When asylum seekers die at sea it is time to reflect, but it is also time to evaluate evidence to come up with workable, sustainable and just solutions.
It is time for academics to inform this debate, advancing and evaluating the research. Angus Houston and his Expert Panel are making their assessments and crafting their advice to the Prime Minister. Academics need to do the same.
There is now a clear opportunity for research to influence the future of asylum and border control in Australia. Whether it is embraced is a matter ultimately for federal Parliamentarians and beyond the control of researchers. But this is no time to be put off by the historical disconnect between policy and evidence.
There is a rich vein of research on asylum and border control across a range of disciplines. But for too long this knowledge has been held in silos within universities. For too long has it been excluded from debate in favour of shrill, reactionary policies, or has proven timid in getting out of academic straitjackets and into the cut and thrust of what is to be done.
Research at its best can identify the nature and scale of “the problem” and consider new approaches. In the past weeks, the politicking on asylum has been exposed as insufficient, even impotent, in comprehending the key issues, let alone preventing deaths at sea.
The political quagmire reveals the ineptitude of all political parties in understanding and responding to the breadth and depth of the issues. Genuinely new, evidenced-based options have not been forthcoming from government departments that for over a decade have been mired in policy backfill. Academics are now in a position to assess the depth of research across the country and ask, how does this rigorous research base speak to the issues at hand and what might be done about them?
This is not about just getting “something done”, it is about workable, just solutions that will prevent the deaths of asylum seekers seeking irregular entry into Australia.
The Houston expert panel
In the wake of the Parliamentary debacle on asylum, the government set up the Houston Expert Panel. Former Chief of Defence Angus Houston along with Paris Aristotle and Michael L’Estrange have been asked to advise on:
- how best to prevent asylum seekers risking their lives by travelling to Australia by boat;
- source, transit and destination country aspects of irregular migration;
- relevant international obligations;
- the development of an interrelated set of proposals in support of asylum seeker issues, given Australia’s right to maintain its borders;
- short, medium and long term approaches to assist in the development of an effective and sustainable approach to asylum seekers;
- the legislative requirements for implementation; and
- the order of magnitude of costs of such policy options.
The Houston Expert Panel will be meeting with government, non-government organisations and individuals. This will undoubtedly include representations from Australia’s universities. But consulting over such a limited period of time cannot possibly capture and synthesise research undertaken across the suite of issues that require consideration.
The Conversation’s expert panel
To this end, The Conversation has assembled an expert panel on asylum to engage with research and researchers around the country and throughout the region.
Over the coming week, members of the panel and other leading academics will consider what research can tell us about the loss of lives at sea en route to Australia.
In the second week, the panel will use this research to form a set of policy responses. During this period, panel members will debate through a blog the various aspects of the research and the policy options and implementation.
We need you and your research
But we are not just relying on the panel of academics to identify and assess the evidence. We have begun assembling a repository of the best academic research in the country, and we want to hear from you. You can submit your work to our research pool by posting in the comments emailing politics@theconversation.edu.au.
Please include a one-sentence summary or alternatively some key words for ease of access, and note if you consider it to be speaking directly to one or more of the government’s terms of reference.
The aim is to bring university research to the table and put together a set of proposals directly addressing the Houston terms of reference. But let it be clear: this is not another opportunity for general opinion and commentary, but rather robust analysis of the evidence.
We want the full glare of academic analysis to be considered by the Houston Expert Panel. We want to find research on asylum and border control that has not just a distinctly Australian, but a distinctly regional character that speaks to a larger sphere of influence.
Radio broadcaster Neil Mitchell described the expectations placed upon the Houston Expert Panel as a “hospital handpass”. It doesn’t have to be.
Over the past dozen years Australian researchers, border protection personnel, refugee advocates and lawyers have amassed impressive experience and evidence as to how we can better respond to those seeking protection in entirely decent, manageable and low fuss ways.
Over the same period, the public has shifted considerable ground in moving towards a much more responsible and engaged approach to asylum and to our place in the region. Taking account of this research, expertise and shifting attitudes can help piece together this puzzle.
We’re also interested in the views of The Conversation readers: what should our panel consider as it addresses the asylum seeker debate? Leave your comments below.
Read the rest of The Conversation’s asylum seeker coverage:
Asylum seekers and Australia: the evidence
The Conversation panel on asylum seekers: meet the experts
Infographic: global refugee populations 1975-2010
Refugee intake starts in the region: making a difference in regional burden sharing
Refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia: the good, the bad and the unexpected
What does the Australian public really think about asylum seekers?
Resettling refugees: the evidence supports increasing our intake
What role does Australia play in accepting the world’s refugees?
Who are Australia’s ‘boat people’, and why don’t they get on planes?
Uncomfortable truths: busting the top three asylum seeker myths
There’s no evidence that asylum seeker deterrence policy works
There’s more to regional collaboration than the Malaysia Arrangement
Sean Lamb
Science Denier
I have to say there are few issues that leave me more indifferent than asylum seeker politics. We live in an enviable situation compared with Europe or the USA in that we could easily stop the flow if we wanted to, but for various reasons - cultural, political, narcissistic - we chose not to.
We offer a marvellous product that hundreds of millions around the world would gag to get hold of. Accommodation of a standard many will never have seen before, highly subsidised and expenses completely…
Read moreRussell T
IT Consultant
2 problems.
1) nothing short of a perfect world brought about by the second coming will stop people coming on boats and people drowning on the high seas. Look elsewhere in world and you see that no policy has ever been completely effective. Ps personally I am not expecting the 2nd coming any time soon.
2) as many people have previously pointed out, there is nothing illegal about arriving on our borders and seeking asylumn. A good site to get the details of this is the Www.hreoc.gov.au/immigration/asylumn_seekers. Note it states that asylumn seekers that arrive without a visa must be detained. There no mention of illegality.
Marilyn Shepherd
pensioner
What does paying for transport have to do with anything? Why are so many in this country conned by Ruddock's lying nonsense still being peddled by Gillard?
The refugee convention only covers asylum seekers, it is no longer in force for anyone once refugee status had been affirmed and the only way people can have refugee status affirmed for the protection of the state they are in is to be in that state.
We seem to think here that owning our own laws is somehow wrong and must be avoided at all…
Read moreMarilyn Shepherd
pensioner
We couild force the government to admit their whole aim is no asylum seekers ever from anywhere.
The only time refugees have drowned is when we let them and then they cry crocodile tears and our worthless media keep prattling like trained monkeys about stalemates and people smuggling.
1. It is now 8 years since my first submission to a senate committee on so-called people smuggling and there is no people smuggling and never has been but still they all whine and nag like droolling fools about it.
2. the department of immigration should be taken out of the equation and an indepependent panel set up just for asylum cases.
3. the media and all political parties must be forced to stop trying to replace voluntary resettlement migration with the right to asylum.
Marilyn Shepherd
pensioner
And this band of experts are three non-experts tasked only with letting Australia protect our borders while we invade the borders of the neighbours under the pretext that if refugees don't drown on the way here we can push them to some other place.
Note how far down obligations are listed, almost an afterthought because the lazy cowards know our obligations, they just don't like them.
But nothing drives me crazier than the media prattleing about "people smuggling operations"" as if getting on a boat to come to Australia is some clandestine thing we know nothing about.
For a start no-one is being smuggled to Australia so where does the smuggling bit start.
John Coochey
Mr
People smuggling seems to be an emotive term invented to allow us to hate someone when we cannot hate illegal immigrants, not politically correct. Nevertheless we have ten boats arriving in seven days which compares with one in each of 2001, 2002 and 2003. Three in three years v ten in one week.
Terry Mills
lawyer retired
The government revealed today that, of the 14000 refugees resettled last year, 8000 were unauthorised arrivals (either boat or plane). This points to the complexity that Angus Houston and his panel are confronting.
Presumably there are some 8000 processed, genuine refugees sitting in refugee camps from Somalia to Malaysia who have been gazumped by their more financially able peers who have, dare I say it, jumped the queue.
The Malaysia solution was seeking to balance this situation by increasing the refugee intake by 4000 and putting 800 unauthorised arrivals into the "queue" and at the same time hopefully stemming the illegal trade.
Gary Murphy
Independent Thinker
That's what I thought - then I found this link on another article:
http://repository.forcedmigration.org/show_metadata.jsp?pid=fmo:5596
Turns out there aren't actually any camps for refugees in Malaysia - their living conditions there are very unstable.
I think a majority of the problem occurs because refugees have no way of getting processed in many other countries.
Marilyn Shepherd
pensioner
That is not true. The people in camps over seas have zero right to resettlement, resettlement is voluntary and hideously expensive and nothing at all to do with protection.
Resettlement is if you like organised queue jumping because the people involved already have refugee protection in one country but want a better life in another country.
Asylum seekers are the only people covered by the refugee convention which is bases entirely around the right to seek and enjoy asylum.
Resettlement is not asylum, it is migration.
Marilyn Shepherd
pensioner
And there is no illegal trade of anything, there is nothing remotely illegal about seeking asylum and for the record all the people in Malaysia got there ""illegally".
Most asylum seekers travel illegally so what is the point of this whinging.
John Coochey
Mr
Having read the article it is interesting that many of the refugees are working in Malaysia, something some sources say is not possible, I wonder what the labor participation is v the native population.
Ian Musgrave
Senior lecturer in Pharmacology at University of Adelaide
I **love** the Conversation (and not just because I write for it), this kind of initiative is excellent!
Ernest Bennett
Mr (retired)
Why not try Clive Palmer's suggestion? Fly asylum seekers here on commercial aircraft. Take what they have stumped up for the trip (A$5,000? or more?) on a possibly unseaworthy fishing boat (and a dodgy skipper?), deduct the cost of the air fare and keep the rest in trust for their supprot and sustenance while being assessed as legit. If it's thumbs down then use the balance to cover the return air fare to their place of origin. This should effectively.put a rocket under the assessment process, too. And, God knows, QANTAS could do with the business.,
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
The flaw in the logic is that unless people have valid passports, and their countries of origin will accept them then this won't work.
Iran will not accept anybody back, as it is a simple way of leaving its enemies to deal with its internal opponents.
Like newspapers, I like Clive as a colourful character. I think that Clive likes to see his name on the headlines.
However I fear that this policy will be as successful as Titanic's first voyage.
John Coochey
Mr
The essential questions remain, how many asylum seekers do we settle and which ones do we choose?
Marilyn Shepherd
pensioner
Irrelevant to anything. We don't get to choose asylum seekers no matter how much we pretend we can.
Everyone has the right to seek asylum and only Australia tries to limit the number we accept.
It's nothing to do with humanity, it's all about budgets.
John Coochey
Mr
You are of course free to sponsor as many as you wish or can afford!
Comment removed by moderator.
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
I am puzzled as the use of the term expert in the introduction.
In my area of expertise, I am very much aware of people who are much more technically qualified than I am in a limited area. I would refer to them in this area, but only this area.
All too often they assume that their expertise in this area is generalisable to other areas.
I see no reason to suggest that the above self-proclaimed experts are not subject to such similar unjustified hubris.
Robyn Kerrison
logged in via LinkedIn
Yes! to taking this opportunity to insert some evidence into the asylum policy debate, and Yes! to the academic world bringing its expertise to the table. And Yes! Yes! Yes! to attempts to bring together the disparate research efforts on the asylum-migration nexus into one place.
But the one element I feel was missing from the original post above was the need to communicate what we've learned from academic research to the public as well as to our lawmakers.
On this issue more than any other…
Read moreTerry Mills
lawyer retired
Marilyn, there is a good analysis of the impact on other refugees of the illicit people smuggling busness, in the Weekend Australian: by Sian powell in Kuala Lumpur.
Can't link it as it seems to be behind paywalls.
cheers