessions with either Mansoubi or Sajad Kabgani, an Iranian researcher living in Sydney. While I translated, Behrouz continued to finish the book while communicating with his friends and literary confidants, Janet Galbraith, Arnold Zable, Kirrily Jordan and Mahnaz Alimardanian in Australia, and the intellectuals and creative thinkers Najem Weysi, Farhad Boochani and Toomas Askari in Iran.</p>
<p>Here on Manus, Behrouz reads the Farsi while I check the English. We stop and discuss sections, meanings, nuances and changes; we also digress and explore ideas, symbols, stories and theories far beyond the pages of the text. Describing his thinking and writing process, he explains: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The book is a playscript for a theatre performance that incorporates myth and folklore; religiosity and secularity; coloniality and militarism; torture and borders…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The translation method requires a form of literary experimentation. And the process is a form of shared philosophical activity.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/un-slams-australias-human-rights-record-87169">UN slams Australia’s human rights record</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Trying to preserve the sentence structure when translating Farsi literature into English results in unnecessarily long and cumbersome passages. Literature written in Farsi mostly consists of sentences with many elaborate and varied consecutive clauses. The subject is at the beginning and the verb is usually placed at the end. </p>
<p>The patterns and flow of adjectival clauses, synonyms and poetic and cultural images and allusions enable Farsi readers to move smoothly through the extended sentences due to a combination of melody, imagination, anticipation and consolidation. </p>
<p>In English, the same chain of clauses within a sentence becomes too awkward to read, losing much of its rhythmic thrust. Splitting sentences into many smaller ones is helpful. It also reflects the disrupted and fractured subjectivity and modes of knowing of those who are imprisoned refugees. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/for-70m-government-gets-off-lightly-but-settlement-still-highlights-responsibility-for-manus-79422">For $70m, government gets off lightly, but settlement still highlights responsibility for Manus</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In this book, political commentary and historical account meet philosophical and psychoanalytic examination; these are framed or supported by myth, epic and folklore from various traditions, particularly Kurdish, Persian and Manusian. It is an anti-genre. I call the style “horrific surrealism”.</p>
<p>In significant places, noun phrases and monikers are also capitalised to emphasise personhood and Farsi prose is translated into English verse. For instance: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Killing time involves a simple trick /
Reach out and hold another sunset /
Another one of the thousand-colour Manusian sunsets /
Then, reach out and hold another night /
Another one of the dark island nights /
A futile cycle … /
Night and day revolving /
Under the shade of an old tree.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Behrouz and I had a mutual understanding; in fact, the translation team embodied a kind of collective intention or shared agency. Our literary and philosophical interpretations evolved throughout the process. But the shared goal from the start was to produce a visceral narrative, a riveting masterpiece that exposed one central aspect of the detention regime: systematic torture.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Behrouz Boochani will appear by video link at <a href="https://mwf.com.au/program/behrouz-boochani-live-from-manus-1506/">Melbourne Writers Festival</a> on August 29.</em></p>
<p><em>No Friend but the Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison is available in bookstores and <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781760555382">online</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101589/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Omid Tofighian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Behrouz Boochani wrote his memoir of incarceration on Manus Island one text message at a time. Translating this work of ‘horrific surrealism’ from Farsi to English was a profoundly philosophical experience.Omid Tofighian, Lecturer, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/994542018-07-09T04:31:41Z2018-07-09T04:31:41ZHow imagery and media coverage influence our empathy for strangers<p><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-03/thailand-cave-what-happens-now/9934088">Footage of 12 boys trapped in a cave</a> system in Thailand has inundated our screens in recent days. </p>
<p>An international rescue effort is under way, which includes a team of specialists <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/australia-deploys-additional-personnel-to-thai-cave-rescue-20180705-p4zpn0.html">sent by the Australian government</a> to assist with the safe recovery of the young soccer team. Highlighting the gravity of the situation, a former Thai Navy diver has died after running out of oxygen during rescue efforts. </p>
<p>This is without doubt a frightening situation for the boys and their families. It’s no surprise the situation has received global media attention. Though it does raise some interesting questions about how we extend empathy and concern to people we don’t know.</p>
<p>Why does this tragedy capture the world’s attention, when more long-term issues such as children in detention don’t to the same extent? <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721417730888">Research from moral psychology</a> can help us to understand this.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/refugee-crisis-the-immediate-and-lasting-impacts-of-powerful-images-98312">Refugee crisis: the immediate and lasting impacts of powerful images</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A picture is worth a thousand words</h2>
<p>A key reason is simply that we can see the Thai soccer team. We’re watching the rescue effort play out, and we can see the emotions of the boys and their families.</p>
<p>We have seen this kind of viral, blanket coverage of tragic incidents recently. For example, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-39495806/children-killed-in-syria-chemical-attack">horrific scenes</a> of children fighting for their lives after the 2017 chemical weapon attacks in Syria. Or the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-19/mcallen-story-behind-image-of-crying-toddler-at-us-mexico-border/9886210">striking image</a> that emerged in June of a small Honduran girl crying as her mother is detained by officials at the US-Mexico border.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1006962031281360896"}"></div></p>
<p>By contrast, issues that are arguably <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-the-us-border-policy-is-harsh-but-australias-treatment-of-refugee-children-has-also-been-deplorable-98706">no less frightening</a> don’t always generate the same outpouring of concern and sympathy. For example, the <a href="http://www.asyluminsight.com/statistics/#.Wz21mdIzZPa">more than 200 children</a> held in detention on Nauru and throughout the Australian mainland.</p>
<p>This isn’t to suggest the Australian government shouldn’t aid in international rescue efforts, but we should be equally concerned about the far greater number of children being held indefinitely in Australian detention.</p>
<p>The fact is we have very little access to images of children in detention, as media access to Manus Island and Nauru is heavily restricted. For example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-government-failed-to-stand-up-for-press-freedom-after-nauru-barred-abc-journalist-99366">journalists face substantial obstacles</a> if they want to visit our offshore detention centres, and in 2016 the Australian government threatened <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/20/doctors-freed-to-speak-about-australias-detention-regime-after-u-turn">health-care workers with jail time</a> if they spoke about the conditions they encountered on Nauru and Manus. </p>
<p>We simply aren’t permitted to view the plight of child refugees, and we’re much less likely to experience an <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/01/cultivate-empathy-photograph/422793/">empathic response</a> if we can’t see them. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-history-of-live-exports-is-more-than-two-centuries-old-94730">recent outcry</a> caused by the dramatic footage aboard an Australian live export ship illustrates this perfectly. Most of us would be aware to some extent live export is a cruel practice. But it isn’t until the footage forces us to confront the realities that we create enough momentum to discuss meaningful change. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"983157548302897152"}"></div></p>
<h2>Time and perspective matters</h2>
<p>The perspective we take also makes a huge difference. If we can easily <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/science-behind-why-we-can-t-look-away-disasters-ncna804966">draw comparisons</a> between ourselves and those in need we’re more likely to extend concern and empathy.</p>
<p>Given Australia’s geography and climate, it’s not too difficult for us to imagine our children caught up in a natural disaster. It’s much more difficult for us to imagine our children fleeing their homeland and seeking asylum in a foreign country.</p>
<p>And it’s far <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0100115">easier to extend sympathy</a> to a situation that, one way or another, will reach an end. </p>
<p>Ongoing humanitarian issues such as asylum seekers or food shortages on the African continent feel like immense challenges often placed in the too hard basket. Therefore, these issues fade away in the face of what we consider more pressing matters with more straightforward resolutions. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/natural-hazard-risk-is-it-just-going-to-get-worse-or-can-we-do-something-about-it-84286">Natural hazard risk: is it just going to get worse or can we do something about it?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Language is crucial</h2>
<p>The labels we attach are also crucial in determining our response.</p>
<p>For example, in 2016, former prime minister Tony Abbott referred to asylum seekers as an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/19/tony-abbott-says-europe-is-facing-peaceful-invasion-of-asylum-seekers">invading</a> force. </p>
<p>This sort of language is incredibly damaging, because when trying to make sense of a moral injustice we immediately look to identify both a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28504021">victim and a villain</a>. Suffering without a villain doesn’t always make sense to us – though the villains we choose are often subjective. </p>
<p>There is some <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1088868309350299">fascinating research demonstrating</a> this. For example, throughout the US, belief in God is highest in states where citizens experience the greatest amount of suffering – infant mortality, cancer deaths, natural disasters. This relationship holds after controlling for a range of alternative explanations, such as income and education. God is perceived to be the “villain” responsible for all this senseless suffering. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/response-to-natural-disasters-like-harvey-could-be-helped-with-game-theory-83125">Response to natural disasters like Harvey could be helped with game theory</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It’s impossible to label those suffering at the hands of a chemical attack as anything but victims. However, if we perceive asylum seekers as wrongdoers trying to steal some sort of unfair advantage, we’re far less likely to think of them as victims requiring our compassion, meaning it’s far easier to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26751743">cast them out of our moral circle</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1015281337102684161"}"></div></p>
<h2>Do we have a moral responsibility to think differently?</h2>
<p>Of course we should have sympathy for the soccer team trapped in the cave. But no matter the outcome, the story will disappear from our screens as the next pressing crisis arises. </p>
<p>We should ensure the reality of longer-term problems doesn’t also disappear, having fallen victim to the failings of our moral cognition.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article has been updated to reflect that Tony Abbott was no longer prime minister in 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Crimston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Of course we should have sympathy for the soccer team trapped in the cave. We should extend similar compassion to those caught up in long-term crises that are harder to tackle.Charlie Crimston, Postdoctoral Researcher in Morality and Social Psychology, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/940942018-04-19T03:42:25Z2018-04-19T03:42:25ZWe cannot rely morally on ‘deterrence’ to justify our harsh refugee policies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212764/original/file-20180401-189816-rtnwah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Offshore detainees suffer deliberately inflicted harm from their incarceration.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Eoin Blackwell</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When debate about refugees ascends from slogan swapping (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jun/14/tony-abbott-sticks-to-stop-the-boats-in-face-of-claims-people-smugglers-paid">“stop the boats”</a>, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/thousands-rally-in-melbourne-in-support-of-manus-island-asylum-seekers-20171104-gzevx0.html">“bring them here”</a>) to specific reasoning, there seems only one argument worth considering for the ignominious detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru and the refusal to ever settle any in Australia.</p>
<p>That argument, advanced by both the government and the opposition (occasionally in a less strident form), stems from deterrence. It’s worth considering the argument even as a handful of these detainees are resettled <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/04/dozens-of-refugees-leave-nauru-for-resettlement-in-us">in the US</a> or possibly other distant and politically ambiguous destinations.</p>
<p>Deterrence involves an action or policy designed to instil fear of the consequences of committing some other action. But there are considerations relevant to the assessment of deterrent measures, especially when those measures inflict pain, damage or harm on some to deter others.</p>
<p>One is the measures’ likely success. Another is their independent moral acceptability. </p>
<p>Another concern is the acceptability of the purpose for which deterrence is employed – that is to say, why is it good to stop the boats? This opens up too many questions to be dealt with here, so assume (what would otherwise be questioned) that the purpose is a good one – for example, stopping deaths at sea. It will rather be the morality of the means (deterrence) that will concern me.</p>
<p>First, the harm issue. It is clear the offshore detainees suffer deliberately inflicted harm from their incarceration. This is so even if we manage to suspend judgement on how extreme that harm is – something made <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/NauruandManusRPCs/%7E/media/Committees/legcon_ctte/NauruandManusRPCs/report.pdf">even more difficult</a> by a variety of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/27/dutton-should-prioritise-refugees-on-nauru-not-white-south-africans-unhcr-says">dramatic and credible testimonies</a>.</p>
<p>Even if detainees are not humiliated, beaten, raped, murdered, or had their health and education gravely neglected, they are effectively and indefinitely imprisoned and often separated from family and friends. This last is usually a profound human harm though less immediately palpable than some others.</p>
<p>As for success, there is room for debate since the associated policy of <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-legality-of-turning-or-towing-back-asylum-boats-16201">turning back the boats</a> is already sufficient to deter future boat people and smugglers, or at least stop them landing here. If so, the infliction of serious harm on the refugees through indefinite detention is unnecessary and hence immoral.</p>
<p>In any case, even granting the success of extreme incarceration, there remains the fact that the efficiency of the policy to the desired deterrence outcomes does not justify “whatever it takes”. It may be that the most morally monstrous actions might work as deterrents but be unacceptable morally even to the most casual conscience.</p>
<p>Consider the suggestion we should have deterred further refugees from embarking for Australia by taking a selected group of mothers and children from the earlier arrivals by sea and publicly executing them. </p>
<p>This has the merit of almost certain success and avoiding the <a href="https://theconversation.com/penny-wise-pound-foolish-how-to-really-save-money-on-refugees-27270">extravagant financial cost</a> of offshore detention. But I believe this measure, whatever its success, would strike most Australians as morally repellent.</p>
<p>One reason for the dubious nature of severe deterrent measures is that the morality of deterrence is most at home when those harmed to deter others are guilty of some crime or offence themselves and when the harm is proportional to the offence. This is precisely how deterrence is offered as a (partial) defence of the legal imprisonment of offenders, or more dubiously of capital punishment.</p>
<p>Certain forms of guilt can lead to deprivation of rights, such as imprisonment, and this in turn allows that deprivation to function as a deterrent to others. But asylum seekers are not guilty of any legal or serious moral offence – merely, at most, of irregularity in entering the country.</p>
<p>In any case, execution would be disproportionate to such irregularity, especially when that irregularity is legitimised by international law.</p>
<p>Nor is the situation much changed if, instead of killing them, we had them publicly tortured.</p>
<p>Perhaps, aside from waterboarding or electric shocks, we might try more subtle tortures like separating parent from child, inducing despair by isolating refugees in demeaning conditions on remote islands with no hope of anything like a normal life, and ensuring inadequate access to life-saving medical treatment or educational improvement. And instead of a selected few, we could do it to a large number of those who had arrived seeking refuge from disaster.</p>
<p>We could endeavour to make this policy secretive but just public enough to make deterrence work, while softening the effect of any moral outrage at home by rejecting our responsibility and shifting it to the governmental authorities on those islands and a variety of largely unaccountable private security companies.</p>
<p>Again, this is morally repellent and impossible to justify ethically. But that’s more or less what Australia has been and is doing on Manus Island and Nauru. And that is not a morally permissible resort to deterrence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94094/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Coady does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The most morally monstrous actions might work as deterrents but be unacceptable morally even to the most casual conscience.Tony Coady, Professor of Philosophy, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/901072018-02-01T17:57:38Z2018-02-01T17:57:38ZFriday essay: the Chauka bird and morality on our Manus Island home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202715/original/file-20180121-110084-qft1jj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How will our children view this period in Manus in the future?
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelle Rooney, 2017</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This piece is republished with permission from <a href="https://griffithreview.com/editions/commonwealth-now/">Commonwealth Now</a>, the 59th edition of Griffith Review. You can read the full version <a href="https://griffithreview.com/articles/chauka-yu-we/">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p>The bell rings, school is over. I hear the sea break on the beach. I smell the sea in the wind. I laugh with my schoolmates and jump. Salt water fills my mouth. Chauka calls. I laugh with joy. Like little fish. My brothers and sisters play in the sea.</p><p>
I catch a bus to Lombrum. The glassy sea at the Loniu Passage is melancholy; tenderly cradles the bus across the Loniu Bridge. Sea takes us across Lolak Bridge. Chauka calls. In the afternoon the bus returns to town. Wind blows in my face. I smell the sea. The sun goes down. </p><p>
The sun rises, time for school. I hear the news and announcements on the Radio Manus, ‘the voice of Chauka is very happy to bring you all the news and announcements. This is the Chauka’s Voice.’ Chauka calls. Our grandmothers and grandfathers stay. We walk to school. The sea breaks on the beach. Chauka calls. </p><p>
Wake, sleep, eat, and walk with the Chauka. Happiness, cross, and work.</p><p>
Custom, work for money, work for government, work for church. Chauka calls. </p><p>
-<strong>Excerpt from the poem Chauka, yu we?</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Manus Island is home. Until I reached the age of 12 in 1984, Lorengau town – the urban administrative, political and commercial centre of Manus Province, Papua New Guinea – was my parents’ anchor. From there they navigated our lives between Manus, Port Moresby and beyond. They managed their careers, their growing family, their social obligations and their children’s education, while striving to get by as a bi-racial couple among PNG’s emerging educated elite who had helped lead the nation to independence.</p>
<p>In the late 1970s, they bought a small house at the east end of Lorengau town. This is a few minutes’ walk from the site of the Australian-funded <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/26/manus-island-msf-denied-access-to-refugees-as-thousands-rally-in-australia">East Lorengau Refugee Transit Centre</a> for asylum seekers and refugees.</p>
<p>By the time I reached primary school, Mum had been elected as a member of parliament for the Manus open electorate and was regularly in Port Moresby. They settled my siblings and me into school on Manus Island, and between 1980 and 1984, bar a few months away in 1983, I lived and schooled between Lorengau town and the Lombrum Naval Base. Most of this time was spent attending the government-funded Pombrut community school at the west end of Lorengau. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202726/original/file-20180122-110090-173mosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202726/original/file-20180122-110090-173mosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202726/original/file-20180122-110090-173mosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202726/original/file-20180122-110090-173mosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202726/original/file-20180122-110090-173mosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202726/original/file-20180122-110090-173mosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202726/original/file-20180122-110090-173mosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202726/original/file-20180122-110090-173mosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author with her parents, Bulihan Village, circa 1977/1978.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Allen Rooney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For about a year we went to a tiny private international school based at Lombrum, which was attended by a dozen or so children whose parents were white people or elites of Manus Island. We travelled to Lombrum by a school bus especially arranged to take us. When we reached Lombrum, the bus would stop and a uniformed officer would smartly salute as he raised the boom gate to allow us entry into this exclusive space.</p>
<p>The school routine was punctuated by countless hours swimming at the beach, regular visits and holidays to Mum’s ancestral and childhood villages: Lahan and Bulihan, and M’Bunai on the south coast. Life was full of adventures involving boat outings and visits to other islands, swimming in rivers and attending customary events and funerals. Our home was always full. It was a transit place for family and friends visiting the town, either from the villages or returning from other provinces. From the villages they came to trade their garden produce and other products at the Lorengau market, to seek treatment from the hospital, to send a family member off, share news or surplus garden produce, or simply to take a breather. When someone died outside the province, their body and their families would pass through our home en route to their final resting place in Bulihan or M’Bunai. These were idyllic, happy days.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202716/original/file-20180121-110117-ycp8ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202716/original/file-20180121-110117-ycp8ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202716/original/file-20180121-110117-ycp8ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202716/original/file-20180121-110117-ycp8ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202716/original/file-20180121-110117-ycp8ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202716/original/file-20180121-110117-ycp8ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202716/original/file-20180121-110117-ycp8ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mama’s childhood home is the Lahan area of M’Bunai Village, Manus Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelle Rooney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I outline this personal history because it coincides spatially, and to an extent “socially” and “administratively”, with the spaces now brought to international infamy by the Australian off-shore detention centre. These urban spaces on Manus Island and my childhood memories of them, as well as my own migratory story, form the ethnographic material I draw from in this poetic reflection on the current situation on Manus.</p>
<p>My naive and happy childhood memories co-exist with the brutality of the Manus detention centre. The Chauka bird emerged as a quintessential and enduring theme within and beyond Lorengau and Lombrum. My childhood memories also provide a historical backdrop for a time when narratives of PNG’s development and independence were, at least from my perspective, focused on how best to achieve such aspirations. This somewhat benign narrative is, of course, markedly different from the focus on state and regional security and power that has shaped the wider representation of Manus Island today.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-whats-going-on-at-manus-island-87354">Three charts on: what's going on at Manus Island</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A symbol of identity</h2>
<p>The Chauka bird always has been, and always will be, a symbol of Manus identity and morality. As Manus Islander scholar Dr Bernard Minol has documented, and as is reflected in Manus Island songs, Chauka means many things to many people. Chauka is represented in Manus folklore as a guide, a timekeeper and a voice of caution and forewarning. It is depicted on the official Manus flag along with another Manus icon, the green snail. </p>
<p>According to some Manus jokes, the flag is a parody: the leaders talk a lot like the Chauka while development is slow like the green snail. Others see the Chauka on the flag as representing mobility from the outer islands towards the Manus mainland. In some legends, Chauka is represented as a moral reminder of why people migrate – either due to conflict or lack of resources. In day-to-day life, the Chauka bird is audible: loud, interjecting and present. Yet it has a “taken for granted” presence. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203686/original/file-20180128-100902-1ylgltb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203686/original/file-20180128-100902-1ylgltb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203686/original/file-20180128-100902-1ylgltb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203686/original/file-20180128-100902-1ylgltb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203686/original/file-20180128-100902-1ylgltb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203686/original/file-20180128-100902-1ylgltb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203686/original/file-20180128-100902-1ylgltb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203686/original/file-20180128-100902-1ylgltb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Chauka bird is depicted on the Manus Provincial Flag. Both now feature on contemporary Manus cultural artefacts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelle Rooney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The local government-funded radio station is called Maus Bilong Chauka (The Chauka’s Voice). Preceding the news and announcements a recording of the Chauka call accompanies a jingle that starts proudly: “The Chauka’s voice is happy to spread the news and announcements. This is the Chauka’s voice.” In the evenings, tired after the day’s games and swimming, full from our meals and safe among family, we would sit by the radio and listen to the news and the toksave program – a public announcement program where the public can place messages to be read on air. </p>
<p>Toksave ranges from death notices to customary event notifications, personal messages, school dates, community meetings and other important matters. These contemporary renderings of Chauka’s natural voice have helped to normalise the presence of government in Manus communities. Migration is a natural part of Manus life. As Manus Islander poet Kumalau Tawali, and other scholars, depict in their writings, migration is also synonymous with employment and remittances. </p>
<p>Like many Manus Islanders, my parents aspired to secure their children’s education. I aspired to continue it. The larger world beckoned; as school took me further away for longer periods, Manus remained the anchor that defined my identity and bound my social consciousness. By adulthood, employment and marriage and children also meant I visited Manus less frequently.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202719/original/file-20180121-110087-1wzsm59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202719/original/file-20180121-110087-1wzsm59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202719/original/file-20180121-110087-1wzsm59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202719/original/file-20180121-110087-1wzsm59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202719/original/file-20180121-110087-1wzsm59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202719/original/file-20180121-110087-1wzsm59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202719/original/file-20180121-110087-1wzsm59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202719/original/file-20180121-110087-1wzsm59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The National Broadcasting Commission, Radio Manus, ‘Maus bilong Chauka’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelle Rooney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Manus, the Chauka remains a symbol of identity. It is a reminder of who we are, our moral values and our obligations to home and family. Those who have succeeded in securing incomes are reminded that money is powerful, but it is only really meaningful at home when deployed according to these moral codes that privilege social relationships and collective harmony, and if it enables you to retain your place at home.</p>
<h2>Kastam</h2>
<p>The prime ministers of PNG and Australia, Peter O’Neill and Kevin Rudd, appeared on TV in 2013, smiling and shaking hands after announcing they had cemented a deal: asylum seekers would be detained on Manus Island, with no hope of ever settling in Australia. Perhaps most troubling was that this deal, brokered between the two states, pitched Manus Islanders and asylum seekers against each other in media representations. Over the subsequent years, what has emerged in the news and on the island has no doubt left a chasm in the moral and political economy of Manus Island, which festers at local levels but reverberates globally.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lyumolBGPOY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>On the back of the deal, Manus Islanders were led to expect significant local development – a promise that was left hanging. As the Manus Regional Processing Centre evolved, so too did the confusion and arguments over this promise. This contestation sometimes reminds me of kastam. Kastam is the Tok Pisin word for customs, customary gift exchange, social obligations and traditions that are integral to the way of life on Manus and much of PNG. From sharing and trading surplus produce to elaborate gift exchanges, these practices – so thoroughly studied by anthropologists – are at the same time political, economic and social. Important customary events are planned and negotiated months in advance amid considerable contestation over myriad issues.</p>
<p>Some issues date back to previous events where disputes over land or claims to leadership remain unresolved. Migrant remittances are an important feature of these relationships for both migrant and kin alike. Some migrants try to resist requests for remittances and involvement in kastam, which can often be draining on their incomes, but do so at the cost of alienating themselves from kin at home. Many migrants find that their new lives draw them away and they renegotiate their social obligations among their new kin. Contestations and moral values guide the relationships between migrants and their kin at home.</p>
<p>In keeping with kastam, people are often obliged to participate and some feel they give more than others and receive far less than they expected. When this happens there is resentment, anger, misunderstanding and, indeed, manipulation on the part of powerful actors. Old feuds are ignited and new relationships form. Questions arise over who can deliver on their obligations and commitments based on ongoing cycles of exchange. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-australia-decides-who-is-a-genuine-refugee-72574">Explainer: how Australia decides who is a genuine refugee</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Power is relative; those with money negotiate with those who have the skills to tend gardens, weave baskets, raise or access pigs, and generate other cultural resources. At the end of the day, everyone concedes that maintaining the social fabric is important. As the saying goes, “If you hold a grudge you do not know kastam”. By promising development and economic benefits in exchange for hosting the detention centre, the states – Australia and PNG – have pursued and entangled themselves in the Manus local scene, and in doing so can be
interpreted as trying to “play” kastam.</p>
<p>Inhumane treatment is the hallmark of the Australian offshore detention centres. In the months after the announcement, news reports began to emerge of high-security cells for the incarceration of the most difficult asylum seekers. Not only did the representation of Manus Island as a “hell hole” assume common currency, but the Manus Island icon – Chauka – gained notoriety among media outlets. Chauka became the name given to the solitary confinement cells. </p>
<p>This new rendering of Chauka portrayed a place of invisibility and silence. In isolation, one can easily imagine darkness, sadness, loneliness and fear – horrific secrecy. One can imagine unspeakable and unseeable human transformations among those who are forcibly incarcerated, among those controlling what can be seen and heard, and among Manus Islanders, whose day-to-day lives knowingly or unknowingly absorb the fallout of the human transformations taking place in their presence. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202981/original/file-20180123-182962-yd4syj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202981/original/file-20180123-182962-yd4syj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202981/original/file-20180123-182962-yd4syj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202981/original/file-20180123-182962-yd4syj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202981/original/file-20180123-182962-yd4syj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202981/original/file-20180123-182962-yd4syj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202981/original/file-20180123-182962-yd4syj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202981/original/file-20180123-182962-yd4syj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supplied image obtained January 16 2015 of authorities handling a hunger strike by asylum seekers at the Manus Island detention centre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Refugee Action Collective</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One day, while reading yet another horrific media report about the abuses inflicted on those detained, I angrily thought, <em>Inogatkastam blong tumbuna, we ol i pasim man olsem pik blong wokim wok kastam</em>. (There is not one ancestral custom in which men are fenced like pigs to be exchanged during traditional events.) As disturbing as this analogy is, it is an important one for those of us who identify as Manus because it speaks to the heart of our moral economy of kastam. Pigs have significant cultural, symbolic, mythical and moral meaning in Manus, PNG and Melanesian customary practices. They mediate and symbolise power, morality and social relationships.</p>
<p>In my poem Chauka, Yu We?, I use the analogy to bring out the brutal implications that the detention centre has for the moral economy and codes that underpin the bilateral relationship between Australia and PNG. The notion of development aid as a benign noble gesture by a wealthy neighbour has been replaced by a harsher bilateral regime of power negotiated to enhance regional security. Asylum seekers have come to embody and symbolise the multiple tiers of social, political and economic relationships that exist between themselves and locals, between governments and their people and between the media and others.</p>
<h2>Papu</h2>
<p>Papu is a kinship term used in many Manus languages. Papu can mean father or grandfather. In recent use, it has taken on currency as a term used in deference to an elder man or to refer to one who has become incorporated into the social group or who is deemed relationally close. It acknowledges the seniority and status of the person called Papu. I have also noticed on my Facebook feed and some media reports that Manus locals now refer to refugees and asylum seekers in the community as Papu. In referring to asylum seekers as Papu, there is hope that asylum seekers will be incorporated as important and valued members of Manus society.</p>
<p>In 2017, Behrouz Boochani, a detainee on Manus Island, produced a film in collaboration with Europe-based producer Arash Kamali Sarvestani, using footage he had filmed on a mobile phone. They called it Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EwaVMPYEzrA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Yet again, Chauka is thrown into the international limelight. But this time Chauka is a symbol of freedom, of how the detainee’s voice spread word of the Manus detention centre. Boochani acknowledges the Chauka as an important indigenous icon that has been appropriated by PNG and Australia. This acknowledgement reflects how asylum seekers increasingly interact and engage with Manus – no longer as transitory detainees but as local actors.</p>
<h2>Returning</h2>
<p>Returning home to Manus briefly in August 2017, many things remained the same. Cognisant that it had been some time since I had visited, I decided not to talk about the detention centre and instead focused on renewing my own relationships and introducing my children to family, the island and my childhood neighbourhood. I listened and chatted to gauge what mattered to people.</p>
<p>What struck me most were the discussions that took place when I met relatives at the market. People were focused on their day-to-day struggles to get by, on customary events with kin at home and with migrants like me, on planning and investing in their children’s education. People were worried about the increasing levels of crime and alcohol abuse. Many I met at the market had woken at 3am to walk down the highway to the point where the road was accessible by car. By the time they arrived it was nearly midday. As a child we made this trip regularly, only returning to town before nightfall.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the detention centre has generated some benefits for Manus. In Lorengau, the once gravel road from the airport to town is now sealed. There is a wonderful new market, and a new police station is under construction. Signboards promoting Australia’s aid programs are scattered throughout the town, fading and covered in dust.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202717/original/file-20180121-110090-1jadwqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202717/original/file-20180121-110090-1jadwqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202717/original/file-20180121-110090-1jadwqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202717/original/file-20180121-110090-1jadwqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202717/original/file-20180121-110090-1jadwqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202717/original/file-20180121-110090-1jadwqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202717/original/file-20180121-110090-1jadwqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202717/original/file-20180121-110090-1jadwqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Australian Aid signboard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelle Rooney</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Unless you live near Lombrum, you would be forgiven for not knowing the detention centre exists. The transit centre in Lorengau is also hidden among the trees and not accessible to the public. Asylum seekers, refugees – Papu – intermingle in the markets and walk throughout town. At the international level, the deadline for the closure of the centre loomed and images of asylum seekers peacefully protesting this closure occupied international news reports about Manus Island.</p>
<p>On 31 October 2017, amidst international and local outcry over the duty of care for asylum seekers and the wellbeing of the residents of Lorengau, both the governments of PNG and Australia steadfastly stuck to their joint commitment to close the centre. Water, food, medical and other services were cut off and more than 600 male asylum seekers were ordered to move into alternative accommodation centres purposely built for them in Lorengau. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/manus-island-takes-australia-to-the-edge-of-outsourcing-23647">Manus Island takes Australia to the edge of outsourcing
</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Efforts by local Manus Islanders to convene and to fight for both their rights and those of the asylum seekers in their midst also appeared futile. The PNG Immigration and Border Security Minister confirmed that the Lombrum Detention Centre had been decommissioned and Lombrum is an active PNG defence force base. An application on behalf of Behrouz Boochani to the PNG Supreme Court to restore services was rejected.</p>
<p>At the time of finalising this paper in November 10 2017, the refugees and asylum seekers have been given 24 hours to move out of Lombrum or face forced removal. On the same day on a more positive, albeit ironic, note, the Australian television network SBS also <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/love-at-first-sight-refugee-who-met-his-wife-on-manus-pleading-to-stay">reported a story</a> about an asylum seeker who was granted refugee status and fell in love with a local Manus woman. Pictured with his local Manus partner and their young children, he reportedly speaks about the difficulties of obtaining PNG citizenship. I know that these children will occupy a special place in the future narratives of Manus and will one day have their own memories and their own stories to tell.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203683/original/file-20180128-100896-1jmc3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203683/original/file-20180128-100896-1jmc3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203683/original/file-20180128-100896-1jmc3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203683/original/file-20180128-100896-1jmc3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203683/original/file-20180128-100896-1jmc3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203683/original/file-20180128-100896-1jmc3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203683/original/file-20180128-100896-1jmc3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203683/original/file-20180128-100896-1jmc3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Refugee Alex Harun Rashid and his partner Molly Noan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stefan Armbruster SBS World News</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Chauka as metaphor</h2>
<p>The Manus Island detention centre has been and will continue to be a policy and social experiment that has forever changed the nature of the bilateral relationship between PNG and Australia. Its genesis played on the morality of saving lives and securing Australia’s borders and regional security. It is an Australian-centric political economy, and a state-centric bilateral arrangement. It foregrounded the power of aid money as an enticement for compliance by Manus Islanders and PNG more broadly. As it stands today, it is hard to forecast the future except to say that the deal has emboldened the PNG state both in terms of its relation to Australia and to its people on Manus. </p>
<p>Those behind its architecture fail to appreciate the underlying moral code inherent in kastam that is meant to repair local relations and maintain longer-term collective social harmony. This failure will reverberate bilaterally. Locally, this means that it will likely be left to Manus Islanders to exercise their innate moral codes to mediate and renegotiate local relations to maintain their valued social harmony.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202718/original/file-20180121-110106-8lwx7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202718/original/file-20180121-110106-8lwx7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202718/original/file-20180121-110106-8lwx7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202718/original/file-20180121-110106-8lwx7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202718/original/file-20180121-110106-8lwx7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202718/original/file-20180121-110106-8lwx7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202718/original/file-20180121-110106-8lwx7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202718/original/file-20180121-110106-8lwx7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Locals and newcomers trade together at the market.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelle Rooney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My poem Chauka, yu we? started as an angry reaction to the appropriation of the Chauka and the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers. As a scholar and as a Manus Islander, I have tried to reason through the historical, political, social and moral issues that gave rise to the detention centre. At the same time I am left angry, sad and guilty that my silence could be interpreted as complicity. These reflections and emotions have engendered poetic reflection. Many scholars, most famously Margaret Mead, have explored how Manus people, and children in particular, have responded to changes brought upon them by the world. But I write for a future generation of Manus Islanders. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-a-bit-na-ta-exhibition-reminds-us-of-our-forgotten-links-to-papua-new-guinea-89034">The A Bit na Ta exhibition reminds us of our forgotten links to Papua New Guinea</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>I hope that they will engage with this moral conversation to ask how their own Papu – their forefathers – would have reasoned with the incarceration of men in exchange for development and money. I try to depict the moral responsibility that Manus people might wish to consider in moving from being recipients and passive actors towards asking moral questions about the changes that they are asked to bear. </p>
<p>Government authorities have attempted to appropriate the Chauka to symbolise their power and secure secrecy within the detention centre. Asylum seekers have sent Chauka, in the form of a movie, into the world as a symbol of their voice and their aspirations for freedom. It has become a metaphor for Manus’s moral consciousness during the period 2012–17. It also poses questions about Manus morality, customs and intersections with the states of PNG and Australia. </p>
<p>In saying “Manus”, I include asylum seekers who are now forever etched in Manus spaces and Chauka’s voice. By “Manus spaces”, I mean not only the spaces on Manus Island where states have enabled the transformation of human life, but I also mean the mental, moral and diasporic spaces that include Manus Islanders like myself, who move in and out of our Manus identities, and also those asylum seekers whose destinies have brought them to Manus, detained and seeking voice and freedom beyond it.</p>
<p>To me, the Chauka bird and voice has come to embody all these. I wonder how the children on Manus today – indeed, all of our children – will view this period, and Chauka, in the future?</p>
<p><em>14 November 2017</em></p>
<p><em>This is an edited version of an essay published in <a href="https://griffithreview.com/editions/commonwealth-now/">Griffith Review 59: Commonwealth Now</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>You can read the full version of Chauka, yu we? <a href="https://griffithreview.com/articles/chauka-yu-we/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Nayahamui Rooney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The detention centre for asylum seekers generated some economic benefits for Manus Islanders. But how would their forefathers have reasoned with the incarceration of men in exchange for development and money?Michelle Nayahamui Rooney, Research Fellow, Development Policy Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/874452017-11-19T19:07:57Z2017-11-19T19:07:57ZWhen the US locked up white Australian immigrants like Australia does to asylum seekers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195133/original/file-20171117-15400-fims1v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The view from Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, where Australian immigrants were detained. They renamed it "Devil's Island". </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anne Rees</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Lurking behind the debates about offshore processing lies a little-known historical irony: white Australians were once locked up in immigration centres that bore a striking resemblance to the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres, which were recently <a href="https://theconversation.com/un-slams-australias-human-rights-record-87169">harshly criticised by the UN Human Rights Committee</a>. And unsurprisingly, they were far from happy about it.</p>
<p>Back in 1921, the United States introduced immigration restrictions based on national quotas. The quotas were tightened in 1924, and again in 1929, and remained in place until 1965. </p>
<p>The restrictions were part of a racist program to close the borders to “undesirable” migrants, but they carried the pretence of being colour-blind. As a result, these quotas affected even Australia – a fellow “white man’s country” that proudly advertised its own <a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/defining_moments/featured/white_australia_policy_begins">White Australia policy</a> and boasted of a 98% British population. </p>
<p>Australians of that era violently protested their restriction and the traumatising border detention that followed. Yet today’s Australians have been more than willing to subject refugees and asylum seekers to similar (or worse) treatment. There is also one key difference: Australian immigrants detained and deported in 1920s America were not admissible under US law, whereas it is perfectly legal to seek asylum.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195135/original/file-20171117-15420-13ggue1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195135/original/file-20171117-15420-13ggue1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195135/original/file-20171117-15420-13ggue1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195135/original/file-20171117-15420-13ggue1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195135/original/file-20171117-15420-13ggue1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195135/original/file-20171117-15420-13ggue1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195135/original/file-20171117-15420-13ggue1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195135/original/file-20171117-15420-13ggue1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Dorm rooms on Angel Island, San Francisco, where Australians were detained.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anne Rees</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From July 1921 Australia’s quota for US immigration came out at a measly 279, later reduced to 100 — far less than the tens of thousands allocated to more populous nations. </p>
<p>Prior to this point, white Australians had enjoyed a virtually unfettered right to roam the globe. As British subjects, who travelled on British passports, Anglo-Australians could move at will around the still vast British Empire. They also typically enjoyed a warm welcome in the States. </p>
<p>The situation was different for the small number of non-Anglo Australians, who faced many more restrictions on their mobility. Chinese-Australians, for example, had long been excluded from the US by virtue of their “Chinese race”.</p>
<p>Coming at a time when Anglo-Australians were used to crossing borders with ease, the US restrictions came as a shock. At first, they were effectively ignored, but it soon transpired that the quotas would be strictly enforced. </p>
<p>Within months, Australians who ventured to the States in excess of the quota were being detained and deported. In almost all cases, these were not shady underworld figures, but respectable citizens who had casually disregarded or misunderstood the new law. From late 1921, dozens of prosperous and even high-profile Australians would be locked up and expelled like hardened criminals. </p>
<p>Australians were incensed by this. Because they were white – and therefore “desirable” immigrants – they expected to be welcomed with open arms. When they were imprisoned instead, Australian newspaper headlines complained of “unfair treatment” and “innocent victims”. </p>
<p>Although Australians were in fact treated no worse – and often much better – than other restricted migrants, they assumed their racial privilege should place them above the law. As one Brisbane newspaper protested, Australia had been “ranked with such not wanted nations as Chinese, Japanese, Bulgarians and Turks”.</p>
<h2>The horrors of Ellis Island</h2>
<p>One of these Australian “illegal aliens” was Reginald Reynolds, who spent a week incarcerated on Ellis Island in 1922 after being detained on arrival in New York. Alongside 40 men “of all nationalities”, Reynolds spent the night in a dormitory with “doors and windows barred”. He was served “dry bread” for dinner, and awoke covered in flea bites.</p>
<p>As a prosperous white man accustomed to deference, Reynolds did not take his detention lightly. He sent word to family in London, who complained to the US consul and Australian high commissioner. A graphic letter detailing the “Horrors of Ellis Island” was syndicated in the Australian and New Zealand press. “Here in New York we get treated like so many dogs,” Reynolds told his fellow Australasians. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195136/original/file-20171117-15435-1fspdji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195136/original/file-20171117-15435-1fspdji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195136/original/file-20171117-15435-1fspdji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195136/original/file-20171117-15435-1fspdji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195136/original/file-20171117-15435-1fspdji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195136/original/file-20171117-15435-1fspdji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195136/original/file-20171117-15435-1fspdji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195136/original/file-20171117-15435-1fspdji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Conditions on Ellis Island shocked British ambassador Sir Auckland Geddes in August 1923.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vancouver Daily World</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Reynolds’ concerns were shared by his compatriots detained on Angel Island, the immigration station in San Francisco Bay. The detention facilities were so primitive that one group of Australians renamed the site “Devil’s Island”. Babies were dying in dormitories, overcrowding was rife, and white detainees experienced the perceived insult of eating and sleeping alongside people of colour. </p>
<p>As objections to Australians’ detention mounted, politicians took up the matter in federal parliament. The Commonwealth government launched a formal investigation. </p>
<p>Over in New York, protesters gathered in the city’s Australian Church. Business also got involved: the LA Chamber of Commerce and San Francisco Foreign Trade Club urged their government to revise its tough stance, as Australian business leaders threatened a trade boycott. </p>
<p>Officials in Washington, however, refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing. Terse letters crisscrossed the Pacific. The episode climaxed in a heated exchange between the Melbourne-based US consul-general and the Australian prime minister, Billy Hughes, in late 1922. Although Hughes demanded an end to the “hardships” and “incovenience” faced by Australians, the consul-general, Thomas Sammons, stood firm. </p>
<h2>Injustices ignored</h2>
<p>When Americans ignored these cries of injustice, Australia turned to the mother country for support. For years, the Commonwealth government fed the British Foreign Office a litany of complaints that were forwarded to the US State Department. </p>
<p>Some Australian detainees even likened the detention facilities to a “concentration camp” — a claim that anticipated the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/our-detention-centres-are-intentionally-cruel-and-must-be-closed-20160504-golr04.html">current discourse around offshore detention</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195134/original/file-20171117-15420-bc14cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195134/original/file-20171117-15420-bc14cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195134/original/file-20171117-15420-bc14cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195134/original/file-20171117-15420-bc14cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195134/original/file-20171117-15420-bc14cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195134/original/file-20171117-15420-bc14cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195134/original/file-20171117-15420-bc14cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195134/original/file-20171117-15420-bc14cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1937 film When You’re in Love, starring Grace Moore and Cary Grant, dramatised the US immigration restrictions on Australians.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By this point, the US immigration commissioner, W.W. Husband, had lost patience with Australian grievances. In his view, the average Australian was an arrogant scofflaw, who believed that white skin was “sufficient to set aside the law of any nation he might favour with a visit”, and felt “entitled to be treated as an American citizen as soon as he reaches the United States”.</p>
<p>Husband’s reprimand did little to quiet the chorus of complaint. By 1937, Australian resentment over US immigration policy was so notorious that it provided inspiration for Hollywood. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029761/">When You’re in Love</a>, a Columbia film starring Cary Grant and Grace Moore, is the story of an Australian opera star who, after being expelled from the US, buys a sham marriage to a US citizen to obtain American residency rights and circumvent the infamous quota law. </p>
<p>Last century, Australian “illegals” vehemently objected to being “penned like animals” in conditions that resembled “concentration camps”. Why, then, do we now think it’s acceptable to subject refugees and asylum seekers to much the same fate? </p>
<p>If the likes of Reginald Reynolds felt dehumanised by mere days behind bars, maybe their descendants should spare a thought for the detainees who’ve spent years on Manus and Nauru.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87445/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yves Rees does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1921 the US imposed strict immigration quotas on Australians and detained the excess arrivals in terrible conditions. Contrast this with today’s treatment of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru.Yves Rees, David Myers Research Fellow, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/873542017-11-17T01:30:28Z2017-11-17T01:30:28ZThree charts on: what’s going on at Manus Island<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195137/original/file-20171117-15442-1syb213.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are few options left for the asylum seekers remaining on Manus Island.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marcella Cheng/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tensions at the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre remain high after the centre was officially closed on October 31 this year and handed back to the Papua New Guinea government.</p>
<p>Reports are that there are still around 420 people in the now-defunct regional processing centre who are refusing to move to recently built transit centres in Lorengau. However, these numbers shift on a daily basis as men move in and out of the centre. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195102/original/file-20171116-18368-1uakep5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recently <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/news/latest/2017/11/5a05c1b44/unhcr-urges-humane-approach-manus-island.html">said that:</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The abrupt ending of services and the closure of the regional processing centre needs to involve the people who have been in this regional processing centre for years in a very vulnerable state … It is really high time to bring an end to this unconscionable human suffering.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>How did we get here?</h2>
<p>The offshore processing of asylum seekers who came to Australia by boat recommenced in 2012. At that time, single adult men were sent to Nauru and families with children and some adult men were sent to Manus Island in PNG.</p>
<p>However, <a href="http://dfat.gov.au/geo/papua-new-guinea/Pages/regional-resettlement-arrangement-between-australia-and-papua-new-guinea.aspx">since July 2013</a> only adult men were transferred to Manus and all the asylum seekers there today are male. Families with children, single women, couples and some single men are on Nauru.</p>
<p>Since July 2013 a total of <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/%7E/media/Committees/legcon_ctte/estimates/add_1617/DIBP/QoNs/AE17-170.pdf">1,523</a> people have been transferred to Manus from Australia.</p>
<p>When the Manus processing centre closed on October 31, there were <a href="http://newsroom.border.gov.au/channels/Operation-Sovereign-Borders/releases/45c49e50-9be6-45b5-a569-f0e693dea3af">690 people</a> in the facility.</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="Jd2aV" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Jd2aV/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The number of asylum seekers on Manus Island has slowly reduced over the years as people have either accepted packages to <a href="https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2017/10/29/Media_Release-Minister_Thomas_on_Closure_of_Manus_RPC.pdf">return to their country of origin</a>, been <a href="https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2017/10/29/Media_Release-Minister_Thomas_on_Closure_of_Manus_RPC.pdf">deported</a> from PNG, been resettled in the US or temporarily settled in PNG. Six others have died. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194529/original/file-20171114-27607-1lhp22j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The population has reduced over time.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><iframe id="Xxhvb" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Xxhvb/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Why was the Manus Regional Processing Centre closed?</h2>
<p>On April 27 last year, the PNG Supreme Court ruled that the detention of the asylum seekers on Manus Island was <a href="https://theconversation.com/png-court-decision-forces-australia-to-act-on-manus-island-detainees-58439">unconstitutional</a>.</p>
<p>After the decision was made the PNG government said that those at the centre were free to come and go from the processing centre.</p>
<p>It was not until <a href="http://www.minister.border.gov.au/peterdutton/2017/Pages/sky-sunday-agenda-09042017.aspx">April 2017</a> that the Australian government and the PNG government announced publicly that the processing centre would close on October 31. </p>
<p>All of the service providers (including health providers) and Australian government officials left the centre on October 31 this year and the centre was supposed to be reoccupied by the PNG Defence Force from November 1.</p>
<h2>What are the options for those left on Manus?</h2>
<p>According to the Australian government, those who have been found by PNG authorities to be refugees have the following options: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>resettle in PNG; </p></li>
<li><p>wait in PNG for possible resettlement in the US;</p></li>
<li><p>transfer to Nauru to wait for possible resettlement in the US; or </p></li>
<li><p>return to the country from which they had fled persecution.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Resettlement of refugees in PNG has been <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2017/October/Manus_Island_RPC">slow and problematic</a> with few people opting to leave the processing centre to live elsewhere in PNG. </p>
<p>The UNHCR has raised concern about just how “voluntarily” refugees can return to the country from which they fled.</p>
<p>Since the <a href="http://www.minister.border.gov.au/peterdutton/Pages/Refugee-resettlement-from-Regional-Process-Centres.aspx">US resettlement deal</a> was announced about a year ago, 516 refugees from Manus have been <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/3a32f9b8-b53d-4251-a739-7e12e1fc506e/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2017_10_23_5658.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">referred</a> to the US for resettlement.</p>
<p>Reviews of their cases and interviews are underway. Only <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/3a32f9b8-b53d-4251-a739-7e12e1fc506e/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2017_10_23_5658.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">25 have been resettled</a> so far. However, it is up to the US as to how many they will take and it is unclear when the next refugees will be transferred to the US.</p>
<p>Currently, it is clear the majority want to wait to see if they will be offered resettlement in the US. Refugees remaining in the processing centre have been <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/3a32f9b8-b53d-4251-a739-7e12e1fc506e/toc_pdf/Legal%20and%20Constitutional%20Affairs%20Legislation%20Committee_2017_10_23_5658.pdf;fileType%3Dapplication%2Fpdf">offered</a> alternative accommodation at East Lorengau Refugee Transit Centre (for up to 400 people) and West Lorengau House (for up to 300 people). Whether these facilities can in fact house this many men is as yet unclear. </p>
<p>The UNHCR is <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/news/press/2017/11/5a0545da7/unhcr-urges-humane-approach-on-manus-island.html">urging</a> against the forced movement of refugees and asylum seekers to these centres from the processing centre. </p>
<hr>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rAI1r/4/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="600"></iframe>
<p>The men who have been found by PNG authorities not to be refugees have been offered supported accommodation in Lorengau (Hillside House). </p>
<p>However, the PNG government expects them to eventually make arrangements to return home voluntarily or they will be deported.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87354/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Anne Kenny receives sitting fees from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. She has previously received grant funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>There are about 400-600 people in the now-defunct regional processing centre refusing to move to recently built transit centres in Lorengau – but these numbers shift daily.Mary Anne Kenny, Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.